“And so they were,” replied the hunchback calmly. “The lands had been stripped of horse and steer, and every personal item, and every dollar in hand or debt owing to my father before his death.” The man paused and put the tips of his fingers together. “My father had given to my brother so much money from these sources, from time to time, that he justly left me the lands to make us even.”
“Your father was senile and for five years in his bed. It was you, Dillworth, who cleaned the estate of everything but land.”
“I conducted my father's business,” said the hunchback, “for him, since he was ill. But I put the moneys from these sales into his hand and he gave them to my brother.”
“I have never heard that your brother David got a dollar of this money.”
The hunchback was undisturbed.
“It was a family matter and not likely to be known.”
“I see it,” said my father. “It was managed in your legal manner and with cunning foresight. You took the lands only in the will, leaving the impression to go out that your brother had already received his share in the personal estate by advancement. It was shrewdly done. But there remained one peril in it: If any personal property should appear under the law you would be required to share it equally with your brother David.”
“Or rather,” replied the hunchback calmly, “to state the thing correctly, my brother David would be required to share any discovered personal property with me.” Then he added: “I gave my brother David a hundred dollars for his share in the folderol about the premises, and took possession of the house and lands.”
“And after that,” said my father, “what happened?”
The hunchback uttered a queerly inflected expletive, like a bitter laugh.