SERCOMB.

The rapping on the door had grown to a vigorous thumping before Ferral and Matt reached the entrance. Quickly throwing the bolt, Ferral pulled the door open and a young man of twenty-one or two stepped in.

He was well built and muscular and had a smooth, harmless face. The face was so void of expression that, to Matt, it showed a lack of character.

Ferral was carrying the candle. Through its gleams, he and the newcomer stared at each other.

"Why—why," murmured the youth who had just entered, "can this be my cousin Dick?"

"You've taken my soundings all right, Sercomb," answered Ferral coolly. "Wasn't you expecting me?"

"Well, yes, in a way," and Sercomb's eyes roamed to Matt. "We got track of you down in Texas, and the lawyer said he'd sent word, but we didn't know whether you'd come or not."

"Where have you been, Sercomb?" and Matt saw Ferral's keen eyes studying the other's face.

Sercomb met the look calmly.

"I've been spending the evening at a neighbor's," he replied, "my nearest neighbor's—a mile away through the hills."

"Got out of an up-stairs window, didn't you?" asked Ferral caustically.

"What do you mean?" demanded Sercomb, a slight flush running into his face.

"Why, when you started to make that call you left all the lower windows fastened and both outside doors bolted on the inside."

"There's some mistake," answered Sercomb blankly. "When I went away I left the front door open. We don't go to the trouble of locking doors in this country, Dick."

"Well, these were locked when I got here. What's more, there were four men in a room up-stairs playing cards. Come, come, you grampus! Don't try to play fast and loose with me. How did you and the other three lubbers get out of the house? And why wouldn't you let me in when I rapped?"

"Look here," blustered Sercomb, "what do you take me for? You never liked me, and you're up to your old trick of suspecting me of something crooked whenever anything goes wrong. I was hoping you'd got over that. Uncle Jack was all cut up over the way you treated me, and he never could understand it. Now that he's dead and gone, I should think we might at least be friends."

"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."

"But I saw the lawyer in Lamy, day before yesterday——"

"He didn't know it, then."

"How does the will read, Ralph?"

"Everything was left to me, this place and all Uncle Jack's holdings in South African stock. Of course, you know, you've never come near him, Dick. If you had, the will might have read different."

"I don't care the fag-end of nothing about Uncle Jack's money; it was Uncle Jack himself I wanted to see. If this place is yours, Sercomb——" and Ferral broke off and started to get up.

"You and your friends are welcome to stay here all night," said Sercomb. "It's not much of a place, and I'm going to pack up the valuables, send them to Denver, and clear out."

"Going to keep up your racing?"

Sercomb smiled.

"Hardly; not with a mint of money like I've got now," he answered. "In a few months, I'm off for old England."

A brief silence followed, broken suddenly by Sercomb.

"But I'm bothered about the intruders you say were here when you came. They must have locked both doors on the inside."

"A rum go," said Ferral, "if strangers can come in and make free with a person's property like that."

"Tell me about it. This country is a good deal of a wilderness, you know, and strangers are likely to do anything."

Ferral said nothing concerning the phantom auto, nor about the man who had so mysteriously vanished on the cliff road; he confined himself strictly to what had happened in the house, and tipped Matt and Carl a wink to apprise them that they were to let it go at that.

Sercomb seemed greatly wrought up, and insisted on taking a lamp and making an investigation of the upper floor.

"They were thieves," Sercomb finally concluded. "They thought I had gone away for the night, and so they came in here and tore up Uncle Jack's bedroom like we see it. It was known that Uncle Jack had money, and it was just as well known that he had disappeared."

"If you knew all that yourself," said Ferral, "why didn't you lock up before you went visiting?"

"I was careless," admitted Sercomb, with apparent frankness. "The one thing that bothers me is the fact that you were shot at, Dick! A nice way for you to be treated in Uncle Jack's own house!"

"Don't let that fret you, Sercomb. I've had belaying-pins and bullets heaved at me so many times that I don't mind so long as they go wide. We'll have a round with our jaw-tackle to-morrow. Just now, though, I and my mates are ready for a little shut-eye. Where do we berth?"

"Two of you can fix up Uncle Jack's bed and sleep there; the other can bunk down on the couch in the room where those four rascals were playing cards. I'll sleep down-stairs on the parlor davenport. Yes," Sercomb added, "it will be just as well to sleep over all this queer business, and do our talking in the morning. Good night, all of you."

Leaving the lamp for the boys, Sercomb went stumbling down-stairs.

"What do you think of Ralph Sercomb, Matt?" whispered Ferral, when Sercomb had left the stairs and could be heard moving around the parlor.

"I don't like his looks," answered Matt frankly, "nor the way he acts."

"Me, neider," put in Carl. "He vas a shly vone, und I bed you he talks crooked mit himseluf."

"That's the way I always sized him up," admitted Ferral, "and strikes me lucky if I think he's improved any since I saw him last. But he's got the will, and poor old Uncle Jack——"

Ferral's eyes wandered to the picture on the wall, and he shook his head sadly.

"I'd have a look at that will," said Matt, "and I'd get a lawyer to look at it."

"These lawyer-sharps, of course, will have their watch on deck, but I hate to quibble over the old chap's property when it's Uncle Jack himself I wanted to find. Anyhow, I got my whack, all right, to be cut off without a shilling; at the same time, Ralph got more than was his due. But I'm no kicker."

"If Sercomb drives a racing-car," went on Matt, "he must have skill and nerve."

"Nerve, aye! Cousin Ralph always had his locker full of that. But how shall we sleep? My head's all ahoo with what's happened, and I need sleep to clear away the fog. You and your mate take the bed, Matt, and I'll——"

"No, you don't," said Matt. "I'm for the couch in the other room."

Matt insisted on this, and finally had his way. He was not intending to sleep on the couch, but to go out to the barn and spend the night in the tonneau of the Red Flier. If Sercomb knew so much about automobiles, Matt felt that the touring-car would bear watching. He had no confidence in Sercomb, and felt sure that he was playing an underhand game of some kind.

Sitting down on the couch, Matt waited until the house was quiet, then went softly to the open window, climbed through, and made his way to the ground by means of the tree. Hardly had his feet struck solid earth, when he heard the front door drawn carefully open.

Sercomb stepped out and noiselessly closed the door behind him. Matt, intensely alive to the possibilities of the unexpected situation, drew back into the darker shadows of the tree-branches.

Sercomb, moving away a little from the house, gave a low whistle. A hoot, as of an owl, came instantly from the grove.

Sercomb started away rapidly in the direction from which the sound came.

Matt followed him, keeping carefully in the shadows.