“Then your uncle is dead?” she inquired sympathetically.
“Josiah Crowley wasn’t really our uncle,” Grace replied. “But we loved him as much as though he were a relative.” Her voice broke and for a moment she could not go on. “He lived next door to us—that was when mother and father were alive. All of our misfortunes seemed to come at once.”
“He was the dearest man you ever saw,” Allie added, taking up the story. “Some people thought him queer, but you never minded his peculiar ways after you knew him. He was so good and kind to us. We were neighbors for years—until the Tophams induced him to live with them. After that, everything was changed.”
“But he never liked it with the Tophams,” Grace declared. “They weren’t kind to him, and he used to sneak off to visit us. Didn’t he, Allie?”
“Yes, he often said that we seemed like his own children. He brought us so many nice gifts. We loved him for himself and not his money, but after our parents died he hinted that he intended to see to it that we never came to want. I remember the very last day we ever saw him alive, he told us that he intended to mention us in the will. ‘I have planned a big surprise for you girls. You’ll see it in my will.’ Those were his very words.”
“And then the Tophams got everything,” Grace said somewhat bitterly. “It isn’t that we were expecting any of the money, but it does seem unfair that the entire fortune should go to them. They never cared a snap of their fingers for Uncle Josiah, and I don’t believe he intended to leave his money to them.”
“Perhaps you were mentioned in the will they say can’t be found,” Nancy suggested.
Grace and Allie exchanged significant glances and gravely nodded.
“That’s just what we think,” Allie announced.