"Dead and gone, is he," asked Ferral quickly. "How do you know?"
"Because I've found him—and the will."
Ferral was dazed, as though some one had struck him a blow in the face. Matt, who was watching Sercomb intently, thought he saw an exultant flash in his eyes as he spoke.
"The poor old chap," Sercomb went on, "was tucked away in a thicket of bushes, less than a stone's throw from the house. I don't know whether there was any foul play—I haven't been able to find his Hindu servant, Tippoo, yet, but there weren't any marks on the body. I laid Uncle Jack away in the grove, and I'll show you the place in the morning. The will was in his coat-pocket, and wrapped in a piece of oilskin. It was very sad, very sad," and Sercomb averted his face for a moment; "and to think that neither you nor I, Dick, was with him. But come into the other room. I'm tired and want to sit down and rest."
Ferral, like one in a dream, followed his cousin into the parlor. Sercomb was standing in front of Carl, apparently wondering where Ferral had picked up so many friends.
"Here, Ralph," said Ferral, suddenly rousing himself, "I'd forgot to introduce my friends," and he presented Matt and Carl. "What you've told me," he went on, "catches me up short and leaves me in stays. I heard that Uncle Jack had disappeared, but not that Davy Jones had got him."
For the moment, Ferral's feelings caused him to thrust aside his dislike of Sercomb.
"It's too confounded bad, and that's a fact," said Sercomb, throwing himself into a chair and lighting a cigarette. "I haven't been down to see the old chap for six months. Our firm had a machine in the endurance run from Chicago to Omaha, and I was busy with that, and in getting ready for a big race that's soon to be pulled off, so my hands were more than full. When I got the lawyer's letter, though, I broke away from everything and came on here."
"Why didn't the lawyer tell me Uncle Jack and the will had been found?" asked Ferral.
"That only happened two days ago. The lawyer wrote you the same time he wrote me."