“What do you mean?” the old man demanded.
“I’ll tell you what he means,” Peter put in. “Three of the moving men he hired turned out not to be so trustworthy. They found a letter from your niece saying she was returning a piece that belonged in your jade collection. Since the collection was not moved to the warehouse, they thought it must still be in your house. They returned to the house after the police had left, and searched it.” Peter hesitated. “It’s my theory,” he went on, “that they set fire to the house either on purpose or accidentally. However, you will have to convince the insurance people that you did not do it yourself.”
“Set fire to my own house!” The old man roared with rage. “What kind of idiots am I dealing with? I simply closed the house and took a room in a place a few miles from here. And do you know why I did that? Because I had no wish to see that ungrateful girl nor the children of that scamp, Philip!”
“But you came back and watched what was going on,” Peter reminded him. “You were in the cave when my wife came here yesterday, and you are here again today. You went out the other exit from the cave as we came down the steps.”
“And why not?” the old man snapped. “It is my property, every inch of it, and I intended to guard it. Somebody had to,” he added. “That idiot, Abner Post, went away Thursday night and let this thieving rascal walk off with practically everything in my house.”
“I told you, Uncle Paul,” the younger Paul Riker said wearily, “I saw that your house was in the path of the fire and wanted to save your things. I came to the caretaker’s cottage, but it was locked and he was away. The big house was closed too. So I called up the moving company, gave them my name, and had them take your most valuable things to the warehouse. What else could I do?”
“It’s lucky for you, Mr. Riker, that he did,” Peter said, “The fire would have reached your house eventually. Then you would have lost everything.”
The old man cackled suddenly. “I wouldn’t have lost my jade collection,” he declared. Then his face darkened. “But there are two pieces missing now. And without Rama and Sita it’s hardly a collection at all. My thieving nephews robbed me of Sita years ago, and now somebody’s stolen Rama from inside the vault where I intended to keep the whole collection. I gave orders to have it buried with me, but who can I trust to carry out my orders?”
Judy wanted to tell him Rama was safe, but a warning look from Peter stopped her. As the millionaire raved on she began to understand the warped reasoning that had cheated him out of all the things she felt enriched a life. He seemed to care more for his memorial in stone than for the living memory he could leave with those who would love him if he would only let them.
“Do you remember, Uncle Paul, how you used to accuse me of stealing Sita?” the magician was saying. “Well, I can tell you now, because, for the first time, I know what happened to her. Philip took her to give to Helen.”