"Before the justice?" asked Sam, in astonishment.
The jeweller nodded significantly.
"Why, what in the world has he got to do with it?"
"He may not have anything to do with it, but Mr. Gibbons is going to make him tell what he knows about kidnapping people. He's got an idea that Captain Nellis was on board the Boston when she sailed, and he wants to ask Layton something about it."
"Why, the idea is ridiculous!" said Sam, more astonished than ever. "The Boston sailed that morning, but that doesn't prove that Captain Nellis was aboard of her. To my mind, you will find that Captain Nellis is a thousand fathoms deep in the sea."
"Put this and that together and see what you make of it," said Mr. Vollar. "I will bet you that Captain Nellis will come back; and if he does, it will go hard with somebody who wrote that codicil."
"Didn't he write it himself?"
"Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't. I don't want to say so out loud, but that codicil is a glaring fraud on the face of it."
"I declare, that beats me!" said Sam, so surprised that he could scarcely get his breath. "There's lots of little things in law that a fellow doesn't think about, isn't there?"
Just then a customer came in and Mr. Vollar moved forward to wait upon him. The topic of conversation of course was what happened to Bob, and although Sam listened eagerly, he didn't catch anything that could be of use to him; for the clerk had resolved to use what he had learned about the codicil to help him along with certain schemes he had suddenly laid against Gus Layton. There might be something wrong with the pearl-mine—perhaps there were not so many pearls scattered around there as Hank had at first supposed—and if anything should happen to disappoint his expectations, would it not be well to have that will business to fall back upon?