In Her Own Right Part 33

Croyden found Miss Carrington just where he had left her--a quick return to the sofa having been synchronous with his appearance in the hall.

"I had a mind not to wait here," she said; "you were an inordinately long time, Mr. Croyden."

"I was!" he replied, sitting down beside her. "I was, and I admit it--but it can be explained."

"I'm listening!" she smiled.

"Before you listen to me, listen to Robert Parmenter, deceased!" said he, and gave her the letter.

"Oh, this is the letter--do you mean that I am to read it?"

"If you please!" he answered.

She read it through without a single word of comment--an amazing thing in a woman, who, when her curiosity is aroused, can ask more questions to the minute than can be answered in a month. When she had finished, she turned back and read portions of it again, especially the direction as to finding the treasure, and the postscript bequests by the Duvals.

At last, she dropped the letter in her lap and looked up at Croyden.

"A most remarkable doc.u.ment!" she said. "Most extraordinary in its ordinariness, and most ordinary in its extraordinariness. And you searched, carefully, for three weeks and found--nothing?"

"We did," he replied. "Now, I'll tell you about it."

"First, tell me where you obtained this letter?"

"I found it by accident--in a secret compartment of an escritoire at Clarendon," he answered.

She nodded.

"Now you may tell me about it?" she said, and settled back to listen.

"This is the tale of Parmenter's treasure--and how we did _not_ find it!" he laughed.

Then he proceeded to narrate, briefly, the details--from the finding of the letter to the present moment, dwelling particularly on the episode of the theft of their wallets, the first and second coming of the thieves to the Point, their capture and subsequent release, together with the occurrence of this evening, when he was approached, by the well-dressed stranger, at Clarendon's gates.

And, once again, marvelous to relate, Miss Carrington did not interrupt, through the entire course of the narrative. Nor did she break the silence for a time after he had concluded, staring thoughtfully, the while, down into the grate, where a smouldering back log glowed fitfully.

"What do you intend to do, as to the treasure?" she asked, slowly.

"Give it up!" he replied. "What else is there to do?"

"And what about this stranger?"

"He _must_ give it up!" laughed Croyden. "He has no recourse. In the words of the game, popular hereabout, he is playing a bobtail!"

"But he doesn't know it's a bobtail. He is convinced you found the treasure," she objected.

"Let him make whatever trouble he can, it won't bother me, in the least."

"He is not acting alone," she persisted. "He has confederates--they may attack Clarendon, in an effort to capture the treasure."

"My dear child! this is the twentieth century, not the seventeenth!" he laughed. "We don't 'stand-by to repel boarders,' these days."

"Pirate's gold breeds pirate's ways!" she answered.

He stared at her, in surprise.

"Rather queer!--I've heard those same words before, in this connection."

"Community of minds."

"Is it a quotation?" he asked.

"Possibly--though I don't recall it. Suppose you are attacked and tortured till you reveal where you've hidden the jewels?" she insisted.

"I cannot suppose them so unreasonable!" he laughed, again. "However, I put Moses on guard--with a big revolver and orders to fire at anyone molesting the house. If we hear a fusillade we'll know it's he shooting up the neighborhood."

"Then the same idea _did_ suggest itself to you!"

"Only to the extent of searching for the jewels--I regarded that as vaguely possible, but there isn't the slightest danger of any one being tortured."

"You know best, I suppose," she said--"but you've had your warning--and pirate's gold breeds pirate's ways. You've given up all hope of finding the treasure--abandoned jewels worth--how many dollars?"

"Possibly half a million," he filled in.

"Without a further search? Oh! Mr. Croyden!"

"If you can suggest what to do--anything which hasn't been done, I shall be only too glad to consider it."

"You say you dug up the entire Point for a hundred yards inland?"

"We did."

"And dredged the Bay for a hundred yards?"

"Yes."

She puckered her brows in thought. He regarded her with an amused smile.

"I don't see what you're to do, except to do it all over again," she announced--"Now, don't laugh! It may sound foolish, but many a thing has been found on a second seeking--and this, surely, is worth a second, or a third, or even many seekings."

"If there were any a.s.surance of ultimate success, it would pay to spend a lifetime hunting. The two essentials, however, are wanting: the extreme tip of Greenberry Point in 1720, and the beech-trees. We made the best guess at their location. More than that, the zone of exploration embraced every possible extreme of territory--yet, we failed. It will make nothing for success to try again."

"But it is somewhere!" she reflected.

"Somewhere, in the Bay!--It's shoal water, for three or four hundred feet around the Point, with a rock bottom. The Point itself has been eaten into by the Bay, down to this rock. Parmenter's chest disappeared with the land in which it was buried, and no man will find it now, except by accident."

"It seems such a shame!" she exclaimed. "A fortune gone to waste!"

"Without anyone having the fun of wasting it!" laughed Croyden.