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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gold of the Gods, by Arthur B. Reeve
+(#7 in our series by Arthur B. Reeve)
+
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+Title: The Gold of the Gods
+
+Author: Arthur B. Reeve
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5149]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 15, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GOLD OF THE GODS ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+THE GOLD OF THE GODS
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR B. REEVE
+
+
+FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I   THE PERUVIAN DAGGER
+
+   II   THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
+
+  III   THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DETECTIVE
+
+   IV   THE TREASURE HUNTERS
+
+    V   THE WALL STREET PROMOTER
+
+   VI   THE CURSE OF MANSICHE
+
+  VII   THE ARROW POISON
+
+ VIII   THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
+
+   IX   THE PAPER FIBRES
+
+    X   THE X-RAY READER
+
+   XI   THE SHOE-PRINTS
+
+  XII   THE EVIL EYE
+
+ XIII   THE POISONED CIGARETTE
+
+  XIV   THE INTERFEROMETER
+
+   XV   THE WEED OF MADNESS
+
+  XVI   THE EAR IN THE WALL
+
+ XVII   THE VOICE FROM THE AIR
+
+XVIII   THE ANTIDOTE
+
+  XIX   THE BURGLAR POWDER
+
+   XX   THE PULMOTOR
+
+  XXI   THE TELESCRIBE
+
+ XXII   THE VANISHER
+
+XXIII   THE ACETYLENE TORCH
+
+ XXIV   THE POLICE DOG
+
+  XXV   THE GOLD OF THE GODS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE PERUVIAN DAGGER
+
+
+"There's something weird and mysterious about the robbery,
+Kennedy. They took the very thing I treasure most of all, an
+ancient Peruvian dagger."
+
+Professor Allan Norton was very much excited as he dropped into
+Craig's laboratory early that forenoon.
+
+Norton, I may say, was one of the younger members of the faculty,
+like Kennedy. Already, however, he had made for himself a place as
+one of the foremost of South American explorers and
+archaeologists.
+
+"How they got into the South American section of the Museum,
+though, I don't understand," he hurried on. "But, once in, that
+they should take the most valuable relic I brought back with me on
+this last expedition, I think certainly shows that it was a
+robbery with a deep-laid, premeditated purpose."
+
+"Nothing else is gone?" queried Kennedy.
+
+"Nothing," returned the professor. "That's the strangest part of
+it--to me. It was a peculiar dagger, too," he continued
+reminiscently. "I say that it was valuable, for on the blade were
+engraved some curious Inca characters. I wasn't able to take the
+time to decipher them, down there, for the age of the metal made
+them almost illegible. But now that I have all my stuff unpacked
+and arranged after my trip, I was just about to try--when along
+comes a thief and robs me. We can't have the University Museum
+broken into that way, you know, Kennedy."
+
+"I should say not," readily assented Craig. "I'd like to look the
+place over."
+
+"Just what I wanted," exclaimed Norton, heartily delighted, and
+leading the way.
+
+We walked across the campus with him to the Museum, still
+chatting. Norton was a tall, spare man, wiry, precisely the type
+one would pick to make an explorer in a tropical climate. His
+features were sharp, suggesting a clear and penetrating mind and a
+disposition to make the most of everything, no matter how slight.
+Indeed that had been his history, I knew. He had come to college a
+couple of years before Kennedy and myself, almost penniless, and
+had worked his way through by doing everything from waiting on
+table to tutoring. To-day he stood forth as a shining example of
+self-made intellectual man, as cultured as if he had sprung from a
+race of scholars, as practical as if he had taken to mills rather
+than museums.
+
+We entered a handsome white-marble building in the shape of a
+rectangle, facing the University Library, a building, by the way,
+which Norton had persuaded several wealthy trustees and other
+donors to erect. Kennedy at once began examining the section
+devoted to Latin America, going over everything very carefully.
+
+I looked about, too. There were treasures from Mexico and Peru,
+from every romantic bit of the wonderful countries south of us--
+blocks of porphyry with quaint grecques and hieroglyphic painting
+from Mitla, copper axes and pottery from Cuzco, sculptured stones
+and mosaics, jugs, cups, vases, little gods and great, sacrificial
+stones, a treasure house of Aztec and Inca lore--enough to keep
+one occupied for hours merely to look at.
+
+Yet, I reflected, following Norton, in all this mass of material,
+the thief seemed to have selected one, apparently insignificant,
+dagger, the thing which Norton prized because, somehow, it bore on
+its blade something which he had not, as yet, been able to fathom.
+
+Though Kennedy looked thoroughly and patiently, it seemed as
+though there was nothing there to tell any story of the robbery,
+and he turned his attention at last to other parts of the Museum.
+As he made his way about slowly, I noted that he was looking
+particularly into corners, behind cabinets, around angles. What he
+expected to find I could not even guess.
+
+Further along and on the same side of the building we came to the
+section devoted to Egyptology. Kennedy paused. Standing there,
+upright against the wall, was a mummy case. To me, even now, the
+thing had a creepy look. Craig pushed aside the stone lid
+irreverently and gazed keenly into the uncanny depths of the stone
+sarcophagus. An instant later he was down on his hands and knees,
+carefully examining the interior by means of a pocket lens.
+
+"I think I have made a start," he remarked, rising to his feet and
+facing us with an air of satisfaction.
+
+We said nothing, and he pointed to some almost undiscernible marks
+in a thin layer of dust that had collected in the sarcophagus.
+
+"If I'm not mistaken," he went on, "your thief got into the Museum
+during the daytime, and, when no one was looking, hid here. He
+must have stayed until the place was locked up at night. Then he
+could rob at his leisure, only taking care to confine his
+operations to the time between the rather infrequent rounds of the
+night watchman."
+
+Kennedy bent down again. "Look," he indicated. "There are the
+marks of shoes in the dust, shoes with nails in the heels, of
+course. I shall have to compare the marks that I have found here
+with those I have collected, following out the method of the
+immortal Bertillon. Every make of shoes has its own peculiarities,
+both in the number and the arrangement of the nails. Offhand,
+however, I should say that these shoes were American-made--though
+that, of course, does not necessarily mean that an American wore
+them. I may even be able to determine which of a number of
+individual pairs of shoes made the marks. I cannot tell that yet,
+until I study them. Walter, I wish you'd go over to my laboratory.
+In the second right-hand drawer of my desk you'll find a package
+of paper. I'd like to have it."
+
+"Don't you think you ought to preserve the marks?" I heard Norton
+hint, as I left. He had been watching Kennedy in open-eyed
+amazement and interest.
+
+"Exactly what I am sending Walter to do," he returned. "I have
+some specially prepared paper that will take those dust marks up
+and give me a perfect replica."
+
+I hurried back as fast as I could, and Kennedy bent to the task of
+preserving the marks.
+
+"Have you any idea who might have an object in stealing the
+dagger?" Kennedy asked, when he had finished.
+
+Norton shrugged his shoulders. "I believe some weird superstitions
+were connected with it," he replied. "It had a three-sided blade,
+and, as I told you, both the blade and the hilt were covered with
+peculiar markings."
+
+There seemed to be nothing more that could be discovered from a
+further examination of the Museum. It was plain enough that the
+thief must have let himself out of a side door which had a spring
+lock on it and closed itself. Not a mark or scratch was to be
+found on any of the window or door locks; nothing else seemed to
+have been disturbed.
+
+Evidently the thief had been after that one, to him priceless,
+object. Having got it, he was content to get away, leaving
+untouched the other treasures, some of which were even
+intrinsically valuable for the metal and precious stones in them.
+The whole affair seemed so strange to me, however, that, somehow,
+I could not help wondering whether Norton had told us the whole or
+only half the story as he knew it about the dagger and its
+history.
+
+Still talking with the archaeologist, Kennedy and I returned to
+his laboratory.
+
+We had scarcely reached the door when we heard the telephone
+ringing insistently. I answered, and it happened to be a call for
+me. It was the editor of the Star endeavouring to catch me, before
+I started downtown to the office, in order to give me an
+assignment.
+
+"That's strange," I exclaimed, hanging up the receiver and turning
+to Craig. "I've got to go out on a murder case--"
+
+"An interesting case?" asked Craig, interrupting his own train of
+investigation with a flash of professional interest.
+
+"Why, a man has been murdered in his apartment on Central Park,
+West, I believe. Luis de Mendoza is the name, and it seems--"
+
+"Don Luis de Mendoza?" repeated Norton, with a startled
+exclamation. "Why, he was an influential Peruvian, a man of
+affairs in his country, and an accomplished scholar. I--I--if you
+don't mind, I'd like to go over with you. I know the Mendozas."
+
+Kennedy was watching Norton's face keenly. "I think I'll go, too,
+Walter," he decided. "You won't lack assistants on this story,
+apparently."
+
+"Perhaps you can be of some assistance to them, also," put in
+Norton to Kennedy, as we left.
+
+It was only a short ride downtown, and our cab soon pulled up
+before a rather ornate entrance of a large apartment in one of the
+most exclusive sections of the city. We jumped out and entered,
+succeeding in making our way to the sixth floor, where Mendoza
+lived, without interference from the hallboy, who had been
+completely swamped by the rush that followed the excitement of
+finding one of the tenants murdered.
+
+There was no missing the place. The hall had been taken over by
+the reporters, who had established themselves there, terrible as
+an army with concealed pads and pencils. From one of the morning
+men already there I learned that our old friend Dr. Leslie, the
+coroner, was already in charge.
+
+Somehow, whether it was through Kennedy's acquaintance with Dr.
+Leslie or Norton's acquaintance with the Mendozas and the Spanish
+tongue, we found ourselves beyond the barrier of the door which
+shut out my rivals.
+
+As we stood for a moment in a handsome and tastefully furnished
+living room a young lady passed through hurriedly. She paused in
+the middle of the room as she saw us and eyed us tremulously, as
+though to ask us why we had intruded. It was a rather awkward
+situation.
+
+Quickly Norton came to the rescue. "I hope you will pardon me,
+Senorita," he bowed in perfect Spanish, "but--"
+
+"Oh, Professor Norton, it is you!" she cried in English,
+recognizing him. "I'm so nervous that I didn't see you at first."
+
+She glanced from him to us, inquiringly. I recollected that my
+editor had mentioned a daughter who might prove to be an
+interesting and important figure in the mystery. She spoke in an
+overwrought, agitated tone. I studied her furtively.
+
+Inez de Mendoza was unmistakably beautiful, of the dark Spanish
+type, with soft brown eyes that appealed to one when she talked,
+and a figure which at any less tragic moment one might have been
+pardoned for admiring. Her soft olive skin, masses of dark hair,
+and lustrous, almost voluptuous, eyes contrasted wonderfully with
+the finely chiselled lines of her nose, the firm chin, and
+graceful throat and neck. Here one recognized a girl of character
+and family in the depths of whose soul smouldered all the passion
+of a fiery race.
+
+"I hope you will pardon me for intruding," Norton repeated.
+"Believe me, it is not with mere idle curiosity. Let me introduce
+my friend, Professor Kennedy, the scientific detective, of whom
+you have heard, no doubt. This is his assistant, Mr. Jameson, of
+the Star. I thought perhaps they might stand between you and that
+crowd in the hall," he added, motioning toward the reporters on
+the other side of the door. "You can trust them absolutely. I'm
+sure that if there is anything any of us can do to aid you in--in
+your trouble, you may be sure that we are at your service."
+
+She looked about a moment in the presence of three strangers who
+had invaded the quietness of what had been, at least temporarily,
+home. She seemed to be seeking some one on whom to lean, as though
+some support had suddenly been knocked from under her, leaving her
+dazed at the change.
+
+"Oh, madre de Dios!" she cried. "What shall I do? Oh, my father--
+my poor father!"
+
+Inez Mendoza was really a pathetic and appealing figure as she
+stood there in the room, alone.
+
+Quickly she looked us over, as if, by same sort of occult
+intuition of woman, she were reading our souls. Then,
+instinctively almost, she turned to Kennedy. Kennedy seemed to
+recognize her need. Norton and I retired, somewhat more than
+figuratively.
+
+"You--you are a detective?" she queried. "You can read mystery--
+like a book?"
+
+Kennedy smiled encouragingly. "Hardly as my friend Walter here
+often paints me," he returned. "Still, now and then, we are able
+to use the vast knowledge of wise men the world over to help those
+in trouble. Tell me--everything," he soothed, as though knowing
+that to talk would prove a safety-valve for her pent-up emotions.
+"Perhaps I can help you."
+
+For a moment she did not know what to do. Then, almost before she
+knew it, apparently, she began to talk to him, forgetting that we
+were in the room.
+
+"Tell me how the thing happened, all that you know, how you found
+it out," prompted Craig.
+
+"Oh, it was midnight, last night; yes, late," she returned wildly.
+"I was sleeping when my maid, Juanita, wakened me and told me that
+Mr. Lockwood was in the living room and wanted to see me, must see
+me. I dressed hurriedly, for it came to me that something must be
+the matter. I think I must have come out sooner than they
+expected, for before they knew it I had run across the living room
+and looked through the door into the den, you call it, over
+there."
+
+She pointed at a heavy door, but did not, evidently could not, let
+her eyes rest on it.
+
+"There was my father, huddled in a chair, and blood had run out
+from an ugly wound in his side. I screamed and fell on my knees
+beside him. But," she shuddered, "it was too late. He was cold. He
+did not answer."
+
+Kennedy said nothing, but let her weep into her dainty lace
+handkerchief, though the impulse was strong to do anything to calm
+her grief.
+
+"Mr. Lockwood had come in to visit him on business, had found the
+door into the hall open, and entered. No one seemed to be about;
+but the lights were burning. He went on into the den. There was my
+father--"
+
+She stopped, and could not go on at all for several minutes.
+
+"And Mr. Lockwood, who is he?" asked Craig gently.
+
+"My father and I, we have been in this country only a short time,"
+she replied, trying to speak in good English in spite of her
+emotion, "with his partner in a--a mining venture--Mr. Lockwood."
+
+She paused again and hesitated, as though in this strange land of
+the north she had no idea of which way to turn for help. But once
+started, now, she did not stop again.
+
+"Oh," she went on passionately, "I don't know what it was that
+came over my father. But lately he had been a changed man.
+Sometimes I thought he was--what you call--mad. I should have gone
+to see a doctor about him," she added wildly, her feelings getting
+the better of her. "But it is no longer a case for a doctor. It is
+a case for a detective--for some one who is more than a detective.
+You cannot bring him back, but--"
+
+She could not go on. Yet her broken sentence spoke volumes, in her
+pleading, soft, musical voice, which was far more pleasing to the
+ear than that of the usual Latin-American.
+
+I had heard that the women of Lima were famed for their beauty and
+melodious voices. Senorita Inez surely upheld their reputation.
+
+There was an appealing look now in her soft deep-brown eyes, and
+her thin, delicate lips trembled as she hurried on with her
+strange story.
+
+"I never saw my father in such a state before," she murmured. "For
+days all he had talked about was the 'big fish,' the peje grande,
+whatever that might mean--and the curse of Mansiche."
+
+The recollection of the past few days seemed to be too much for
+her. Almost before we knew it, before Norton, who had started to
+ask her a question, could speak, she excused herself and fled from
+the room, leaving only the indelible impression of loveliness and
+the appeal for help that was irresistible.
+
+Kennedy turned to Norton. But just then the door to the den opened
+and we saw our friend Dr. Leslie. He saw us, too, and took a few
+steps in our direction.
+
+"What--you here, Kennedy?" he greeted in surprise as Craig shook
+hands and introduced Norton. "And Jameson, too? Well, I think
+you've found a case at last that will baffle you."
+
+As we talked he led the way across the living room and into the
+den from which he had just come.
+
+"It is very strange," he said, telling at once all that he had
+been able to discover. "Senor Mendoza was discovered here about
+midnight last night by his partner, Mr. Lockwood. There seem to be
+no clues to how or by whom he was murdered. No locks had been
+broken. I have examined the hall-boy who was here last night. He
+seems to be off his post a good deal when it is late. He saw Mr.
+Lockwood come in, and took him in the elevator up to the sixth
+floor. After that we can find nothing but the open door into the
+apartment. It is not at all impossible that some one might have
+come in when the boy was off his post, have walked up, even have
+walked down, the stairs again. In fact, it must have been that
+way. No windows, not even on the fire-escape, have been tampered
+with. In fact, the murder must have been done by some one admitted
+to the apartment late by Mendoza himself."
+
+We walked over to the couch on which lay the body covered by a
+sheet. Dr. Leslie drew down the sheet.
+
+On the face was a most awful look, a terrible stare and contortion
+of the features, and a deep, almost purple, discoloration. The
+muscles were all tense and rigid. I shall never forget that face
+and its look, half of pain, half of fear, as if of something
+nameless.
+
+Mendoza had been a heavy-set man, whose piercing black eyes
+beetled forth, in life, from under bushy brows. Even in death,
+barring that horrible look, he was rather distinguished-looking,
+and his close-cropped hair and moustache set him off as a man of
+affairs and consequence in his own country.
+
+"Most peculiar, Kennedy," reiterated Dr. Leslie, pointing to the
+breast. "You see that wound? I can't quite determine whether that
+was the real cause of death or not. Of course, it's a bad wound,
+it's true. But there seems to be something else here, too. Look at
+the pupils of his eyes, how contracted they are. The lungs seem
+congested, too. He has all the marks of having been asphyxiated.
+Yet there are no indications on his throat of violence such as
+would be necessary if that were the case. There could have been no
+such thing as illuminating gas, nor have we found any trace of any
+receptacles which might have held poison. I can't seem to make it
+out."
+
+Kennedy bent over the body and looked at it attentively for
+several minutes, while we stood back of him, scarcely uttering a
+word in the presence of this terrible thing.
+
+Deftly Kennedy managed to extract a few drops of blood from about
+the wound and transfer them to a very small test-tube which he
+carried in a little emergency pocket-case in order to preserve
+material for future study.
+
+"You say the dagger was triangular, Norton?" he asked finally,
+without looking up from his minute examination.
+
+"Yes, with another blade that shot out automatically when you knew
+the secret of pressing the hilt in a certain way. The outside
+triangular blade separated into three to allow an inner blade to
+shoot out."
+
+Kennedy had risen and, as Norton described the Inca dagger, looked
+from one to the other of us keenly.
+
+"That blade was poisoned," he concluded quietly. "We have a clue
+to your missing dagger. Mendoza was murdered by it!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
+
+
+"I should like to have another talk with Senorita Inez," remarked
+Kennedy, a few minutes later, as with Dr. Leslie and Professor
+Norton we turned into the living room and closed the door to the
+den.
+
+While Norton volunteered to send one of the servants in to see
+whether the young lady was able to stand the strain of another
+interview, Dr. Leslie received a hurry call to another case.
+
+"You'll let me know, Kennedy, if you discover anything?" he asked,
+shaking hands with us. "I shall keep you informed, also, from my
+end. That poison completely baffles me--so far. You know, we might
+as well work together."
+
+"Assuredly," agreed Craig, as the coroner left. "That," he added
+to me, as the door closed, "was one word for me and two for
+himself. I can do the work; he wants to save his official face. He
+never will know what that poison was--until I tell him."
+
+Inez had by this time so far recovered her composure that she was
+able to meet us again in the living room.
+
+"I'm very sorry to have to trouble you again," apologized Kennedy,
+"but if I am to get anywhere in this case I must have the facts."
+
+She looked at him, half-puzzled, and, I fancied, half-frightened,
+too. "Anything I can tell you--of course, ask me," she said.
+
+"Had your father any enemies who might desire his death?" shot out
+Kennedy, almost without warning.
+
+"No," she answered slowly, still watching him carefully, then
+adding hastily: "Of course, you know, no one who tries to do
+anything is absolutely without enemies, though."
+
+"I mean," repeated Craig, carefully noting a certain hesitation in
+her tone, "was there any one who, for reasons best known to
+himself, might have murdered him in a way peculiarly likely under
+the circumstances, say, with a dagger?"
+
+Inez flashed a quick glance at Kennedy, as if to inquire just how
+much or how little he really knew. I got the impression from it,
+at least, that she was holding back some suspicion for a reason
+that perhaps she would not even have admitted to herself.
+
+I saw that Norton was also following the line of Kennedy's
+questioning keenly, though he said nothing.
+
+Before Kennedy could take up the lead again, her maid, Juanita, a
+very pretty girl of Spanish and Indian descent, entered softly.
+
+"Mr. Lockwood," she whispered, but not so low that we could not
+hear.
+
+"Won't you ask him to come in, Nita?" she replied.
+
+A moment later a young man pushed open the door--a tall, clean-cut
+young fellow, whose face bore the tan of a sun much stronger than
+any about New York. As I took his appraisal, I found him
+unmistakably of the type of American soldier of fortune who has
+been carried by the wander-spirit down among the romantic
+republics to the south of our own.
+
+"Professor Kennedy," began Senorita Mendoza, presenting us all in
+turn, "let me introduce Mr. Lockwood, my father's partner in
+several ventures which brought us to New York."
+
+As we shook hands I could not help feeling that the young mining
+engineer, for such he proved to be by ostensible profession, was
+something more to her than a mere partner in her father's schemes.
+
+"I believe I've met Professor Norton," he remarked, as they shook
+hands. "Perhaps he remembers when we were in Lima."
+
+"Perfectly," replied Norton, returning the penetrating glance in
+kind. "Also in New York," he added.
+
+Lockwood turned abruptly. "Are you quite sure you are able to
+stand the strain of this interview?" he asked Inez in a low tone.
+
+Norton glanced at Kennedy and raised his eyebrows just the
+fraction of an inch, as if to call attention to the neat manner in
+which Lockwood had turned the subject.
+
+Inez smiled sadly. "I must," she said, in a forced tone.
+
+I fancied that Lockwood noted and did not relish an air of
+restraint in her words.
+
+"It was you, I believe, Mr. Lockwood, who found Senor Mendoza last
+night?" queried Kennedy, as if to read the answer into the record,
+although he already knew it.
+
+"Yes," replied Lockwood, without hesitation, though with a glance
+at the averted head of Inez, and choosing his words very
+carefully, as if trying hard not to say more than she could bear.
+"Yes. I came up here to report on some financial matters which
+interested both of us, very late, perhaps after midnight. I was
+about to press the buzzer on the door when I saw that the door was
+slightly ajar. I opened it and found lights still burning. The
+rest I think you must already know."
+
+Even that tactful reference to the tragedy was too much for Inez.
+She suppressed a little convulsive sob, but did not, this time,
+try to flee from the room.
+
+"You saw nothing about the den that aroused any suspicions?"
+pursued Kennedy. "No bottle, no glass? There wasn't the odour of
+any gas or drug?"
+
+Lockwood shook his head slowly, fixing his eyes on Kennedy's face,
+but not looking at him. "No," he answered; "I have told Dr. Leslie
+just what I found. If there had been anything else I'm sure I
+would have noticed it while I was waiting for Miss Inez to come
+in."
+
+His answers seemed perfectly frank and straight-forward. Yet
+somehow I could not get over the feeling that he, as well as Inez,
+was not telling quite all he knew--perhaps not about the murder,
+but about matters that might be related to it.
+
+Norton evidently felt the same way. "You saw no weapon--a dagger?"
+he interrupted suddenly.
+
+The young man faced Norton squarely. To me it seemed as if he had
+been expecting the question. "Not a thing," he said deliberately.
+"I looked about carefully, too. Whatever weapon was used must have
+been taken away by the murderer," he added.
+
+Juanita entered again, and Inez excused herself to answer the
+telephone, while we stood in the living room chatting for a few
+minutes.
+
+"What is this 'curse of Mansiche' which the Senorita has
+mentioned?" asked Kennedy, seeing a chance to open a new line of
+inquiry with Lockwood.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," he returned, impatiently flicking the ashes of
+a cigarette which he had lighted the moment Inez left the room, as
+though such stories had no interest for the practical mind of an
+engineer. "Some old superstition, I suppose."
+
+Lockwood seemed to regard Norton with a sort of aversion, if not
+hostility, and I fancied that Norton, on his part, neglected no
+opportunity to let the other know that he was watching him.
+
+"I don't know much about the story," resumed Lockwood a moment
+later as no one said anything. "But I do know that there is
+treasure in that great old Chimu mound near Truxillo. Don Luis has
+the government concession to bore into the mound, too, and we are
+raising the capital to carry the scheme through to success."
+
+He had come to the end of a sentence. Yet the inflection of his
+voice showed plainly that it was not the end of the idea that had
+been in his mind.
+
+"If you knew where to dig," suddenly supplied Norton, gazing
+keenly into the eyes of the soldier of fortune.
+
+Lockwood did not answer, though it was evident that that had been
+the thought unexpressed in his remarks.
+
+The return of the Senorita to the room seemed to break the
+tension.
+
+"It was the house telephone," she said, in a quiet voice. "The
+hall-boy didn't know whether to admit a visitor who comes with his
+sympathy." Then she turned from us to Lockwood. "You must know
+him," she said, somewhat embarrassed. "Senor Alfonso de Moche."
+
+Lockwood suppressed a frown, but said nothing, for, a moment
+later, a young man came in. Almost in silence he advanced to Inez
+and took her hand in a manner that plainly showed his sympathy in
+her bereavement.
+
+"I have just heard," he said simply, "and I hastened around to
+tell you how much I feel your loss. If there is anything I can do-
+-"
+
+He stopped, and did not finish the sentence. It was unnecessary.
+His eyes finished it for him.
+
+Alfonso de Moche was, I thought, a very handsome fellow, though
+not of the Spanish type at all. His forehead was high, with a
+shock of straight black hair, his skin rather copper-coloured,
+nose slightly aquiline, chin and mouth firm; in fact, the whole
+face was refined and intellectual, though tinged with melancholy.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured, then turned to us. "I believe you are
+acquainted with Mr. de Moche, Professor Norton?" she asked. "You
+know he is taking post-graduate work at the University."
+
+"Slightly," returned Norton, gazing at the young man in a manner
+that plainly disconcerted him. "I believe I have met his mother in
+Peru."
+
+Senorita Mendoza seemed to colour at the mention of Senora de
+Moche. It flashed over me that, in his greeting Alfonso had said
+nothing of his mother. I wondered if there might be a reason for
+it. Could it be that Senorita Mendoza had some antipathy which did
+not include the son? Though we did not seem to be making much
+progress in this way in solving the mystery, still I felt that
+before we could go ahead we must know the little group about which
+it centred. There seemed to be currents and cross-currents here
+which we did not understand, but which must be charted if we were
+to steer a straight course.
+
+"And Professor Kennedy?" she added, turning to us.
+
+"I think I have seen Mr. de Moche about the campus," said Craig,
+as I, too, shook hands with him, "although you are not in any of
+my classes."
+
+"No, Professor," concurred the young man, who was, however,
+considerably older than the average student taking courses like
+his.
+
+I found it quite enough to watch the faces of those about me just
+then. Between Lockwood and de Moche it seemed that there existed a
+latent hostility. The two eyed each other with decided disfavour.
+As for Norton, he seemed to be alternately watching each of them.
+
+An awkward silence followed, and de Moche seemed to take the cue,
+for after a few more remarks to Inez he withdrew as gracefully as
+he could, with a parting interchange of frigid formalities with
+Lockwood. It did not take much of a detective to deduce that both
+of the young men might have agreed on one thing, though that
+caused the most serious of differences between them--their
+estimation of Inez de Mendoza.
+
+Inez, on her part, seemed also to be visibly relieved at his
+departure, though she had been cordial enough to him. I wondered
+what it all meant.
+
+Lockwood, too, seemed to be ill at ease still. But it was a
+different uneasiness, rather directed at Norton than at us. Once
+before I had thought he was on the point of excusing himself, but
+the entrance of de Moche seemed to have decided him to stay at
+least as long as his rival.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Senorita," he now apologized, "but I really
+must go. There are still some affairs which I must attend to in
+order to protect the interests we represent." He turned to us.
+"You will excuse me, I know," he added, "but I have a very
+important appointment. You know Don Luis and I were assisting in
+organizing the campaign of Stuart Whitney to interest American
+manufacturers, and particularly bankers, in the chances in South
+America which lie at hand, if we are only awake to take advantage
+of them. I shall be at your service, Senorita, as soon as the
+meeting is over. I presume I shall see you again?" he nodded to
+Kennedy.
+
+"Quite likely," returned Kennedy drily.
+
+"If there is any assistance I can render in clearing up this
+dreadful thing," went on Lockwood, in a lower tone to us, "you may
+count on me absolutely."
+
+"Thank you," returned Craig, with a significant glance. "I may
+have to take up that offer."
+
+"Do so, by all means," he reiterated, bowing to Norton and backing
+out of the door.
+
+Alone again with Inez Mendoza, Kennedy turned suddenly. "Who is
+this Senor de Moche?" he asked. "I gather that you must have known
+him in Peru."
+
+"Yes," she agreed. "I knew him in Lima"; then adding, as if by way
+of confession, "when he was a student at the University."
+
+There was something in both her tone and manner that would lead
+one to believe that she had only the kindliest feelings toward de
+Moche, whatever might be the case, as it seemed, with his mother.
+
+For a moment Kennedy now advanced and took Senorita Inez by the
+hand. "I must go now," he said simply. "If there is anything which
+you have not told me, I should like to know."
+
+"No--nothing," she answered.
+
+He did not take his eyes from hers. "If you should recall anything
+else," he persisted, "don't hesitate to tell me. I will come here,
+or you may come to the laboratory, whichever is more convenient."
+
+"I shall do so," she replied. "And thank you a thousand times for
+the trouble you are going to in my behalf. You may be sure that I
+appreciate it."
+
+Norton also bade her farewell, and she thanked him for having
+brought us over. I noticed also that Norton, though considerably
+older than any of us, had apparently succumbed to the spell of her
+wonderful eyes and face.
+
+"I also would be glad to help you," he promised. "You can usually
+find me at the Museum."
+
+"Thank you all," she murmured. "You are all so kind to me. An hour
+ago I felt that I had not a friend in all this big city--except
+Mr. Lockwood. Now I feel that I am not quite all alone."
+
+She said it to Norton, but it was really meant for Kennedy. I know
+Craig shared my own feelings. It was a rare pleasure to work for
+her. She seemed most appreciative of anything that was done for
+her in her defenceless position.
+
+As we passed out of the apartment house and sought our cab again,
+Kennedy was the first to speak, and to Norton.
+
+"Do you know anything more about these men, Lockwood and de
+Moche?" he queried, as we sped uptown.
+
+"I don't know a thing," he replied cautiously. "I--I'd much prefer
+not to talk of suspicions."
+
+"But the dagger," insisted Kennedy. "Have you no suspicions of
+what became of it and who took it?"
+
+"I'd prefer not to talk of mere suspicions," he repeated.
+
+Little was said as we turned in at the campus and at last drew up
+before Norton's wing of the Museum.
+
+"You will let me know of any development, no matter how trivial?"
+asked Kennedy, as we parted. "Your dagger seems to have stirred up
+more trouble than there was any reason to suppose when you came to
+me first."
+
+"I should say so," he agreed. "I don't know how to repay the
+interest you have shown in its recovery. If anything else
+materializes, I shall surely get word to you immediately."
+
+As we turned to leave, I could not help thinking of the manner of
+Lockwood and Norton toward each other. The name Stuart Whitney ran
+through my head. Stuart Whitney was a trustee of the University
+who had contributed heavily, among other things, to Norton's
+various expeditions to South America. Was it that Norton felt a
+peculiar loyalty to Whitney, or was he jealous that any one else
+should succeed in interesting his patron in things South American?
+
+The actions of the two young men, Lockwood and de Moche, recurred
+to me. "Well," I remarked, as we walked along, "what do you think
+it is--a romance or a simple crime-hunt?" "Both, I suspect,"
+replied Craig abstractedly. "Only not simple."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DETECTIVE
+
+
+"I think I'll go into the University Library," Craig remarked, as
+we left Norton before his building. "I want to refresh my mind on
+some of those old Peruvian antiquities and traditions. What the
+Senorita hinted at may prove to be very important. I suppose you
+will have to turn in a story to the Star soon?"
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "I'll have to turn in something, although I'd
+prefer to wait."
+
+"Try to get an assignment to follow the case to the end,"
+suggested Craig. "I think you'll find it worth while. Anyhow, this
+will give you a chance for a breathing space, and, if I have this
+thing doped out right, you won't get another for some time. I'll
+meet you over in the laboratory in a couple of hours."
+
+Craig hurried up the long flight of white-marble steps to the
+library and disappeared, while I jumped on the subway and ran
+downtown to the office.
+
+It took me, as I knew it would, considerably over a couple of
+hours to clear things up at the Star, so that I could take
+advantage of a special arrangement which I had made, so that I
+could, when a case warranted it, co-operate with Kennedy. My story
+was necessarily brief, but that was what I wanted just now. I did
+not propose to have the whole field of special-feature writers
+camping on my preserve.
+
+Uptown I hurried again, afraid that Kennedy had finished and might
+have been called away. But when I reached the laboratory he was
+not there, and I found that he had not been. Up and down I paced
+restlessly. There was nothing else to do but wait. If he was
+unable to keep his appointment here with me, I knew that he would
+soon telephone. What was it, I wondered, that kept him delving
+into the archaeological lore of the library?
+
+I had about given him up, when he hurried into the laboratory in a
+high state of excitement.
+
+"What did you find?" I queried. "Has anything happened?"
+
+"Let me tell you first what I found in the library," he replied,
+tilting his hat back on his head and alternately thrusting and
+withdrawing his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, as if in some
+way that might help him to piece together some scattered fragments
+of a story which he had just picked up.
+
+"I've been looking up that hint that the Senorita dropped when she
+used those words peje grande, which mean, literally, 'big fish,'"
+he resumed. "Walter, it fires the imagination. You have read of
+the wealth that Pizarro found in Peru, of course." Visions of
+Prescott flashed through my mind as he spoke.
+
+"Well, where are the gold and silver of the conquistadores? Gone
+to the melting-pot, centuries ago. But is there none left? The
+Indians in Peru believe so, at any rate. And, Walter, there are
+persons who would stop at nothing to get at the secret.
+
+"It is a matter of history that soon after the conquest a vast
+fortune was unearthed of which the King of Spain's fifth amounted
+to five million dollars. That treasure was known as the peje
+chica--the little fish. One version of the story tells that an
+Inca ruler, the great Cacique Mansiche, had observed with
+particular attention the kindness of a young Spaniard toward the
+people of the conquered race. Also, he had observed that the man
+was comparatively poor. At any rate, he revealed the secret of the
+hiding-place of the peje chica, on condition that a part of the
+wealth should be used to advance the interests of the Indians.
+
+"The most valuable article discovered was in the form of a fish of
+solid gold and so large that the Spaniards considered it a rare
+prize. But the Cacique assured his young friend that it was only
+the little fish, that a much greater treasure existed, worth many
+times the value of this one.
+
+"The sequel of the story is that the Spaniard forgot his promise,
+went off to Spain, and spent all his gold. He was returning for
+the peje grande, of which he had made great boasts, but before he
+could get it he was killed. Prescott, I believe, gives another
+version, in which he says that the Spaniard devoted a large part
+of his wealth to the relief of the Indians and gave large sums to
+the Peruvian churches. Other stories deny that it was Mansiche who
+told the first secret, but that it was another Indian. One may, I
+suppose, pay his money and take his choice. But the point, as far
+as we are concerned in this case, is that there is still believed
+to be the great fish, which no one has found. Who knows? Perhaps,
+somehow, Mendoza had the secret of the peje grande?"
+
+Kennedy paused, and I could feel the tense interest with which his
+delving into the crumbling past had now endowed this already
+fascinating case.
+
+"And the curse?" I put in.
