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Page 83
"Not a cent!" echoed Kenny feebly. "Not a cent!" He cleared his
throat. "Not--a cent."
"Not a cent," said the doctor cheerfully. "And barely a living from
that farm."
"Dr. Cole," said Kenny steadily, "he may have lost his own money. Of
that I know nothing. But what about his sister's?"
"Why," said the doctor at once, "she hadn't any. Old Craig senior left
it all to Adam. She ran away, you know, and went on the stage. He
never forgot it. 'Tisn't much of a story. She was a darned pretty
girl, high-spirited and clever, and the old man was a devil like Adam.
A scandal of that kind fussed us up pretty much in those days. I
remember I went to see Cordelia once in some old-time play. She was
wearing those old gowns that Joan, poor child, wears now. Always had a
feeling after that that I was a part of the scandal. Mother," he added
dryly, "felt so too."
The doctor shook his head lugubriously.
"She was a widow when she died," reminded Kenny.
"Yes."
"The money I mean must have come from her husband and she entrusted it
to Adam for Joan and Donald."
"But my dear fellow," said the doctor kindly, "he hadn't any. He was
an actor chap. Cordelia came home to the farm to die while Adam was in
Europe. She hadn't a cent."
"Not a cent!" said Kenny again. "Not a cent!"
"Not a cent," repeated the mystified doctor.
"Oh, my God!" said Kenny. "And I've dug up the farm!"
It was the doctor's turn to stare.
"You dug up the farm!" he said blankly.
Sick with discouragement Kenny pointed to the will.
"Read it," he said bitterly. "Particularly the 'remainder, residue and
situate' part."
The doctor read and he read slowly. Before he reached the clause in
question Kenny was on his feet, mopping his forehead. He told of the
fairy mill and the chair by the fire.
The doctor poured himself another cup of coffee and looked at Kenny
with a shade of asperity. Fairies, it would seem, were a little out of
his line.
"Adam had a good many spells like that," he said, "'specially when he
was drinking hard. Off like a shot, hanging out of his chair. Mere
coincidence. As for the night he staggered out to the sitting room, it
is possible as you suggest that he did it in a fit of drunken
superstition. But there wasn't any money on his conscience. Couldn't
be for there wasn't any. If he feared at all to have his sister
revisit her home--queer notion, that, Mr. O'Neill! You Irish run to
notions!--it was simply because he hadn't given her kids a square deal
and he knew it."
Again the doctor adjusted his glasses and went back to the will.
"Doctor," flung out Kenny desperately, "I myself have seen indisputable
proof in that house that Adam Craig was a miser--even the way he
handled money."
The doctor sighed and looked up. And he smiled his weary,
understanding smile.
"What you saw, Mr. O'Neill," he said soberly, "was something very close
to poverty. He was selfish and he had to have his brandy. His economy
in every other way was horrible. Horrible! As for the way he handled
money, as I said before, he wanted you to think he was a miser. It
seems," added the doctor dryly as he went back to his reading, "that he
was a grain too successful."
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