"No, I don't," said Matt frankly; "but stick it out. I've a hunch, Dick, that you're soon going to be done with your cousin for good and all. He's playing a game here that's going to get him into hot water."
Matt stretched himself out on the bed.
"I'm going to lie here," said he, "and you can talk to me. Carl will keep an eye on Sercomb. Tell me more about your uncle."
"He was no end of a toff in London," replied Ferral, taking a chair and casting a look at the portrait. "His wife died, and that broke him up; then his daughter died, and that was about the finish. He bucked up, though, and crossed the pond. When he was in Hamilton he said he wanted to go some place where there wasn't so many people. Then he came here."
"This last move of his," said Matt, "looks like a strange one to me."
"He was full of his crochets, Uncle Jack was, but there was always a good bit of sense down at the bottom of them. Sercomb would have gone down on his knees and licked his boots, knowing Uncle Jack had money, and nobody but him and me to leave it to. There's another cut to my jib, though. I wouldn't go around where he was because I was afraid he'd think the same of me. I've got a notion, Matt, and it just came to me."
"What is it?"
"I'll bet that, when Uncle Jack left, he hid that will, and that he signed it and left blank the place where his heir's name was to be. The one that was shrewd enough to find it, you know, could put in his own name."
"Why should he do that?"
"Just to see whether Sercomb or I was the smarter."