+
+"About that we do not know," he replied. "Except that we do know
+that Mansiche was the great Cacique or ruler of northern Peru. The
+natives are believed to have buried a far greater treasure than
+even that which the Spaniards carried off. Mansiche is said to
+have left a curse on any native who ever divulged the whereabouts
+of the treasure, and the curse was also to fall on any Spaniard
+who might discover it. That is all we know--yet. Gold was used
+lavishly in the temples. That great hoard is really the Gold of
+the Gods. Surely, as we have seen it so far in this case, it must
+be cursed."
+
+There was a knock on the laboratory door, and I sprang to open it,
+expecting to find that it was something for Kennedy. Instead there
+stood one of the office boys of the Star.
+
+"Why, hello, Tommy," I greeted him. "What seems to be the matter
+now?"
+
+"A letter for you, Mr. Jameson," he replied, handing over a plain
+envelope. "It came just after you left. The Boss thought it might
+be important--something about that story, I guess. Anyhow, he told
+me to take it up to you on my way home, sir."
+
+I looked at it again. It bore simply my name and the address of
+the Star, not written, but, strange to say, printed in ungainly,
+rough characters, as though some one were either not familiar with
+writing English or desired to conceal his handwriting.
+
+"Where did it come from--and how?" I asked, as I tore the envelope
+open.
+
+"I don't know where, sir," replied Tommy. "A boy brought it. Said
+a man uptown gave him a quarter to deliver it to you."
+
+I looked at the contents in blank amazement. There was nothing in
+the letter except a quarter sheet of ordinary size note paper such
+as that used in typewritten correspondence.
+
+Printed on it, in characters exactly like those on the outside of
+the envelope, were the startling words:
+
+"BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS."
+
+Underneath this inscription appeared the rude drawing of a dagger
+in which some effort had evidently been made to make it appear
+three-sided.
+
+"Well, of all things, what do you think of that?" I cried, tossing
+the thing over to Kennedy.
+
+He took it and read it; his face puckered deeply. "I'm not
+surprised," he said, a moment later, looking up. "Do you know, I
+was just about to tell you what happened at the library. I had a
+feeling all the time I was there of being watched. I don't know
+why or how, but, somehow, I felt that some one was interested in
+the books I was reading. It made me uncomfortable. I was late,
+anyhow, and I decided not to give them the satisfaction of seeing
+me any more--at least in the library. So I have had a number of
+the books on Peru which I wanted reserved, and they'll be sent
+over later, here. No, I'm not surprised that you received this.
+Would you remember the boy?" he asked of Tommy.
+
+"I think so," replied Tommy. "He didn't have on a uniform, though.
+It wasn't a messenger."
+
+There was no use to question him further. He had evidently told
+all that he knew, and finally we had to let him go, with a parting
+injunction to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut.
+
+Kennedy continued to study the note on the quarter sheet of paper
+long after the boy had gone.
+
+"You know," he remarked thoughtfully, after a while, "as nearly as
+I can make the thing out with the slender information that we have
+so far, the weirdest superstitions seem to cluster about that
+dagger which Norton lost. I wouldn't be surprised if it took us
+far back into the dim past of the barbaric splendour of the lost
+Inca civilization of Peru."
+
+He waved the sheet of paper for emphasis. "You see, some one has
+used it here as a sign of terror. Perhaps somehow it bore the
+secret of the big fish--who knows? None of the writers and
+explorers have ever found it. The most they can say is that it may
+be handed down from father to son through a long line. At any
+rate, the secret of the hiding-place seems to have been safely
+kept. No one has ever found the treasure. It would be strange,
+wouldn't it, if it remained for some twentieth-century civilized
+man to unearth the thing and start again the curse that historians
+say was uttered and seems always to have followed the thing?"
+
+"Kennedy, this affair is getting on my nerves already."
+
+While Craig was speaking the door of the laboratory had opened
+without our hearing it, and there stood Norton again. He had
+waited until Craig had finished before he had spoken.
+
+We looked at him, startled, ourselves.
+
+"I had some work to do after I left you," went on Norton, without
+stopping. "In my letter-box were several letters, but I forgot to
+look at them until just now, when I was leaving. Then I picked
+them up--and--look at this thing that was among them."
+
+Norton laid down on the laboratory table a plain envelope and a
+quarter sheet of paper on which were printed, except for his own
+name instead of mine, an almost exact replica of the note which I
+had received.
+
+"BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS."
+
+Kennedy and I looked at him. Already, evidently, he had seen that
+Kennedy held in his hand the note that had come to me.
+
+"I can't make anything out of it," went on Norton, evidently much
+worried. "First I lose the dagger. Next you say it was used to
+murder Mendoza. Then I get this. Now, if any one can get into the
+Museum to steal the dagger, they could get in to carry out any
+threat of revenge, real or fancied."
+
+Looked at in that respect, I felt that it was indeed a real cause
+of worry for Norton. But, then, it flashed over me, was not my own
+case worse? I was to be responsible for telling the story. Might
+not some unseen hand strike at me, perhaps sooner than at him?
+
+Kennedy had taken the two notes and was scanning them eagerly.
+
+Just then an automobile drew up outside, and a moment later we
+heard a tap at the door which Kennedy had closed after the
+entrance of Norton. I opened it.
+
+"Is Professor Kennedy here?" I heard a voice inquire. "I'm one of
+the orderlies at the City Hospital, next to the Morgue, where Dr.
+Leslie has his laboratory. I've a message for Profesor Kennedy, if
+he's in."
+
+Kennedy took the envelope, which bore the stamp of Dr. Leslie's
+department, and tore it open.
+
+"My dear Kennedy," he read, in an undertone. "I've been engaged in
+investigating that poison which probably surrounds the wound in
+the Mendoza case, but as yet have nothing to report. It is
+certainly none of the things which we ordinarily run up against.
+Enclosed you will find a slip of paper and the envelope which it
+came in--something, I take it, that has been sent me by a crank.
+Would you treat it seriously or disregard it? Leslie."
+
+As Kennedy had unfolded Leslie's own letter a piece of paper had
+fluttered to the floor. I picked it up mechanically, and only now
+looked at it, as Craig finished reading.
+
+On it was another copy of the threat that had been sent to both
+Norton and myself!
+
+The hospital orderly had scarcely gone when another tap came at
+the door.
+
+"Your books from the library, Professor," announced a student who
+was employed in the library as part payment of his tuition. "I've
+signed the slip for them, sir."
+
+He deposited the books on a desk, a huge pile of them, which
+reached from his outstretched arms to his chin. As he did so the
+pressure of his arms released the pile of books and the column
+collapsed.
+
+From a book entitled "New and Old Peru," which fell with the pile,
+slipped a plain white envelope. Kennedy saw it before either of
+us, and seized it.
+
+"Here's one for me," he said, tearing it open.
+
+Sure enough, in the same rude printing on a quarter sheet were the
+words:
+
+"BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS."
+
+We could only stare at each other and at that tell-tale sign of
+the Inca dagger underneath.
+
+What did it mean? Who had sent the warnings?
+
+Kennedy alone seemed to regard the affair as if with purely
+scientific interest. He took the four pieces of paper and laid
+them down before him on the table. Then he looked up suddenly.
+
+"They match perfectly," he said quietly, gathering them up and
+placing them in a wallet which he carried. "All the indentures of
+the tearing correspond. Four warnings seem to have been sent to
+those who are likely to find out something of the secret."
+
+Norton seemed to have gained somewhat of his composure now that he
+had been able to talk to some one.
+
+"What are you going to do--give it up?" he asked tensely.
+
+"Nothing could have insured my sticking to it harder," answered
+Craig grimly.
+
+"Then we'll all have to stick together," said Norton slowly. "We
+all seem to be in the same boat."
+
+As he rose to go he extended a hand to each of us.
+
+"I'll stick," repeated Kennedy, with that peculiar bulldog look of
+intensity on his face which I had come to know so well.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TREASURE HUNTERS
+
+
+Norton had scarcely gone, and Kennedy was still studying the four
+pieces of paper on which the warning had been given, when our
+laboratory door was softly pushed open again.
+
+It was Senorita Mendoza, looking more beautiful than ever in her
+plain black mourning dress, the unnatural pallor of her face
+heightening the wonderful lustrous eyes that looked about as
+though half frightened at what she was doing.
+
+"I hope nothing has happened," greeted Kennedy, placing an easy-
+chair for her. "But I'm glad to see that you have confidence
+enough to trust me."
+
+She looked about doubtfully at the vast amount of paraphernalia
+which Craig had collected in his scientific warfare on crime.
+Though she did not understand it, it seemed to impress her.
+
+"No," she murmured, "nothing new has happened. You told me to call
+on you if I should think of anything else."
+
+She said it with an air as if confessing something. It was
+apparent that, whatever it was, she had known it all the time and
+only after a struggle had brought herself to telling it.
+
+"Then you have thought of something?" prompted Craig.
+
+"Yes," she replied in a low tone. Then with an effort she went on:
+"I don't know whether you know it or not, but my family is an old
+one, one of the oldest in Peru."
+
+Kennedy nodded encouragingly.
+
+"Back in the old days, after Pizarro," she hurried on, no longer
+able to choose her words, but blurting the thing out directly, "an
+ancestor of mine was murdered by an Inca dagger."
+
+She stopped again and looked about, actually frightened at her own
+temerity, evidently. Kennedy and his twentieth-century
+surroundings seemed again to reassure her.
+
+"I can't tell you the story," she resumed. "I don't know it. My
+father knew it. But it was some kind of family secret, for he
+never told me. Once when I asked him he put me off; told me to
+wait until I was a little older."
+
+"And you think that may have something to do with the case?" asked
+Kennedy, trying to draw out anything more that she knew.
+
+"I don't know," she answered frankly. "But don't you think that it
+is strange--an ancestor of mine murdered and now, hundreds of
+years afterward, my father, the last of his line in direct
+descent, murdered in the same way, by an Inca dagger that has
+disappeared?"
+
+"Then you were listening while I was talking to Professor Norton?"
+shot out Kennedy, not unkindly, but rather as a surprise test to
+see what she would say.
+
+"You cannot blame me for that," she returned simply.
+
+"Hardly," smiled Kennedy. "And I appreciate your reticence--as
+well as your coming here finally to tell me. Indeed, it is
+strange. Surely you must have some other suspicions," he
+persisted, "something that you feel, even though you do not know?"
+
+Kennedy was leaning forward, looking deeply into her eyes, as if
+he would read what was passing in her mind. She met his gaze for a
+moment, then looked away.
+
+"You heard Mr. Lockwood say that he had become associated with a
+Mr. Whitney, Mr. Stuart Whitney, down in Wall Street?" she
+ventured.
+
+Kennedy did not take his eyes from her face as he sought to
+extract the reluctant words from her.
+
+"Mr. Whitney has been largely interested in Peru, in business and
+in mining," she went on slowly. "He has given large sums to
+scholars down there, to Professor Norton's expeditions from New
+York. I--I'm afraid of that Mr. Whitney!"
+
+Her quiet tone had risen to a pitch of tremulous excitement. Her
+face, which had been pale from the strain of the tragedy, was now
+full of colour, and her breast rose and fell with suppressed
+emotion.
+
+"Afraid of him--why?" asked Kennedy.
+
+There was no more reticence. Once having said so much, she seemed
+to feel that she must go on and tell her fears.
+
+"Because," she went on, "he--he knows a woman--whom my father
+knew." A sudden flash of fire seemed to light up her dark eyes. "A
+woman of Truxillo," she continued, "Senora de Moche."
+
+"De Moche," repeated Kennedy, recalling the name and a still
+unexplained incident of our first interview. "Who is this Senora
+de Moche?" he asked, studying her as if she had been under a lens.
+
+"A Peruvian of an old Indian family," she replied, in a low tone,
+as if the words were forced from her. "She has come to New York
+with her son, Alfonso. You remember--you met him. He is studying
+here at the University."
+
+Again I noted the different manner in which she spoke the two
+names of mother and son. Evidently there was some feud, some
+barrier between her and the elder woman, which did not extend to
+Alfonso.
+
+Kennedy reached for the University catalogue and found the name,
+"Alfonso de Moche." He was, as he had told us, a post-graduate
+student in the engineering school and, therefore, not in any of
+Kennedy's own classes.
+
+"You say your father knew the Senora?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Yes," she replied, in a low voice, "he had had some dealings with
+her. I cannot say just what they were; I do not know. Socially, of
+course, it was different. They did not belong to the same circle
+as ours in Lima."
+
+From her tone I gathered that there existed a race prejudice
+between those of old Spanish descent and the descendants of the
+Indians. That, however, could not account for her attitude. At
+least with her the prejudice did not extend to Alfonso.
+
+"Senora de Moche is a friend of Mr. Whitney?" queried Kennedy.
+
+"Yes, I believe she has placed some of her affairs in his hands.
+The de Moches live at the Prince Edward Albert Hotel, and Mr.
+Whitney lives there, too. I suppose they see more or less of each
+other."
+
+"H-m," mused Kennedy. "You know Mr. Whitney, I suppose?"
+
+"Not very well," she answered. "Of course, I have met him. He has
+been to visit my father, and my father has been down at his
+office, with Mr. Lockwood. But I do not know much about him,
+except that he is what you Americans call a promoter."
+
+Apparently, Inez was endeavouring to be frank in telling her
+suspicions, much more so even than Norton had been. But I could
+not help feeling that she was trying to shield some one, though
+not to the extent of consciously putting us on a wrong scent.
+
+"I shall try to see Mr. Whitney as soon as possible," said
+Kennedy, as she rose to go. "And Senora de Moche, too."
+
+I fancied that Senorita Inez, although she had not told us much,
+felt relieved.
+
+Again she murmured her thanks as she left and again Kennedy
+repeated his injunction to tell everything that happened that
+could possibly have any bearing on the case.
+
+"That's a rather peculiar phase," he considered, when we were
+alone, "this de Moche affair."
+
+"Yes," I agreed. "Do you suppose that woman could be using Whitney
+for some purpose?"
+
+"Or Whitney using her," suggested Kennedy. "There's so much to be
+done at once that I hardly know where to begin. We must see both
+of them as soon as possible. Meanwhile, that message from Dr.
+Leslie about the poison interests me. I must at least start my
+tests of the blood samples that I extracted. Walter, may I ask you
+to leave me here in the laboratory undisturbed?"
+
+I had some writing on my news story to do, and went into the room
+next to the laboratory, where I was soon busily engaged tapping my
+typewriter. Suddenly I became conscious of that feeling, which
+Kennedy had hinted at, of being watched. Perhaps I had heard a
+footstep outside and was not consciously aware of it. But, at any
+rate, I had the feeling.
+
+I stopped tapping the keys and wheeled unexpectedly about in my
+chair. I am sure that I caught just a fleeting glimpse of a face
+dodging back from the window, which was on the first floor.
+
+Whose face it was I am not prepared to assert exactly. But there
+was a face, and the fleeting glimpse of the eyes and forehead was
+just enough to give me the impression that they were familiar,
+without enabling me to identify them. At any rate, the occurrence
+made me feel decidedly uncomfortable, especially after the warning
+letters that we had all received.
+
+I sprang to my feet and ran to the door. But it was too late. The
+intruder had disappeared. Still, the more I thought about it, the
+more determined I was to try to verify an indistinct suspicion, if
+possible. I put on my hat and walked hurriedly over to the office
+of the registrar.
+
+Sure enough, I found that Alfonso de Moche had been at the
+University that day, must have attended a lecture an hour or so
+before. Having nothing else to do, I hunted up some of his
+professors and tried to quiz them about him.
+
+As I had expected, they told me that he was an excellent student,
+though very quiet and reserved. His mind seemed to run along the
+line of engineering, and particularly mining. I could not help
+coming to the conclusion that undoubtedly he, too, was infected by
+the furore for treasure hunting, in spite of his Indian ancestry.
+
+Yet there seemed to be surprisingly little known about him outside
+of the lecture room and laboratory. The profesors knew that he
+lived with his mother at a hotel downtown. He seemed to have
+little or nothing to do with the other students outside of class
+work. Altogether he was an enigma, as far as the social life of
+the University went. It looked very much as though he had come to
+New York quietly to prepare himself for the search for the buried
+treasure. Had the Gold of the Gods lured him into its net, too?
+
+Reflecting on the tangle of events, the strange actions of
+Lockwood and the ambitions of Whitney, I retraced my steps in the
+direction of the laboratory, convinced that de Moche had employed
+at least a part of his time lately in spying on us. Perhaps he had
+seen Inez going in and out. Suddenly it flashed over me that the
+interchange of glances between de Moche and Lockwood indicated
+that she was more to him than a mere acquaintance. Perhaps it had
+been jealousy as well as treasure hunting that had prompted his
+eavesdropping.
+
+Still reflecting, I decided to turn in at the Museum and have a
+chat with Norton. I found him nervously pacing up and down the
+little office that had been accorded him in his section of the
+building.
+
+"I can't rid my mind of that warning," he remarked anxiously,
+pausing in his measured tread. "It seems inconceivable to me that
+any one would take the trouble to send four such warnings unless
+he meant it."
+
+"Quite so," I agreed, relating to him what had just happened.
+
+"I thought of something like that," he acquiesced, "and I have
+already taken some precautions."
+
+Norton waved his hand at the windows, which I had not noticed
+before. Though they were some distance above the ground, I saw now
+that he had closed and barred them at the expense of ventilation.
+The warnings seemed to have made more of an impression on him than
+on any of the rest of us.
+
+"One never can tell where or when a blow will fall with these
+people," he explained. "You see, I've lived among them. They are a
+hot-blooded race. Besides, as you perhaps have read, they have
+some queer poisons down in South America. I mean to run no
+unnecessary chances."
+
+"I suppose you suspected all along that the dagger had something
+to do with the Gold of the Gods, did you not?" I hinted.
+
+Norton paused before answering, as though to weigh his words.
+"Suspected--yes," he replied. "But, as I told you, I have had no
+chance to read the inscription on it. I can't say that I took it
+very seriously--until now."
+
+"It's not possible that Stuart Whitney, who, I understand, is
+deeply interested in South America, may have had some inkling of
+the value of the dagger, is it?" I asked thoughtfully.
+
+For a full minute Norton gazed at me. "I hadn't thought of that,"
+he admitted at length. "That's a new idea to me."
+
+Yet somehow I knew that Norton had thought of it, though he had
+not yet spoken about it. Was it through loyalty to the man who had
+contributed to financing his expeditions to South America?
+
+"Do you know Senora de Moche well?" I ventured, a moment later.
+
+"Fairly well," he replied. "Why?"
+
+"What do you think of her?"
+
+"Rather a clever woman," he replied noncommittally.
+
+"I suppose all the people in New York who were interested in Peru
+knew her," I pursued, adding, "Mr. Whitney, Mendoza, Lockwood."
+
+Norton hesitated, as though he was afraid of saying too much.
+While I could not help admiring his caution, I found that it was
+most exasperating. Still, I was determined to get at his point of
+view, if possible.
+
+"Alfonso seems to be a worthy son, then," I remarked. "I can't
+quite make out, though, why the Senorita should have such an
+obvious prejudice against her. It doesn't seem to extend to him."
+
+"I believe," replied Norton reluctantly, "that Mendoza had been on
+rather intimate terms with her. At least, I think you'll find the
+woman very ambitious for her son. I don't think she would have
+stopped at much to advance his interests. You must have noticed
+how much Alfonso thinks of the Senorita. But I don't think there
+was anything that could have overcome the old Castilian's
+prejudice. You know they pride themselves on never intermarrying.
+With Lockwood it would have been different."
+
+I thought I began to get some glimmering of how things were.
+
+"Whitney knows her pretty well now, doesn't he?" I shot out.
+
+Norton shrugged his shoulders. But he could not have acquiesced
+better than by his very manner.
+
+"Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney know best what they are doing," he
+remarked, at length. "Why don't you and Kennedy try to see Senora
+de Moche? I'm a scientist, you know. I dislike talking about
+speculations. I'd prefer only to express opinions about things
+that are certainties."
+
+Perhaps Norton wished to convey the impression that the subjects I
+had broached were worth looking into. At least it was the
+impression I derived.
+
+"Still," he continued slowly, "I think I am justified in saying
+this much: I myself have been interested in watching both Alfonso
+de Moche and Lockwood when it comes to the case of the Senorita.
+All's fair, they say, in love and war. If I am any judge, there
+are both in this case, somewhere. I think you had better see the
+Senora and judge for yourself. She's a clever woman, I know. But
+I'm sure that Kennedy could make her out, even if the rest of us
+can't."
+
+I thanked Norton for the hint that he had given, and after
+chatting a few moments more left him alone in his office.
+
+In my room again, I went back to finish my writing. Nothing
+further occurred, however, to excite my suspicions, and at last I
+managed to finish it.
+
+I was correcting what I had written when the door opened from the
+laboratory and Craig entered. He had thrown off his old, acid-
+stained laboratory smock and was now dressed to venture forth.
+
+"Have you found out anything about the poison?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing definite yet," he replied. "That will take some time now.
+It's a strange poison--an alkaloid, I'm sure, but not one that one
+ordinarily encounters. Still, I've made a good beginning. It won't
+take long to determine it now."
+
+Craig listened with deep interest, though without comment, when I
+related what had happened, both Norton's conversation and about
+the strange visitor whom we had had peering into our windows.
+
+"Some one seems to be very much interested in what we are doing,
+Walter," he concluded simply. "I think we'd better do a little
+more outside work now, while we have a chance. If you are ready,
+so am I. I want to see what sort of treasure hunter this Stuart
+Whitney is. I'd like to know whether he is in on this secret of
+the Gold of the Gods, too."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE WALL STREET PROMOTER
+
+
+Lockwood, as we now knew, had become allied in some way with a
+group of Wall Street capitalists, headed by Stuart Whitney.
+
+Already I had heard something of Whitney. In the Street he was
+well known as an intensely practical man, though far above the
+average exploiter both in cleverness and education.
+
+As a matter of fact, Whitney had been far-sighted enough to see
+that scholarship could be capitalized, not only as an
+advertisement, but in more direct manners. Just at present one of
+his pet schemes was promoting trade through the canal between the
+east coast of North America and the west coast of South America.
+He had spent a good deal of money promoting friendship between men
+of affairs and wealth in both New York and Lima. It was a good
+chance, he figured, for his investments down in Peru were large,
+and anything that popularized the country in New York could not
+but make them more valuable.
+
+"Norton seemed rather averse to talking about Whitney," I ventured
+to Craig, as we rode downtown.
+
+"That may be part of Whitney's cleverness," he returned
+thoughtfully. "As a patron of art and letters, you know, a man can
+carry through a good many things that otherwise would be more
+critically examined."
+
+Kennedy did not say it in a way that implied that he knew anything
+very bad about Whitney. Still, I reflected, it was astute in the
+man to insure the cooperation of such people as Norton. A few
+thousand dollars judiciously spent on archaeology might cover up a
+multitude of sins of high finance.
+
+Nothing more was said by either of us, and at last we reached the
+financial district. We entered a tall skyscraper on Wall Street
+just around the corner from Broadway and shot up in the elevator
+to the floor where Whitney and his associates had a really
+palatial suite of offices.
+
+As we opened the door we saw that Lockwood was still there. He
+greeted us with a rather stiff bow.
+
+"Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," he said simply, introducing
+us to Whitney, "friends of Professor Norton, I believe. I met them
+to-day up at Mendoza's."
+
+"That is a most incomprehensible affair," returned Whitney,
+shaking hands with us. "What do you make out of it?"
+
+Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and turned the remark aside without
+committing himself.
+
+Stuart Whitney was a typical promoter, a large, full-blooded man,
+with a face red and inclined to be puffy from the congested veins.
+His voice alone commanded respect, whether he said anything worth
+while or not. In fact, he had but to say that it was a warm day
+and you felt that he had scored a telling point in the
+conversation.
+
+"Professor Norton has asked me to look into the loss of an old
+Peruvian dagger which he brought back from his last expedition,"
+explained Kennedy, endeavouring to lead the conversation in
+channels which might arrive somewhere.
+
+"Yes, yes," remarked Whitney, with a nod of interest. "He has told
+me of it. Very strange, very strange. When he came back he told me
+that he had it, along with a lot of other important finds. But I
+had no idea he set such a value on it--or, rather, that any one
+else might do so. It would have been easy to have safeguarded it
+here, if we had known," he added, with a wave of his hand in the
+direction of a huge chrome steel safe of latest design in the
+outer office.
+
+Lockwood, I noted, was listening intently, quite in contrast with
+his former cavalier manner of dismissing all consideration of
+ancient Inca lore as academic or unpractical. Did he know
+something of the dagger?
+
+"I'm very much interested in old Peruvian antiquities myself,"
+remarked Kennedy, a few minutes later, "though not, of course, a
+scholar like our friend Norton."
+
+"Indeed?" returned Whitney; and I noticed for the first time that
+his eyes seemed fairly to glitter with excitement.
+
+They were prominent eyes, a trifle staring, and I could not help
+studying them.
+
+"Then," he exclaimed, rising, "you must know of the ruins of Chan-
+Chan, of Chima--those wonderful places?"
+
+Kennedy nodded. "And of Truxillo and the legend of the great fish
+and the little fish," he put in.
+
+Whitney seemed extraordinarily pleased that any one should be
+willing to discuss his hobby with him. His eyes by this time were
+apparently starting from their sockets, and I noticed that the
+pupils were dilated almost to the size of the iris.
+
+"We must sit down and talk about Peru," he continued, reaching for
+a large box of cigarettes in the top drawer of his big desk.
+
+Lockwood seemed to sense a long discussion of archaeology. He rose
+and mumbled an excuse about having something to do in the outer
+office.
+
+"Oh, it is a wonderful country, Professor Kennedy," went on
+Whitney, throwing himself back in his chair. "I am deeply
+interested in it--its mines, its railroads, as well as its
+history. Let me show you a map of our interests down there."
+
+He rose and passed into the next room to get the map. The moment
+his back was turned, Kennedy reached over to a typewriter desk
+that stood in a corner of the office, left open by the
+stenographer, who had gone. He took two thin second sheets of
+paper and a new carbon sheet. A hasty dab or two of the library
+paste completed his work.
+
+Carefully Craig laid the prepared paper on the floor just a few
+inches from the door into the outer office and scattered a few
+other sheets about, as though the wind had blown them off the
+desk.
+
+As Whitney returned, a big map unrolled in his hands, I saw his
+foot fall on the double sheet that Craig had laid by the door.
+
+Kennedy bent down and began picking up the papers.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," remarked Whitney brusquely. "Never mind
+that. Here's where some of our interests lie, in the north."
+
+I don't think I paid much more attention to the map than did
+Kennedy as we three bent over it. His real attention was on the
+paper which he had placed on the floor, as though fixing in his
+mind the exact spot on which Whitney had stepped.
+
+As Whitney talked rapidly about the country, we lighted the
+cigarettes. They seemed to be of a special brand. I puffed mine
+for a moment. There was a peculiar taste about it, however, which
+I did not exactly like. In fact, I think that the Latin-American
+cigarettes do not seem to appeal to most Americans very much,
+anyhow.
+
+While we talked, I noticed that Kennedy evidently shared my own
+tastes, for he allowed his cigarette to go out, and, after a puff
+or two, I did the same. For the sake of my own comfort, I drew one
+of my own from my case as soon as I could do so politely, and laid
+the stub of the other in an ash-tray on Whitney's desk.
+
+"Mr. Lockwood and Senor Mendoza had some joint interests in the
+country, too, didn't they?" queried Kennedy, his eye still on the
+pieces of paper near the door.
+
+"Yes," returned Whitney. "Lockwood!"
+
+"What is it?" came Lockwood's voice from outside.
+
+"Show Professor Kennedy where you and Mendoza have those
+concessions."
+
+The young engineer strode into the room, and I saw a smile of
+gratification cross Kennedy's face as his foot, also, fell on the
+paper by the door.
+
+Unlike Whitney, however, Lockwood bent over to gather up the
+sheets. But before he could actually do so Kennedy reached down
+and swept them just out of his reach.
+
+"Quite breezy," Kennedy covered up his action, turning to restore
+the paper to the desk.
+
+Craig had his back to them, but not to me, and I saw him fumble
+for an instant with the papers. Quickly he pressed his thumb-nail
+on one side, as though making a rough "W," while on the other side
+he made what might be an "L." Then he shoved the two sheets and
+the carbon into his pocket.
+
+I glanced up hastily. Fortunately, neither Whitney nor Lockwood
+had noted his action.
+
+For the first time, now, I noticed as I watched him that
+Lockwood's eyes, too, were a trifle stary, though not so
+noticeable as Whitney's.
+
+"Let me see," continued Whitney, "your concessions are all about
+here, in the north, aren't they?"
+
+Lockwood drew a pencil from his pocket and made several cross-
+marks over the names of some towns on the large map.
+
+"Those are the points that we had proposed to work," he said
+simply, "before this terrible tragedy to Mendoza."
+
+"Mining, you understand," explained Whitney. Then, after a pause,
+he resumed quickly. "Of course, you know that much has been said
+about the chances for mining investments and about the
+opportunities for fortunes for persons in South America. Peru has
+been the Mecca for fortune hunters since the days of Pizarro. But
+where one person has been successful thousands have failed because
+they don't know the game. Why, I know of one investment of
+hundreds of thousands that hasn't yielded a cent of profit just
+because of that."
+
+Lockwood said nothing, evidently not caring to waste time or
+breath on any one who was not a possible investor. But Whitney had
+the true promoter's instinct of booming his scheme on the chance
+that the interest inspired might be carried to some third party.
+
+"American financiers, it is true," he went on excitedly, taking
+out a beautifully chased gold cigarette case, "have lost millions
+in mining in Peru. But that is not the scheme that our group,
+including Mr. Lockwood now, has. We are going to make more
+millions than they ever dreamed of--because we are simply going to
+mine for the products of centuries of labour already done--for the
+great treasure of Truxillo."
+
+One could not help becoming infected by Whitney's enthusiasm.
+
+Kennedy was following him closely, while a frown of disapproval
+spread over Lockwood's face.
+
+"Then you know the secret of the hiding-place of the treasure?"
+queried Kennedy abruptly.
+
+Whitney shook his head in the negative. "It is my idea that we
+don't have to know it," he answered. "With the hints that we have
+collected from the natives, I think we can locate it with the
+expenditure of comparatively little time and money. Senor Mendoza
+has obtained the concession from the government to hunt for it on
+a large scale in the big mounds about Truxillo. We know it is
+there. Is not that enough?"
+
+If it had been any one less than Whitney, we should probably have
+said it was not. But it took more than that to deny anything he
+asserted. Lockwood's face was a study. I cannot say that it
+betrayed anything except disapproval of the mere discussion of the
+subject. In fact, it left me in doubt as to whether Whitney
+himself might not have been bluffing, in the certainty of finding
+the treasure--perhaps had already the secret he denied having and
+was preparing to cover it up by stumbling on it, apparently, in
+some other way. I recognized in Stuart Whitney as smooth an
+individual as ever we had encountered. His was all the sincerity
+of a crook. Yet he contrived to leave the whole matter in doubt.
+Perhaps in this case he actually knew what he was talking about.
+
+The telephone rang and Lockwood answered it. Though he did not
+mention her name, I knew from his very tone and manner that it was
+Senorita de Mendoza who was calling up. Evidently his continued
+absence had worried her.
+
+"There's absolutely nothing to worry about," we heard him say.
+"Nothing has changed. I shall be up to see you as soon as I can
+get away from the office."
+
+There was an air of restraint about Lockwood's remarks, not as
+though he were keeping anything from the Senorita, but as though
+he were reluctant for us to overhear anything about his affairs.
+
+Lockwood had been smoking, too, and he added the stubs of his
+cigarettes to the pile in the ash-tray on Whitney's desk. Once I
+saw Craig cast a quick glance at the tray, and I understood that
+in some way he was anxious to have a chance to investigate those
+cigarettes.
+
+"You saw the dagger which Norton brought back, did you not?" asked
+Kennedy of Whitney.
+
+"Only as I saw the rest of the stuff after it was unpacked," he
+replied easily. "He brought back a great many interesting objects
+on this last trip."
+
+It was apparent that whether he actually knew anything about the
+secret of the Inca dagger or not, Whitney was not to be trapped
+into betraying it. I had an idea that Lockwood was interested in
+knowing that fact, too. At any rate, one could not be sure whether
+these two were perfectly frank with each other, or were playing a
+game for high stakes between themselves.
+
+Lockwood seemed eager to get away and, with a hasty glance at his
+watch, rose.
+
+"If you wish to find me, I shall be with Senorita de Mendoza," he
+said, taking his hat and stick, and bowing to us.
+
+Whitney rose and accompanied him to the door in the outer office,
+his arm on his shoulder, conversing in a low tone that was
+inaudible to us.
+
+No sooner, however, had the two passed through the door, with
+their backs toward us, than Kennedy reached over quickly and swept
+the contents of the ash-tray, cigarette stubs, ashes, and all,
+into an empty envelope which was lying with some papers. Then he
+sealed it and shoved it into his pocket, with a sidelong glance of
+satisfaction at me.
+
+"Evidently Mr. Lockwood and the Senorita are on intimate terms,"
+hazarded Kennedy, as Whitney rejoined us.
+
+"Poor little girl," soliloquized the promoter. "Yes, indeed. And
+Lockwood is a lucky dog, too. Such eyes, such a figure--did you
+ever see a more beautiful woman?"
+
+One could not help recognizing that whatever else Whitney might
+have said that did not ring true his admiration for the
+unfortunate girl was genuine. That was not so remarkable, however.
+It could hardly have been otherwise.
+
+"You are acquainted, I suppose, with a Senora de Moche?" ventured
+Kennedy again, taking a chance shot.
+
+Whitney looked at him keenly. "Yes," he agreed, "I have had some
+dealings with her. She was an acquaintance of old Mendoza's--a
+woman of the world, clever, shrewd. I think she has but one
+ambition--her son. You have met her?"
+
+"Not the Senora," admitted Craig, "but her son is a student at the
+University."
+
+"Oh, yes, to be sure," said Whitney. "A fine fellow--but not of
+the type of Lockwood."
+
+Why he should have coupled the names was not clear for the moment.
+But he had risen, and was moving deliberately up and down the
+office, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, as though he were
+thinking of something very perplexing.
+
+"If I were younger," he remarked finally, of a sudden, "I would
+give both of them a race for that girl. She is the greatest
+treasure that has ever come out of the country. Ah, well--as it
+is, I would not place my money on young de Moche!"
+
+Kennedy had risen to go.
+
+"I trust you will be able to unearth some clue regarding that
+dagger," said Whitney, as we moved toward the door. "It seems to
+have worried Norton considerably, especially since you told him
+that Mendoza was undoubtedly murdered with it."
+
+Evidently Norton kept in close touch with his patron, but Kennedy
+did not appear to be surprised at it.
+
+"I am doing my best," he returned. "I suppose I may count on your
+help as the case develops?"
+
+"Absolutely," replied Whitney, accompanying us out into the hall
+to the elevator. "I shall back Norton in anything he wants to keep
+the Peruvian collection intact and protected."
+
+Our questions were as yet unanswered. Not only had we no inkling
+as to the whereabouts of the dagger, but the source of the four
+warnings that had been sent us was still as much shrouded in
+mystery.
+
+Kennedy beckoned to a passing taxicab.
+
+"The Prince Edward Albert," he directed briefly.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE CURSE OF MANSICHE
+
+
+We entered the Prince Edward Albert a few minutes later, one of
+the new and beautiful family hotels uptown.
+
+Before making any inquiries, Craig gave a hasty look about the
+lobby. Suddenly I felt him take my arm and draw me over to a
+little alcove on one side. I followed the direction of his eyes.
+There I could see young Alfonso de Moche talking to a woman much
+older than himself.
+
+"That must be his mother," whispered Craig. "You can see the
+resemblance. Let's sit here awhile behind these palms and watch."
