“What could he do with three of them?” asked Laurie.
“I suppose we’d have to get the owner’s permission to even take that rickety old arbor down,” Starling said.
“I thought the owner was dead,” Lee observed.
George chuckled. “If he was dead he wouldn’t be the owner, you simple! Old Coventry died three or four years ago, but somebody owns the place, of course. If what they tell of the old chap is true, it must have broken his heart to know he couldn’t take the place with him! Maybe he took his money with him, though. Anyway, the story goes that he had slathers of it, and they could only find a couple of thousands when he died.”
“What was he, a miser?” asked Starling.
“Yes, one of the sort you read about in the stories. Lived here all alone for years and years with only a negro servant. They say you could never see a light in the place at night, and he never went off the front porch more than a couple of times a year. Then a carriage came for him and he got in and went down to the boat. He didn’t use the train because it cost too much. Of course, when he died, folks expected to find that he had left a mint of money; but all any one could discover was about two thousand dollars in one of the banks here—that, and this property. The heirs, whoever they were, pretty near tore the insides out of the house, they say, looking for coin, but they didn’t get any thing.”
“And at night the old codger’s ghost walks around,” added Lee; “and if you follow him, he’ll take you to the place the money’s hidden.”
“Honest?” exclaimed Starling, joyfully. “Gosh, that’s great! I always wanted to live in a house with a ghost.”
“I’m sorry, then,” said George, “for I just made that part up.”
“You did?” Lee looked incredulous. “Where do you come in? I’ve heard that ever since I came here.”