Those words he scanned blankly with a feeling of much fire in his head and a tantalizing cloud before his eyes. They meant what? Strange hints and subtle smiles recurred to him. … And Adam had been a miser who read of buccaneers and hidden treasure. … Buccaneers and hidden treasure! … He would have hidden pirates' gold, he had said, under the biggest apple-tree in the orchard, under the lilac bush or … Where else had he said? … And … what … had … he … meant?
Kenny struck his head fiercely with his hand, raked his hair in the old familiar gesture and roamed turbulently around the room with the will in his hand. He was conscious of that dangerous alertness in his brain that with him always presaged some unusual clarity of vision, a startling speed with the adding of two and two. Four came now with bewildering conviction. Fragments of the puzzle of mystery that had bothered him for days dropped dizzily into place, even the fairy mill and the Eve of All Souls. What wonder that in a drunken fit of superstition Adam had staggered out to seek his dead!
With his hair in disarray from the frantic combing of his fingers, Kenny went down to find Joan. He read the will aloud to her, controlling his voice with an effort.
"Don shall have the farm," said Joan. "I shouldn't know what to do with it."
Kenny read the baffling clause at the end of the will again.
"'All the rest, residue and remainder of my wealth, wheresoever situate, provided the executor can find it.'"
It seemed to him in his excitement that he could not tell her what he thought—that he could not say it all with care and calm when his head was whirling.
"Joan," he said gently, "you must tell me everything you remember about your mother and your father and your uncle. And whether there was ever money. Much money," he insisted, his vivid face imploring.
Joan shook her head sadly.
"There is so little I remember, Kenny," she said. "So very little. There was never money. I do not remember my mother or my father. Neither does Donald. We lived until I was eight with an old cousin, Nellie Craig. She said that uncle was a miser who loved nothing but his brandy. Then she died and we came here. We had to come. There was no other place for us. I remember that Don's clothes and mine were always ragged until I grew old enough to mend them. Then I found mother's trunks in the garret. Later Don and I thought of the ferry and had for the first time some money of our own."