+
+They seemed to be engaged in an earnest conversation about
+something. Even as they talked, though we could not guess what it
+was about, it was evident that Alfonso was dearer than life to the
+woman and that the young man was a model son. Though I felt that I
+must admire them each for it, still, I reflected, that was no
+reason why we should not suspect them--perhaps rather a reason for
+suspecting.
+
+Senora de Moche was a woman of well-preserved middle age, a large
+woman, with dark hair and contrasting full, red lips. Her face, in
+marked contradiction to her Parisian costume and refined manners,
+had a slight copper swarthiness about it which spoke eloquently of
+her ancestry.
+
+But it was her eyes that arrested and held one's attention most.
+Whether it was in the eyes themselves or in the way that she used
+them, there could be no mistake about the almost hypnotic power
+that their owner possessed. I could not help wondering whether she
+might not have exercised it on Don Luis, perhaps was using it in
+some way to influence Whitney. Was that the reason why the
+Senorita so evidently feared her?
+
+Fortunately, from our vantage point, we could see without being in
+any danger of being seen.
+
+"There's Whitney," I heard Craig mutter under his breath.
+
+I looked up and saw the promoter enter from his car. At almost the
+same instant the roving eyes of the Senora seemed to catch sight
+of him. He came over and spoke to the de Moches, standing with
+them several minutes. I fancied that not for an instant did she
+allow the gaze of any one else to distract her in the projection
+of whatever weird ocular power nature had endowed her with. If it
+were a battle of eyes, I recollected the strange look that I had
+noted about those of both Whitney and Lockwood. That, however, was
+different from the impression one got of the Senora's. I felt that
+she would have to be pretty clever to match the subtlety of
+Whitney.
+
+Whatever it was they were talking about, one could see that
+Whitney and Senora de Moche were on very familiar terms. At the
+same time, young de Moche appeared to be ill at ease. Perhaps he
+did not approve of the intimacy with Whitney. At any rate, he
+seemed visibly relieved when the promoter excused himself and
+walked over to the desk to get his mail and then out into the
+cafe.
+
+"I'd like to get a better view of her," remarked Kennedy, rising.
+"Let us take a turn or two along the corridor and pass them."
+
+We sauntered forth from our alcove and strolled down among the
+various knots of people chatting and laughing. As we passed the
+woman and her son, I was conscious again of that strange feeling,
+which psychologists tell us, however, has no real foundation, of
+being stared at from behind.
+
+At the lower end of the lobby Kennedy turned suddenly and we
+started to retrace our steps. Alfonso's back was toward us now.
+Again we passed them, just in time to catch the words, in a low
+tone, from the young man, "Yes, I have seen him at the University.
+Every one there knows that he is--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost. But it was not difficult to
+reconstruct. It referred undoubtedly to the activities of Kennedy
+in unravelling mysteries.
+
+"It's quite evident," I suggested, "that they know that we are
+interested in them now."
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "There wasn't any use of watching them further
+from under cover. I wanted them to see me, just to find out what
+they would do."
+
+Kennedy was right. Indeed, even before we turned again, we found
+that the Senora and Alfonso had risen and were making their way
+slowly to the elevators, still talking earnestly. The lifts were
+around an angle, and before we could place ourselves so that we
+could observe them again they were gone.
+
+"I wish there was some way of adding Alfonso's shoe-prints to my
+collection," observed Craig. "The marks that I found in the dust
+of the sarcophagus in the Museum were those of a man's shoes.
+However, I suppose I must wait to get them."
+
+He walked over to the desk and made inquiries about the de Moches
+and Whitney. Each had a suite on the eighth floor, though on
+opposite sides and at opposite ends of the hall.
+
+"There's no use wasting time trying to conceal our identity now,"
+remarked Kennedy finally, drawing a card from his case. "Besides,
+we came here to see them, anyhow." He handed the card to the
+clerk. "Senora de Moche, please," he said.
+
+The clerk took the card and telephoned up to the de Moche suite. I
+must say that it was somewhat to my surprise that the Senora
+telephoned down to say that she would receive us in her own
+sitting room.
+
+"That's very kind," commented Craig, as I followed him into the
+elevator. "It saves planning some roundabout way of meeting her
+and comes directly to the point."
+
+The elevator whisked us up directly to the eighth floor and we
+stepped out into the heavily carpeted hallway, passing down to
+Room 810, which was the number of her suite. Further on, in 825,
+was Whitney's.
+
+Alfonso was not there. Evidently he had not ridden up with his
+mother, after all, but had gone out through another entrance on
+the ground floor. The Senora was alone.
+
+"I hope that you will pardon me for intruding," began Craig, with
+as plausible an explanation as he could muster, "but I have become
+interested in an opportunity to invest in a Peruvian venture, and
+I have heard that you are a Peruvian. Your son, Alfonso, I have
+already met, once. I thought that perhaps you might be able to
+give me some advice." She looked at us keenly, but said nothing. I
+fancied that she detected the subterfuge. Yet she had not tried,
+and did not try now to avoid us. Either she had no connection with
+the case we were investigating or she was an adept actress.
+
+On closer view, her eyes were really even more remarkable than I
+had imagined at a distance. They were those of a woman endowed
+with an abundance of health and energy, eyes that were full of
+what the old character readers used to call "amativeness,"
+denoting a nature capable of intense passion, whether of love or
+hate. Yet I confess that I could not find anything especially
+abnormal about them, as I had about the eyes of Lockwood and
+Whitney.
+
+It was some time before she replied, and I gave a hasty glance
+about the apartment. Of course, it had been rented furnished, but
+she had rearranged it, adding some touches of her own which gave
+it quite a Peruvian appearance, due perhaps more to the pictures
+and the ornaments which she had introduced rather than anything
+else.
+
+"I suppose," she replied, at length, slowly, and looking at us as
+if she would bore right through into our minds, "I suppose you
+mean the schemes of Mr. Lockwood--and Mr. Whitney."
+
+Kennedy was not to be taken by surprise. "I have heard of their
+schemes, too," he replied noncommittally. "Peru seems to be a
+veritable storehouse of tales of buried treasure."
+
+"Let me tell you about it," she hastened, nodding at the very
+words "buried treasure." "I suppose you know that the old Chimu
+tribes in the north were the wealthiest at the time of the coming
+of the Spaniards?"
+
+Craig nodded, and a moment later she resumed, as if trying to
+marshal her thoughts in a logical order. "They had a custom then
+of burying with their dead all their movable property. Graves were
+not dug separately. Therefore, you see, sometimes a common grave,
+or huaca, as it is called, would be given to many. That huaca
+would become a cache of treasure in time. It was sacred to the
+dead, and hence it was wicked to touch it."
+
+The Senora's face betrayed the fact that, whatever modern
+civilization had done for her, it had not yet quite succeeded in
+eliminating the old ideas.
+
+"Back in the early part of the seventeenth century," she
+continued, leaning forward in her chair eagerly as she talked, "a
+Spaniard opened a Chimu huaca and found gold that is said to have
+been worth more than a million dollars. An Indian told him about
+it. Who the Indian was does not matter. But the Spaniard was an
+ancestor of Don Luis de Mendoza, who was found murdered to-day."
+
+She stopped short, seeming to enjoy the surprised look on our
+faces at finding that she was willing to discuss the matter so
+intimately.
+
+"After the Indian had shown the Spaniard the treasure in the
+mound," she pursued, "the Indian told the Spaniard that he had
+given him only the little fish, the peje chica, but that some day
+he would give him the big fish, the peje grande. I see that you
+already know at least a part of the story, anyhow." "Yes,"
+admitted Kennedy, "I do know something of it. But I should rather
+get it more accurately from your lips than from the hearsay of any
+one else."
+
+She smiled quietly to herself. "I don't believe," she added, "that
+you know that the _peje grande_ was not ordinary treasure. It was
+the temple gold. Why, some of the temples were literally plated
+over heavily with pure gold. That gold, as well as what had been
+buried in the huacas, was sacred. Mansiche, the supreme ruler,
+laid a curse on it, on any Indian who would tell of it, on any
+Spaniard who might learn of it. A curse lies on the finding--yes,
+even on the searching for the sacred Gold of the Gods. It is one
+of the most awful curses that have ever been uttered, that curse
+of Mansiche."
+
+Even as she spoke of it she lowered her voice. I felt that no
+matter how much education she had, there lurked back in her brain
+some of the primitive impulses, as well as beliefs. Either the
+curse of Mansiche on the treasure was as real to her as if its
+mere touch were poisonous, or else she was going out of her way to
+create that impression with us.
+
+"Somehow," she continued, in a low tone, "that Spaniard, the
+ancestor of Don Luis Mendoza, obtained some idea of the secret. He
+died," she said solemnly, flashing a glance at Craig from her
+wonderful eyes to stamp the idea indelibly. "He was stabbed by one
+of the members of the tribe. On the dagger, so I have heard, was
+marked the secret of the treasure."
+
+I felt that in a bygone age she might have made a great priestess
+of the heathen gods. Now, was she more than a clever actress?
+
+She paused, then added, "That is my tribe--my family."
+
+Again she paused. "For centuries the big fish was a secret, is
+still a secret--or, at least, was until some one got it from my
+brother down in Peru. The tradition and the dagger had been
+intrusted to him. I don't know how it happened. Somehow he seemed
+to grow crazy--until he talked. The dagger was stolen from him.
+How it happened, how it came into Professor Norton's hands, I do
+not know.
+
+"But, at any rate," she continued, in the same solemn tone, "the
+curse has followed it. After my brother had told the secret of the
+dagger and lost it, his mind left him. He threw himself one day
+into Lake Titicaca."
+
+Her voice broke dramatically in her passionate outpouring of the
+tragedies that had followed the hidden treasure and the Inca
+dagger.
+
+"Now, here in New York, comes this awful death of Senor Mendoza,"
+she cried. "I don't know, no one knows, whether he had obtained
+the secret of the gold or not. At any rate, he must have thought
+he had it. He has been killed suddenly, in his own home. That is
+my answer to your inquiry about the treasure-hunting company you
+mentioned, whatever it may be. I need say no more of the curse of
+Mansiche. Is the Gold of the Gods worth it?"
+
+There could be no denying that it was real to her, whatever we
+might think of the story. I recollected the roughly printed
+warnings that had been sent to Norton, Leslie, Kennedy, and
+myself. Had they, then, some significance? I had not been able to
+convince myself that they were the work of a crank, alone. There
+must be some one to whom the execution of vengeance of the gods
+was an imperative duty. Unsuperstitious as I was, I saw here a
+real danger. If some one, either to preserve the secret for
+himself or else called by divine mandate to revenge, should take a
+notion to carry out the threats in the four notes, what might not
+happen?
+
+"I cannot tell you much more of fact than you probably already
+know," she remarked, watching our faces intently and noting the
+effect of every word. "You know, I suppose, that the treasure has
+always been believed to be in a large mound, a tumulus I think you
+call it, visible from our town of Truxillo. Many people have tried
+to open it, but the mass of sand pours down on them and they have
+been discouraged."
+
+"No one has ever stumbled on the secret?" queried Kennedy.
+
+She shook her head. "There have been those who have sought, there
+are even those who are seeking, the point just where to bore into
+the mounds. If they could find it, they plan to construct a well-
+timbered tunnel to keep back the sand and to drive it at the right
+point to obtain this fabulous wealth."
+
+She vouchsafed the last information with a sort of quiet assurance
+that conveyed the idea, without her saying it directly, that any
+such venture was somehow doomed to failure, that desecrators were
+merely toying with fate.
+
+All through her story one could see that she felt deeply the
+downfall and betrayal of her brother, followed by the tragedy to
+him after the age-old secret had slipped from his grasp. Was there
+still to be vengeance for his downfall? Surely, I thought to
+myself, Don Luis de Mendoza could not have been in possession of
+the secret, unless he had arrived at it, with Lockwood, in some
+other way than by deciphering the almost illegible marks of the
+dagger. I thought of Whitney. Had he perhaps had something to do
+with the nasty business?
+
+I happened to glance at a huge pile of works on mining engineering
+on the table, the property of Alfonso. She saw me looking at them,
+and her eyes assumed a far-away, dreamy impression as she murmured
+something.
+
+"You must know that we real Peruvians have been so educated that
+we never explore ruins for hidden treasure, not even if we have
+the knowledge of engineering to do so. It is a sort of sacrilege
+to us to do that. The gold was not our gold, you see. Some of it
+belongs to the spirits of the departed. But the big treasure
+belonged to the gods themselves. It was the gold which lay in
+sheets over the temple walls, sacred. No, we would not touch it."
+
+I wondered cynically what would happen if some one at that moment
+had appeared with the authenticated secret. She continued to gaze
+at the books. "There are plenty of rare chances for a young mining
+engineer in Peru without that."
+
+Apparently she was thinking of her son and his studies at the
+University as they affected his future career.
+
+One could follow her thoughts, even, as they flitted from the
+treasure, to the books, to her son, and, finally, to the pretty
+girl for whom both he and Lockwood were struggling.
+
+"We are a peculiar race," she ruminated. "We seldom intermarry
+with other races. We are as proud as Senor Mendoza was of his
+Castilian descent, as proud of our unmixed lineage as any
+descendant of a 'belted earl.'"
+
+Senora de Moche made the remarks with a quiet dignity which left
+no doubt in my mind that the race feeling cut deeply.
+
+She had risen now, and in place of the awesome fear of the curse
+and tragedy of the treasure her face was burning and her eyes
+flashed.
+
+"Old Don Luis thought I was good enough to amuse his idle hours,"
+she cried. "But when he saw that Alfonso was in love with his
+daughter, that she might return that love, then I found out
+bitterly that he placed us in another class, another caste."
+
+Kennedy had been following her closely, and I could see now that
+the cross-currents of superstition, avarice, and race hatred in
+the case presented a tangle that challenged him.
+
+There was nothing more that we could extract from her just then.
+She had remained standing, as a gentle reminder that the interview
+had already been long.
+
+Kennedy took the hint. "I wish to thank you for the trouble you
+have gone to," he bowed, after we, too, had risen. "You have told
+me quite enough to make me think seriously before I join in any
+such undertaking."
+
+She smiled enigmatically. Whether it was that she had enjoyed
+penetrating our rather clumsy excuse for seeing her, or that she
+felt that the horror of the curse had impressed us, she seemed
+well content.
+
+We bowed ourselves out, and, after waiting a few moments about the
+hotel without seeing Whitney anywhere, Craig called a car.
+
+"They were right," was his only comment. "A most baffling woman,
+indeed."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ARROW POISON
+
+
+Back again in the laboratory, Kennedy threw off his coat and
+plunged again into his investigation of the blood sample he had
+taken from the wound in Mendoza's body.
+
+We had scarcely been back half an hour before the door opened and
+Dr. Leslie's perplexed face looked in on us. He was carrying a
+large jar, in which he had taken away the materials which he
+wished to examine.
+
+"Well," asked Kennedy, pausing with a test-tube poised over a
+Bunsen burner, "have you found anything yet? I haven't had time to
+get very far with my own tests yet."
+
+"Not a blessed thing," returned the coroner. "I'm desperate. One
+of the chemists suggested cyanide, another carbon monoxide. But
+there is no trace of either. Then he suggested nux vomica. It
+wasn't nux vomica; but my tests show that it must have been
+something very much like it. I've looked for all the ordinary
+known poisons and some of the little-known alkaloids, but,
+Kennedy, I always get back to the same point. There must have been
+a poison there. He did not die primarily of the wound. It was
+asphyxia due to a poison that really killed him, though the wound
+might have done so, but not quite so quickly."
+
+I could tell by the look that crossed Kennedy's face that at last
+a ray of light had pierced the darkness. He reached for a bottle
+on the shelf labelled spirits of turpentine.
+
+Then he poured a little of the blood sample from the jar which the
+coroner had brought into a clean tube and added a few drops of the
+spirits of turpentine. A cloudy, dark precipitate formed. He
+smiled quietly, and said, half to himself, "I thought so."
+
+"What is it?" asked the coroner eagerly, "nux vomica?"
+
+Craig shook his head as he stared at the black precipitate. "You
+were perfectly right about the asphyxiation, Doctor," he remarked
+slowly, "but wrong as to the cause. It was a poison--one you would
+never dream of."
+
+"What is it?" Leslie and I asked simultaneously.
+
+"Let me take all these samples and make some further tests," he
+said. "I am quite sure of it, but it is new to me. By the way, may
+I trouble you and Leslie to go over to the Museum of Natural
+History with a letter?"
+
+It was evident that he wanted to work uninterrupted, and we agreed
+readily, especially because by going we might also be of some use
+in solving the mystery of the poison.
+
+He sat down and wrote a hasty note to the director of the Museum,
+and a few moments later we were speeding over in Leslie's car.
+
+At the big building we had no trouble in finding the director and
+presenting the note. He was a close friend of Kennedy's and more
+than willing to aid him in any way.
+
+"You will excuse me a moment?" he apologized. "I will get from the
+South American exhibit just what he wants."
+
+We waited several minutes in the office until finally he returned
+carrying a gourd, incrusted on its hollow inside surface with a
+kind of blackish substance.
+
+"That is what he wants, I think," the director remarked, wrapping
+it up carefully in a box. "I don't need to ask you to tell
+Professor Kennedy to watch out how he handles the thing. He
+understands all about it."
+
+We thanked the director and hurried out into the car again,
+carrying the package, after his warning, as though it were so much
+dynamite.
+
+Altogether, I don't suppose that we could have been gone more than
+an hour.
+
+We burst into the laboratory, but, to my surprise, I did not see
+Kennedy at his table. I stopped short and looked around.
+
+There he was over in the corner, sprawled out in a chair, a tank
+of oxygen beside him, from which he was inhaling laboriously
+copious draughts. He rose as he saw us and walked unsteadily
+toward the table.
+
+"Why--what's the matter?" I cried, certain that m our absence an
+attempt had been made on his life, perhaps to carry out the threat
+of the curse.
+
+"N-nothing," he gasped, with an attempt at a smile. "Only I--think
+I was right--about the poison."
+
+I did not like the way he looked. His hand was unsteady and his
+eyes looked badly. But he seemed quite put out when I suggested
+that he was working too hard over the case and had better take a
+turn outdoors with us and have a bite to eat.
+
+"You--you got it?" he asked, seizing the package that contained
+the gourd and unwrapping it nervously.
+
+He laid the gourd on the table, on which were also several jars of
+various liquids and a number of other chemicals. At the end of the
+table was a large, square package, from which sounds issued, as if
+it contained something alive.
+
+"Tell me," I persisted, "what has happened. Has any one been here
+since we have been gone?"
+
+"Not a soul," he answered, working his arms and shoulders as if to
+get rid of some heavy weight that oppressed his chest.
+
+"Then what has happened that makes you use the oxygen?" I
+repeated, determined to get some kind of answer from him.
+
+He turned to Leslie. "It was no ordinary asphyxiation, Doctor," he
+said quickly.
+
+Leslie nodded. "I could see that," he admitted.
+
+"We have to deal in this case," continued Kennedy, his will-power
+overcoming his weakness, "with a poison which is apparently among
+the most subtle known. A particle of matter so minute as to be
+hardly distinguishable by the naked eye, on the point of a lancet
+or needle, a prick of the skin not anything like that wound of
+Mendoza's, were necessary. But, fortunately, more of the poison
+was used, making it just that much easier to trace, though for the
+time the wound, which might itself easily have been fatal, threw
+us off the scent. But given these things, not all the power in the
+world--unless one was fully prepared--could save the life of the
+person in whose flesh the wound was made."
+
+Craig paused a moment, and we listened breathlessly.
+
+"This poison, I find, acts on the so-called endplates of the
+muscles and nerves. It produces complete paralysis, but not loss
+of consciousness, sensation, circulation, or respiration until the
+end approaches. It seems to be one of the most powerful agents of
+which I have ever heard. When introduced in even a minute quantity
+it produces death finally by asphyxiation--by paralyzing the
+muscles of respiration. This asphyxia is what puzzled you,
+Leslie."
+
+He reached over and took a white mouse from the huge box on the
+corner of the table.
+
+"Let me show you what I have found," he said. "I am now going to
+inject a little of the blood serum of the murdered man into this
+white mouse."
+
+He took a needle and injected some of a liquid which he had
+isolated. The mouse did not even wince, so lightly did he touch
+it. But as we watched, its life seemed gently to ebb away, without
+pain, without struggle. Its breath simply seemed to stop.
+
+Next he took the gourd which we had brought and with a knife
+scraped off just the minutest particle of the black, licorice-like
+stuff that incrusted it. He dissolved the particle in some
+alcohol, and with a sterilized needle repeated his experiment on a
+second mouse. The effect was precisely similar to that produced by
+the blood on the first.
+
+I was intent on what Craig was doing when Dr. Leslie broke in with
+a question. "May I ask," he queried, "whether, admitting that the
+first mouse died at least apparently in the same manner as the
+second, you have proved that the poison is the same in both cases?
+And if it is the same, can you show that it affects human beings
+in the same way, that enough of it has been discovered in the
+blood of Mendoza to have caused his death? In other words, I want
+the last doubt set aside."
+
+If ever Craig startled me, it was by his quiet reply:
+
+"I've isolated it in his blood, extracted it, sterilized it, and
+I've tried it on myself."
+
+In breathless amazement, with eyes riveted on him, we listened.
+"Then that was what was the matter?" I blurted out. "You had been
+trying the poison on YOURSELF?"
+
+He nodded unconcernedly. "Altogether," he explained, as Leslie and
+I listened, speechless, "I was able to recover from both blood
+samples six centigrams of the poison. It is almost unknown. I
+could only be sure of what I discovered by testing the
+physiological effects. I was very careful. What else was there to
+do? I couldn't ask you fellows to try it, if I was afraid."
+
+"Good heavens!" gasped Leslie, "and alone, too."
+
+"You wouldn't have let me do it, if I hadn't got rid of you," he
+smiled quietly.
+
+Leslie shook his head. "Tried it on the dog and made himself the
+dog!" exclaimed Leslie. "I need the credit of a successful case--
+but I'll not take this one."
+
+Kennedy laughed.
+
+"Starting with two centigrams of the stuff as a moderate dose," he
+pursued, while I listened, stunned at his daring, "I injected it
+into my right arm subcutaneously. Then I slowly worked my way up
+to three and then four centigrams. You see what I had recovered
+was far from the real thing. They did not seem at first to produce
+any very appreciable results other than to cause some dizziness,
+slight vertigo, a considerable degree of lassitude, and an
+extremely painful headache of rather unusual duration."
+
+"Good night!" I exclaimed. "Didn't that satisfy you?"
+
+"Five centigrams considerably improved on it," he continued,
+paying no attention to me. "It caused a degree of lassitude and
+vertigo that was most distressing, and six centigrams, the whole
+amount which I had recovered from the samples of blood, gave me
+the fright of my life right here in this laboratory a few minutes
+before you came in."
+
+Leslie and I looked at each other and shook our heads.
+
+"Perhaps I was not wise in giving myself so large an injection on
+a day when I was overheated and below par otherwise, because of
+the strain I have been under in handling this case, as well as
+other work. However that may be, the added centigram produced so
+much more on top of the five centigrams I had previously taken
+that for a time I had reason to fear that that additional
+centigram was just the amount needed to bring my experiments to a
+permanent close.
+
+"Within three minutes of the time of injection the dizziness and
+vertigo had become so great as to make walking seem impossible. In
+another minute the lassitude rapidly crept over me, and the
+serious disturbance of my breathing made it apparent to me that
+walking, waving my arms, anything, was imperative. My lungs felt
+glued up, and the muscles of my chest refused to work. Everything
+swam before my eyes, and I was soon reduced to walking up and down
+the laboratory floor with halting steps, only preventing falling
+on the floor by holding fast to the edge of the table.
+
+"I thought of the tank of oxygen, and managed to crawl over and
+turn it on. I gulped at it. It seemed to me that I spent hours
+gasping for breath. It reminded me of what I once experienced in
+the Cave of the Winds of Niagara, where water is more abundant in
+the atmosphere than air. Yet my watch afterward indicated only
+about twenty minutes of extreme distress. But that twenty minutes
+is one period I shall never forget. I advise you, Leslie, if you
+are ever so foolish as to try the experiment, to remain below the
+five-centigram limit."
+
+"Believe me, I'd rather lose my job," returned Leslie.
+
+"How much of the stuff was administered to Mendoza," went on
+Kennedy, "I cannot say. But it must have been a good deal more
+than I took. Six centigrams which I recovered from these small
+samples are only nine-tenths of a grain. You see what effect that
+much had. I trust that answers your question?"
+
+Dr. Leslie was too overwhelmed to reply.
+
+"What is this deadly poison that was used on Mendoza?" I managed
+to ask.
+
+"You have been fortunate enough to obtain a sample of it from the
+Museum of Natural History," returned Craig. "It comes in a little
+gourd, or often a calabash. This is in a gourd. It is a blackish,
+brittle stuff, incrusting the sides of the gourd just as if it was
+poured in in the liquid state and left to dry. Indeed, that is
+just what has been done by those who manufacture it after a
+lengthy and somewhat secret process."
+
+He placed the gourd on the edge of the table, where we could see
+it closely. I was almost afraid even to look at it.
+
+"The famous traveller, Sir Robert Schomburgk, first brought it
+into Europe, and Darwin has described it. It is now an article of
+commerce, and is to be found in the United States Pharmacoepia as
+a medicine, though, of course, it is used in only very minute
+quantities, as a heart stimulant."
+
+Craig opened a book to a place he had marked. "Here's an account
+of it," he said. "Two natives were one day hunting. They were
+armed with blow-pipes and quivers full of poisoned darts made of
+thin, charred pieces of bamboo, tipped with this stuff. One of
+them aimed a dart. It missed the object overhead, glanced off the
+tree, and fell down on the hunter himself. This is how the other
+native reported the result:
+
+"'Quacca takes the dart out of his shoulder. Never a word. Puts it
+in his quiver and throws it in the stream. Gives me his blow-pipe
+for his little son. Says to me good-bye for his wife and the
+village. Then he lies down. His tongue talks no longer. No sight
+in his eyes. He folds his arms. He rolls over slowly. His mouth
+moves without sound. I feel his heart. It goes fast and then slow.
+It stops. Quacca has shot his last woorali dart.'"
+
+Leslie and I looked at Kennedy, and the horror of the thing sank
+deep into our minds. Woorali. What was it?
+
+"Woorali, or curare," explained Craig slowly, "is the well-known
+poison with which the South American Indians of the upper Orinoco
+tip their arrows. Its principal ingredient is derived from the
+Strychnos toxifera tree, which yields also the drug nux vomica,
+which you, Dr. Leslie, have mentioned. On the tip of that Inca
+dagger must have been a large dose of the dread curare, this fatal
+South American Indian arrow poison."
+
+"Say," ejaculated Leslie, "this thing begins to look eerie to me.
+How about that piece of paper that I sent to you with the warning
+about the curse of Mansiche and the Gold of the Gods. What if
+there should be something in it? I'd rather not be a victim of
+this curare, if it's all the same to you, Kennedy."
+
+Kennedy was thinking deeply. Who could have sent the messages to
+us all? Who was likely to have known of curare? I confess that I
+had not even an idea. All of them, any of them, might have known.
+
+The deeper we got into it, the more dastardly the crime against
+Mendoza seemed. Involuntarily, I thought of the beautiful little
+Senorita, about whom these terrible events centred. Though I had
+no reason for it, I could not forget the fear that she had for
+Senora de Moche, and the woman as she had been revealed to us in
+our late interview.
+
+"I suppose a Peruvian of average intelligence might know of the
+arrow poison of Indians of another country," I ventured to Craig.
+
+"Quite possible," he returned, catching immediately the drift of
+my thoughts. "But the shoe-prints indicated that it was a man who
+stole the dagger from the Museum. It may be that it was already
+poisoned, too. In that case the thief would not have had to know
+anything of curare, would not have needed to stab so deeply if he
+had known."
+
+I must confess that I was little further along in the solution of
+the mystery than I had been when I first saw Mendoza's body.
+Kennedy, however, did not seem to be worried. Leslie had long
+since given up trying to form an opinion and, now that the nature
+of the poison was finally established, was glad to leave the case
+in our hands.
+
+As for me, I was inclined to agree with Dr. Leslie, and, long
+after he had left, there kept recurring to my mind those words:
+
+BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
+
+
+"I think I will drop in to see Senorita Mendoza," considered
+Kennedy, as he cleared up the materials which he had been using in
+his investigation of the arrow poison. "She is a study to me--in
+fact, the reticence of all these people is hard to combat."
+
+As we entered the apartment where the Mendozas lived, it was
+difficult to realize that only a few hours had elapsed since we
+had first been introduced to this strange affair. In the hall,
+however, were still some reporters waiting in the vain hope that
+some fragment of a story might turn up.
+
+"Let's have a talk with the boys," suggested Craig, before we
+entered the Mendoza suite. "After all, the newspaper men are the
+best detectives I know. If it wasn't for them, half our murder
+cases wouldn't ever be solved. As a matter of fact, 'yellow
+journals' are more useful to a city than half the detective
+force."
+
+Most of the newspaper men knew Craig intimately, and liked him,
+possibly because he was one of the few people to-day who realized
+the very important part these young men played in modern life.
+They crowded about, eager to interview him. But Craig was clever.
+In the rapid fire of conversation it was really he who interviewed
+them.
+
+"Lockwood has been here a long time," volunteered one of the men.
+"He seems to have constituted himself the guardian of Inez. No one
+gets a look at her while he's around."
+
+"Well, you can hardly blame him for that," smiled Craig. "Jealousy
+isn't a crime in that case."
+
+"Say," put in another, "there'd be an interesting quarter of an
+hour if he were here now. That other fellow--de Mooch--whatever
+his name is, is here."
+
+"De Moche--with her, now?" queried Kennedy, wheeling suddenly.
+
+The reporter smiled. "He's a queer duck. I was coming up to
+relieve our other man, when I saw him down on the street, hanging
+about the corner, his eyes riveted on the entrance to the
+apartment. I suppose that was his way of making love. He's daffy
+over her, all right. I stopped to watch him. Of course, he didn't
+know me. Just then Lockwood left. The Spaniard dived into the drug
+store on the corner as though the devil was after him. You should
+have seen his eyes. If looks were bullets, I wouldn't give much
+for Lockwood's life. With two such fellows about, you wouldn't
+catch me making goo-goo eyes at that chicken--not on your life."
+
+Kennedy passed over the flippant manner in view of the importance
+of the observation.
+
+"What do you think of Lockwood?" he asked.
+
+"Pretty slick," replied another of the men. "He's the goods, all
+right."
+
+"Why, what has he done?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Nothing in particular. But he came out to see us once. You can't
+blame him for being a bit sore at us fellows hanging about. But he
+didn't show it. Instead he almost begged us to be careful of how
+we asked questions of the girl. Of course, all of us could see how
+completely broken up she is. We haven't bothered her. In fact,
+we'd do anything we could for her. But Lockwood talks straight
+from the shoulder. You can see he's used to handling all kinds of
+situations."
+
+"But did he say anything, has he done anything?" persisted
+Kennedy.
+
+"N-no," admitted the reporter. "I can't say he has."
+
+Craig frowned a bit. "I thought not," he remarked. "These people
+aren't giving away any hints, if they can help it."
+
+"It's my idea," ventured another of the men, "that when this case
+breaks, it will break all of a sudden. I shouldn't wonder if we
+are in for one of the sensations of the year, when it comes."
+
+Kennedy looked at him inquiringly. "Why?" he asked simply.
+
+"No particular reason," confessed the man. "Only the regular
+detectives act so chesty. They haven't got a thing, and they know
+it, only they won't admit it to us. O'Connor was here."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Nothing. He went through all the motions--'Now, pens lifted,
+boys,' and all that--talked a lot--and after it was all over he
+might have been sure no one would publish a line of his
+confidences. There wasn't a stick of copy in the whole thing."
+
+Kennedy laughed. "O'Connor's all right," he replied. "We may need
+him sorely before we get through. After all, nothing can take the
+place of the organization the police have built up. You say de
+Moche is in there yet?"
+
+"Yes. He seemed very anxious to see her. We never get a word out
+of him. I've been thinking what would happen if we tried to get
+him mad. Maybe he'd talk."
+
+"More likely he'd pull a gun," cautioned another. "Excuse ME."
+
+Kennedy said nothing, evidently content to let the newspaper men
+go their own sweet way.
+
+He nodded to them, and pressed the buzzer at the Mendoza door.
+
+"Tell Senorita Mendoza that it is Professor Kennedy," he said to
+Juanita, who opened the door, keeping it on the chain, to be sure
+it was no unwelcome intruder.
+
+Evidently she had had orders to admit us, for a second later we
+found ourselves again in the little reception room.
+
+We sat down, and I saw that Craig's attention had at once been
+fixed on something. I listened intently, too. On the other side of
+the heavy portieres that cut us off from the living room I could
+distinguish low voices. It was de Moche and Inez.
+
+Whatever the ethics of it, we could not help listening. Besides
+there was more at stake than ethics.
+
+Evidently the young man was urging her to do something that she
+did not agree with.
+
+"No," we heard her say finally, in a quiet tone, "I cannot believe
+it, Alfonso. Mr. Whitney is Mr. Lockwood's associate now. My
+father and Mr. Lockwood approved of him. Why should I do
+otherwise?"
+
+De Moche was talking earnestly but in a very muffled voice. We
+could not make out anything except a few scattered phrases which
+told us nothing. Once I fancied he mentioned his mother. Whatever
+it was that he was urging, Inez was firm.
+
+"No, Alfonso," she repeated, her voice a little higher and
+excited. "It cannot be. You must be mistaken."
+
+She had risen, and now moved toward the hall door, evidently
+forgetting that the folding doors behind the portieres were open.
+"Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson are here," she said. "Would you
+care to meet them?"
+
+He replied in the negative. Yet as he passed the reception room he
+could not help seeing us.
+
+As Inez greeted us, I saw that Alfonso was making a desperate
+effort to control his expression. He seemed to be concealing a
+bitter disappointment. Seeing us, he bowed stiffly, and, with just
+the murmur of a greeting, excused himself.
+
+He had no sooner closed the door to run the gauntlet of the sharp
+eyes in the hall than the Senorita faced us fully. She was pale
+and nervous. Evidently something that he had said to her had
+greatly agitated her. Yet with all her woman's skill she managed
+to hide all outward traces of emotion that might indicate what it
+was that racked her mind.
+
+"You have something to report?" she asked, a trifle anxiously.
+
+"Nothing of any great importance," admitted Craig.
+
+Was it actually a look of relief that crossed her face? Try as I
+could, it seemed to me to be an anomalous situation. She wanted
+the murderer of her father caught, naturally. Yet she did not seem
+to be offering us the natural assistance that was to be expected.
+Could it be that she suspected some one perhaps near and dear to
+her of having some knowledge, which, now that the deed was done,
+would do more harm than good if revealed? It was the only
+conclusion to which I could come. I was surprised at Kennedy's
+next question. Was the same idea in his mind, also?
+
+"We have seen Mr. Whitney," he ventured. "Just what are Mr.
+Lockwood's relations with him--and yours?"
+
+"Merely that Mr. Lockwood and my father were partners," she
+answered hastily. "They had decided that their interests would be
+more valuable by some arrangement with Mr. Whitney, who controls
+so much down in Peru."
+
+"Do you think that Senora de Moche exercises a very great
+influence on Mr. Whitney?" asked Craig, purposely introducing the
+name of the Indian woman to see what effect it might have on her.
+
+"Oh," she cried, with a little exclamation of alarm, "I hope not."
+
+Yet it was evident that she feared so.
+
+"Why is it that you fear it?" insisted Kennedy. "What has she done
+to make you fear it?"
