“All right! all right! The shame can wait. And I want YOU to wait, too—until I've finished. There was a flaw in that title, as I said. Captain Bangs, as you know, the house in which Mrs. Barnes is now living originally stood, not where it now stands, but upon land two or three hundred yards to the north, upon a portion of the property which afterward became the Colfax estate and which now belongs to Mr. Kendrick here. You know that?”
Captain Obed nodded. “Course I know it,” he said. “Cap'n Abner could have bought the house and the land it stood on, but he didn't want to. He liked the view better from where it stands now. So he bought the strip nigher this way and moved the old house over. But he DID buy it and he paid cash for it. I know he did, because—”
“All right. I know he bought it and all the particulars of the purchase perhaps better than you do. A good deal of my time of late has been given to investigating the history of that second strip of land. Captain Abner Barnes, Mrs. Barnes' uncle, bought the land upon which he contemplated moving, and later, did move the house, of Isaiah Holt, Darius Holt's father, then living. Mr. Holt bought of a man named David Snow, who, in turn, bought of—”
Holliday Kendrick interrupted. “Snow bought of me,” he growled. “Worse luck! I was a fool to sell, or so I think now; but it was years ago; I had no idea at that time of coming here to live; and shore land was of no value then, anyhow. The strip came to me as a part of my father's estate. I thought myself lucky to get anything for it. But what's all this ancient history got to do with it now? And what do you mean by sending me this letter and that check?”
“I'll explain. I am trying to explain. The peculiar point comes in just here. You, Mr. Kendrick, never owned that land.”
E. Holliday bounced in his chair.
“Didn't own it!” he roared. “What nonsense are you talking? The land belonged to my father, Samuel Kendrick, and I inherited it from him.”
“No, you didn't.”
“I tell you I did. He left everything he had to me.”
“Yes, so he did. But he didn't own that land. He owned it at one time, probably he owned it when he made his will, but he didn't own it at the time of his death. Your father, Mr. Kendrick, was in financial straits at various times during his residence here in Orham and he borrowed a good deal of money. The most of these were loans, pure and simple, but one at least wasn't. At one time—needing money badly, I presume—he sold this strip of land. The purchaser thought it was worth nothing, no doubt, and never mentioned owning it—at least, until just before he died. He simply had the deed recorded and forgot it. Everyone else forgot it, too. But the heirs, or the heir, of that purchaser, I discovered, was the legal owner of that land.”