“We know about the murder,” Scoop spoke up, “and about the vanished body.”
Mrs. Kelly composed herself and proceeded:
“Later I went to the judge and showed him my order. He said it was legal. And with his permission I moved everything out here, storin’ the stuff in my barn, all except the Bible. Then I started writin’ letters. Sure, I wrote more than a hundred letters. I wrote to all my relatives, near and distant, and to many people who weren’t in the family, askin’ them did they know anything about the lost son. Finally, about a month ago, I got word that Harry was dead. He had married in his twenties, and the young wife was dead too. There was a granddaughter who had been taken to raise by a family named Knobson. Before [[106]]I could get around to write to the Knobsons, I got a letter from Frances herself. She had learned through one of her distant relatives that I was huntin’ for her pa. And then——” The speaker broke off shortly and turned to the girl. “But I will let Frances finish the story. For she can tell it better than I can.”
“I wrote two letters to Mrs. Kelly,” the girl picked up, “and she wrote back telling me about my grandfather, who had been dead for nearly two years, and about his hidden money.”
“Hidden money?” cried Scoop, excited.
“Mrs. Kelly thinks,” the girl told us, “that there is money hidden in my grandfather’s old mill. Having gotten her letters to that point, you can imagine how anxious I was to come here. For the money, if it could be found, was mine. But I didn’t dare to tell the Knobsons. No, indeed! For they weren’t good to me. And I was afraid that if they knew about the money they would come here, too, and take it away from me and keep it. So I ran away from them last week. Since then I’ve been in hiding.”
“But I was told,” Scoop said, looking puzzled, “that your grandfather’s money was stolen.”
“It was the general belief,” Mrs. Kelly spoke up, “that the ould gintleman was killed for his [[107]]hoarded money and that the money disappeared from the house along with the body. But I have had an entirely different opinion. What proof was there, I asked myself after the murder, that the money was stolen? None. The ould gintleman had told me that his money was hid. And I drew the sensible conclusion that it was still hid. At one time I thought of goin’ to the judge with my story. But I decided not to do that. For I realized that if the story got out that there was money hid in the ould mill, every Tom, Dick and Harry in Tutter would be there searchin’ for it. That would never do. It would be best, I concluded, to keep my thoughts to myself until the son had been found. Then he and I could search together for the hidden fortune.”
Scoop looked at me.
“We’ve been wondering why the old soap man was living in the mill. I guess we know now.”