+
+"I don't like her," returned Inez, with a frown. "My father knew
+her--too well. She is a schemer, an adventuress. Once she has a
+hold on a man, one cannot say--" She paused, then went on in a
+different tone. "But I would rather not talk about the woman. I am
+afraid of her. Never does she talk to me that she does not get
+something out of me that I do not wish to tell her. She is
+uncanny."
+
+Personally, I could not blame Inez for her opinion. I could
+understand it. Those often baleful eyes had a penetrating power
+that one might easily fall a victim to.
+
+"But you can trust Mr. Lockwood," he returned. "Surely he is proof
+against her, against any woman."
+
+Inez flushed. It was evident that of all the men who were
+interested in the little beauty, Lockwood was first in her mind.
+Yet when Kennedy put the question thus she hesitated. "Yes," she
+replied, "of course, I trust him. It is not that woman whom I fear
+with him."
+
+She said it with an air almost of defiance. There was some kind of
+struggle going on in her mind, and she was too proud to let us
+into the secret.
+
+Kennedy rose and bowed. For the present he had come to the
+conclusion that if she would not let us help her openly the only
+thing to do was to help her blindly.
+
+Half an hour later we were at Norton's apartment, not far from the
+University campus. He listened intently as Kennedy told such parts
+of what we had done as he chose. At the mention of the arrow
+poison, he seemed startled beyond measure.
+
+"You are sure of it?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Positive, now," reiterated Kennedy.
+
+Norton's face was drawn in deep lines. "If some one has the
+secret," he cried hastily, "who knows when and on whom next he may
+employ it?"
+
+Coming from him so soon after the same idea had been hinted at by
+the coroner, I could not but be impressed by it.
+
+"The very novelty of the thing is our best protection," asserted
+Kennedy confidently. "Once having discovered it, if Walter gives
+the thing its proper value in the Star, I think the criminal will
+be unlikely to try it again. If you had had as much experience in
+crime as I have had, you would see that it is not necessarily the
+unusual that is baffling. That may be the surest way to trace it.
+Often it is because a thing is so natural that it may be
+attributed to any person among several, equally well."
+
+Norton eyed us keenly, and shook his head. "You may be right," he
+said doubtfully. "Only I had rather that this person, whoever he
+may be, had fewer weapons."
+
+"Speaking of weapons," broke in Kennedy, "you have had no further
+idea of why the dagger might have been taken?"
+
+"There seems to have been so much about it that I did not know,"
+he returned, "that I am almost afraid to have an opinion. I knew
+that its three-sided sheath inclosed a sharp blade, yet who would
+have dreamed that that blade was poisoned?"
+
+"You are lucky not to have scratched yourself with it by accident
+while you were studying it."
+
+"Possibly I might have done it, if I had had it in my possession
+longer. It was only lately that I had leisure to study it."
+
+"You knew that it might offer some clue to the hidden treasure of
+Truxillo?" suggested Kennedy. "Have you any recollection of what
+the inscriptions on it said?"
+
+"Yes," returned Norton, "I had heard the rumours about it. But
+Peru is a land of tales of buried treasure. No, I can't say that I
+paid much more attention to it than you might have done if some
+one asserted that he had another story of the treasure of Captain
+Kidd. I must confess that only when the thing was stolen did I
+begin to wonder whether, after all, there might not be something
+in it. Now it is too late to find out. From the moment when I
+found that it was missing from my collection I have heard no more
+about it than you have found out. It is all like a dream to me. I
+cannot believe even yet that a mere bit of archaeological and
+ethnological specimen could have played so important a part in the
+practical events of real life."
+
+"It does seem impossible," agreed Kennedy. "But it is even more
+remarkable than that. It has disappeared without leaving a trace,
+after having played its part."
+
+"If it had been a mere robbery," considered Norton, "one might
+look for its reappearance, I suppose, in the curio shops. For to-
+day thieves have a keen appreciation of the value of such objects.
+But, now that you have unearthed its use against Mendoza--and in
+such a terrible way--it is not likely that that will be what will
+happen to it. No, we must look elsewhere."
+
+"I thought I would tell you," concluded Kennedy, rising to go.
+"Perhaps after you have considered it over night some idea may
+occur to you."
+
+"Perhaps," said Norton doubtfully. "But I haven't your brilliant
+faculty of scientific analysis, Kennedy. No, I shall have to lean
+on you, in that, not you on me."
+
+We left Norton, apparently now more at sea than ever. At the
+laboratory Kennedy plunged into some microphotographic work that
+the case had suggested to him, while I dashed off, under his
+supervision, an account of the discovery of curare, and telephoned
+it down to the Star in time to catch the first morning edition, in
+the hope that it might have some effect in apprising the criminal
+that we were hard on his trail, which he had considered covered.
+
+I scanned the other papers eagerly in the morning for Kennedy,
+hoping to glean at least some hints that others who were working
+on the case might have gathered. But there was nothing, and, after
+a hasty bite of breakfast, we hurried back to take up the thread
+of the investigation where we had laid it down.
+
+To our surprise, on the steps of the Chemistry Building, as we
+approached, we saw Inez Mendoza already waiting for us in a high
+state of agitation. Her face was pale, and her voice trembled as
+she greeted us.
+
+"Such a dreadful thing has come to me," she cried, even before
+Kennedy could ask her what the trouble was.
+
+From her handbag she drew out a crumpled, dirty piece of paper in
+an envelope.
+
+"It came in the first mail," she explained. "I could not wait to
+send it to you. I brought it myself. What can it mean?"
+
+Kennedy unfolded the paper. Printed in large characters, in every
+way similar to the four warnings that had been sent to us, was
+just one ominous line. We read:
+
+"Beware the man who professes to be a friend of your father."
+
+I glanced from the note to Kennedy, then to Inez. One name was in
+my mind, and before I knew it I had spoken it.
+
+"Lockwood?" I queried inadvertently.
+
+Her eyes met mine in sharp defiance. "Impossible," she exclaimed.
+"It is some one trying to injure him with me. Beware of Mr.
+Lockwood? How absurd!"
+
+Yet it must have meant Lockwood. No one else could have been
+meant. It was he, most of all, who might be called a friend of her
+father. She seemed to see the implication without a word from us.
+
+I could not help sympathizing with the brave girl in her struggle
+between the attack against Lockwood and her love and confidence in
+him. It did not need words to tell me that evidence must be
+overwhelming to convince her that her lover might be involved in
+any manner.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE PAPER FIBRES
+
+
+Kennedy examined the anonymous letter carefully for several
+minutes, while we watched him in silence.
+
+"Too clever to use a typewriter," he remarked, still regarding the
+note through the lens of a hand-glass. "Almost any one would have
+used a machine. That would have been due to the erroneous idea
+that typewriting cannot be detected. The fact is that the
+typewriter is perhaps a worse means of concealing identity than is
+disguised handwriting, especially printing like this. It doesn't
+afford the effective protection to the criminal that one supposes.
+On the contrary, the typewriting of such a note may be the direct
+means by which it can be traced to its source. We can determine
+what kind of machine it was done with, then what particular
+machine was used can be identified."
+
+He paused and indicated a number of little instruments which he
+had taken from a drawer and laid on the table, as he tore off a
+bit of the corner of the sheet of paper and examined it.
+
+"There is one thing I can do now, though," he continued. "I can
+study the quality of the paper in this sheet. If it were only torn
+like those warnings we have already received, it might perhaps be
+mated with another piece as accurately as if the act had been
+performed before our eyes."
+
+He picked up a little instrument with a small curved arm and a
+finely threaded screw that brought the two flat surfaces of the
+arm and the end of the screw together.
+
+"There is no such good fortune in this case, however," he resumed,
+placing the paper between the two small arms. "But by measurements
+made by this vernier micrometer caliper I can find the precise
+thickness of the paper as compared to the other samples."
+
+He turned to a microscope and placed the corner of the paper under
+it. Then he drew from the drawer the four scraps of paper which
+had already been sent to us, as well as a pile of photographs.
+
+"Under ordinary circumstances," he explained, "I should think that
+what I am doing would be utterly valueless as a clue to anything.
+But we are reduced to the minutiae in this affair. And to-day
+science is not ready to let anything pass as valueless."
+
+He continued to look at the various pieces of paper under the
+microscope. "I find under microscopic examination," he went on,
+addressing Inez, but not looking up from the eye-piece as he
+shifted the papers, "that the note you have received, Senorita
+Mendoza, is written on a rather uncommon linen bond paper. Later I
+shall take a number of microphotographs of it. I have here, also,
+about a hundred microphotographs of the fibres in other kinds of
+paper, many of them bonds. These I have accumulated from time to
+time in my study of the subject. None of them, as you can see,
+shows fibres resembling this one in question, so that we may
+conclude that it is of uncommon quality.
+
+"Here I have the fibres, also, of four pieces of paper that have
+already figured in the case. These four correspond, as well as the
+indentures of the torn edges. As for the fibres, lest you should
+question the accuracy of the method, I may say that I know of a
+case where a man in Germany was arrested, charged with stealing a
+government bond. He was not searched until later. There was no
+evidence, save that after the arrest a large number of spitballs
+were found around the courtyard under his cell window. This method
+of comparing the fibres of the regular government paper was used,
+and by it the man was convicted of stealing the bond. I think it
+is unnecessary to add that in the present case I can see
+definitely that not only the four pieces of paper that bore
+warnings to us were the same kind, but that this whole sheet, with
+its anonymous warning to you, is also the same."
+
+Inez Mendoza looked at Kennedy as though he possessed some weird
+power. Her face, which had already been startled into an
+expression of fear at his mention of Lockwood, now was pale.
+
+"Other warnings?" she repeated tremulously.
+
+Quickly Kennedy explained what had already happened to us,
+watching the effect on her as he read of the curse of Mansiche and
+the Gold of the Gods.
+
+"Oh," she cried, mastering her emotion with a heroic effort, "I
+wish my father had never become mixed up in the business. Ever
+since I was a little girl I have heard these vague stories of the
+big fish and the little fish, the treasure, and the curse. But I
+never thought they were anything but fairy tales. You remember,
+when I first saw you, I did not even tell them to you."
+
+"Yes," returned Kennedy. "I remember. But had you no other reason?
+Did you, down in your heart, think them really fairy tales?"
+
+She shuddered. "Perhaps not," she murmured. "But I have heard
+enough of you detectives to know that you do not think a woman's
+fears exactly evidence."
+
+"Still they might lead to evidence," suggested Kennedy.
+
+She looked at him, more startled than ever, for already he had
+given her a slight exhibition of his powers.
+
+"Mr. Kennedy," she exclaimed, "I am positively afraid of you,
+afraid that every little thing I do may lead to something I don't
+intend."
+
+There was a frankness about the remark that would have been
+flattering from a man, but from her excited sympathy.
+
+"No," she went on, "I have nothing tangible--only my feelings. I
+fear I must admit that my father had enemies, though who they are
+I cannot tell you. No, it is all in my heart--not in my head.
+There are those whom I dislike--and there are those whom I like
+and trust. You may call me foolish, but I cannot help trusting--
+Mr. Lockwood."
+
+She had not meant to say his name, and Kennedy and I looked at her
+in surprise.
+
+"You see?" she continued. "Every time I talk I say something,
+convey some impression that is the opposite of what I wish. Oh--
+what shall I do? Have I no one to trust?"
+
+She was crying.
+
+"You may trust me, Senorita," said Kennedy, in a low tone, pausing
+before her. "At least I have no other interest than finding the
+truth and helping you. There--there. We have had enough to-day. I
+cannot ask you to try to forget what has happened. That would be
+impossible. But I can ask you, Senorita, to have faith--faith that
+it will all turn out better, if you will only trust me. When you
+feel stronger--then come to me. Tell me your fears--or not--
+whichever does you the most good. Only keep your mind from
+brooding. Face it all as you know your father would have you do."
+
+Kennedy's words were soothing. He seemed to know that tears were
+the safety-valve she needed.
+
+"Mr. Jameson will see that you get home safely in a taxicab," he
+continued. "You can trust him as you would myself."
+
+I can imagine circumstances under which I would have enjoyed
+escorting Inez to her home, but today was not one of the times.
+Yet she seemed so helpless, so grateful for everything we did for
+her that I did not need even the pressure of her little hand as
+she hurried into the apartment from the car with a hasty word of
+thanks.
+
+"You will tell Mr. Kennedy--you will both be--so careful?" she
+hesitated before leaving me.
+
+I assured her that we would, wondering what she might fear for us,
+as I drove away again. There did not happen to be any of the
+newspaper men about at the time, and I did not stop.
+
+Back in the laboratory, I found Kennedy arranging something under
+the rug at the door as I came up the hall.
+
+"Don't step there, Walter," he cautioned. "Step over the rug. I'm
+expecting visitors. How was she when she arrived home?"
+
+I told him of her parting injunction.
+
+"Not bad advice," he remarked. "I think there's a surprise back of
+those warnings. They weren't sent just for effect."
+
+He had closed the door, and we were standing by the table, looking
+at the letters, when we heard a noise at the door.
+
+It was Norton again.
+
+"I've been thinking of what you told me last night," he explained,
+before Kennedy had a chance to tell him to step over the rug. "Has
+anything else happened?"
+
+Kennedy tossed over the anonymous letter, and Norton read it
+eagerly.
+
+"Whom does it mean?" he asked, quickly glancing up, then adding,
+"It might mean any of us who are trying to help her."
+
+"Exactly," returned Kennedy. "Or it might be Lockwood, or even de
+Moche. By the way, you know the young man pretty well, don't you?
+I wonder if you could find him anywhere about the University this
+morning and persuade him to visit me?"
+
+"I will try," agreed Norton. "But these people are so very
+suspicious just now that I can't promise."
+
+Norton went out a few minutes later to see what he could do to
+locate Alfonso, and Kennedy replaced another blank sheet of paper
+for that under the rug on which Norton had stepped before we could
+warn him.
+
+No sooner had he gone than Kennedy reached for the telephone and
+called Whitney's office. Lockwood was there, as he had hoped, and,
+after a short talk, promised to drop in on us later in the
+morning.
+
+It was fully half an hour before Norton returned, having finally
+found Alfonso. De Moche entered the laboratory with a suspicious
+glance about, as though he thought something might have been
+planted there for him.
+
+"I had a most interesting talk with your mother yesterday," began
+Kennedy, endeavouring by frankness to put the young man at ease.
+"And this morning, already, Senorita Mendoza has called on me."
+
+De Moche was all attention at the words. But before he could say
+anything Kennedy handed him the anonymous letter. He read it, and
+his face clouded as he handed it back.
+
+"You have no idea who could have sent such a note?" queried Craig,
+"or to whom it might refer?"
+
+He glanced at Norton, then at us. It was clear that some sort of
+suspicion had flashed over him. "No," he said quickly, "I know no
+one who could have sent it."
+
+"But whom does it mean?" asked Kennedy, holding him to the part
+that he avoided.
+
+The young man shrugged his shoulders. "She has many friends," he
+answered simply.
+
+"Yes," persisted Kennedy, "but few against whom she might be
+warned in this way. You do not think it is Professor Norton, for
+instance--or myself?"
+
+"Oh, no, no--hardly," he replied, then stopped, realizing that he
+had eliminated all but Lockwood, Whitney, and himself.
+
+"It could not be Mr. Lockwood?" demanded Craig.
+
+"Who sent it?" he asked, looking up.
+
+"No--whom it warns against."
+
+De Moche had known what Kennedy meant, but had preferred to
+postpone the answer. It was native never to come to the point
+unless he was forced to do so. He met our eyes squarely. He had
+not the penetrating power that his mother possessed, yet his was a
+sharp faculty of observation.
+
+"Mr. Lockwood is very friendly with her," he admitted, then seemed
+to think something else necessary to round out the idea. "Mr.
+Kennedy, I might have told her the same myself. Senorita Mendoza
+has been a very dear friend--for a long time."
+
+I had been so used to having him evasive that now I did not
+exactly know what to make of such a burst of confidence. It was
+susceptible of at least two interpretations. Was he implying that
+it was sent to cast suspicion on him, because he felt that way
+himself or because he himself was her friend?
+
+"There have been other warnings," pursued Kennedy, "both to myself
+and Mr. Jameson, as well as Professor Norton and Dr. Leslie.
+Surely you must have some idea of the source."
+
+De Moche shook his head. "None that I can think of," he replied.
+"Have you asked my mother?"
+
+"Not yet," admitted Kennedy.
+
+De Moche glanced at his watch. "I have a lecture at this hour," he
+remarked, evidently glad of an excuse to terminate the interview.
+
+As he left, Kennedy accompanied him to the door, careful himself
+to step over the mat.
+
+"Hello, what's new?" we heard a voice in the hall.
+
+It was Lockwood, who had come up from downtown. Catching sight of
+de Moche, however, he stopped short. The two young men met face to
+face. Between them passed a glance of unconcealed hostility, then
+each nodded stiffly.
+
+De Moche turned to Kennedy as he passed down the hall. "Perhaps it
+may have been sent to divert suspicion--who can tell?" he
+whispered.
+
+Kennedy nodded appreciatively, noting the change.
+
+At the sound of Lockwood's voice both Norton and I had taken a
+step further after them out into the hall, Norton somewhat in
+advance. As de Moche disappeared for his lecture, Kennedy turned
+to me from Lockwood and caught my eye. I read in his glance that
+fell from me to the mat that he wished me quietly to abstract the
+piece of paper which he had placed under it. I bent down and did
+so without Lockwood seeing me.
+
+"Why was he here?" demanded Lockwood, with just a trace of
+defiance in his voice, as though he fancied the meeting had been
+framed.
+
+"I have been showing this to every one who might help me,"
+returned Kennedy, going back into the laboratory after giving me
+an opportunity to dispose of the shoe-prints.
+
+He handed the anonymous letter and the other warnings to the young
+soldier of fortune, with a brief explanation.
+
+"Why don't they come out into the open, whoever they are?"
+commented Lockwood, laying the papers down carelessly again on the
+table. "I'll meet them--if they mean me."
+
+"Who?" asked Kennedy.
+
+Lockwood faced Norton and ourselves.
+
+"I'm not a mind reader," he said significantly. "But it doesn't
+take much to see that some one wants to throw a brick at me. When
+I have anything to say I say it openly. Inez Mendoza without
+friends just now would be a mark, wouldn't she?"
+
+His strong face and powerful jaw were set in a menacing scowl. He
+would be a bold man who would have come between Lockwood and the
+lady under the circumstances.
+
+"You are confident of Mr. Whitney?" inquired Kennedy.
+
+"Ask Norton," replied Lockwood briefly. "He knew him long before I
+did."
+
+Norton smiled quietly. "Mr. Kennedy should know what my opinion of
+Mr. Whitney is, I think," replied Norton confidently.
+
+"I trust that you will succeed in running these blackmailers
+down," pursued Lockwood, still standing. "If I did not have more
+than I can attend to already since the murder of Mendoza I'd like
+to take a hand myself. It begins to look to me, after reading that
+letter, as though there was nothing too low for them to attempt. I
+shall keep this latest matter in mind. If either Mr. Whitney or
+myself get any hint, we'll turn it over to you."
+
+Norton left shortly after Lockwood, and Kennedy again picked up
+the letter and scanned it. "I could learn something, I suppose, if
+I analyzed this printing," he considered, "but it is a tedious
+process. Let me see that envelope again. H-m, postmarked by the
+uptown sub-station, mailed late last night. Whoever sent it must
+have done so not very far from us here. Lockwood seemed to take it
+as though it applied to himself very readily, didn't he? Much more
+so than de Moche. Only for the fact that the fibres show it to be
+on paper similar to the first warnings, I might have been inclined
+to doubt whether this was bona fide. At least, the sender must
+realize now that it has produced no appreciable effect--if any was
+intended."
+
+Kennedy's last remark set me thinking. Could some one have sent
+the letter not to produce the effect apparently intended, but with
+the ultimate object of diverting suspicion from himself? Lockwood,
+at least, had not seemed to take the letter very seriously.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE X-RAY READER
+
+
+"I think I'll pay another visit to Whitney, in spite of all that
+Norton and Lockwood say about him," remarked Kennedy, considering
+the next step he would take in his investigation.
+
+Accordingly, half an hour later we entered his Wall Street office,
+where we were met by a clerk, who seemed to remember us.
+
+"Mr. Whitney is out just at present," he said, "but if you will be
+seated I think I can reach him by telephone."
+
+As we sat in the outer office while the clerk telephoned from
+Whitney's own room the door opened and the postman entered and
+laid some letters on a table near us. Kennedy could not help
+seeing the letter on top of the pile, and noticed that it bore a
+stamp from Peru. He picked it up and read the postmark, "Lima,"
+and the date some weeks previous. In the lower corner,
+underscored, were the words "Personal--Urgent."
+
+"I'd like to know what is in that," remarked Craig, turning it
+over and over.
+
+He appeared to be considering something, for he rose suddenly, and
+with a nod of his head to himself, as though settling some qualm
+of conscience, shoved the letter into his pocket.
+
+A moment later the clerk returned. "I've just had Mr. Whitney on
+the wire," he reported. "I don't think he'll be back at least for
+an hour."
+
+"Is he at the Prince Edward Albert?" asked Craig.
+
+"I don't know," returned the clerk, oblivious to the fact that we
+must have seen that in order to know the telephone number he must
+have known whether Mr. Whitney was there or elsewhere.
+
+"I shall come in again," rejoined Kennedy, as we bowed ourselves
+out. Then to me he added, "If he is with Senora de Moche and they
+are at the Edward Albert, I think I can beat him back with this
+letter if we hurry."
+
+A few minutes later, in his laboratory, Kennedy set to work
+quickly over an X-ray apparatus. As I watched him, I saw that he
+had placed the letter in it.
+
+"These are what are known as 'low tubes,'" he explained. "They
+give out 'soft rays.'"
+
+He continued to work for several minutes, then took the letter out
+and handed it to me.
+
+"Now, Walter," he said brusquely, "if you will just hurry back
+down there to Whitney's office and replace that letter, I think I
+will have something that will astonish you--though whether it will
+have any bearing on the case remains to be seen. At least I can
+postpone seeing Whitney himself for a while."
+
+I made the trip down again as rapidly as I could. Whitney was not
+back when I arrived, but the clerk was there, and I could not very
+well just leave the letter on the table again.
+
+"Mr. Kennedy would like to know when he can see Mr. Whitney," I
+said, on the spur of the moment. "Can't you call him up again?"
+
+The clerk, as I had anticipated, went into Whitney's office to
+telephone. Instead of laying the letter on the table, which might
+have excited suspicion, I stuck it in the letter slot of the door,
+thinking that perhaps they might imagine that it had caught there
+when the postman made his rounds.
+
+A moment later the clerk returned. "Mr. Whitney is on his way down
+now," he reported.
+
+I thanked him, and said that Kennedy would call him up when he
+arrived, congratulating myself on the good luck I had had in
+returning the letter.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, a few minutes later, when I had rejoined
+Craig in the laboratory.
+
+He was poring intently over what looked like a negative.
+
+"The possibility of reading the contents of documents inclosed in
+a sealed envelope," he replied, still studying the shadowgraph
+closely, "has already been established by the well-known English
+scientist, Dr. Hall Edwards. He has been experimenting with the
+method of using X-rays recently discovered by a German scientist,
+by which radiographs of very thin substances, such as a sheet of
+paper, a leaf, an insect's body, may be obtained. These thin
+substances, through which the rays used formerly to pass without
+leaving an impression, can now be easily radiographed."
+
+I looked carefully as he traced out something on the queer
+negative. On it, it was easily possible, following his guidance,
+to read the words inscribed on the sheet of paper inside. So
+admirably defined were all the details that even the gum on the
+envelope and the edges of the sheet of paper inside the envelope
+could be distinguished.
+
+"It seems incredible," I exclaimed, scarcely believing what I
+actually saw. "It is almost like second sight."
+
+Kennedy smiled. "Any letter written with ink having a mineral base
+can be radiographed," he added. "Even when the sheet is folded in
+the usual way, it is possible, by taking a radiograph, as I have
+done, stereoscopically. Then every detail can be seen standing out
+in relief. Besides, it can be greatly magnified, which aids in
+deciphering it if it is indistinct or jumbled up. Some of it looks
+like mirror-writing. Ah," he continued, "here's something
+interesting."
+
+Together we managed to trace out the contents of several
+paragraphs laboriously, the gist of which I give here:
+
+"LIMA, PERU.
+
+"DEAR WHITNEY:
+
+"Matters are progressing very favorably here, considering the
+stoppage of business due to the war. I am doing everything in my
+power to conserve our interests, and now and then, owing to the
+scarcity of money, am able to pick up a concession cheaply, which
+will be of immense value to us later.
+
+"However, it is not so much of business that I wish to write you
+at the present time. You know that my friend Senora de Moche, with
+her son, Alfonso, is at present in New York. Doubtless she has
+already called on you and tried to interest you in her own
+properties here. I need not advise you to be very careful in
+dealing with her.
+
+"The other day I heard a rumour that may prove interesting to you,
+regarding Norton and his work here on his last trip. As we know,
+he has succeeded in finding and getting out of the country an Inca
+dagger which, I believe, bears a very important inscription. I do
+not know anything definite about it, as these people are very
+reticent. But no doubt he has told you all about it by this time.
+If it should prove of value, I depend on you to let me know, so
+that I may act at this end accordingly.
+
+"What I am getting at is this: I understand that from rumours and
+remarks of the Senora she believes that Norton took an unfair
+advantage during her absence. What the inscription is I don't
+know, but from the way these people down here act one would think
+that they all had a proprietary interest in the relic. What it is
+all about I don't know. But you will find the Senora both a keen
+business woman and an accomplished antiquarian, if you have not
+already discovered it.
+
+"In regard to Lockwood and Mendoza, if we can get them in on our
+side, it ought to prove a winning combination. There are stories
+here of how de Moche has been playing on Mendoza's passions--she's
+thoroughly unscrupulous and Don Luis is somewhat of a Don Juan. I
+write this to put you on guard. Her son, Alfonso, whom you perhaps
+have met also, is of another type, though I have heard it said
+that he laid siege to Inez Mendoza in the hope of becoming allied
+with one of the oldest families.
+
+"Such, at least, is the gossip down here. I cannot presume to keep
+you posted at such a distance, but thought I had better write what
+is in every one's mouth. As for the inscribed dagger which Norton
+has taken with him, I rely on you to inform me. There seems to be
+a great deal of mystery connected with it, and I am unable even to
+hazard a guess as to its nature. Fortunately, you are on the spot
+
+"Very sincerely yours,
+
+"HAGGERTY."
+
+"So," remarked Kennedy, as he read over the translation of the
+skiagraph which he had jotted down as we picked out the letters
+and words, "that's how the land lies. Everybody seems to have
+appreciated the importance of the dagger."
+
+"Except Norton," I could not help putting in in disgust.
+
+"And now it's gone," he continued, "just as though some one had
+dropped it overboard. I believe I will keep that appointment you
+made for me with Whitney, after all."
+
+Thus it happened that I found myself a third time entering
+Whitney's building. I was about to step into the elevator, when
+Kennedy tugged at my arm and pulled me back.
+
+"Hello, Norton," I heard him say, as I turned and caught sight of
+the archaeologist just leaving an elevator that had come down.
+
+Norton's face plainly showed that he was worried.
+
+"What the matter?" asked Kennedy, putting the circumstances
+together. "What has Whitney been doing?"
+
+Norton seemed reluctant to talk, but having no alternative
+motioned to us to step aside in the corridor.
+
+"It's the first time I've talked with him since the dagger was
+stolen--that is, about the loss," he said nervously. "He called me
+up half an hour ago and asked me to come down."
+
+I looked at Kennedy significantly. Evidently it must have been
+just after his return to the office and receipt of the letter
+which I had stuck in the letter slot.
+
+"He was very angry over something," continued Norton. "I'm sure it
+was not my fault if the dagger was stolen, and I'm sure that
+managing an expedition in that God-forsaken country doesn't give
+you time to read every inscription, especially when it is almost
+illegible, right on the spot. There was work enough for months
+that I brought back, along with that. Sometimes Whitney's
+unreasonable."
+
+"You don't think he could have known something about the dagger
+all along?" ventured Craig.
+
+Norton puckered his eyes. "He never said anything," he replied.
+"If he had asked me to drop other things for that, why, of course,
+I would have done so. We can't afford to lose him as a contributor
+to the exploration fund. Confound it--I'm afraid I've put my foot
+in it this time."
+
+Kennedy said nothing, and Norton continued, growing more excited:
+"Everybody's been talking to Whitney, telling him all kinds of
+things--Lockwood, the de Moches, heaven knows who else. Why don't
+they come out and face me? I've a notion to try to carry on my
+work independently. Nothing plays hob with scholarship like money.
+You'd think he owned me body and soul, and the collection, too, if
+you heard him talk. Why, he accused me of carelessness in running
+the Museum, and heaven knows I'm not the curator--I'm not even the
+janitor!"
+
+Norton was excited, but I could not help feeling that he was also
+relieved. "I've been preparing for the time when I'd have to cut
+loose," he went on finally. "Now, I suppose it is coming. Ah,
+well, perhaps it will be better--who can tell? I may not do so
+much, but it will all be mine, with no strings attached. Perhaps,
+after all, it is for the best."
+
+Talking over his troubles seemed to do Norton some good, for I am
+sure that he left us in a better frame of mind than we had found
+him.
+
+Kennedy wished him good-luck, and we again entered the lift.
+
+We found Whitney in an even greater state of excitement than
+Norton had been. I am sure that if it had been any one else than
+Kennedy he would have thrown him out, but he seemed to feel that
+he must control himself in our presence.
+
+"What do you know about that fellow Norton, up at your place?" he
+demanded, almost before we had seated ourselves.
+
+"A very hard-working, ambitious man his colleagues tell me,"
+returned Kennedy, purposely I thought, as if it had been a red rag
+flaunted before a bull.
+
+"Hard-working--yes," bellowed Whitney. "He has worked me hard. I
+send him down to Peru--yes, I put up most of the money. Then what
+does he do? Just kids me along, makes me think he's accomplishing
+a whole lot--when he's actually so careless as to let himself be
+robbed of what he gets with my money. I tell you, you can't trust
+anybody. They all double-cross you. I swear, I think Lockwood and
+I ought to go it alone. I'm glad I found that fellow out. Let
+himself be robbed--a fine piece of work! Why, that fellow couldn't
+see through a barn door--after the horse was stolen," he
+concluded, mixing his metaphors in his anger.
+
+"Evidently some one has been telling you something," remarked
+Kennedy. "We tried to see you twice this morning, but couldn't
+find you."
+
+His tone was one calculated to impress Whitney with the fact that
+he had been watching and had some idea of where he really was.
+Whitney shot a sharp glance at Craig, whose face betrayed nothing.
+
+"Ambitious--I should say so," repeated Whitney, reverting to
+Norton to cover up this new change of the subject. "Well--let him
+be ambitious. We can get along without him. I tell you, Kennedy,
+no one is indispensable. There is always some way to get along--if
+you can't get over an obstacle, you can get around it. I'll
+dispense with Mr. Norton. He's an expensive luxury, anyhow. I'm
+just as well satisfied."
+
+There was real vexation in Whitney's voice, yet as he talked he,
+too, seemed to cool down. I could not help thinking that both
+Norton and Whitney were perhaps just a bit glad at the break. Had
+both of them got out of each other all that they wanted--Norton
+his reputation and Whitney--what?
+
+He cooled down so rapidly now that almost I began to wonder
+whether his anger had been genuine. Did he know more about the
+dagger than appeared? Was this his cover--to disown Norton?
+
+"It seems to me that Senora de Moche is ambitious for her son,
+too," remarked Kennedy, tenaciously trying to force the
+conversation into the channel he chose.
+
+"How's that?" demanded Whitney, narrowing his eyes down into a
+squint at Kennedy's face, a proceeding that served by contrast to
+emphasize the abnormal condition of the pupils which I had already
+noticed both in his eyes and Lockwood's.
+
+"I don't think she'd object to having him marry into one of the
+leading families in Peru," ventured Kennedy, paraphrasing what we
+had already read in the letter.
+
+"Perhaps Senorita Mendoza herself can be trusted to see to that,"
+Whitney replied with a quick laugh.
+
+"To say nothing of Mr. Lockwood," suggested Craig.
+
+Whitney looked at him quizzically, as though in doubt just how
+much this man knew.
+
+"Senora de Moche puzzles me," went on Kennedy. "I often wonder
+whether superstition or greed would rule her if it came to the
+point in this matter of the Gold of the Gods, as they all seem to
+call the buried treasure at Truxillo. She's a fascinating woman,
+but I can't help feeling that with her one is always playing with
+fire."
+
+Whitney eyed us knowingly. I had long ago taken his measure as a
+man quite susceptible to a pretty face, especially if accompanied
+by a well-turned ankle.
+
+"I never discuss politics during business hours," he laughed, with
+a self-satisfied air. "You will excuse me? I have some rather
+important letters that I must get off."
+
+Kennedy rose, and Whitney walked to the door with us, to call his
+stenographer.
+
+We had scarcely said good-bye and were about to open the outer
+door when it was pushed open from outside, and Lockwood bustled
+in.
+
+"No more anonymous letters, I hope?" he queried, in a tone which I
+could not determine whether serious or sarcastic.
+
+Kennedy answered in the negative. "Not unless you have one."
+
+"I? I rather think the ready letter-writers know better than to
+waste time on me. That little billet doux seems to have quite
+upset the Senorita, though. I don't know how many times she has
+called me up to see if I was all right. I begin to think that
+whoever wrote it has done me a good turn, after all."
+
+Lockwood did not say it in a boastful way, but one could see that
+he was greatly pleased at the solicitude of Inez.
+
+"She thinks it referred to you, then?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Evidently," he replied; then added, "I won't say but that I have
+taken it seriously, too."
+
+He slapped his hip pocket. Under the tail of his coat bulged a
+blue-steel automatic.
+
+"You still have no idea who could have sent it, or why?"
+
+Lockwood shook his head. "Whoever he is, I'm ready," he replied
+grimly, bowing us out.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE SHOE-PRINTS
+
+
+"I'm afraid we've neglected the Senorita a bit, in our efforts to
+follow up what clues we have in the case," remarked Kennedy, as we
+rode uptown again. "She needs all the protection we can give her.
+I think we'd better drop around there, now that she is pretty
+likely to be left alone."
+
+Accordingly, instead of going back to the laboratory, we dropped
+off near the apartment of the Mendozas and walked over from the
+subway.
+
+As we turned the corner, far down the long block I could see the
+entrance to the apartment.
+
+"There she is now," I said to Kennedy, catching sight of her
+familiar figure, clad in sombre black, as she came down the steps.
+"I wonder where she can be going."
+
+She turned at the foot of the steps and, as chance would have it,
+started in the opposite direction from us.
+
+"Let us see," answered Kennedy, quickening his pace.
+
+She had not gone very far before a man seemed to spring up from
+nowhere and meet her. He bowed, and walked along beside her.
+
+"De Moche," recognized Kennedy.
+
+Alfonso had evidently been waiting in the shadow of an entrance
+down the street, perhaps hoping to see her, perhaps as our
+newspaper friend had seen before, to watch whether Lockwood was
+among her callers. As we walked along, we could see the little
+drama with practically no fear of being seen, so earnestly were
+they talking.
+
+Even during the few minutes that the Senorita was talking with him
+no one would have needed to be told that she really had a great
+deal of regard for him, whatever might be her feelings toward
+Lockwood.
+
+"I should say that she wants to see him, yet does not want to see
+him," observed Kennedy, as we came closer.
+
+She seemed now to have become restive and impatient, eager to cut
+the conversation short.
+
+It was quite evident at the same time that Alfonso was deeply in
+love with her, that though she tried to put him off he was
+persistent. I wondered whether, after all, some of the trouble had
+not been that during his lifetime the proud old Castilian Don Luis
+could never have consented to the marriage of his daughter to one
+of Indian blood. Had he left a legacy of fear of a love forbidden
+by race prejudice?
