“La, la, la!” spluttered Agnes. “I just told you I believe it, Neale O’Neil!”
For a while there was more or less idle talk, then there was a return to the subject of the box of treasure, and Luke said:
“At first I was not much inclined to put faith in Hop Wong’s story. As soon as he said the old man drank I began to ‘hae me d’ubts,’ as Mrs. MacCall would say. But then, have you stopped to think that it might not have been your Uncle Peter, Ruth, who hid the box?”
“Not Uncle Peter Stower? Why, Hop Wong said it was!”
“I know he did—repeating what he overheard Rother and Meggs say. But they might have been mistaken.”
“In what way?” asked Neale.
“Well, Mr. Stower might have concealed the box for his friend, the drinker.”
“Oh, that’s a new theory!” cried Agnes.
“The only plausible one, I think,” went on Luke. “Here is how it sizes up to me. Mr. Stower and this unknown man might have been good friends—in fact Mr. Stower may have tried to break him of the dreadful habit. Perhaps, failing in that and desiring to save for the poor fellow some of the wealth he would otherwise squander on drink, he might have hidden the iron box of this man’s gold away in the cellar, marking it, as Hop Wong says, with a white star.”
“But if he did hide another man’s wealth for that other man’s good,” asked Agnes, “why didn’t he leave some word about it so the man’s heirs could claim it?”