"Curse him for his pains!" returned Black Milsom, savagely. "He knows how to take care of his property. It would be a very clever burglar that would get into that house. The windows are all secured with outside shutters, that seem as solid as if they were made of iron, and the doors don't yield the twentieth part of an inch."
Then, after completing his examination of the house, Milsom exclaimed, in the same savage tone—
"Why, the man has swept away every timber of the place I lived in."
"I told you as much," answered Wayman; "I've heard say there was nothing left of old Screwton's house but a few solid timbers and a stack of chimneys."
Screwton was the name of the miser whose ghost had been supposed to haunt the old place.
Black Milsom gave a start as Dennis uttered the words "stack of chimneys."
"Oh!" he said, in an altered tone; "so they left the chimney-stack, did they?"
Mr. Wayman perceived that change of tone.
"I begin to understand," he said; "you hid that money in one of the chimneys."
"Never you mind where I hid it. There's little chance of its being found there, after bricklayers pulling the place to pieces. I must get into that house, come what may."