+
+In any event, the manner of Alfonso's actions about the Mendoza
+apartment was such that one could easily imagine his feelings
+toward Lockwood, whom he saw carrying off the prize under his very
+eyes.
+
+As for his mother, the Senora, we had already seen that Peruvians
+of her caste were also a proud old race. Her son was the apple of
+her eye. Might not some of her feelings be readily accounted for?
+Who were these to scorn her race, her family?
+
+We had walked along at a pace that finally brought us up with
+them. As Kennedy and I bowed, Alfonso seemed at first to resent
+our intrusion, while Inez seemed rather to welcome it as a
+diversion.
+
+"Can we not expect you?" the young man repeated. "It will be only
+for a few minutes this afternoon, and my mother has something of
+very great importance to tell."
+
+He was half pleading, half apologizing. Inez glanced hastily
+around at Kennedy, uncertain what to say, and hoping that he might
+indicate some course. Surreptitiously, Kennedy nodded an
+affirmative.
+
+"Very well, then," she replied reluctantly, not to seem to change
+what had been her past refusal too suddenly. "I may ask Professor
+Kennedy, too?"
+
+He could scarcely refuse before us. "Of course," he agreed,
+quickly turning to us. "We were speaking about meeting this
+afternoon at four in the tea room of the Prince Edward. You can
+come?"
+
+Though the invitation was not over-gracious, Kennedy replied, "We
+should be delighted to accompany Miss Inez, I am sure. We happened
+to be passing this way and thought we would stop in to see if
+anything new had happened. Just as we turned the corner we saw you
+disappearing down the street, and followed. I trust everything is
+all right?"
+
+"Nothing more has happened since this morning," she returned, with
+a look that indicated she understood that Kennedy referred to the
+anonymous letter. "I had a little shopping to do. If you will
+excuse me, I think I will take a car. This afternoon--at four."
+
+She nodded brightly as we assisted her into a taxicab and left us
+three standing there on the curb. For a moment it was rather
+awkward. To Alfonso her leaving was somewhat as though the sun had
+passed under a cloud.
+
+"Are you going up toward the University?" inquired Kennedy.
+
+"Yes," responded the young man reluctantly.
+
+"Then suppose we walk. It would take only a few more minutes,"
+suggested Kennedy.
+
+Alfonso could not very well refuse, but started off at a brisk
+pace.
+
+"I suppose these troubles interfere seriously with your work,"
+pursued Craig, as we fell into his stride.
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "although much of my work just now is only
+polishing off what I have already learned--getting your American
+point of view and methods. You see, I have had an idea that the
+canal will bring both countries into much closer relations than
+before. And if you will not learn of us, we must learn of you."
+
+"It is too bad we Americans don't take more interest in the
+countries south of us," admitted Craig. "I think you have the
+right idea, though. Such men as Mr. Whitney are doing their best
+to bring the two nations closer together."
+
+I watched the effect of the mention of Whitney's name. It seemed
+distasteful, only in a lesser degree than Lockwood's.
+
+"We do not need to be exploited," he ventured. "My belief is that
+we should not attract capital in order to take things out of the
+country. If we might keep our own earnings and transform them into
+capital, it would be better. That is why I am doing what I am at
+the University."
+
+I could not believe that it explained the whole reason for his
+presence in New York. Without a doubt the girl who had just left
+us weighed largely in his mind, as well as his and his mother's
+ambitions, both personal and for Peru.
+
+"Quite reasonable," accepted Kennedy. "Peru for the Peruvians. Yet
+there seems to be such untold wealth in the country that taking
+out even quite large sums would not begin to exhaust the natural
+resources."
+
+"But they are ours, they belong to us," hastened de Moche, then
+caught the drift of Kennedy's remarks, and was on his guard.
+
+"Buried treasure, like that which you call the Gold of the Gods,
+is always fascinating," continued Kennedy. "The trouble with such
+easy money, however, is that it tends to corrupt. In the early
+days history records its taint. And I doubt whether human nature
+has changed much under the veneer of modern civilization. The
+treasure seems to leave its trail even as far away as New York. It
+has at least one murder to its credit already."
+
+"There has been nothing but murder and robbery from the time that
+the peje chica was discovered," asserted the young man sadly. "You
+are quite right."
+
+"Truly it would seem to have been cursed," added Craig. "The
+spirit of Mansiche must, indeed, watch over it. I suppose you know
+of the loss of the old Inca dagger from the University Museum and
+that it was that with which Don Luis was murdered?"
+
+It was the first time Kennedy had broached the subject to de
+Moche, and I watched closely to see what was its effect.
+
+"Perhaps it was a warning," commented Alfonso, in a solemn tone,
+that left me in doubt whether it was purely superstitious dread or
+in the nature of a prophecy of what might be expected from some
+quarter of which we were ignorant.
+
+"You have known of the existence of the dagger always, I presume,"
+continued Kennedy. "Have you or any one you know ever sought to
+discover its secret and search it out?"
+
+"I think my mother told you we never dig for treasure," he
+answered. "It would be sacrilegious. Besides, there is more
+treasure buried by nature than that dedicated to the gods. There
+is only one trouble that may hurt our natural resources--the get-
+rich-quick promoter. I would advise looking out for him. He
+flourishes in a newly opened country like Peru. That curse, I
+suppose, is much better understood by Americans than the curse of
+Mansiche. But as for me, you must remember that the curse is part
+of my religion, as it were."
+
+We had reached the campus by this time, and parted at the gate,
+each to go his way.
+
+"You will drop in on me if you hear anything?" invited Craig.
+
+"Yes," promised Alfonso. "We shall see you at four."
+
+With this parting reminder he turned toward the School of Mines
+while we debouched off toward the Chemistry Building.
+
+"The de Moches are nobody's tools," I remarked. "That young man
+seems to have a pretty definite idea of what he wants to do."
+
+"At least he puts it so before us," was all that Kennedy would
+grant. "He seems to be as well informed of what passed at that
+visit to the Senora as though he had been there too."
+
+We had scarcely opened the laboratory door when the ringing of the
+telephone told us that some one had been trying to get in touch
+for some time.
+
+"It was Norton," said Kennedy, hanging up the receiver. "I imagine
+he wants to know what happened after we left him and went up to
+see Whitney."
+
+That was, in fact, just what Norton wanted, as well as to make
+clear to us how he felt on the subject.
+
+"Really, Kennedy," he remarked, "it must be fine to feel that your
+chair in the University is endowed rather than subsidized. You saw
+how Whitney acted, you say. Why, he makes me feel as if I were his
+hired man, instead of head of the University's expedition. I'm
+glad it's over. Still, if you could find that dagger and have it
+returned it might look better for me. You have no clue, I
+suppose?"
+
+"I'm getting closer to one," replied Craig confidently, though on
+what he could base any optimism I could not see.
+
+The same idea seemed to be in Norton's mind. "You think you will
+have something tangible soon?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"I've had more slender threads than these to work on," reassured
+Kennedy. "Besides, I'm getting very little help from any of you.
+You yourself, Norton, at the start left me a good deal in the dark
+over the history of the dagger."
+
+"I couldn't do otherwise," he defended. "You understand now, I
+guess, how I have always been tied, hand and foot, by the Whitney
+influence. You'll find that I can be of more service, now."
+
+"Just how did you get possession of the dagger?" asked Kennedy,
+and there flashed over me the recollection of the story told by
+the Senora, as well as the letter which we had purloined.
+
+"Just picked it up from an Indian who had an abnormal dislike to
+work. They said he was crazy, and I guess perhaps he was. At any
+rate, he later drowned himself in the lake, I have heard."
+
+"Could he have been made insane, do you think?" ruminated Craig.
+"It's possible that he was the victim of somebody, I understand.
+The insanity might have been real enough without the cause being
+natural."
+
+"That's an interesting story," returned Norton. "Offhand, I can't
+seem to recall much about the fellow, although some one else might
+have known him very well."
+
+Evidently he either did not know the tale as well as the Senora,
+or was not prepared to take us entirely into his confidence.
+
+"Who is Haggerty?" asked Craig, thinking of the name signed to the
+letter we had read.
+
+"An agent of Whitney and his associates, who manages things in
+Lima," explained Norton. "Why?"
+
+"Nothing--only I have heard the name and wondered what his
+connection might be. I understand better now."
+
+Kennedy seemed to be anxious to get to work on something, and,
+after a few minutes, Norton left us.
+
+No sooner had the door closed than he took the glass-bell jar off
+his microscope and drew from a table drawer several scraps of
+paper on which I recognized the marks left by the carbon sheets.
+He set to work on another of those painstaking tasks of
+examination, and I retired to my typewriter, which I had moved
+into the next room, in order to leave Kennedy without anything
+that might distract attention from his work.
+
+One after another he examined the sheets which he had marked,
+starting with a hand-lens and then using one more powerful. At the
+top of the table lay the specially prepared paper on which he had
+caught and preserved the marks in the dust of the Egyptian
+sarcophagus in the Museum.
+
+Besides these things, I noticed that he had innumerable
+photographs, many of which were labelled with the stamp of the
+bureau in the Paris Palais de Justice, over which Bertillon had
+presided.
+
+One after another he looked at the carbon prints, comparing them
+point by point with the specially prepared copy of the shoe-prints
+in the sarcophagus. It was, after all, a comparatively simple job.
+We had the prints of de Moche and Lockwood, as well as Whitney,
+all of them crossed by steps from Norton.
+
+"Well, what do you think of that?" I heard him mutter.
+
+I quit my typewriter, with a piece of paper still in it, and
+hurried into the main room.
+
+"Have you found anything?"
+
+"I should say I had," he replied, in a tone that betrayed his own
+astonishment at the find. "Look at that," he indicated to me,
+handing over one of the sheets. "Compare it with this Museum foot-
+print."
+
+With his pencil Kennedy rapidly indicated the tell-tale points of
+similarity on the two shoe-prints.
+
+I looked up at him, convinced now of some one's identity.
+
+"Who was it?" I asked, unable to restrain myself longer.
+
+Kennedy paused a minute, to let the importance of the surprise be
+understood.
+
+"The man who entered the Museum and concealed himself in the
+sarcophagus in the Egyptian section adjoining Norton's treasures,"
+replied Kennedy slowly, "was Lockwood himself!"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE EVIL EYE
+
+
+Completely at sea as a result of the unexpected revelation of the
+shoe-prints we had found in the Museum, and with suspicions now
+thoroughly aroused against Lockwood, I accompanied Kennedy to keep
+our appointment with the Senorita at the Prince Edward Albert.
+
+We were purposely a bit early, in order to meet Inez, so that she
+would not have to be alone with the Senora, and we sat down in the
+lobby in a little angle from which we could look into the tea
+room.
+
+We had not been sitting there very long when Kennedy called my
+attention to Whitney, who had just come in. Almost at the same
+time he caught sight of us, and walked over.
+
+"I've been thinking a good deal of your visit to me just now," he
+began, seating himself beside us. "Perhaps I should not have said
+what I did about your friend Norton. But I couldn't help it. I
+guess you know something about that dagger he lost, don't you?"
+
+"I have heard of the 'great fish' and the 'little fish' and the
+'curse of Mansiche,'" replied Kennedy, "if that is what you mean.
+Somehow the Inca dagger seems to have been mixed up with them."
+
+"Yes--with the peje grande, I believe," went on Whitney.
+
+Beneath his exterior of studied calm I could see that he was very
+much excited. If I had not already noted a peculiar physical
+condition in him, I might have thought he had stopped in the cafe
+with some friends too long. But his eyes were not those of a man
+who has had too much to drink.
+
+Just then Senorita Mendoza entered, and Kennedy rose and went
+forward to greet her. She saw Whitney, and flashed an inquiring
+glance at us.
+
+"We were waiting for Senorita Mendoza," explained Kennedy to both
+Whitney and her, "when Mr. Whitney happened along. I don't see
+Senora de Moche in the tea room. Perhaps we may as well sit out
+here in the corridor until she comes."
+
+It was evidently his desire to see how Whitney and Inez would act,
+for this was the first time we had ever seen them together.
+
+"We were talking of the treasure," resumed Whitney, omitting to
+mention the dagger. "Kennedy, we are not the only ones who have
+sought the peje grande, or rather are seeking it. But we are, I
+believe, the only ones who are seeking it in the right place,
+and," he added, leaning over confidentially, "your father,
+Senorita, was the only one who could have got the concession, the
+monopoly, from the government to seek in what I am convinced will
+be the right place. Others have found the 'little fish.' We shall
+find the 'big fish.'"
+
+He had raised his voice from the whisper, and I caught Inez
+looking anxiously at Kennedy, as much as to say, "You see? He is
+like the rest. His mind is full of only one subject."
+
+"We shall find it, too," he continued, still speaking in a high-
+pitched key, "no matter what obstacles man or devil put in our
+way. It shall be ours--for a simple piece of engineering--ours!
+The curse of Mansiche--pouf!"
+
+He snapped his fingers defiantly as he said it. There was an air
+of bravado about his manner. I could not help feeling that perhaps
+in his heart he was not so sure of himself as he would have others
+think.
+
+I watched him closely, and could see that he had suddenly become
+even more excited than before. It was as though some diabolical
+force had taken possession of his brain, and he fought it off, but
+was unable to conquer.
+
+Kennedy followed the staring glance of Whitney's eyes, which
+seemed almost to pop out of his head, as though he were suffering
+from the disease exophthalmic goitre. I looked also. Senora de
+Moche had come from the elevator, accompanied by Alfonso, and was
+walking slowly down the corridor. As she looked to the right and
+left, she had caught sight of our little group, all except
+Whitney, with our backs toward her. She was now looking fixedly in
+our direction, paying no attention to anything else.
+
+Whitney was a study. I wondered what could be the relations
+between these two, the frankly voluptuous woman and the
+calculating full-blooded man. Whitney, for his part, seemed almost
+fascinated by her gaze. He rose as she bowed, and, for a moment, I
+thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by
+that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in
+his "Imp of the Perverse." For, clearly, one who talked as Whitney
+had just been talking would have to be on his guard with that
+woman. Instead, however, he returned her nod and stood still,
+while Kennedy bowed at a distance and signalled to her that we
+would be in the tea room directly.
+
+I glanced up in time to see the anxious look on the face of Inez
+change momentarily into a flash of hatred toward the Senora.
+
+At the same moment Alfonso, who was on the other side of his
+mother, turned from looking at a newsstand which had attracted his
+attention and caught sight of us. There was no mistaking the
+ardent glance which he directed at the fair Peruvian at my side. I
+fancied, too, that her face softened a bit. It was only for a
+moment, and then Inez resumed her normal composure.
+
+"I won't detain you any longer," remarked Whitney. "Somehow, when
+I start to talk about my--our plans down there at Truxillo I could
+go on all night. It is marvellous, marvellous. We haven't any idea
+of what the future holds in store. No one else in all this big
+city has anything like the prospect which is before us. Gradually
+we are getting everything into shape. When we are ready to go
+ahead, it will be the sensation of Wall Street--and, believe me,
+it takes much to arouse the Street."
+
+He may have been talking wildly, but it was worth while to listen
+to him. For, whatever else he was, Whitney was one of the most
+persuasive promoters of the day. More than that, I could well
+imagine how any one possessed of an imagination susceptible to the
+influence of mystery and tradition would succumb to the glittering
+charm of the magic words, peje chica, and feel all the gold-
+hunter's enthusiasm when Whitney brought him into the atmosphere
+of the peje grande. As he talked, visions of hidden treasure
+seemed to throw a glamour over everything. One saw golden.
+
+"You will excuse us?" apologized Kennedy, taking Inez by the arm.
+"If you are about, Mr. Whitney, I shall stop to chat with you
+again on the way out."
+
+"Remember--she is a very remarkable woman," said Whitney, as we
+left him and started for the tea room.
+
+His tone was not exactly one of warning, yet it seemed to have
+cost him an effort to say it. I could not reconcile it with any
+other idea than that he was trying to use her in his own plans,
+but was still in doubt of the outcome.
+
+We parted from him and entered the darkened tea room, with its
+wicker tables and chairs, and soft lights, glowing pinkly, to
+simulate night in the broad light of afternoon outside. A fountain
+splashed soothingly in the centre. Everything was done to lend to
+the place an exotic air of romance.
+
+Alfonso and his mother had chosen a far corner, deeper than the
+rest in the shadows, where two wicker settees were drawn up about
+a table, effectually cutting off inquisitive eyes and ears.
+
+Alfonso rose as we approached and bowed deeply. I could not help
+watching the two women as they greeted each other.
+
+"Won't you be seated?" he asked, pulling around one of the wicker
+chairs.
+
+It was then that I saw how he had contrived to sit next to Inez,
+while Kennedy manoeuvred to sit on the end, where he could observe
+them all best.
+
+It was a rather delicate situation, and I wondered how Kennedy
+would handle it, for, although Alfonso had done the inviting, it
+was really Craig who was responsible for allowing Inez to accept.
+The Senora seemed to recognize it, also, for, although she talked
+to Inez, it was plain she had him in mind.
+
+"I have heard from Alfonso about the cruel death of your father,"
+she began, in a softened tone, "and I haven't had a chance to tell
+you how deeply I sympathize with you. Of course, I am a much older
+woman than you, have seen much more trouble. But I know that never
+in life do troubles seem keener than when life is young. And yours
+has been so harsh. I could not let it pass without an opportunity
+to tell you how deeply I feel."
+
+She said it with an air of sincerity that was very convincing, so
+convincing, in fact, that it shook for the moment the long chain
+of suspicion that I had been forging both of her and her son.
+Could she be such a heartless woman as to play on the very
+heartstrings of one whom she had wronged? I was shaken, moreover,
+by the late discovery by Kennedy of the foot-prints.
+
+The Senorita murmured her thanks for the condolences in a broken
+voice. It was evident that whatever enmity she bore against the
+Senora it was not that of suspicion that she was the cause of her
+father's death.
+
+"I can sympathize with you the more deeply," she went on, "because
+only lately I have lost a very dear brother myself. Already I have
+told Professor Kennedy something about it. It was a matter of
+which I felt I must speak to you, for it may concern you, in the
+venture in which Mr. Lockwood and your father were associated, and
+into which now Mr. Whitney has entered."
+
+Inez said nothing, and Craig bowed, as though he, too, wished her
+to go on.
+
+"It is about the 'big fish' and the concession which your father
+has obtained from the government to search for it."
+
+The Senorita started and grew a bit pale at the reference, but she
+seemed to realize that it was something she ought to hear, and
+steeled herself to it.
+
+"Yes," she murmured, "I understand."
+
+"As you no doubt know," resumed the Senora, "no one has had the
+secret of the hiding-place. It has been by mere tradition that
+they were going to dig. That secret, you may know or may not know
+now, was in reality contained in the inscriptions on an old Inca
+dagger."
+
+Inez shuddered at the mention of the weapon, a shudder that was
+not lost on the Senora.
+
+"I have already told Professor Kennedy that both the tradition and
+the dagger were handed down in my own family, coming at last to my
+brother. As I said, I don't know how it happened, but somehow he
+seemed to be getting crazy, until he talked, and the dagger was
+stolen from him. It came finally into Professor Norton's hands,
+from whom it was in turn stolen."
+
+She looked at Inez searchingly, as if to discover just what she
+knew. I wondered whether the Senora suspected the presence of
+Lockwood's footprints in the sarcophagus in the Museum--what she
+would do if she did.
+
+"After he lost it," she continued reminiscently, "my brother threw
+himself one day into Lake Titicaca. Everywhere the trail of that
+dagger, of the secret of the Gold of the Gods has been stained by
+blood. To-day the world scoffs at curses. But surely that gold
+must be cursed. It has been cursed for us and ours."
+
+She spoke bitterly; yet might she not mean that the loss of the
+dagger, the secret, was a curse, too?
+
+"There is one other thing I wish to say, and then I will be
+through. Far back, when your ancestors came into the country of
+mine, an ancestor of your father lost his life over the treasure.
+It seems as if there were a strange fatality over it, as if the
+events of to-day were but living over the events of yesterday. It
+is something that we cannot escape--fate."
+
+She paused a moment, then added, "Yet it might be possible that
+the curse could be removed if somehow we, who were against each
+other then, might forget and be for each other now."
+
+"But Senorita Mendoza has not the dagger," put in Kennedy,
+watching her face keenly, to read the effect of his remark. "She
+has no idea where it may be."
+
+"Then it is pure tradition on which Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney
+depend in their search for the treasure?" flashed back the Senora
+quickly.
+
+Kennedy did not know, but he did not confess it. "Until we know
+differently, we must take their word for it," he evaded.
+
+"It was not that that I meant, however," replied Senora de Moche.
+"I meant that we might stop the curse by ceasing to hunt for the
+treasure. It has never done any one good; it never will. Why tempt
+fate, then? Why not pause before it is too late?"
+
+I could not quite catch the secondary implication of her plan. Did
+it mean that the treasure would then be left for her family? Or
+was she hinting at Inez accepting Alfonso's suit? Somehow I could
+not take the Senora at her face value. I constantly felt that
+there was an ulterior motive back of her actions and words.
+
+I saw Craig watching the young man's face, and followed his eyes.
+There was no doubt of how he took the remark. He was gazing
+ardently at Inez. If there had ever been any doubt of his
+feelings, which, of course, there had not, this would have settled
+it.
+
+"One thing more," added the Senora, as though she had had an
+afterthought, "and that is about Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney. Let
+me ask you to think it over. Suppose they have not the dagger.
+Then are their chances better than others? And if they have"--she
+paused to emphasize it--"what does that mean?"
+
+Kennedy had turned his attention to the Senorita. It was evident
+that the dilemma proposed by de Moche was not without weight. She
+had now coloured a flaming red. The woman had struck her in a
+vital spot.
+
+"Mr. Lockwood is not here to defend himself," Inez said quietly.
+"I will not have him attacked by innuendo."
+
+She had risen. Neither the ardour of Alfonso nor the seeds of
+doubt of the Senora had shaken her faith. It was a test that
+Kennedy evidently was glad to have witnessed. For some day she
+might learn the truth about the foot-prints. He understood her
+character better. The Senora, too, had learned that if she were to
+bring pressure on the girl she might break her, but she would not
+bend.
+
+Without another word Inez, scarcely bowing stiffly, moved out of
+the tea room, and we followed, leaving the mother and son there,
+baffled.
+
+"I hope you will pardon me for allowing you to come here," said
+Kennedy, in a low voice. "I did it because there are certain
+things that you ought to hear. It was in fairness to you. I would
+not have you delude yourself about Mr. Whitney, about--Mr.
+Lockwood, even. I want you to feel that, no matter what you hear
+or see, you can come to me and know that I will tell you the
+truth. It may hurt, but it will be best."
+
+I thought he was preparing the way for a revelation about the
+foot-prints, but he said nothing more.
+
+"Oh, that woman!" she exclaimed, as if to change the subject. "I
+do not know, I cannot say, why she affects me so. I saw a change
+in my father, when he knew her. I have told you how he was, how
+sometimes I thought he was mad. Did you notice a change in Mr.
+Whitney, or haven't you known him long enough? And lately I have
+fancied that I see the same sort of change beginning in Mr.
+Lockwood. At times they become so excited, their eyes seem
+staring, as if some fever were wasting them away. Father seemed to
+see strange visions, and hear voices, was worse when he was alone
+than when he was in a crowd. Oh, what is it? I could think of
+nothing else, not even what she was saying, all the time I was
+with her."
+
+"Then you fear that in some way she may be connected with these
+strange changes?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"I don't know," she temporized; but the tone of her answer was
+sufficient to convey the impression that in her heart she did
+suspect something, she knew not what.
+
+"Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried finally, "can't you see it?
+Sometimes--when she looks out of those eyes of hers--she almost
+makes people do as she pleases."
+
+We had come to the taxicab stand before the hotel, and Kennedy had
+already beckoned to a cab to take her home.
+
+As he handed her in she turned with a little shiver.
+
+"Don't please, think me foolish," she added, with bated breath,
+"but often I fear that it is, as we call it, the mal de ojo--the
+evil eye!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE POISONED CIGARETTE
+
+
+There was not a grain of superstition in Kennedy, yet I could see
+that he was pondering deeply what Inez Mendoza had just said. Was
+it possible that there might be something in it--not objectively,
+but subjectively? Might that very fear which the Senorita had of
+the Senora engender a feeling that would produce the very result
+that she feared? I knew that there were strange things that modern
+psychology was discovering. Could there be some scientific
+explanation of the evil eye?
+
+Kennedy turned and went back into the hotel, to keep his
+appointment with Whitney, and as he did so I reflected that,
+whatever credence might be given the evil-eye theory, there was
+something now before us that was a fact--the physical condition
+which Inez had observed in her father before his death, saw now in
+Whitney, and foresaw in Lockwood. Surely that in itself
+constituted enough of a problem.
+
+We found Whitney in the cafe, sitting alone in a leather-cushioned
+booth, and smoking furiously. I observed him narrowly. His eyes
+had even more than before that peculiar, staring look. By the
+manner in which his veins stood out I could see that his heart
+action must be very rapid.
+
+"Well," he remarked, as we seated ourselves, "how did you come out
+in your tete-a-tete?"
+
+"About as I expected," answered Kennedy nonchalantly. "I let it go
+on merely because I wanted Senorita Mendoza to hear certain
+things, and I thought that the Senora could tell them best. One of
+them related to the history of that dagger."
+
+I thought Whitney's eyes would pop out of his head. "What about
+it?" he asked.
+
+"Well," replied Kennedy briefly, "there was the story of how her
+brother had it and was driven crazy until he gave it up to
+somebody, then committed suicide by throwing himself into
+Titicaca. The other was the tradition that in the days after
+Pizarro a Mendoza was murdered by it, just as her father has now
+been murdered."
+
+Whitney was listening intently, and seemed to be thinking deeply
+of something.
+
+"Do you know," he said finally, with a nod to indicate that he
+knew what it was that Kennedy referred to, "I've been thinking of
+that de Moche woman a good deal since I left you with her. I've
+had some dealings with her."
+
+He looked at Kennedy shrewdly, as though he would have liked to
+ask whether she had said anything about him, but did not because
+he knew Kennedy would not tell. He was trying to figure out some
+other way of finding out.
+
+"Sometimes I think she is trying to double-cross me," he said, at
+length. "I know that when she talks to others about me she says
+many things that aren't so. Yet when she is with me everything is
+fine, and she is ready soon to join us, use her influence with
+influential Peruvians; in fact, there isn't anything she won't do-
+-manana, to-morrow."
+
+All that Whitney said we now knew to be true.
+
+"She has one interesting dilemma, however, which I do not mind
+telling you," remarked Kennedy at length. "She cannot expect me to
+keep secret what she said before all of us. Inez Mendoza would
+mention it, anyhow."
+
+"What was that?" queried Whitney, dissembling his interest.
+
+"Why," replied Kennedy slowly, "it was that, with the plans for
+digging for the treasure which you say you have, suppose you and
+Lockwood and your associates have not the dagger--how are you
+better off than previous hunters? And supposing you have it--what
+does that imply?"
+
+Whitney thought a moment over the last proposition of the dilemma.
+"Imply?" he repeated slowly. Then the significance of it seemed to
+dawn on him, the possession of the dagger and its implication in
+regard to the murder of Mendoza. "Well," he answered, "we haven't
+the dagger. You know that. But, on the other hand, we think our
+plans for getting at the treasure are better than any one else has
+ever had, more certain of success."
+
+"Yet the possession of the dagger, with its inscription, is the
+only thing that absolutely insures success," observed Kennedy.
+
+"That's true enough," agreed Whitney. "Confound that man Norton.
+How could he be such a boob as to let the chance slip through his
+fingers?"
+
+"He never told you of it?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Yes, he told me of the dagger, but hadn't read the inscription,
+he said," answered Whitney. "I was so busy at the time with
+Lockwood and Mendoza, who had the concession to dig for the
+treasure, that I didn't pay much attention to what Norton brought
+back. I thought that could wait until Lockwood had been persuaded
+to join the interests I represent."
+
+"Did Lockwood or Mendoza know about the dagger and its
+importance?" suggested Craig.
+
+"If they did, they never said anything about it," returned Whitney
+promptly. "Mendoza is dead. Lockwood tells me he knew nothing
+about it until very lately--since the murder, I suppose."
+
+"You suppose?" persisted Kennedy. "Are you sure that he knew
+nothing about it before?"
+
+"No," confessed Whitney, "I'm not sure. Only I say that he told me
+nothing of it."
+
+"Then he might have known?"
+
+"Might have. But I don't think it very probable."
+
+Whitney seemed to be turning something over in his mind. Suddenly
+he brought his fist down on the little round table before us,
+rattling the glasses.
+
+"Do you know," he exclaimed, "the more I think about it, the more
+convinced I am that Norton ought to be held to account for that
+loss! He ought to have known. Then the presumption is that he did
+know. By heaven, I'm going to have that fellow watched. I'm going
+to do it to-day, too. I don't trust him. He shall not double-cross
+me--even if that woman does!"
+
+I wondered whether Whitney was bluffing. If he was, he was making
+a lot of fuss over it. He talked more and more wildly, as he grew
+more excited over his latest idea.
+
+"I'll have detectives put on his trail," he blustered. "I'll talk
+it over with Lockwood. He never liked the man."
+
+"What did Lockwood say about Norton?" asked Kennedy casually.
+
+Whitney eyed us a moment.
+
+"Say," he ejaculated, "it was Norton brought you into this case,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"I cannot deny that," returned Kennedy quietly, meeting his eyes.
+"But it is Inez Mendoza now that keeps me in it."
+
+"So--you're another rival, are you?" purred Whitney sarcastically.
+"Lockwood and de Moche aren't enough. I have a sneaking suspicion
+that Norton himself is one of them. Now it's you, too. I suppose
+Mr. Jameson is another. Well, if I was ten years younger, I'd cut
+you all out, or know the reason why. Oh, YES, I think I will NOT
+tell you what Mr. Lockwood suspects."
+
+With every sentence the veins of Whitney's forehead stood out
+further, until now they were like whipcords. His eyes and face
+were fairly apoplectic. Slowly the conviction was forced on me.
+The man acted for all the world like one affected by a drug.
+
+"Well," he went on, "you may tell Norton for me that I am going to
+have him watched. That will throw a scare into him."
+
+At least it showed that the breach between Whitney and Norton was
+deep. Kennedy listened without saying much, but I knew that he was
+gratified. He was playing Lockwood against de Moche, the Senora
+against Inez. Now if Whitney would play himself against Norton,
+out of the tangle might emerge just the clues he needed. For when
+people get fighting among themselves the truth comes out.
+
+"Very well," remarked Craig, rising, with a hurried glance at
+Whitney's apoplectic face, "go as far as you like. I think we
+understand each other better, now."
+
+Whitney said nothing, but, rising also, turned on his heel and
+walked deliberately out of the cafe into the corridor of the
+Prince Edward Albert, leaving us standing there.
+
+Kennedy leaned over and swept up the ashes of Whitney's cigarettes
+which lay in the ash-tray, placing them, stubs and all, in an
+envelope, as he had done before.
+
+"We have one sample, already," he said. "Another won't hurt. You
+can never have too much material to work with. Let us see where he
+is going."
+
+Slowly we followed in the direction which Whitney had taken from
+the cafe. There was Whitney standing by the cigar-stand, gazing
+intently down the corridor.
+
+Kennedy and I moved over so that we could see what he was gazing
+at. Just then he started to walk hurriedly in the direction in
+which he was looking.
+
+"Senora de Moche!" exclaimed Craig, drawing me toward a palm.
+
+It was indeed she. She had left the tea room and gone to her own
+room. Now she was alighting from the elevator, and had started
+toward the main dining-room, when her eyes had rested on Whitney.
+In spite of all that he had said to us about her, he had received
+the glance as a signal and was fluttering over to her like a moth
+to a flame.
+
+What was the reason back of it all, I asked, as I thought of those
+wonderful eyes of hers? Was it a sort of auto-hypnotism? There
+was, I knew, a form of illusion known as ophthalmophobia--fear of
+the eye. It ranged from mere aversion at being gazed at all the
+way to the subjective development of real physical action from an
+otherwise trivial objective cause. Perhaps Inez was right about
+the eyes. One might fear them, and that fear might cause the
+precise thing to happen which the owner of the eyes intended.
+Still, as I reflected before, there was a much more important
+problem regarding eyes before us, that of the drug that was
+evidently being used in the cigarettes. What was it?
+
+There was no chance of our gleaning anything now from these two
+who made such a strange pair. Kennedy turned and went out of the
+nearest entrance of the hotel.
+
+"Central Park, West," he directed a cab driver, as we climbed in
+his machine; then to me, after giving the number, "I must see Inez
+Mendoza again before I can go ahead."
+
+Inez was not expecting us so soon after leaving her at the hotel,
+yet I think was just a little glad that we had come.
+
+"Did anything happen after I left?" she asked eagerly.
+
+"We went back and saw Mr. Whitney," returned Craig. "I believe you
+are right. He is acting queerly,"
+
+"Alfonso called me up," she volunteered.
+
+"Was it about anything I should know?" queried Craig.
+
+"Well," she hesitated, "he said he hoped that nothing that had
+taken place would change our own relations. That was about all. He
+was the dutiful son, and made no attempt to explain anything that
+was said."
+
+Kennedy smiled. "You have not seen Mr. Lock, wood since, I
+suppose?" he asked.
+
+"You always make me tell what I hadn't intended," she confessed,
+smiling back. "Yes, I couldn't help it. At least, I didn't see
+him. I called him up. I wanted to tell him what she had said and
+that it hadn't made any difference to me."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"I can't remember just how he put it, but I think he meant that it
+was something very much like that anonymous letter I received. We
+both feel that there is some one who wants to make trouble between
+us, and we are not going to let it happen."
+
+If she had known of Kennedy's discovery of the shoe-prints, I feel
+sure that, as far as we were concerned, the case would have ended
+there. She was in no mood to be convinced by such a thing, would
+probably have insisted that some one was wearing a second-hand
+pair of his shoes.
+
+Kennedy's eye had been travelling around the room as though
+searching for something.
+
+"May I have a cigarette out of that case over there?" he asked,
+indicating a box of them on a table.
+
+"Why--that is Mr. Lockwood's," she replied. "He left it here the
+last time he was here and I forgot to send it to him. Wait a
+minute. Let me get you some of father's."
+
+She left the room. The moment the door closed Kennedy reached over
+and took one from the case. "I have some of Lockwood's already,
+but another won't matter, as long as I can get it," he said. "I
+thought it was her father's. When she brings them, smoke one with
+me, and be careful to save the stub. I want it."
+
+A moment later she entered with a metal box that must have held
+several hundred. Kennedy and I each took one and lighted it, then
+for several minutes chatted as an excuse for staying. As for
+myself, I was glad enough to leave a pretty large stub, for I did
+not like it. These cigarettes, like those Whitney had offered us,
+had a peculiar flavour which I had not acquired a liking for.
+
+"You must let me know whether anything else develops from the
+meeting in the tea room," said Kennedy finally, rising. "I shall
+be at the laboratory some time, I think."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE INTERFEROMETER
+
+
+Norton was waiting for us at the laboratory when we returned,
+evidently having been there some time.
+
+"I was on my way to my apartment," he began, "when I thought I'd
+drop in to see how things are progressing."
+
+"Slowly," returned Kennedy, throwing off his street clothes and
+getting into his laboratory togs.
+
+"Have you seen Whitney since I had the break with him?" asked
+Norton, a trifle anxiously.
+
+I wondered whether Kennedy would tell Norton what to expect from
+Whitney. He did not, however.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "just now we had an appointment with Senora de
+Moche and some others and ran into him at the hotel for a few
+moments."
+
+"What did he say about me?" queried Norton.
+
+"He hadn't changed his mind," evaded Kennedy. "Have you heard
+anything from him?"
+
+"Not a syllable. The break is final. Only I was wondering what he
+was telling people about me. He'll tell them something--his side
+of the case."
+
+"Well," considered Kennedy, as though racking his brain for some
+remark which he remembered, while Norton watched him eagerly, "I
+do recall that he was terribly sore about the loss of the dagger,
+and seemed to think that it was your fault."
+
+"I thought so, I knew it," replied Norton bitterly. "I can see it
+coming. All the trustees will hear of my gross negligence in
+letting the Museum be robbed. I suppose I ought to sit up there
+all night. Oh, by the way, there's another thing I wanted to ask
+you. Have you ever done anything with those shoe-prints you found
+in the dust of the mummy case?"
+
+I glanced at Kennedy, wondering whether he felt that the time had
+come to reveal what he had discovered. He said nothing for a
+moment, but reached into a drawer and pulled out the papers, which
+I recognized.
+
+"Here they are," he said, picking out the original impression
+which he had taken.
+
+"Yes," repeated Norton, "but have you been able to do anything
+toward identifying them?"
+
+"I found it rather hard to collect prints of the shoes of all of
+those I wished to compare. But I have them at last."
+
+"And?" demanded Norton, leaning forward tensely.
+
+"I find that there is one person whose shoe-prints are precisely
+the same as those we found in the Museum," went on Kennedy,
+tossing over the impression he had taken.
+
+Norton scanned the two carefully. "I'm not a criminologist," he
+said excitedly, "but to my untrained eye it does seem as though
+you had here a replica of the first prints, all right." He laid
+them down and looked squarely at Kennedy. "Do you mind telling me
+whose feet made these prints?"
+
+"Turn the second over. You will see the name written on it."
+
+"Lockwood!" exclaimed Norton in a gasp as he read the name. "No--
+you don't mean it."
+
+"I mean nothing less," repeated Kennedy firmly. "I do not say what
+happened afterwards, but Lockwood was in the Museum, hiding in the
+mummy case, that night."
+
+Norton's mind was evidently working rapidly. "I wish I had your
+power of deduction, Kennedy," he said, at length. "I suppose you
+realize what this means?"
+
+"What does it mean to you?" asked Kennedy, changing front.
+
+Norton hesitated. "Well," he replied, "it means to me, I suppose,
+what it means to any one who stops to think. If Lockwood was
+there, he got the dagger. If he had the dagger--it was he who used
+it!"
+
+The inference was so strong that Craig could not deny it. Whether
+it was his opinion or not was another matter.
+
+"It fits in with other facts, too," continued Norton. "For
+instance, it was Lockwood who discovered the body of Mendoza."
+
+"But the elevator boy took Lockwood up himself," objected Craig,
+more for the sake of promoting the discussion than to combat
+Norton.
+
+"Yes--when he 'discovered' the thing. But it must have been done
+long before. Who knows? He may have entered. The deed might have
+been done. He may have left. No one saw him come or go. What then
+more likely to cover himself up than to return when he knew that
+his entrance would be known, and find the thing himself?"
+
+Norton's reasoning was clever and plausible. Yet Kennedy scarcely
+nodded his head, one way or the other.
+
+"You were acquainted with Lockwood?" he asked finally. "I mean to
+say, of course, before this affair."
+
+"Yes, I met him in Lima just as I was starting out on my
+expedition. He was preparing to come to New York."
+
+"What did you think of him then?"
+
+"Oh, he was all right, I suppose. He wasn't the sort who would
+care much for an archaeologist. He cared more for a prospector
+going off into the hills than he did for me. And I--I admit that I
+am impossible. Archaeology is my life."
+
+Norton continued to study the prints. "I can hardly believe my
+eyes," he murmured; then he looked up suddenly. "Does Whitney know
+about this--or Lockwood?"
+
+Kennedy shook his head negatively.
+
+"Because," pursued Norton, "an added inference to that I spoke of
+would be that the reason why they are so sure that they will find
+the treasure is that they are not going on tradition, as they say,
+but on the fact itself."
+
+"A fair conclusion," agreed Craig.
+
+"I wish the break could have been postponed," continued Norton.
+"Then I might have been of some service in my relation to Whitney.
+It's too late for me to be able to help you in that direction now,
+however."
+
+"There is something you can do, though," said Craig.
+
+"I shall be delighted," hastened Norton. "What is it?"
+
+"You know Senora de Moche and Alfonso?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wish that you would cultivate their acquaintance. I feel that
+they are very suspicious of me. Perhaps they may not be so with
+you."
+
+"Is there any special thing you want to find out?"
+
+"Yes--only I have slight hopes of doing so. You know that she is
+on most intimate terms with Whitney."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't do much for you, then. She'll fight shy of me.
+He'll tell her his story."
+
+"That will make no difference. She has already warned me against
+him. He has warned against her. It's a most remarkable situation.
+He is trying to get her into some kind of deal, yet all the time
+he is afraid she is double-crossing him. And at the same time he
+obeys her--well, like Alfonso would Inez if she'd only let him."
+
+Norton frowned. "I don't like the way they hover about Inez
+Mendoza," he remarked. "Perhaps the Senora is after Whitney, while
+her son is after Inez. Lockwood seems to be impervious to her.
+Yes, I'll undertake that commission for you, only I can't promise
+what success I'll have."
+
+Kennedy restored the shoe-prints to the drawer.
+
+"I think that's gratifying progress," went on Norton. "First we
+know who stole the dagger. We know that the dagger killed Mendoza.
+You have even determined what the poison on the blade was. It
+seems to me that it remains only to determine who struck the
+actual blow. I tell you, Kennedy, Whitney will regret the day that
+he ever threw me over on so trivial a pretext."
+
+Norton was pacing up and down excitedly now.
+
+"My only fear is," he went on, "what the shock of such a thing
+will be on that poor little girl. First her father, then Lockwood.
+Why--the blow will be terrible. You must be careful, Kennedy."
+
+"Never fear about that," reassured Craig. "Not a word of this has
+been breathed to her yet. We are a long way from fixing the guilt
+of the murder; inference is one thing, fact another. We must have
+facts. And the facts I want, which you may be able to get, relate
+to the strange actions of the de Moches."
+
+Norton scanned Kennedy's face for some hint of what was back of
+the remark. But there was nothing there.
+
+"They will bear watching, all right," he said, as he rose to go.
+"Old Mendoza was never quite the same after he became so intimate
+with her. And I think I can see a change in Whitney."
+
+"What do you attribute it to?" asked Kennedy, without admitting
+that it had attracted his attention, too.
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea," confessed Norton.
+
+"Inez is as afraid of her as any of the rest," remarked Kennedy
+thoughtfully. "She says it is the evil eye."
+
+"Not an uncommon belief among Latin-Americans," commented Norton.
+"In fact, I suppose there are people among us who believe in the
+evil eye yet. Still, you can hardly blame that little girl for
+believing it is almost anything. Well, I won't keep you any
+longer. I shall let you know of anything I find out from the de
+Moches. I think you are getting on remarkably."
+
+Norton left us, his face much brighter than it had been when we
+met him at the door.
+
+Kennedy, alone at last in the laboratory, went over to a cabinet
+and took out a peculiar-looking apparatus, which seemed, as nearly
+as I can describe it, to consist of a sort of triangular prism,
+set with its edge vertically on a rigid platform attached to a
+massive stand of brass.
+
+"Norton seems to have suddenly become quite solicitous of the
+welfare of Senorita Mendoza," I hazarded, as he worked over the
+adjustment of the thing.
+
+Kennedy smiled. "Every one seems to be--even Whitney," he
+returned, twisting a set-screw until he had the alignment of the
+various parts as he wanted it.
+
+The telephone bell rang.
+
+"Do you want to answer it?" I asked Craig.
+
+"No," he replied, not even looking up from his work. "Find out who
+it is. Unless it is something very important say I am out on an
+investigation and that you have heard from me; that I shall not be
+either at the laboratory or the apartment until tomorrow morning.
+I must get this done to-night."
+
+I took down the receiver.
+
+"Hello, is this Professor Kennedy?" I recognized a voice.
+
+"No," I replied. "Is there any message I can take?"
+
+"This is Mr. Lockwood," came back the information I had already
+guessed. "When do you expect him?"
+
+"It's Lockwood," I whispered to Craig, my hand over the
+transmitter.
+
+"See what he wants," returned Craig. "Tell him what I told you."
+
+I repeated Kennedy's message.
+
+"Well, that's too bad," replied Lockwood. "I've just seen Mr.
+Whitney, and he tells me that Kennedy and you are pretty friendly
+with Norton, Of course, I knew that. I saw you at the Mendozas'
+together the first time. I'd like to have a talk with him about
+that man. I suppose he has told you all his side of the story of
+his relations with Whitney."
+
+I am, if anything, a good listener, and so I said nothing, not
+even that he had better tell it to Kennedy in the morning, for it
+was such a novelty to have any of these people talk voluntarily
+that I really didn't much care whether I believed what they said
+or not.
+
+"I used to know him down in Lima, you know," went on Lockwood.
+"What I want to say has to do with that dagger he says was stolen.
+I want to tell what I know of how he got it. There was an Indian
+mixed up in it who committed suicide--well, you tell Kennedy I'll
+see him in the morning."
+
+Lockwood rang off, and I repeated what he had told me, as Kennedy
+continued to adjust the apparatus.
+
+"Say," I exclaimed, as I finished. "That was a harry's of a
+commission you gave Norton just now, watching the de Moches. Why,
+they'd eat him alive if they got a chance, and I don't know that
+all's like a Sunday school on his part. Lockwood doesn't seem to
+think so."
+
+Kennedy smiled quietly. "That was why I asked him to do it," he
+returned. "I thought that he wouldn't let much escape him. They
+all seem so down on him, he'll have to watch out. It will keep him
+busy, too, and that means a chance for us to work."
+
+He had finished setting up the machine, and now went over to
+another drawer, from which he took the envelope of stubs which we
+had taken down at Whitney's office first. Then from the pocket of
+his street coat he drew both the second envelope of ashes and
+stubs, the whole cigarette from Lockwood's case, and the stubs
+which both of us had saved from the cigarettes that had once
+belonged to Mendoza.
+
+Carefully he separated and labelled them all, so that there would
+be no chance for them to get mixed up. Then he picked up one of
+the stubs and lighted it. The smoke curled up in wreaths between a
+powerful light and the peculiar instrument, while Craig peered
+through a lens, manipulating the thing with exhaustless patience
+and skill. I watched him curiously, but said nothing, for he was
+studying something carefully, and I did not want to interrupt his
+train of thought.
+
+Finally he beckoned me over. "Can you make anything out of that?"
+he asked.
+
+I looked through the eye-piece, also. On a sort of fine grating
+all I could see was a number of strange lines.
+
+"If you want an opinion from me," I said, with a laugh, "you'll
+have to tell me first what I am looking at."
+
+"That," he explained, as I continued to gaze, "is one of the
+latest forms of the spectroscope, known as the interferometer,
+with delicately ruled gratings in which power to resolve the
+straight, close lines in the spectrum is carried to the limit of
+possibility. A small watch is delicate. But it bears no comparison
+to the delicacy of these defraction spectroscopes.
+
+"Every substance, you know, is, when radiating light,
+characterized by what at first appears to be almost haphazard sets
+of spectral bands without relation to one another. But they are
+related by mathematical laws, and the apparent haphazard character
+is only the result of our lack of knowledge of how to interpret
+the results."
+
+He resumed his place at the eye-piece to check over his results.
+
+"Walter," he said finally, looking up at me with a twinkle in his
+eye, "I wish that you'd go out and find me a cat."
+
+"A cat?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes, a cat--felis domesticus, if it sounds better that way--a
+plain, ordinary cat."
+
+I jammed on my hat and, late as it was, sallied forth on this
+apparently ridiculous mission.
+
+Several belated passers-by and a policeman watched me as though I
+were a house-breaker, and I felt like a fool, but at last, by
+perseverance and tact, I managed to capture a fairly good specimen
+of the species, and carried it in my arms to the laboratory with
+some profanity and many scratches.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE WEED OF MADNESS
+
+
+In my absence Craig had set to work on a peculiar apparatus, as
+though he were distilling something from several of the cigarette
+stubs which he had been studying by means of the interferometer.
+
+"Here's your confounded cat," I ejaculated, as I placed the
+unhappy feline in a basket and waited patiently until finally he
+seemed to be rewarded for his patient labours. It was well along
+toward morning when he obtained in a test-tube a few drops of a
+colourless, odourless liquid.
+
+"My interferometer gave me a clue," he remarked, as he held the
+tube up with satisfaction. "Without the tell-tale line in the
+spectrum which I was able to discover by its use I might have been
+hunting yet for it. It is so rare that no one would ever have
+thought, offhand, I suppose, to look for it. But here it is, I'm
+sure, only I wanted to be able to test it."
+
+"So you are not going to try it on yourself," I said
+sarcastically, referring to his last experiment with a poison.
+"This time you are going to make the cat the dog."
+
+"The cat will be better to test it on than a human being," he
+replied, with a glance that made me wince, for, after his
+performance with the curare, I felt that once the scientific
+furore was on him I might be called upon to become an unwilling
+martyr to science.
+
+It was with an air of relief, both for himself and my own peace
+and safety, that I saw him take the cat out of the basket and hold
+her in his arms, smoothing her fur gently, to quiet the feelings
+that I had severely ruffled.
+
+Then with a dropper he sucked up a bit of the liquid from the
+test-tube. I watched him intently as he let a small drop fall into
+the eye of the cat.
+
+The cat blinked a moment, and I bent over to observe it more
+closely.
+
+"It won't hurt the cat," he explained, "and it may help us."
+
+As I looked at the cat's eye it seemed to enlarge, even under the
+glare of a light, shining forth, as it were, like the proverbial
+cat's eye under a bed.
+
+What did it mean?
+
+Was there such a thing, I wondered hastily, as the drug of the
+evil eye?
+
+"What have you found?" I queried.
+
+"Something very much like the so-called 'weed of madness,' I
+think," he replied slowly.
+
+"The weed of madness?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes. It is similar to the Mexican toloache and the Hindu datura,
+which you must have heard about."
+
+I had heard of these weird drugs, but they had always seemed to be
+so far away and to belong rather to the atmosphere of
+civilizations different from New York. Yet, I reflected, what was
+to prevent the appearance of anything in such a cosmopolitan city,
+especially in a case so unusual as that which had so far baffled
+even Kennedy's skill?
+
+"You know the jimson weed--the Jamestown weed, as it is so often
+called?" he continued, explaining. "It grows almost everywhere in
+the world, but most thrivingly in the tropics. All the poisons
+that I have mentioned are related to it in some way, I believe."
+
+"I've seen the thing in lots and fields," I replied, "but I never
+thought it was of much importance."
+
+"Well," he resumed, "the jimson weed on the Pacific coast, in some
+parts of the Andes, has large white flowers which exhale a faint,
+repulsive odour. It is a harmless-looking plant, with its thick
+tangle of leaves, a coarse green growth, with trumpet-shaped
+flowers. But to one who knows its properties it is quite too
+dangerously convenient for safety."
+
+"But what has that to do with the evil eye?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing; but it has much to do with the cigarettes that Whitney
+is smoking," he went on positively. "Those cigarettes have been
+doped!"
+
+"Doped?" I interrogated, in surprise. "With this weed of madness,
+as you call it?"
+
+"No, it isn't toloache that was used," he corrected. "I think it
+must be some particularly virulent variety of the jimson weed that
+was used, though that same weed in Mexico is, I am sure, what
+there they call toloache. Perhaps its virulence in this case lies
+in the method of concentration in preparing it. For instance, the
+seeds of the stramonium, which is the same thing, contain a much
+higher percentage of poison than the leaves and flowers. Perhaps
+the seeds were used. I can't say. But, then, that isn't at all
+necessary. It is the fact of its use that concerns us most now."
+
+He took a drop of the liquid which he had isolated and added a
+drop of nitric acid. Then he evaporated it by gentle heat and it
+left a residue slightly yellow.
+
+Next he took from the shelf over his table a bottle marked
+"Alcoholic Solution--Potassium Hydrate." He opened it and let a
+drop fall on the place where the liquid had evaporated.
+
+Instantly the residue became a beautiful purple, turning rapidly
+to violet, then to dark red, and, finally, it disappeared
+altogether.
+
+"Stramonium, all right," he nodded, with satisfaction at the
+achievement of his night's labours. "That was known as Vitali's
+test. Yes, there was stramonium in those cigarettes--datura
+stramonium--perhaps a trace of hyoscyamine."
+
+I tried to look wise, but all I could think of was that, whatever
+his science showed me now, my instinct had been enough to prompt
+me not to smoke those cigarettes, though, of course, only
+Kennedy's science could tell what it was that caused that
+instinctive aversion.
+
+"They are all like atropine, mydriatic alkaloids," he proceeded,
+"so called from the effect they have on the eye. Why, one-one
+hundred thousandth of a grain will affect the eye of a cat. You
+saw how it acted on our subject. It is more active in that way
+than atropine. Better yet, you remember how Whitney's eyes looked,
+how Inez said her father stared, and how she feared for Lockwood?"
+
+"I remember," I said, still not able to detach the evil-eye idea
+quite from my mind. "How about the Senora's eyes? What makes them
+so--well, effective?"
+
+"Oh," Craig answered quickly, "her pupils were normal enough.
+Didn't you notice that? It was the difference in Whitney's and the
+others' that first suggested making some tests."
+
+"What is the effect?" I asked, wondering whether it might have
+contributed to the cause of Mendoza's death.
+
+"The concentrated poison which has been used in these cigarettes
+does not kill--at least not outright. It is worse than that.
+Slowly it accumulates in the system. It acts on the brain."
+
+I was listening, spellbound, as he made his disclosure. No wonder,
+I thought, even a scientific criminal stood in awe of Craig.
+
+"Of all the dangers to be met with in superstitious countries,
+these mydratic alkaloids are among the worst. They offer a chance
+for crimes of the most fiendish nature--worse than with the gun or
+the stiletto. They are worse because there is so little fear of
+detection. That crime is the production of insanity!"
+
+Horrible though the idea, and repulsive, I could not doubt it in
+the face of Craig's investigations and what I had already seen
+with my own eyes. In fact, it was necessary for me only to recall
+the mild sensations I myself had experienced, in order to be
+convinced of the possible effect intended by the insidious poison
+contained in the many cigarettes which Whitney, for instance, had
+smoked.
+
+"But don't you suppose they know it?" I wondered. "Can't they tell
+it?"
+
+"I suppose they have gradually become accustomed to it," Craig
+ventured. "If you have ever smoked one particular brand of
+cigarette you must have noticed how the manufacturer can gradually
+substitute a cheaper grade of tobacco without any large number of
+his patrons knowing anything about it. I imagine it might have
+been done in some way like that."
+
+"But you would think they'd feel the effect and attribute it to
+smoking."
+
+"Perhaps they do feel the effect. But when it comes to tracing
+causes, some people are loath to admit that tobacco and liquor can
+be the root of the evil. No, some one is slipping these cigarettes
+in on them, perhaps substituting the doped brand for those that
+are ordered. If you will notice, both Whitney and Lockwood have
+cigarettes that are made especially for them. So had Mendoza. It
+is a circumstance which some one has turned to account, though how
+and by whom the substitution has been made I cannot say yet. I
+wish I had time to follow out this one line, to the exclusion of
+everything else. But I've got to keep my fingers on every rope at
+once, else the thing will pull away from me. It is enough for the
+present that we know what the poison is. I shall take up the
+tracing of the person who is administering it the moment I get a
+hint."
+
+It was almost daylight before Craig and I left the laboratory
+after his discovery of the manner of the cigarette poisoning by
+stramonium. But that was the only way in which he was able to make
+progress--taking time for each separate point by main force.
+
+I was thoroughly tired, though not so much so that my dreams were
+not haunted by a succession of baleful eyes peering at me from the
+darkness.
+
+I slept late, but was awakened by a knocking on the door. As I
+rose to answer it I saw through the open door of Kennedy's room
+that he had been about early and must already be at the
+laboratory. How he did it I don't know. My own newspaper
+experience had made me considerable of a nighthawk. But I always
+paid for it by sleeping the next day. With Kennedy, when he was on
+a case, even five hours of sleep was more than he seemed able to
+stand.
+
+"Hello, Jameson," greeted a voice, as I opened the door. "Is
+Kennedy in--oh, he hasn't come back yet?"
+
+It was Lockwood, at first eager to see Craig, then naturally
+crestfallen because he saw that he was not there.
+
+"Yes," I replied, rubbing my eyes. "He must be at the laboratory.
+If you'll wait a minute while I slip on my clothes, I'll walk over
+there with you."
+
+While I completed my hasty toilet, Lockwood sat in our living
+room, gazing about with fascination at the collection of trophies
+of the chase of criminals.
+
+"This is positively a terrifying array of material, Jameson," he
+declared, as at last I emerged. "Between what Kennedy has here and
+what he has stowed away in that laboratory of his, I wonder that
+any one dares be a crook."
+
+I could not help eying him keenly. Could he have spoken so
+heartily if he had known what it was, damning to himself, that
+Kennedy had tucked away in the laboratory? If he knew, he must
+have been a splendid actor, one of those whom only the minute
+blood-pressure test of the sphygmograph could induce to give up a
+secret, and then only in spite of himself.
+
+"It is wonderful," I agreed. "Are you ready?"
+
+We left the apartment and walked along in the bracing morning air
+toward the campus and the Chemistry Building. Sure enough, as I
+had expected, Kennedy was in his laboratory.
+
+As we entered he was verifying his experiments and checking over
+his results, carefully endeavouring to isolate any of the other
+closely related mydriatic alkaloids that might be contained in the
+noxious fumes of the poisoned tobacco.
+
+Though Craig was already convinced of what was going on, I knew
+that he always considered it a matter of considerable medico-legal
+importance to be exact, for if the affair ever came to the stage
+of securing an indictment the charge could be sustained only by
+specific proof.
+
+As we appeared in the door, however, he laid aside his work, and
+greeted us.
+
+"I suppose Jameson has already told you that I called you up last
+night--and what I said?" began Lockwood.
+
+Kennedy nodded. "It was something about Norton, wasn't it?"
+
+Lockwood leaned over impressively and almost whispered: "Of
+course, you are in no position to know, but there are ugly rumours
+current down in Lima among the natives regarding that dagger."
+
+Kennedy did not appear to be particularly impressed. "Is that so?"
+he said merely. "What are they?"
+
+"Well," resumed Lockwood, "I wasn't in Lima at the time. I was up
+here. But they tell me that there was something crooked about the
+way that that dagger was got away from an Indian--a brother of
+Senora de Moche." "Yes," replied Kennedy, "I know something about
+it. He committed suicide. But what has that to do with Norton?"
+
+Lockwood hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. "I should think
+the inference was plain," he insinuated. Then, looking at Craig
+fixedly, as though to take his measure, he added, "We are not out
+of touch with what is going on down there, even if we are several
+thousand miles away."
+
+I wondered whether he had any information more than we had already
+obtained by X-raying the letter to Whitney signed "Haggerty." If
+he had, it was not his purpose, evidently, yet to disclose it. I
+felt from his manner that he was not playing a trump-card, but was
+just feeling us out by this lead.
+
+"There was some crooked business about that dagger down there as
+well as here," he pursued. "There are many interests connected
+with it. Don't you think that it would be worth while watching
+Norton?" he paused, then added: "We do--and we're going to do it."
+
+"Thank you very much," returned Kennedy quietly. "Mr. Whitney has
+already told me he intended to do so."
+
+Lockwood eyed us critically, as though not quite sure what to make
+of the cool manner in which Craig took it.
+
+"I think if I were you," he said at length, "I'd keep a close
+watch on the de Moches, both of them, too."
+
+"Exactly," agreed Craig, without showing undue interest.
+
+Lockwood had risen. "Well," he snapped, "you may not think much of
+what I am telling you now. But just wait until OUR detectives
+begin to dig up facts." No sooner had he left than I turned to
+Craig. "What was that?" I asked. "A plant?"
+
+"Perhaps," he returned, clearing up the materials which he had
+been using.
+
+The telephone rang.
+
+"Hello, Norton," I heard Craig answer. "What's that? You are
+shadowed by some one--you think it is by Whitney?"
+
+I had been expecting something of the sort, and listened
+attentively, but it was impossible to gather the drift of the one-
+sided conversation.
+
+As Kennedy hung up the receiver I remarked, "So it was not a
+bluff, after all."
+
+"I think my plan is working," he remarked thoughtfully. "You heard
+what he said? He guesses right the first time, that it is Whitney.
+The last thing he said was, 'I'll get even! I'll take some
+action!' and then he rang off. I think we'll hear something soon."
+
+Instead of going out, Kennedy pulled out the several unsigned
+letters we had collected, and began the laborious process of
+studying the printing, analyzing it, in the hope that he might
+discover some new clue.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE EAR IN THE WALL
+
+
+Perhaps an hour later our laboratory door was flung open suddenly,
+and both Kennedy and I leaped to our feet.
+
+There was Inez Mendoza, alone, pale and agitated.
+
+"Tell me, Professor Kennedy," she cried, her hands clasped before
+her in frantic appeal, "tell me--it isn't true--is it? He wasn't
+there--no--no--no!"
+
+She would have fainted if Craig had not sprung forward and caught
+her in time to place her in our only easy-chair.
+
+"Walter," he said, "quick--that bottle of aromatic spirits of
+ammonia over there--the second from the left."
+
+I handed it to him, and threw open the window to allow the fresh
+air to blow in. As I did so one of the papers Kennedy had been
+studying blew off the table, and, as luck would have it, fell
+almost before her. She saw it, and in her hypersensitive condition
+recognized it instantly.
+
+"Oh--that anonymous letter!" she cried. "Tell me--you do not think
+that--the friend of my father's that it warned me to beware of--
+was--"
+
+She did not finish the sentence. She did not need to do so.
+
+"Please, Senorita," pleaded and soothed Kennedy, "try to be calm.
+What has happened? Tell me. What is it?"
+
+The ammonia and the fresh air seemed to have done their work, for
+she managed to brace herself, gripping the arms of the chair
+tightly and looking up searchingly into Craig's face.
+
+"It's about Chester," she managed to gasp; then seemed unable to
+go on.
+
+It was the first time I had ever heard her use Lockwood's first
+name, and I knew that something had stirred her emotions more
+deeply than at any time since the death of her father.
+
+"Yes," prompted Kennedy. "Go on."
+
+"I have heard that you found foot-prints, shoe-prints, in the dust
+in the Museum after the dagger was stolen," she said, speaking
+rapidly, suppressing her feelings heroically. "Since then you have
+been collecting prints of shoes--and I've heard that the shoe-
+prints that were found are those of--of Mr. Lockwood. Oh,
+Professor Kennedy, it cannot be--there must be some mistake."
+
+For a moment Kennedy did not say anything. He was evidently
+seeking some way in which to lead up to the revelation of the
+truth without too much shock.
+
+"You remember that time in the tea room when we were sitting with
+Senora de Moche?" he asked finally.
+
+"Yes," she said shortly, as though the very recollection were
+disagreeable to her.
+
+Kennedy, however, had a disagreeable task, and he felt that it
+must be performed in the kindest manner.
+
+"You remember then that she said she had one thing more to say,
+that it was about Mr. Whitney and Mr. Lockwood."
+
+She was about to interrupt, but he hurried on, giving her no
+chance to do so. "She asked you to think it over. Suppose they did
+not have the dagger, she said. Then were their chances of finding
+the treasure any better than any one else had? And if they did
+have it, she asked what that meant. It is a dilemma, my dear
+Senorita, which you must meet some time. Why not meet it now?"
+
+Her face was set. "You will remember, also, Professor Kennedy,"
+she said, with a great effort controlling her voice, "that I said
+that Mr. Lockwood was not there to defend himself and I would not
+have him attacked by innuendo. I meant it to the Senora--I mean it
+to you!"
+
+She had also meant it to defy him; but as she proceeded her voice
+broke, and before she knew it her nature had triumphed, and she
+was alternately sobbing and pleading.
+
+For a minute or two Kennedy let her give vent to her emotions.
+
+"It cannot be. It cannot be," she sobbed over and over. "He could
+not have been there. He could not have done it."
+
+It was a terrible thing to have to disillusion her, but it was
+something now that had to be done. Kennedy had not sought to do
+so. He had postponed it in the hope of finding some other way. But
+now the thing was forced upon him.
+
+"Who told you?" he asked finally.
+
+"I was trying to read, to keep my mind occupied, as you asked me,
+when Juanita told me that there was some one in the living room
+who wanted to see me--a man. I thought it was either you or Mr.
+Jameson. But it was--Professor Norton--"
+
+Kennedy and I exchanged glances. That was the action in revenge to
+Lockwood and Whitney which he had contemplated over the telephone.
+It was so cruel and harsh that I could have hated him for it, the
+more so as I recollected that it was he himself who had cautioned
+us against doing the very thing which now he had done in the heat
+of passion.
+
+"Oh," she wailed, "he was very kind and considerate about it. He
+said he felt that it was his duty to tell me, that he would be
+anything, like an older brother, to me; that he could not see me
+blinded any longer to what was going on, and everybody knew, but
+had not love enough for me to tell. It was such a shock. I could
+not even speak. I simply ran from the room without another word to
+him, and Juanita found me lying on the bed. Then--I decided--I
+would come to you."
+
+She paused, and her great, deep eyes looked up pathetically. "And
+you," she added bitterly, "you are going to tell me that he was
+right, that it is true. You can't prove it. Show me what it is
+that you have. I defy you!"
+
+Somehow, as she rested and relieved her feelings, a new strength
+seemed to come to her. It was what Kennedy had been waiting for,
+the reaction that would leave her able for him to go on and plan
+for the future.
+
+He reached into a drawer of a cabinet and pulled out the various
+shoe-prints which he had already shown Norton, and which he had
+studied and restudied so carefully.
+
+"That is the print of the shoe in the dust of the Egyptian
+sarcophagus of the Museum," he said quietly. "Some one got in
+during the daytime and hid there until the place was locked. That
+is the print of Alfonso de Moche's shoe, that of Mr. Whitney's,
+and that of Mr. Lockwood's."
+
+He said it quickly, as though trying to gloss it over. But she
+would not have it that way. She felt stronger, and she was going
+to see just what there was there. She took the prints and studied
+them, though her hand trembled. Hers was a remarkable mind. It
+took only seconds to see what others would have seen only in
+minutes. But it was not the reasoning faculty that was aroused by
+what she saw. It sank deep into her heart.
+
+She flung the papers down.
+
+"I don't believe it!" she defied. "There is some mistake. No--it
+cannot be true!"
+
+It was a noble exhibition of faith. I think I have never seen any
+instant more tense than that in Kennedy's laboratory. There stood
+the beautiful girl declaring her faith in her lover, rejecting
+even the implication that it might have been he who had taken the
+dagger, perhaps murdered her father to insure the possession of
+her father's share of the treasure as well as the possession of
+herself.
+
+Kennedy did not try to combat it. Instead he treated her very
+intuitions with respect. In him there was room for both fact and
+feeling.
+
+"Senorita," he said finally, in a voice that was deep and
+thrilling with feeling, "have I ever been other than a friend to
+you? Have I ever given you cause to suspect even one little motive
+of mine?"
+
+She faced him, and they looked into each other's eyes an instant.
+But it was long enough for the man to understand the woman and she
+to understand him.
+
+"No," she murmured, glancing down again.
+
+"Then trust me just this once. Do as I ask you."
+
+For an instant she struggled with herself. What would he ask?
+
+"What is it?" she questioned, raising her eyes to him again.
+
+"Have you seen Mr. Lockwood?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, I want you to see him. Surely you wish to have no secrets
+from him any more than you would wish him to have anything secret
+from you. See him. Ask him frankly about it all. It is the only
+fair thing to him--it is only fair to yourself."
+
+Senorita Mendoza was no coward. "I--I will," she almost whispered.
+
+"Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy in admiration. "I knew that you
+would. You are not the woman who could do otherwise. May I see
+that you get home safely? Walter, call a taxicab."
+
+Senorita Mendoza was calmer, though pale and still nervous, when I
+returned. Kennedy handed her into the car and then returned to the
+laboratory for two rather large packages, which he handed to me.
+
+"You must come along with us, Walter," he said. "We shall need
+you."
+
+Scarcely a word was spoken as we jolted over the city pavements
+and at last reached the apartment. Inez and Craig entered and I
+followed, carrying just one of the packages as Craig had indicated
+by dumb show, leaving the other in the car, which was to wait.
+
+"I think you had better write him a note," suggested Craig, as we
+entered the living room. "I don't want you to see him until you
+feel better--and, by the way, see him here."
+
+She nodded with a wan smile, as though thinking how unusual it was
+for a meeting of lovers to be an ordeal, then excused herself to
+write the note.
+
+She had no sooner disappeared than Kennedy unwrapped the package
+which I had brought. From it he took a cedar box, oblong, with a
+sort of black disc fixed to an arm on the top. In the face of the
+box were two little square holes, with sides of cedar which
+converged inward into the box, making a pair of little
+quadrangular pyramidal holes which ended in a small black circle
+in the interior.
+
+He looked about the room quickly. Beside a window that opened out
+over a house several stories below stood a sectional bookcase.
+Into this bookcase, back of the books, in the shadow, he shoved
+the little box, to which he had already attached a spool of
+twisted wires. Then he opened the window and dropped the spool
+out, letting it unwind of its own weight until it fell on the roof
+far below. He shut the window and rejoined me without a word.
+
+A moment later she returned with the dainty note which she had
+written. "Shall I send it by a messenger?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, please," answered Kennedy, rising. As he moved a step to the
+door he held out his hand to her. "Senorita Mendoza," he said
+simply, in a tone that meant more than words, "you are a wonderful
+woman."
+
+She took his hand without a word, and a moment later we were
+whisked down in the elevator.
+
+"I must get on that roof on some pretext," remarked Kennedy, as we
+reached the street and he got his bearings. "Let me see, that
+house which backs up to the apartment is around the corner. Have
+the man drive us around there."
+
+We located the house and mounted the steps. On the wall beside the
+brownstone door was pasted a little slip of paper, "Furnished
+Rooms."
+
+"Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he read it. "Dismiss the taxi
+and meet me inside with the other package."
+
+By the time I had paid the man and come up the steps again Kennedy
+had made a dicker with the landlady for a double room on the third
+floor for both of us, and, by payment of a week's rent, we were to
+have immediate possession.
+
+"Our baggage will follow to-day," he explained, as we mounted the
+stairs to the room.
+
+I thought the landlady would never get through expatiating upon
+what a select place she ran, and thus leave us alone in our room,
+but at last even her flood of words was stilled by demands from a
+servant downstairs who must be instructed if the selectness of the
+establishment were to be maintained.
+
+No sooner were we alone than Kennedy tiptoed into the hall and
+made sure that we were not watched. It was then the work of only a
+few seconds to mount a ladder to a scuttle, unhook it, and gain
+the roof.
+
+There, dangling down from the dizzy height above, swayed the
+twisted wire. He seized it, unrolled it some more, and sent me
+downstairs to catch it, as he swung it over the edge of the roof
+to one of our own windows. Then he rejoined me.
+
+The other package, which had been heavier, consisted of another of
+those mysterious boxes, as well as several dry cells. Quickly he
+attached the wires to the box, placing the dry cells in the
+circuit. Then he began adjusting the mechanism of the box. So far
+I had only a vague idea of just what he had in mind, but gradually
+it began to dawn on me.
+
+It was perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer, after we had left the
+Senorita, before, sure that everything was all right with his line
+and the batteries which he had brought, Kennedy turned a little
+lever that moved in a semicircle, touching one after another of a
+series of buttons on the face of the cedar box, meanwhile holding
+a little black disc from the back of the box to his ear as he
+adjusted the thing.
+
+Nothing seemed to happen, but I could tell by the look of
+intentness on his face that he was getting along all right and was
+not worrying.
+
+Suddenly the look on his face changed to one of extreme
+satisfaction. He dropped the disc he was holding to his ear back
+into its compartment and turned to me.
+
+All at once it seemed as if the room in which we were was peopled
+by spirits. There was the sound of voices, loud, clear, distinct.
+It was uncanny.
+
+"He has just come in," remarked Craig.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"Lockwood--can't you recognize his voice? Listen."
+
+I did listen intently, and the more my ears became adjusted, the
+more plainly I could distinguish two voices, that of a man and
+that of a woman. It was indeed Lockwood and the Senorita, far
+above us.
+
+I would have uttered an exclamation of amazement, but I could not
+miss what they were saying.
+
+"Then you--you believe what he says?" asked Lockwood earnestly.
+
+"Professor Kennedy has the prints," replied Inez tremulously.
+
+"You saw them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you believe what HE says, too?"
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, tapping the box lightly.
+
+"A vocaphone," replied Kennedy. "The little box that hears and
+talks."
+
+"Can they hear us?" I asked, in an awestruck whisper.
+
+"Not unless I want them to hear," he replied, indicating a switch.
+"You remember, of course, the various mechanical and electrical
+ears, such as the detectaphone, which we have used for
+eavesdropping in other cases?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Well, this is a new application which has been made of the
+detectaphone. When I was using that disc from the compartment
+there, I had really a detectaphone. But this is even better. You
+see how neat it all is? This is the detective service, and more.
+We can 'listen in' and we don't have to use ear-pieces, either,
+for this is a regular loud-speaking telephone--it talks right out
+in meeting. Those square holes with the converging sides act as a
+sort of megaphone to the receivers, those little circles back
+there inside magnifying the sound and throwing it out here in the
+room, so that we can hear just as well as if we were up there in
+the room where they are talking. Listen--I think they are talking
+again."
+
+"I suppose you know that Whitney and I have placed detectives on
+the trail of Norton," we could hear Lockwood say.
+
+"You have?" came back the answer in a voice which for the first
+time sounded cold.
+
+Lockwood must have recognized it. He had made a mistake. It was no
+sufficient answer to anything that he had done to assert that some
+one else had also done something.
+
+"Inez," he said, and we could almost hear his feet as he moved
+over the floor in her direction in a last desperate appeal, "can't
+you trust me, when I tell you that everything is all right, that
+they are trying to ruin me--with you?"
+
+There was a silence, during which we could almost hear her quick
+breath come and go.
+
+"Women--not even Peruvian women are like the women of the past,
+Chester," she said at length. "We are not playthings. Perhaps we
+have hearts--but we also have heads. We are not to be taken up and
+put down as you please. We may love--but we also think. Chester, I
+have been to see Professor Kennedy, and--"
+
+She stopped. It hurt too much to repeat what she had seen.
+
+"Inez," he implored.
+
+There was evidently a great struggle of love and suspicion going
+on in her, her love of him, her memory of her father, the
+recollection of what she had heard and seen. No one could have
+been as we were without wishing to help her. Yet no one could help
+her. She must work out her own life herself.
+
+"Yes," she said finally, the struggle ended. "What is it?"
+
+"Do you want me to tell you the truth?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured.
+
+His voice was low and tense.
+
+"I was there--yes--but the dagger was gone!"
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE VOICE FROM THE AIR
+
+
+"Do you believe it?" I asked Kennedy, as the voices died away,
+leaving us with a feeling that some one had gone out of the very
+room in which we were.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. But I cannot say that
+he seemed ill pleased at the result of the interview.
+
+"We'll just keep this vocaphone in," he remarked. "It may come in
+handy some time. Now, I think we had better go back to the
+laboratory! Things have begun to move."
+
+On the way back he stopped to telephone Norton to meet us and a
+few minutes after we arrived, the archaeologist entered.
+
+Kennedy lost no time in coming directly to the point, and Norton
+could see, in fact seemed to expect and be prepared for what was
+coming.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Kennedy, "you've done it, this time!"
+
+"I know what you are going to ask," returned Norton. "You are
+going to ask me why I did it. And I'm going to tell you. After I
+left you, the other day, I thought about it a long time. The more
+I thought, the more of a shame it seemed to me that a girl like
+that should be made a victim of her feelings. It wasn't so much
+what they have done to me that made me do it. I would have acted
+the same if it had been de Moche instead of Lockwood who was
+playing on her heart. I was afraid, to tell the truth, that you
+wouldn't tell her until it was too late. And she's too good to
+throw herself away and allow her fortune to be wasted by a couple
+of speculators."
+
+"Very well," said Craig. "For the sake of argument, let us admit
+all that. What did you expect to accomplish by it?"
+
+"Why--put an end to it, of course."
+
+"But do you think she was going to accept as truth what you told
+her? Would that be natural for one so high-strung?"
+
+"Perhaps not--right away. But I supposed she would come to you--as
+I see she has, for you know about it. After that, it was only a
+question of time. It may have been a heroic remedy, but the
+disease was critical."
+
+"Suppose," suggested Craig, "that, after all, he told her that he
+was there in the Museum, but that he did not get the dagger. And
+suppose that she believed it. What then?"
+
+Norton looked up quickly. "Did he tell her that?"
+
+"I am supposing that he did," repeated Craig, declining to place
+himself in a position which might lead to disclosing how he found
+out.
+
+"Then I should say that he was a great deal cleverer than I gave
+him credit for being," returned Norton.
+
+"Well, it's done now, and can't be undone. Have you found out
+anything about the de Moches?"
+
+"Not very much, I must admit. Of course, you know I'm not on the
+best of terms with them, for some reason or other. But I've been
+around the Prince Edward Albert a good deal, and I don't think
+they've been able to do much that I haven't some kind of line on.
+Alfonso seems to be moping. His professors here tell me that he
+has been neglecting his work sadly for the past few days. The
+Senora and Whitney seem to be as friendly as ever. I should say
+that they were going the pace fast, and it shows on him."
+
+I glanced significantly at Kennedy, but he betrayed nothing that
+might lead one to suppose he had discovered the cause. Evidently
+he was not ready yet to come out into the open and expected
+further developments on the poisoned cigarette clue.
+
+The telephone rang and Craig took down the receiver.
+
+"Yes, this is Kennedy," he answered. "Oh, hello, Lockwood. What's
+that? You've been trying to get me all day? I just came in. Why,
+yes, I can see you in about half an hour."
+
+"I guess I'd better clear out," said Norton with a bitter laugh,
+as Kennedy hung up the receiver. "There have been enough crimes
+committed without adding another murder to the list."
+
+"Keep on watching the de Moches," requested Kennedy as Norton made
+his way to the door.
+
+"Yes," agreed Norton. "They will bear it--particularly Alfonso.
+They are hot-blooded. You never know what they are going to do,
+and they keep their own counsel. I might hope that Lockwood would
+forget; but a de Moche--never."
+
+I cannot say that I envied him very much, for doubtless what he
+said was true, though his danger might be mitigated by the fact
+that the dagger was no longer in his Museum. Still, it would never
+have left Peru, I reflected, if it had not been for him, and there
+is, even in the best of us, a smouldering desire for revenge.
+
+Lockwood was more than prompt. I had expected that he would burst
+into the laboratory prepared to clean things out. Instead he came
+in as though nothing at all had happened.
+
+"There's no use mincing words, Kennedy," he began. "You know that
+I know what has happened. That scoundrel, Norton, has told Inez
+that you had shoe-prints of some one who was in the Museum the
+night of the robbery and that those shoe-prints correspond with
+mine. As a matter of fact, Kennedy, I was there. I was there to
+get the dagger. But before I could get it, some one else must have
+done so. It was gone."
+
+I wanted to believe Lockwood. As for Craig he said nothing.
+
+"Then, when I did have a chance to get away that night," he
+continued, "I went over to Mendoza's. The rest you know."
+
+"You have told Inez that?" asked Kennedy in order to seem properly
+surprised.
+
+"Yes--and I think she believes me. I can't say. Things are
+strained with her. It will take time. I'm not one of those who can
+take a girl by main force and make her do what she won't do. I
+wish I could smooth things over. Let me see the prints."
+
+Kennedy handed them over to him. He looked at them, long and
+closely, then handed back the damning evidence against himself.
+
+"I know it would be no use to destroy these," he remarked. "In the
+first place that would really incriminate me. And in the second I
+suppose you have copies."
+
+Craig smiled blandly.
+
+"But I can tell you," he exclaimed, bringing his fist down on the
+laboratory table with a bang, "that before I lose that girl,
+somebody will pay for it--and there won't be any mistakes made,
+either."
+
+The scowl on his face and the menacing look in his eye showed that
+now, with his back up against the wall, he was not bluffing.
+
+He seemed to get little satisfaction out of his visit to us, and
+in fact I think he made it more in a spirit of bravado than
+anything else.
+
+Lockwood had scarcely gone before Kennedy pulled out the
+University schedule, and ran his finger down it.
+
+"Alfonso ought to be at a lecture in the School of Mines," he said
+finally, folding up the paper. "I wish you'd go over and see if he
+is there, and, if he is, ask him to step into the laboratory."
+
+The lecture was in progress all right, but when I peered into the
+room it was evident that de Moche was not there. Norton was right.
+The young man was neglecting his work. Evidently the repeated
+rebuffs of Inez had worked havoc with him.
+
+Nor was he at the hotel, as we found out by calling up.
+
+There was only one other place that I could think of where he
+would be likely to be and that was at the apartment of Inez.
+Apparently the same idea occurred to Kennedy, for he suggested
+going back to our observation point in the boarding-house and
+finding out.
+
+All the rest of the day we listened through the vocaphone, but
+without finding out a thing of interest. Now and then we would try
+the detective instrument, the little black disc in the back, but
+with no better success. Then we determined to listen in relays,
+one listening, while the other went out for dinner.
+
+It must have been just a bit after dark that we could hear Inez
+talking in a low tone with Juanita.
+
+A buzzing noise indicated that there was some one at the hall
+door.
+
+"If it's any one for me," we heard Inez say, "tell them that I
+will be out directly. I'm not fit to be seen now."
+
+The door was opened and a voice which we could not place asked for
+the senorita. A moment later Juanita returned and asked the
+visitor to be seated a few moments.
+
+It was not long before we were suddenly aware that there was
+another person in the room. We could hear whispers. The faithful
+little vocaphone even picked them up and shot them down to us.
+
+"Is everything all right?" whispered one, a new voice which was
+somewhat familiar I thought, but disguised beyond recognition.
+
+"Yes. She'll be out in a minute."
+
+"Now, remember what I told you. If this thing works you get fifty
+dollars more. I'd better put this mask on--damn it!--the slit's
+torn. It'll do. I'll hide here as soon as we hear her. That's a
+pretty nice private ambulance you have down there. Did you tell
+the elevator boy that she had suddenly been taken ill? That's all
+fixed, then. I've got the stuff--amyl nitrite--she'll go off like
+a shot. But we'll have to work quick. It only keeps her under a
+few minutes. I can't wear this mask down and I'm afraid some one
+will recognize me. Oh, you brought a beard. Good. I'll give you
+the signal. There must be no noise. Yes, I saw the stretcher where
+you left it in the hall."
+
+"All right, Doc," returned the first and unfamiliar voice.
+
+It all happened so quickly that we were completely bowled over for
+the moment. Who was the man addressed as "Doc"? There was no time
+to find out, no time to do anything, apparently, so quickly had
+the plot been sprung.
+
+I looked at Kennedy, aghast, not knowing what to do in this
+unexpected crisis.
+
+A moment later we heard a voice, "I'm sorry to have had to keep
+you waiting, but what is it that I can do for you?"
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Kennedy. "It is Inez herself!"
+
+It was altogether too late to get over there to warn her, perhaps
+even to rescue her. What could we do? If we could only shout for
+help. But what good would that do, around a corner and so far
+away?
+
+The vocaphone itself!
+
+Quickly Kennedy turned another switch, of a rheostat, which
+accentuated a whisper to almost a shout.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, Senorita," he cried. "This is Kennedy talking.
+Look under the bookcase by the window. You will find a cedar box.
+It is a detective vocaphone through which I can hear you and which
+is talking out to you. I have heard something just there just now-
+-"
+
+"Yes, yes. Go on!"
+
+"You are threatened. Shout! Shout!"
+
+Just then there came a sound of a scuffle and a muffled cry which
+was not much above a whisper, as though a strong hand was clapped
+over her mouth.
+
+What could we do?
+
+"Juanita--Juanita--help!--police!" shouted Craig himself through
+the vocaphone.
+
+An instant later we could hear other screams as Juanita heard and
+spread the alarm, not a second too soon.
+
+"Come on, Walter," shouted Kennedy dashing out of the room, now
+that he was assured the alarm had been given.
+
+We hurried around the corner, and into the apartment. One of the
+elevators was up, and no one was running the other, but we opened
+the gates and Kennedy ran it up by himself.
+
+In the Mendoza apartment all was a babel of voices, every one
+talking at once.
+
+"Did you get them?" Craig asked, looking about.
+
+"No, sir, replied the elevator boy. "One of them came in from the
+ambulance and told me Miss Mendoza was suddenly taken sick. He
+rode up with the stretcher. The other one must have walked up."
+
+"Do you know him? Has he ever been here before?"
+
+"I can't say, sir. I didn't see him. At least, sir, when I heard
+the screams I ran in from the elevator, which the other one told
+me to wait with--left the door open. Just as I ran in, they dodged
+out past me, jumped into the car and rode down. I guess they must
+have had the engine of the ambulance motor running, sir, if they
+got away without you seeing them."
+
+We were too late to head them from speeding off. But, at least, we
+had saved the Senorita. She was terribly upset by the attack, much
+shaken, but really all right.
+
+"Have you any idea who it could be?" asked Craig as the faithful
+Juanita cared for her.
+
+"I don't know the man who was waiting and 'Nita never saw him,
+either," she replied. "The one who jumped out from behind the
+portieres had on a mask and a false beard. But I didn't recognize
+anything about him."
+
+Sudden as the attack had been and serious as might have been the
+outcome, we could not but feel happy that it had been frustrated.
+
+Yet it seemed that some one ought to be delegated to see that such
+a thing could not occur again.
+
+"We must think up some means of protecting you," soothed Kennedy.
+"Let me see, Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Whitney seem to be the closest
+to you. If you don't mind I'll call them up. I wonder if you'd
+object if we had a little luncheon up here, to-morrow? I have a
+special reason for asking it. I want to insure your safety and we
+may as well meet on common ground."
+
+"There isn't the slightest objection in the world," she replied,
+as Kennedy reached for the telephone.
+
+We had some little difficulty in locating both Lockwood and
+Whitney, but finally after a time managed to find them and arrange
+for the conference on the Senorita's safety for the next day.
+
+Outside Kennedy gave instructions to the officer on the beat to
+watch the apartment particularly, and there was no reason now to
+fear a repetition of the attempt, at least that night.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE ANTIDOTE
+
+
+Early the following morning Kennedy left me alone in the
+laboratory and made a trip downtown, where he visited a South
+American tobacco dealer and placed a rush order for a couple of
+hundred cigarettes exactly similar in shape and quality to those
+which Mendoza had smoked and which the others seemed also to
+prefer, except, however, that the deadly drug was left out.
+
+While he was gone, it occurred to me to take up again the hunt for
+Alfonso. Norton was not in his little office, nor could I find
+Alfonso anywhere about the campus. In fact he seemed to have
+almost dropped out of his University work for the time.
+Accordingly, I turned my steps toward the Prince Edward Albert
+Hotel, in the hope that he might be there.
+
+Inquiries of the clerk at the desk told me that he had been there,
+but was out just at that moment. I did not see Whitney around, nor
+the Senora, so I sat down to wait, having nothing better to do
+until Kennedy's return.
+
+I was about to give it up and go, when I heard a cab drive up to
+the door and, looking up, I saw Alfonso get out. He saw me about
+the same time and we bowed. I do not think he even tried to avoid
+me.
+
+"I haven't seen you for some time," I remarked, searching his
+face, which seemed to me to be paler than it had been.
+
+"No," he replied. "I haven't been feeling very well lately and
+I've been running up into the country now and then to a quiet
+hotel--a sort of rest cure, I suppose you would call it. How are
+you? How is Senorita Inez?"
+
+"Very well," I replied, wondering whether he had said what he did
+in the hope of establishing a complete alibi for the events of the
+night before.
+
+Briefly I told him what had happened, omitting reference to the
+vocaphone and our real part in it.
+
+"That is terrible," he exclaimed. "Oh, if she would only allow me
+to take care of her--I would take her back to our own country,
+where she would be safe, far away from these people who seek to
+prey on all of us."
+
+He paced up and down nervously, and I could see that my
+information had added nothing to his peace of mind, though, at the
+same time, he had betrayed nothing on his part.
+
+"I was just passing through," I said finally, looking at my watch,
+"and happened to see you. I hope your mother is well?"
+
+"As well as is to be expected, surrounded by people who watch
+every act," he replied, I thought with a rap at us for having
+Norton about and so active, though I could not be sure.
+
+We separated, and I hastened back to the laboratory to report to
+Craig that Alfonso was rusticating for his health.
+
+Kennedy, on his part, had had an experience, though it was no more
+conclusive than my own. After he had left the tobacco district, he
+had walked up Wall Street to the subway. In the crowd he had seen
+Senora de Moche, although she had not seen him. He had turned and
+followed her until she entered the building in which Whitney and
+his associates had their offices. Whether it indicated that she
+was still leading them a chase, or they her, was impossible to
+determine, but it at least showed that they were still on friendly
+terms with each other.
+
+In the laboratory he could always find something to do on the
+case, either in perfecting his chemical tests of the various drugs
+we had discovered, or in trying to decipher some similarities in
+the rough printing of the four warnings and the anonymous letter
+with the known handwriting of those connected with the case, many
+specimens of which he bad been quietly collecting. That in itself
+was a tremendously minute job, entailing not only a vast amount of
+expert knowledge such as he had collected in his years of studying
+crime scientifically, but the most exact measurements and careful
+weighing and balancing of trifles, which to the unscientific
+conveyed no meanings at all. Still, he seemed to be forging ahead,
+though he never betrayed what direction the evidence seemed to be
+taking.
+
+The package of cigarettes which he had ordered downtown was
+delivered about an hour after his return and seemed to be the
+signal for him to drop work, for the meeting with Lockwood and
+Whitney had been set early. He stowed the package in his pockets
+and then went over to a cabinet in which he kept a number of
+rather uncommon drugs. From it he took a little vial which he
+shoved into his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Are you ready, Walter?" he asked.
+
+"Whenever you are," I said, laying aside my writing.
+
+Together we made our way down to the Mendoza apartment which had
+been the scene of the near-tragedy the night before. Outside, he
+paused for several moments to make inquiries about any suspicious
+persons that might have been seen lurking about the neighbourhood.
+None of the attendants in the apartment remembered having seen
+any, and they were now very alert after the two events, the murder
+and the attempted abduction. Not a clue seemed to have been left
+by the villain who had been called "Doc."
+
+"How do you feel after your thrilling experience?" greeted Craig
+pleasantly, as Juanita admitted us and Inez came forward.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she answered, with a note of sadness in her
+tone. "It makes me feel so alone in the world. If it were not for
+'Nita--and you, I don't know what I should do."
+
+"Doesn't Mr. Lockwood count?" asked Kennedy observantly.
+
+"Of course--everything," she answered hastily. "But he has to be
+away so much on business, and--"
+
+She paused and sighed. I could not help wondering whether, after
+all, his explanation of the dagger episode had been enough to
+satisfy her. Had she really accepted it?
+
+Neither Lockwood nor Whitney had arrived, and Kennedy improved the
+opportunity to have a quiet talk aside with her, at which, I
+imagine, he was arranging a programme of what was to happen at
+this meeting and her part in it to co-operate with him.
+
+She had left the room for a moment and we were alone. It was
+evidently a part of his plan, for no sooner was she gone than he
+opened the package of cigarettes which he had ordered and took out
+from the box in which Mendoza had kept his cigarettes those that
+were there, substituting those he had brought.
+
+We had not long to wait, now. Lockwood and Whitney came together.
+I was interested to see the greeting of Inez and her lover. Was it
+pure fancy, or did I detect a trace of coldness as though there
+had sprung up something between them? As far as Lockwood was
+concerned, I felt sure that he was eager to break down any barrier
+that kept them from being as they had been.
+
+Whitney took her hand and held it, in a playful sort of way. "I
+wish I were a young buck," he smiled. "No one would dare look at
+you--much less try to carry you off. Yes, we must be more careful
+of our little beauty, or we shall lose her."
+
+They turned to greet us. I felt, as we shook hands, that it was
+much the same sort of handshake that one sees in the prize ring--
+to be followed by the clang of a bell, then all going to it, in
+battle royal, with the devil after the hindmost.
+
+There was scarcely a chance for a preliminary bout before luncheon
+was announced, and we entered the cozy little dining-room to seat
+ourselves at the daintiest of tables. One could feel the hostess
+radiating hospitality, even on such a cross-current set of guests
+as we were, and for the time, I almost felt that it had been
+Kennedy's purpose to promote a love-feast instead of an armed
+truce.
+
+Nothing was said about the main cause of our being together for
+some time, and the small talk almost lifted for a time the incubus
+that had settled down on all our lives since the tragedy in the
+den at the other end of the suite. But the fact could not be
+blinked.
+
+Tacitly every one seemed to wait on Kennedy to sound the gong.
+Finally he did so.
+
+"Of course," he began, clearing his throat, "there is no use
+making believe about anything. I think we all understand each
+other better now than we have ever done before. As for me, I am in
+this case under a promise to stick to it and fight it to the end.
+I suppose the rest of you are, also. But that need not prevent us
+agreeing on one thing. We can work together to protect Senorita
+Mendoza, at least, from such danger as threatened her last night."
+
+"It's a dastardly shame," Lockwood exclaimed angrily, "that a man
+who would attempt a thing like that should go unpunished." "Show
+me how to trace him and I'll guarantee the punishment," rejoined
+Craig drily.
+
+"I am not a detective," replied Lockwood.
+
+Kennedy forebore to reply in kind, though I knew there was a ready
+answer on his tongue for the lover.
+
+Ever since they had arrived, the Senorita had seen that they were
+well supplied with cigarettes from the case in which she and they
+supposed were the genuine South American brand of her father.
+Kennedy and I smoked them, too, although neither of us liked them
+very much. The others were smoking furiously.
+
+"However," resumed Kennedy, "I do not feel that I want to intrude
+myself in this matter without being perfectly frank and having the
+approval of Senorita Mendoza. She has known both of you longer and
+more intimately than she has known me, although she has seen fit
+to place certain of her affairs in my hands, for which I trust I
+shall render a good account of my stewardship. It seems to me,
+though, that if there is, as we now know there is, some one whom
+we do not know"--he paused--"who has sunk so low as to wish to
+carry her off, apparently where she shall be out of the influence
+of her friends, it is only right that precautions should be taken
+to prevent it."
+
+"What is your suggestion?" demanded Whitney, rather contentiously.
+
+"Would there be any objection," asked Kennedy, "if I should ask my
+old friend,--or any of you may do it,--Deputy Commissioner
+O'Connor to detail a plainclothesman to watch this house and
+neighbourhood, especially at night?"
+
+We watched the faces of the others. But it was really of no use.
+
+"I think that is an excellent plan," decided Inez herself. "I
+shall feel much safer and surely none of you can be jealous of the
+city detectives."
+
+Kennedy smiled. She had cut the Gordian knot with a blow. Neither
+Lockwood nor Whitney could object. The purpose of the luncheon was
+accomplished.
+
+In fact he did not wait for further consideration, but excused
+himself from the table for a moment to call up our old friend
+O'Connor and tell him how gravely his man was needed. It was a
+matter of only a few minutes when he returned from the other room.
+
+"He will detail Burke for this special service as long as we want
+him," reported Craig, sitting down again.
+
+Inez was delighted, naturally, for the affair had been a terrific
+shock to her. I could see how relieved she felt, for I was sitting
+directly next to her.
+
+The maid had, meanwhile brought in the coffee and Inez had been
+waiting to pour until Kennedy returned. She did not do so, now,
+either, however. It seemed as if she were waiting for some kind of
+signal from Kennedy.
+
+"What a splendid view of the park you get here," remarked Kennedy
+turning toward the long, low windows that opened on a balustraded
+balcony. "Just look at that stream of automobiles passing on the
+west drive."
+
+Common politeness dictated that all should turn and look, although
+there was no novelty in the sight for any of us.
+
+As I have said, I was sitting next to Inez. To me she was a far
+more attractive sight than any view of the park. I barely looked
+out of the window. Imagine my surprise, then, at seeing her take
+advantage of the diversion to draw from the folds of her dress a
+little vial and pour a bit of yellowish, syrupy liquid into the
+cup of coffee which she was preparing for Whitney.
+
+I could not help looking at her quickly. She saw that I had seen
+her and raised her other hand with a finger to her lips and an
+explanatory glance at Kennedy who was keeping the others
+interested. Instantly, I recognized the little vial which Craig
+had shoved into his waistcoat pocket. That had been the purpose of
+his whispered conference with her when we arrived. I said nothing,
+but determined to observe more closely.
+
+More coffee and more cigarettes followed, always from the same box
+which was now on the table. The luncheon developed almost a real
+conversation. For the time, under the spell of our hostess, we
+nearly forgot that we were in reality bitter enemies.
+
+My real interest, as time passed, centred in Whitney and I could
+not help watching him closely. Was it a fact, or was it merely my
+imagination? He seemed quite different. The pupils of his eyes did
+not seem to be quite so dilated as they had been at other times,
+or even when he arrived. Even his heart action appeared to be more
+normal. I think Inez noticed it, too. There was none of the
+wildness in his conversation, such as there often had been at
+other times.
+
+Our party was prolonged beyond the time we had expected, but,
+although he had much on his mind, Kennedy made no move to break it
+up. In fact he did everything to encourage it.
+
+At last, however, the others did notice the time, and I think it
+was with sincere regret that the truce was broken. Even then, no
+parting shots were indulged in.
+
+As we left, Inez thanked Kennedy for his consideration, and I am
+sure that that in itself was reward enough. We parted from
+Lockwood, who wished to remain a little while, and rode down in
+the elevator with Whitney, a changed man.
+
+"I'll walk over to the elevated with you," he said. "I was going
+to my hotel, but I think I'll go down to the office instead."
+
+Evidently he had got Senora de Moche out of his mind, at least
+temporarily, I thought. Then for the first time I recalled that
+during the whole luncheon there had been no reference to either
+the Senora or Alfonso, though both must have been in our minds
+often.
+
+"What was it you had Inez drop into Whitney's coffee?" I asked
+Craig as we parted from him and rode uptown.
+
+"You saw that?" he smiled. "It was pilocarpine, jaborandi, a plant
+found largely in Brazil, one of the antidotes for stramonium
+poisoning. It doesn't work with every one. But it seems to have
+done so with him. Besides, the caffeine in the coffee probably
+aided the pilocarpine. Then, too, I made them smoke cigarettes
+without the dope that is being fed them. Lockwood's case, for some
+reason, hasn't gone far. But did you notice how the treatment
+contracted the pupils of Whitney's eyes almost back to normal
+again?"
+
+I had and said so, adding, "But what was your idea?"
+
+"I think I've got at the case from a brand-new angle," he replied.
+"Unless I am greatly mistaken, when the person who is doing the
+doping sees that Whitney is getting better--why, I think you all
+noticed it, Inez and Lockwood as well as you--it will mean another
+attempt to substitute more cigarettes doped with that drug. I
+think it's by substitution that it's being done. We'll see."
+
+At the laboratory, Kennedy called Norton and described briefly
+what had happened, especially to Whitney.
+
+"Now is your chance, Norton," he added, "to do some real good
+work. I want some one to watch the Senora, see if she, too, notes
+the difference in him. Understand?"
+
+"Perfectly," returned Norton. "That is something I think I can do."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE BURGLAR POWDER
+
+
+It was not until after dinner that we heard again from Norton. He
+had evidently spent the time faithfully hanging about the Prince
+Edward Albert, but Whitney had not come in, although the Senora
+and Alfonso were about.
+
+"I saw them leaving the dining-room," he reported to us in the
+laboratory directly afterward, "just as Whitney came in. They
+could not see me. I took good care of that. But, say, there is a
+change in Whitney, isn't there? I wonder what caused it?"
+
+"It's as noticeable as that?" asked Kennedy. "And did she notice
+it?"
+
+"I'm sure of it," replied Norton confidently. "She couldn't help
+it. Besides, after he left her and went into the dining-room
+himself she and Alfonso seemed to be discussing something. I'm
+sure it was that."
+
+Kennedy said nothing, except to thank Norton and compliment him on
+his powers of observation. Norton took the praise with evident
+satisfaction, and after a moment excused himself, saying that he
+had some work to do over in the Museum.
+
+He had no sooner gone than Kennedy took from a drawer a little
+packet of powder and an atomizer full of liquid, which he dropped
+into his pocket.
+
+"I think the Prince Edward Albert will be the scene of our
+operations, to-night, Walter," he announced, reaching for his hat.
+
+He seemed to be in a hurry and it was not many minutes before we
+entered. As he passed the dining-room he glanced in. There was
+Whitney, not half through a leisurely dinner. Neither of the de
+Moches seemed to be downstairs.
+
+Kennedy sauntered over to the desk and looked over the register.
+We already knew that Whitney and the Senora had suites on the
+eighth floor, on opposite sides and at opposite ends of the hall.
+The de Moche suite was under the number 810. That of Whitney was
+825.
+
+"Is either 823 or 827 vacant?" asked Kennedy as the clerk came
+over to us.
+
+He turned to look over his list. "Yes, 827 is vacant," he found.
+
+"I'd like to have it," said Kennedy, making some excuse about our
+luggage being delayed, as he paid for it for the night.
+
+"Front!" called the clerk, and a moment later we found ourselves
+in the elevator riding up.
+
+The halls were deserted at that time in the evening except for a
+belated theatre-goer, and in a few minutes there would ensue a
+period in which there was likely to be no one about.
+
+We entered the room next to Whitney's without being observed by
+any one of whom we cared. The boy left us, and it was a simple
+matter after that to open a rather heavy door that communicated
+between the two suites and was not protected by a Yale lock.
+
+Instead of switching on the lights, Kennedy first looked about
+carefully until he was assured that there was no one there. It
+seemed to me to be an unnecessary caution, for we knew Whitney was
+down-stairs and would probably be there a long time. But he
+seemed to think it necessary. Positive that we were alone, he made
+a hasty survey of the rooms. Then he seemed to select as a
+starting-point a table in one corner of the sitting-room on which
+lay a humidor and a heavy metal box for cigarettes.
+
+Quickly he sprinkled on the floor, from the hall door to the table
+on which the case of cigarettes lay, some of the powder which I
+had seen him wrap up in the laboratory before we left. Then, with
+the atomizer, he sprayed over it something that had a pungent,
+familiar odour--walking backwards from the hall door to the table,
+as he sprayed.
+
+"Don't you want more light?" I asked, starting to cross to a
+window to let the moonlight stream in.
+
+"Don't walk on it, Walter," he whispered, pushing me back. "No, I
+don't need any more light."
+
+"What are you doing?" I asked, mystified at his actions.
+
+"First I sprinkled some powdered iodine on the floor," he replied,
+"and then sprayed over just enough ammonia to moisten it. It will
+evaporate quickly, leaving what I call my anti-burglar powder."
+
+"I'm sure I wouldn't be thought one of the fraternity for the
+world," I observed, stepping aside to give him all the room he
+wanted in which to operate.
+
+He had finished his work by this time and now the evening wind was
+blowing away the slight fumes that had arisen. For a few moments
+he left our door into Whitney's room open, in order to insure
+clearing away the odour. Then he quietly closed it, but did not
+lock it again.
+
+We waited a few minutes, then Craig leaned over to me. "I wish
+you'd go down and see how near Whitney is through dinner," he
+said. "If he is through, do something, anything to keep him down
+there. Only be as careful as you can not to be seen by any one who
+knows us."
+
+I rode down in an empty elevator and cautiously made my way to the
+dining-room. Whitney had finished much sooner than I had expected
+and was not there. Much as I wanted not to be seen, I found that
+it was necessary to make a tour of the hotel to find him and I did
+so, wondering what expedient I would adopt to keep him down there
+if I found him. I did not have to adopt any, however. Whitney was
+almost alone in the writing-room, and a big pile of letters beside
+him showed me that he would be busy for some time. I rode back to
+the room to tell Craig, flattering myself that I had not been
+seen.
+
+"Good," he exclaimed. "I don't think we'll have to wait much
+longer, if anything at all is going to happen."
+
+In the darkness we settled ourselves for another vigil that was to
+last we knew not how long. Neither of us spoke as we half crouched
+in the shadow of our room, listening.
+
+Slowly the time passed. Would any one take advantage of the
+opportunity to tamper with the box of cigarettes on the table?
+
+I fell to speculating. Who could it possibly have been that had
+conceived this devilish plot? What was back of it all? I wondered
+whether it were possible that Lockwood, now that Mendoza was out
+of the way, could desire to remove Whitney, the sole remaining
+impediment to possessing the whole of the treasure as well as
+Inez? Then there were the Senora and Alfonso, the one with a deep
+race and family grievance, the other a rejected suitor. What might
+not they do with some weird South American poison?
+
+Once or twice we heard the elevator door clang and waited
+expectantly, but nothing happened. I began to wonder whether, even
+if some one had a pass-key to the suite, we could hear him enter
+if he was quiet. The outside hall was thickly carpeted, and
+deadened every footfall if one exercised only reasonable care. The
+rooms themselves were much the same.
+
+"Don't you think we might have the door ajar a little?" I
+suggested anxiously.
+
+"Sh!" was Kennedy's only comment in the negative.
+
+I glanced now and then at my watch and by straining my eyes was
+surprised to see how early it was yet. The minutes were surely
+leaden-footed.
+
+In the darkness, I fell again to reviewing the weird succession of
+events. I am not by nature superstitious, but in the black silence
+I could well imagine a staring succession of eyes, beginning with
+the dilated pupils of Whitney and passing on to the corpse-like
+expression of Mendoza, but always ending with the remarkable,
+piercing, black eyes of the Indian woman with the melancholy-
+visaged son, as they had impressed me the first time I saw them
+and, in fact, ever since. Was it a freak of my mind, or was there
+some reason for it?
+
+Suddenly I heard in the next room what sounded like a series of
+little explosions, as though some one were treading on match
+heads.
+
+"My burglar powder works," muttered Craig to me in a hoarse
+whisper. "Every step, even those of a mouse running across, sets
+it off!"
+
+He rose quickly and threw open the door into Whitney's suite. I
+sprang after him.
+
+There, in the shadows, I saw a dark form, starting back in quick
+retreat. But we were too late. He was cat-like, too quick for us.
+
+In the dim light of the little explosions we could catch a glimpse
+of the person who had been craftily working with the dread drug to
+drive Whitney and others insane. But the face was masked!
+
+He banged shut the door after him and fled down the hall, making a
+turn to a flight of steps.
+
+We followed, and at the steps paused a moment. "You go up,
+Walter," shouted Kennedy. "I'll go down."
+
+It was fifteen minutes later before we met downstairs, neither of
+us with a trace of the intruder. He seemed to have vanished like
+smoke.
+
+"Must have had a room, like ourselves," remarked Craig somewhat
+chagrined at the outcome of his scheme. "And if he was clever
+enough to have a room, he is clever enough to have a disguise that
+would fool the elevator boys for a minute. No, he has gone. But
+I'll wager he won't try any more substitutions of stramonium-
+poisoned cigarettes for a while. It was too close to be
+comfortable."
+
+We were baffled again, and this time by a mysterious masked man.
+Could it be the same whom we heard over the vocaphone addressed as
+"Doc"? Perhaps it was, but that gave us no hint as to his
+identity. He seemed just as far away as ever.
+
+We waited around the elevators for some time, but nothing
+happened. Kennedy even sought out the manager of the hotel, and
+after telling who he was, had a search made of the guests who
+might be suspected. The best we could do was to leave word that
+the employees might be put on the lookout for anything of a
+suspicious nature.
+
+Whitney, the innocent cause of all this commotion, was still in
+the writing-room with his letters.
+
+"I think I ought to tell him," decided Kennedy as we passed down
+the lobby.
+
+He seemed surprised to see us, as we strolled up to his writing
+desk, but pushed aside the few letters which he had not finished
+and asked us to sit down.
+
+"I don't know whether you have noticed it," began Craig, "but I
+wonder how you feel?"
+
+Whitney had expected something else rather than his health as the
+subject of a quiz. "Pretty good now," he answered before he knew
+it, "although I must admit that for the past few days I have
+wondered whether I wasn't slowing up a bit--or rather going too
+fast."
+
+"Would you like to know why you feel that way?" asked Craig.
+
+Whitney was now genuinely puzzled. It was perfectly evident, as it
+had been all the time, that he had not the slightest inkling of
+what was going on.
+
+As Craig briefly unfolded what we had discovered and the reason
+for it, Whitney watched him aghast.
+
+"Poisoned cigarettes," he repeated slowly. "Well, who would ever
+have thought it. You can bet your last jitney I'll be careful what
+I smoke in the future, if I have to smoke only original packages.
+And it was that, partly, that ailed Mendoza?"
+
+Kennedy nodded. "Don't take any pilocarpine, just because I told
+you that was what I used. You have given yourself the best
+prescription, just now. Be careful what you smoke. And, don't get
+excited if you seem to be stepping on matches up there in your
+room for a little while, either. It's nothing."
+
+Whitney's only known way of thanking anybody was to invite them to
+adjourn to the cafe, and accordingly we started across the hall,
+after he had gathered up his correspondence. The information had
+made more work that night impossible for him.
+
+As we crossed from the writing-room, we saw Alfonso de Moche
+coming in from the street. He saw us and came over to speak. Was
+it a coincidence, or was it merely a blind? Was he the one who had
+got away and now calculated to come back and throw us off guard?
+
+Whitney asked him where he had been, but he replied quickly that
+his mother had not been feeling very well after dinner and had
+gone to bed, while he strolled out and had dropped into a picture
+show. That, I felt, was at least clever. The intruder had been a
+man.
+
+De Moche excused himself, and we continued our walk to the cafe,
+where Whitney restored his shattered peace of mind somewhat.
+
+"What's the result of your detective work on Norton?" ventured
+Kennedy at last, seeing that Whitney was in a more expansive frame
+of mind, and taking a chance.
+
+"Oh," returned Whitney, "he's scared, all right. Why, he has been
+hanging around this hotel--watching me. He thinks I don't know it,
+I suppose, but I do."
+
+Kennedy and I exchanged glances.
+
+"But he's slippery," went on Whitney. "He knows that he is being
+shadowed and the men tell me that they lose him, now and then. To
+tell the truth I don't trust most of these private detectives. I
+think their little tissue paper reports are half-faked, anyhow."
+
+He seemed to want to say no more on the subject, from which I took
+it that he had discovered nothing of importance.
+
+"One thing, though," he recollected, after a moment. "He has been
+going to see Inez Mendoza, they tell me."
+
+"Yes?" queried Kennedy.
+
+"Confound him. He pretty nearly got Lockwood in bad with her,
+too," said Whitney, then leaning over confidentially added, "Say,
+Kennedy, honestly, now, you don't believe that shoe-print stuff,
+do you?"
+
+"I see no reason to doubt it," returned Kennedy with diplomatic
+firmness. "Why?"
+
+"Well," continued Whitney, still confidential, "we haven't got the
+dagger--that's all. There--I never actually asserted that before,
+though I've given every one to understand that our plans are based
+on something more than hot-air. We haven't got it, and we never
+had it."
+
+"Then who has it?" asked Kennedy colourlessly.
+
+Whitney shook his head. "I don't know," he said merely.
+
+"And these attacks on you--this cigarette business--how do you
+explain that," asked Craig, "if you haven't the dagger?"
+
+"Jealousy, pure jealousy," replied Whitney quickly. "They are so
+afraid that we will find the treasure. That's my dope."
+
+"Who is afraid?"
+
+"That's a serious matter," he evaded. "I wouldn't say anything
+that I couldn't back up in a case of that kind. I'd get into
+trouble."
+
+There was nothing to be gained by prolonging the conversation and
+Kennedy made a move as though to go.
+
+"Just give us a square deal," said Whitney as we left. "That's all
+we want--a square deal."
+
+Kennedy and I walked out of the Prince Edward Albert and turned
+down the block.
+
+"Well, have you found out anything more?" asked a voice in the
+shadow beside us.
+
+We turned. It was Norton.
+
+"I saw you talking to Whitney in the writing-room," he said, with
+a laugh, "then in the cafe, and I saw Alfonso come in. He still
+has those shadows on me. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one
+of them around in a doorway, now."
+
+"No," returned Kennedy, "he didn't say anything that was
+important. They still say they haven't the dagger."
+
+"Of course," said Norton.
+
+"You'll wait around a little longer?" asked Kennedy as we came to
+a corner and stopped.
+
+"I think so," returned Norton. "I'll keep you posted."
+
+Kennedy and I walked on a bit.
+
+"I'm going around to see how Burke, O'Connor's man, is getting on
+watching the Mendoza apartment, Walter," he said at length. "Then
+I have two or three other little outside matters to attend to. You
+look tired. Why don't you go home and take a rest? I shan't be
+working in the laboratory to-night, either."
+
+"I think I will," I agreed, for the strain of the case was
+beginning to tell on me.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE PULMOTOR
+
+
+I went directly to our apartment after Craig left me and for a
+little while sat up, speculating on the probabilities of the case.
+
+Senora de Moche had told us of her ancestor who had been intrusted
+with the engraved dagger, of how it had been handed down, of the
+death of her brother; she had told us of the murder of the
+ancestor of Inez Mendoza, of the curse of Mansiche. Was this,
+after all, but a reincarnation of the bloody history of the Gold
+of the Gods?
+
+There were the shoe-prints in the mummy case. They were
+Lockwood's. How about them? Was he telling the truth? Now had come
+the poisoned cigarettes. All had followed the threats:
+
+BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS.
+
+Several times I had been forced already to revise my theories of
+the case. At first I had felt that it pointed straight toward
+Lockwood. But did it seem to do so now?
+
+Suppose Lockwood had stolen the dagger from the Museum, although
+he denied even that. Did that mean, necessarily that he committed
+the murder with it, that he now had it? Might he not have lost it?
+Might not some one else--the Senora, or Alfonso, or both--have
+obtained it? Might not Mendoza have been murdered with it by some
+other hand to obtain or to hide the secret on its bloody blade?
+
+I went to bed, still thinking, no nearer a conclusion than before,
+prepared to dream over it.
+
+That is the last I remember.
+
+When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the bed still, but
+Craig was bending over me. He had just taken a rubber cap off my
+face, to which was attached a rubber tube that ran to a box
+perhaps as large as a suitcase, containing a pump of some kind.
+
+I was too weak to notice these things right away, too weak to care
+much about them, or about anything else.
+
+"Are you all right now, old man?" he asked, bending over me.
+
+"Y-Yes," I gasped, clutching at the choking sensation in my
+throat. "What has happened?"
+
+Perhaps I had best tell it as though I were not the chief actor;
+for it came to me in such disjointed fragmentary form, that it was
+some time before I could piece it together.
+
+Craig had seen Burke, and had found that everything was all right.
+Then he had made the few little investigations that he intended.
+But he had not been to the laboratory. There had been no light
+there that night.
+
+At last when he arrived home, he had found a peculiar odour in the
+hall, but had thought nothing of it, until he opened our door.
+Then there rushed out such a burst of it that he had to retreat,
+almost fainting, choking and gasping for breath.
+
+His first thought was for me; and protecting himself as best he
+could he struggled through to my room, to find me lying on the
+bed, motionless, almost cold.
+
+He was by this time too weak to carry me. But he managed to reach
+the window and throw it wide open. As the draught cleared the air,
+he thought of the telephone and with barely strength enough left
+called up one of the gas companies and had a pulmotor sent over.
+
+Now that the danger was past for me, and he felt all right, his
+active mind began at once on the reconstruction of what had
+happened.
+
+What was it--man or devil? Could a human fly have scaled the
+walls, or an aeroplane have dropped an intruder at the window
+ledge? The lock on the door did not seem to have been tampered
+with. Nor was there any way by which entrance could have been
+gained from a fire escape. It was not illuminating gas. Every one
+agreed on that. No, it was not an accident. It was an attempt at
+murder. Some one was getting close to us. Every other weapon
+failing, this was desperation.
+
+I had been made comfortable, and he was engaged in one of his
+characteristic searches, with more than ordinary eagerness,
+because this was his own apartment, and it was I who had been the
+victim.
+
+I followed him languidly as he went over everything, the
+furniture, the walls, the windows, the carpets--there looking for
+finger-prints, there for some trace of the poisonous gas that had
+filled the room. But he did not have the air of one who was
+finding anything. I was too tired to reason. This was but another
+of the baffling mysteries that confronted us.
+
+A low exclamation caused me to open my eyes and try to discover
+what was the cause. He was bending over the lock of the door
+looking at it intently.
+
+"Broken?" I managed to say.
+
+"No--corroded," he replied. "You keep still. Save your energy.
+I've got strength enough for two, for a while."
+
+He came over to the bed and bent over me. "I won't hurt you," he
+encouraged, "but just let me get a drop of your blood."
+
+He took a needle and ran it gently into my thumb beside the nail.
+A drop or two of blood oozed out and he soaked it up with a piece
+of sterile gauze.
+
+"Try to sleep," he said finally.
+
+"And you?" I asked.
+
+"It's no use. I'm going over to the laboratory. I can't sleep.
+There's a cop down in front of the house. You're safe enough. By
+George, if this case goes much further we'll have half the force
+standing guard. Here--drink that."
+
+I had made up my mind not to go to sleep, if he wouldn't, but I
+slipped up when I obeyed him that time. I thought it was a
+stimulant but it turned out to be a sedative.
+
+I did not wake up until well along in the morning, but when I did
+I was surprised to find myself so well. Before any one could stop
+me, I was dressed and had reached the door.
+
+A friend of ours who had volunteered to stay with me was dozing on
+a couch as I came out.
+
+"Too late, Johnson," I called, trying hard to be gay, though I
+felt anything but like it. "Thank you, old man, for staying with
+me. But I'm afraid to stop. You're stronger than I am this
+morning--and besides you can run faster. I'm afraid you'll drag me
+back."
+
+He did try to do it, but with a great effort of will-power I
+persuaded him to let me go. Out in the open air, too, it seemed to
+do me good. The policeman who had been stationed before the house
+gazed at me as though he saw a ghost, then grinned encouragingly.
+
+Still, I was glad that the laboratory was only a few blocks away,
+for I was all in by the time I got there, and hadn't even energy
+enough to reply to Kennedy's scolding.
+
+He was working over a microscope, while by his side stood in
+racks, innumerable test-tubes of various liquids. On the table
+before him lay the lock of our door which he had cut out after he
+gave me the sleeping draught.
+
+"What was it?" I asked. "I feel as if I had been on a bust,
+without the recollection of a thing."
+
+He shook his head as if to discourage conversation, without taking
+his eyes off the microscope through which he was squinting. His
+lips were moving as if he were counting. I waited in impatient
+silence until he seemed to have finished.
+
+Then, still without a word, he took up a test-tube and dropped
+into it a little liquid from a bottle on a shelf above the table.
+His face lighted up, and he regarded the reaction attentively for
+some time. Then he turned to me, still holding the tube.
+
+"You have been on a bust," he said with a smile as if the remark
+of a few minutes before were still fresh. "Only it was a laughing
+gas jag--nitrous oxide."
+
+"Nitrous oxide?" I repeated. "How--what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean simply that a test of your blood shows that you were
+poisoned by nitrous oxide gas. You remember the sample of blood
+which I squeezed from your thumb? I took it because I knew that a
+gas--and it has proved to be nitrous oxide--is absorbed through
+the lungs into the circulation and its presence can be told for a
+considerable period after administration."
+
+He paused a moment, then went on: "To be specific in this case I
+found by microscopic examination that the number of corpuscles in
+your blood was vastly above the normal, something like between
+seven and eight million to a drop that should have had somewhat
+more than only half that number. You were poisoned by gas that--"
+
+"Yes," I interrupted, "but how, with all the doors locked?"
+
+"I was coming to that," he said quietly, picking up the lock and
+looking at it thoughtfully.
+
+He had already placed it in a porcelain basin, and in this basin
+he had poured some liquids. Then he passed the liquids through a
+fine screen and at last took up a tube containing some of the
+resulting liquid.
+
+"I have already satisfied myself," he explained, "but for your
+benefit, seeing that you're the chief sufferer, I'll run over a
+part of the test. You saw the reaction which showed the gas a
+moment ago. I have proved chemically as well as microscopically
+that it is present in your blood. Now if I take this test-tube of
+liquid derived from my treatment of the lock and then test it as
+you saw me do with the other, isn't that enough for you? See--it
+gives the same reaction."
+
+It did, indeed, but my mind did not react with it.
+
+"Nitrous oxide," he continued, "in contact with iron, leaves
+distinct traces of corrosion, discernible by chemical and
+microscopic tests quite as well as the marks it leaves in the
+human blood. Manifestly, if no one could have come in by the
+windows or doors, the gas must have been administered in some way
+without any one coming into the room. I found no traces of an
+intruder."
+
+It was a tough one. Never much good at answering his conundrums
+when I was well, I could not even make a guess now.
+
+"The key-hole, of course!" he explained. "I cut away the entire
+lock, and have submitted it to these tests which you see."
+
+"I don't see it all yet," I said.
+
+"Some one came to our door in the night, after gaining entrance to
+the hall--not a difficult thing to do, we know. That person found
+our door locked, knew it would be locked, knew that I always
+locked it. Knowing that such was the case, this person came
+prepared, bringing perhaps, a tank of compressed nitrous oxide,
+certainly the materials for making the gas expeditiously."
+
+I began to understand how it had been done.
+
+"Through the keyhole," he resumed, "a stream of the gas was
+injected. It soon rendered you unconscious, and that would have
+been all, if the person had been satisfied. A little bit would
+have been harmless enough. But the person was not satisfied. The
+intention was not to overcome, but to kill. The stream of gas was
+kept up until the room was full of it.
+
+"Only my return saved you, for the gas was escaping very slowly.
+Even then, you had been under it so long that we had to resort to
+the wonderful little pulmotor after trying both the Sylvester and
+Schaefer methods and all other manual means to induce respiration.
+At any rate we managed to undo the work of this fiend."
+
+I looked at him in surprise, I, who didn't think I had an enemy in
+the world.
+
+"But who could it have been?" I asked.
+
+"We are pretty close to that criminal," was the only reply he
+would give, "providing we do not spread the net in sight of the
+quarry."
+
+"Why should he have wanted to get me?" I repeated.
+
+"Don't flatter yourself," replied Craig. "He wanted me, too. There
+wasn't any light in the laboratory last night. There was a light
+in our apartment. What more natural than to think that we were
+both there? You were caught in the trap intended for both of us."
+
+I looked at him, startled. Surely this was a most desperate
+criminal. To cover up one murder--perhaps two--he did not hesitate
+to attempt a third, a double murder. The attack had been really
+aimed at Kennedy. It had struck me alone. But it had miscarried
+and Craig had saved my life.
+
+As I reflected bitterly, I had but one satisfaction. Wretched as I
+felt, I knew that it had spared Craig from slowing up on the case
+at just the time when he was needed.
+
+The news of the attempt spread quickly, for it was a police case
+and got into the papers.
+
+It was not half an hour after I reached the laboratory that the
+door was pushed open by Inez Mendoza, followed by a boy spilling
+with fruit and flowers like a cornucopia.
+
+"I drove to the apartment," she cried, greatly excited and
+sympathetic, "but they told me you had gone out. Oh, I was glad to
+hear it. Then I knew it wasn't so serious. For, somehow, I feel
+guilty about it. It never would have happened if you hadn't met
+me."
+
+"I'm sure it's worth more than it cost," I replied gallantly.
+
+She turned toward Kennedy. "I'm positively frightened," she
+exclaimed. "First they direct their attacks against my father--
+then against me--now against you. What will it be next? Oh--it is
+that curse--it is that curse!"
+
+"Never fear," encouraged Kennedy, "we'll get you out--we'll get
+all of us out, now, I should say. It's just because they are so
+desperate that we have these things. As long as there is nothing
+to fear a criminal will lie low. When he gets scared he does
+things. And it's when he does things that he begins to betray
+himself."
+
+She shuddered. "I feel as though I was surrounded by enemies," she
+murmured. "It is as if an unseen evil power was watching over me
+all the time--and mocking me--striking down those I love and
+trust. Where will it end?"
+
+Kennedy tried his best to soothe her, but it was evident that the
+attack on us could not have had more effect, if it had been
+levelled direct at her.
+
+"Please, Senorita," he pleaded, "stand firm. We are going to win.
+Don't give in. The Mendozas are not the kind to stop defeated."
+
+She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"It was my father's way," she choked back her emotion. "How could
+you, a stranger, know?"
+
+"I didn't know," returned Kennedy. "I gathered it from his face.
+It is also his daughter's way."
+
+"Yes," she said, straightening up and the fire flashing from her
+eyes, "we are a proud, old, unbending race. Good-bye. I must not
+interrupt your work any longer. We are also a race that never
+forgets a friend."
+
+A moment later she was gone.
+
+"A wonderful woman," repeated Kennedy absently.
+
+Then he turned again to his table of chemicals.
+
+The telephone had begun to tinkle almost continuously by this
+time, as one after another of our friends called us up to know how
+we were getting on and be assured of our safety. In fact I didn't
+know that it was possible to resuscitate so many of them with a
+pulmotor.
+
+"By George, I'm glad it wasn't any more serious," came Norton's
+voice from the doorway a moment later. "I didn't see a paper this
+morning. The curator of the Museum just told me. How did it
+happen?"
+
+Kennedy tried to pass it off lightly, and I did the same, for as I
+was up longer I really did feel better.
+
+Norton shook his head gravely, however.
+
+"No," he said, "there were four of us got warnings. They are a
+desperate, revengeful people."
+
+I looked at him quickly. Did he mean the de Moches?
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE TELESCRIBE
+
+
+I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that I
+had better go slow that day and regain my strength, a fortunate
+decision, as it turned out.
+
+Kennedy, also, spent most of the time in the laboratory, so that,
+after all, I did not feel that I was missing very much.
+
+It was along in the afternoon that the telephone began acting
+strangely, as it will do sometimes when a long distance connection
+is being made. Twice Kennedy answered, without getting any
+response.
+
+"Confound that central," he muttered. "What do you suppose is the
+matter?"
+
+Again the bell rang.
+
+"Hello," shouted Kennedy, exasperated. "Who's this?"
+
+There was a pause. "Just a minute," he replied.
+
+Quickly he jammed the receiver down on a little metal base which
+he had placed near the instrument. Three prongs reaching upward
+from the base engaged the receiver tightly, fitting closely about
+it.
+
+Then he took up a watch-case receiver to listen through in place
+of the regular receiver.
+
+"Who is it?" he answered.
+
+Apparently the voice at the other end of the wire replied rather
+peevishly, for Kennedy endeavoured to smooth over the delay. I
+wondered what was going on, why he was so careful. His face showed
+that, whatever it was, it was most important.
+
+As he restored the telephone to its normal condition, he looked at
+me puzzled.
+
+"I wonder whether that was a frame-up!" he exclaimed, pulling a
+little cylinder off the instrument into which he had inserted the
+telephone receiver. "I thought it might be and I have preserved
+the voice. This is what is known as the telescribe--a recent
+invention of Edison which records on a specially prepared
+phonograph cylinder all that is said--both ways--over a telephone
+wire."
+
+"What was it about?" I asked eagerly.
+
+He shoved the cylinder on a phonograph and started the instrument.
+
+"Professor Kennedy?" called an unfamiliar voice.
+
+"Yes," answered a voice that I recognized as Craig's.
+
+"This is the detective agency employed by Mr. Whitney. He has
+instructed us to inform you that he has obtained the Peruvian
+dagger for which you have been searching. That's all. Good-bye."
+
+I looked at Kennedy in blank surprise.
+
+"They rang off before I could ask them a question," said Craig.
+"Central tells me it was a pay station call. There doesn't seem to
+be any way of tracing it. But, at least I have a record of the
+voice."
+
+"What are you going to do?" I queried. "It may be a fake."
+
+"Yes, but I'm going to investigate it. Do you feel strong enough
+to go down to Whitney's with me?"
+
+The startling news had been like a tonic. "Of course," I replied,
+seizing my hat.
+
+Kennedy paused only long enough to call Norton. The archaeologist
+was out, and we hurried on downtown to Whitney's.
+
+Whitney was not there and his clerk was just about to close the
+office. All the books were put away in the safe and the desks were
+closed. Now and then there echoed up the hall the clang of an
+elevator door.
+
+"Where is Mr. Whitney?" demanded Craig of the clerk.
+
+"I can't say. He went out a couple of hours ago."
+
+"Did he have a visit from one of his detectives?" shot out Craig
+suddenly.
+
+The clerk looked up suspiciously at us.
+
+"No," he replied defiantly.
+
+"Walter--stand by that door," shouted Craig. "Let no one in until
+they break it down."
+
+His blue-steel automatic gleamed a cold menace at the clerk. A
+downtown office after office hours is not exactly the place to
+which one can get assistance quickly. The clerk started back.
+
+"Did he have a visit from one of his detectives?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What was it about?"
+
+The clerk winced. "I don't know," he replied, "honest--I don't."
+
+Craig waved the gun for emphasis. "Open the safe," he said.
+
+Reluctantly the clerk obeyed. Under the point of the gun he
+searched every compartment and drawer of the big chrome steel
+strong-box which Whitney had pointed out as the safest place for
+the dagger on our first visit to him. But there was absolutely no
+trace of it. Had we been hoaxed and was all this risk in vain?
+
+"Where did Mr. Whitney go?" demanded Craig, as he directed the
+clerk to shut the door and lock the safe again, baffled.
+
+"If I should try to tell you," returned the man, very much
+frightened, "I would be lying. You would soon find out. Mr.
+Whitney doesn't make a confidant of me, you know."
+
+It was useless. If he had the dagger, at least we knew that it was
+not at the office. We had learned only one thing. He had had a
+visit from one of his detectives.
+
+As fast as the uptown trend of automobiles and surface cars during
+the rush hour would permit, Kennedy and I hurried in a taxicab to
+the Prince Edward Albert in the hope of surprising him there.
+
+"It's no use to inquire for him," decided Craig as we entered the
+hotel. "I still have the key to that room, 827, next to his. We'll
+ride right up in the elevator boldly and get in."
+
+No one said anything to us, as we let ourselves into the room next
+to Whitney's. A new lock had been placed on the door between the
+suites, but, aside from the additional time it took to force it,
+it presented no great difficulty.
+
+"He wouldn't leave the dagger here, of course," remarked Kennedy,
+as at last we stepped into Whitney's suite. "But we may as well
+satisfy ourselves. Hello--what's this?"
+
+The room was all upset, as though some one had already gone
+through it. For a moment I thought we had been forestalled.
+
+"Packed a grip hastily," Craig remarked, pointing to the marks on
+the bedspread where it had rested while he must literally have
+thrown things into it.
+
+We made a hasty search ourselves, but we knew it was hopeless. Two
+things we had learned. Whitney had had a visit from his
+detectives, and he had gone away hurriedly. An anonymous telephone
+message had been sent to Kennedy. Had it been for the purpose of
+throwing us off the track?
+
+The room telephone rang. Quickly Craig jumped to it and took down
+the receiver.
+
+"Hello," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Whitney."
+
+A silence ensued during which, of course, I could not gather any
+idea of what was going on over the wire.
+
+"The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy, working the hook up and down but
+receiving no response. "The fellow caught on. Something must have
+happened to Norton, too."
+
+"How's that?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he replied, "some one just called up Whitney and said that
+Norton had got away from him."
+
+"Perhaps they're trying to keep him out of the way just as they
+are with us," I suggested. "I think the thing is a plant."
+
+Down the hall, Kennedy stopped and tapped lightly at the door of
+810, the de Moche suite. I think he was surprised when the
+Senora's maid opened it.
+
+"Tell Senora de Moche it is Professor Kennedy," he said quickly,
+"and that I must see her."
+
+The maid admitted us into the sitting-room where we had had our
+first interview with her and a moment later she appeared. She was
+evidently not dressed for dinner, although it was almost time, and
+I saw Kennedy's eye travel from her to a chair in the corner over
+which was draped a linen automobile coat and a heavy veil. Had she
+been preparing to go somewhere, too? The door to Alfonso's room
+was open and he clearly was not there. What did it all mean?
+
+"Have you heard anything of a report that the dagger has been
+found?" demanded Kennedy abruptly.
+
+"Why--no," she replied, greatly surprised, apparently.
+
+"You were going out?" asked Kennedy with a significant glance at
+the coat and veil.
+
+"Only for a little ride with Alfonso, who has gone to hire a car,"
+she answered quickly.
+
+I felt sure that she had heard something about the dagger.
+
+We had no further excuse for staying and on the way out, now that
+he had satisfied himself that Whitney was not there, Craig
+inquired at the office for him. They could tell us nothing of his
+whereabouts, except that he had left in his car late in the
+afternoon in a great hurry.
+
+Kennedy stepped into a telephone booth and called up Lockwood, but
+no one answered. Inquiry in the garages in the neighbourhood
+finally located that at which Lockwood kept his car. There, all
+that they could tell us was that the car had been filled with gas
+and oil as if for a trip. Lockwood was gone, too.
+
+Kennedy hastily ordered a touring car himself and placed it at a
+corner of the Prince Edward Albert where he could watch two of the
+entrances, while I waited on the next corner where I could see the
+entrance on the other street.
+
+For some time we waited and still she did not come out. Had she
+telephoned to Alfonso and had he gone alone? Perhaps she had
+already been out and had taken this method of detaining us,
+knowing that we would wait to watch her.
+
+It must have been a mixture of both motives, for at length I was
+rewarded by seeing her come cautiously out of the rear entrance of
+the hotel alone and start to walk hurriedly up the street. I
+signalled to Craig who shot down and picked me up.
+
+By this time the Senora had reached a public cab stand and had
+engaged a hack.
+
+Sinking back in the shadows of the top, which was up, Craig
+directed our driver to follow the hack cautiously, keeping a
+couple of blocks behind. There was some satisfaction, though
+slight, in it, at least. We felt the possibility of the trail
+leading somewhere, now.
+
+On uptown the hack went, while we kept discreetly in the rear. We
+had reached a part of the city where it was sparsely populated,
+when the hack suddenly turned and doubled back on us.
+
+There was not time for us to turn and we trusted that by shrinking
+back in the shadow we might not be observed.
+
+As the hack passed us, however, the Senora leaned out until it was
+perfectly evident that she must recognize us. She said nothing but
+I fancied I saw a smile of satisfaction as she settled back into
+the cushions. She was deliberately going back along the very road
+by which she had led us out. It had been an elaborate means of
+wasting our time.
+
+She did not have the satisfaction, however, of shaking us off, for
+we followed all the way back to the hotel and saw her go in. Then
+Kennedy placed the car where we had it before and left the driver
+with instructions to follow her regardless of time if she should
+come out again.
+
+Surely, I reasoned, there must be something very queer going on,
+if they were all it to eliminate us and Norton. What had happened
+to him?
+
+Kennedy hastened back to the campus, late as it was, there to
+start anew. Norton was not in his quarters and, on the chance that
+he might have sought to elude Whitney's detectives by doing the
+unexpected and going to the Museum, Kennedy walked over that way.
+
+There was nothing to indicate that anybody had been at the Museum,
+but, as we passed our laboratory, we could hear the telephone
+ringing inside, as though some one had been trying to get us for a
+long time.
+
+Kennedy opened the door and switched on the lights. Waiting only
+long enough to jam the receiver down into place on the telescribe,
+he answered the call.
+
+"The deuce you will!" I heard him exclaim, then apparently whoever
+was talking rang off and he could not get them back.
+
+"Another of those confounded telephone messages," he said, turning
+to me and taking the cylinder off. "I looks as though the ready-
+letter writer who used to send warnings had learned his lesson and
+taken to the telephone as leaving fewer clues than handwriting."
+
+He placed the record on the phonograph so that I could hear it. It
+was brief and to the point, as had been the first.
+
+"Hello, is that you, Kennedy? We've got Norton. Next we'll get
+you. Good-bye."
+
+Kennedy repeated the first message. It was evident that both had
+been spoken by the same voice.
+
+"Whose is it?" I asked blankly. "What does it mean?"
+
+Before Craig could answer there was a knock at our door and he
+sprang to open it.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE VANISHER
+
+
+It was Juanita, Inez Mendoza's maid, frantic and almost
+speechless.
+
+"Why, Juanita," encouraged Kennedy, "what's the matter?"
+
+"The Senorita!" she gasped, breaking down now and sobbing over and
+over again. "The Senorita!"
+
+"Yes, yes," repeated Kennedy, "but what about her? Is there
+anything wrong?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," sobbed the poor girl, "I don't know. She is
+gone. I have had no word from her since this afternoon."
+
+"Gone!" we exclaimed together. "Where was Burke--that man that the
+police sent up to protect her?"
+
+"He is gone, too--now," replied Juanita in her best English, sadly
+broken by the excitement.
+
+Kennedy and I looked at each other aghast. This was the hardest
+blow of all. We had thought that, at least, Inez would be safe
+with a man like Burke, whom we could trust, detailed to watch her.
+
+"Tell me," urged Kennedy, "how did it happen? Did they carry her
+off--as they tried to do the other time?"
+
+"No, no," sobbed Juanita. "I do not know. I do not know even
+whether she is gone. She went out this afternoon for a little
+walk. But she did not come back. After it grew dark, I was
+frightened. I remembered that you were here and called up, but you
+were out. Then I saw that policeman. I told him. He has others
+working with him now. But I could not find you--until now I saw a
+light here. Oh, my poor, little girl, what has become of her?
+Where have they taken her? Oh, MADRE DE DIOS, it is terrible!"
+
+Had that been the purpose for which we had been sent on wild-goose
+chases? Was Inez really kidnapped this time? I knew not what to
+think. It seemed hardly possible that all of them could have
+joined in it.
+
+If she were kidnapped, it must have been on the street in broad
+daylight. Such things had happened. It would not be the first
+disappearance of the kind.
+
+Quickly Kennedy called up Deputy O'Connor. It was only too true.
+Burke had reported that she had disappeared and the police,
+especially those at the stations and ferries and in the suburbs
+had been notified to look for her. All this seemed to have taken
+place in those hours when the mysterious telephone calls had sent
+us on the wrong trail.
+
+Kennedy said nothing, but I could see that he was doing some keen
+thinking.
+
+Just then the telephone rang again. It was from the man whom we
+had left at the Prince Edward Albert. Senora de Moche had gone out
+and driven rapidly to the Grand Central. He had not been able to
+find out what ticket she bought, but the train was just leaving.
+
+Kennedy paced up and down, muttering to himself. "Whitney first--
+then Lockwood--and Alfonso. The Senora takes a train. Suppose the
+first message were true? Gas and oil for a trip."
+
+He seized the telephone book and hastily turned the pages over. At
+last his finger rested on a name in the suburban section. I read:
+"Whitney, Stuart. Res. 174-J Rockledge."
+
+Quickly he gave central the number, then shoved the receiver again
+into the telescribe.
+
+"Hello, is Mr. Whitney there?" I heard later as he placed the
+record again in the phonograph for repetition.
+
+"No--who is this?"
+
+"His head clerk. Tell him I must see him. Kennedy has been to the
+office and--"
+
+"Say--get off the line. We had that story once."
+
+"That's it!" exclaimed Craig. "Don't you see--they've all gone up
+to Whitney's country place. That clerk was faking. He has already
+telephoned. And listen. Do you see anything peculiar?"
+
+He was running all three records which we had on the telescribe.
+As he did so, I saw unmistakably that it was the same voice on all
+three. Whitney must have had a servant do the telephoning for him.
+
+"Don't fret, Juanita," reassured Kennedy. "We shall find your
+mistress for you. She will be all right. You had better go back to
+the apartment and wait. Walter look up the next train to Rockledge
+while I telephone O'Connor."
+
+We had an hour to wait before the next train left and in the
+meantime we drove Juanita back to the Mendoza apartment.
+
+It was a short run to Rockledge by railroad, but it seemed to me
+that it took hours. Kennedy sat in silence most of the time, his
+eyes closed, as if he were trying to place himself in the position
+of the others and figure out what they would do.
+
+At last we arrived, the only passengers to get off at the little
+old station. Which way to turn we had not the slightest idea. We
+looked about. Even the ticket office was closed. It looked as
+though we might almost as well have stayed in New York.
+
+Down the railroad we could see that a great piece of engineering
+was in progress, raising the level of the tracks and building a
+steel viaduct, as well as a new station, and at the same time not
+interrupting the through traffic, which was heavy.
+
+"Surely there must be some one down there," observed Kennedy, as
+we picked our way across the steel girders, piles of rails, and
+around huge machines for mixing concrete.
+
+We came at last to a little construction house, a sort of general
+machine-and work-shop, in which seemed to be everything from a
+file to a pneumatic riveter.
+
+"Hello!" shouted Craig.
+
+There came a sound from a far corner of a pile of ties and a
+moment later a night-watchman advanced suspiciously swinging his
+lantern.
+
+"Hello yourself," he growled.
+
+"Which way to Stuart Whitney's estate?" asked Craig.
+
+My heart sank as he gave the directions. It seemed miles away.
+
+Just then the blinding lights of a car flashed on us as it came
+down the road parallel to the tracks. He waved his light and the
+car stopped. It was empty, except for a chauffeur evidently
+returning from a joy ride.
+
+"Take these gentlemen as far as Smith's corner, will you?" asked
+the watchman. "Then show 'em the turn up to Whitney's."
+
+The chauffeur was an obliging chap, especially as it cost him
+nothing to earn a substantial tip with his master's car. However,
+we were glad enough to ride in anything on wheels, and not over-
+particular at that hour about the ownership.
+
+"Mr. Whitney hasn't been out here much lately," he volunteered as
+he sped along the beautiful oiled road, and the lights cast
+shadows on the trees that made driving as easy as in daylight.
+
+"No, he has been very busy," returned Craig glad to turn to
+account the opportunity to talk with a chauffeur, for it is the
+chauffeur in the country who is the purveyor of all knowledge and
+gossip.
+
+"His car passed us when I was driving up from the city. My boss
+won't let me speed or I wouldn't have taken his dust. Gee, but he
+does wear out the engines in his cars, Whitney."
+
+"Was he alone?" asked Craig.
+
+"Yes--and then I saw him driving back again when I went down, to
+the station for some new shoes we had expressed up. Just a flying
+trip, I guess--or does he expect you?"
+
+"I don't think he does," returned Craig truthfully.
+
+"I saw a couple of other cars go up there. House party?"
+
+"Maybe you'd call it that," returned Craig with a twinkle of the
+eye. "Did you see any ladies?"
+
+"No," returned the chauffeur. "Just a man driving his own car and
+another with a driver."
+
+"There wasn't a lady with Mr. Whitney?" asked Craig, now rather
+anxious.
+
+"Neither time."
+
+I saw what he was driving at. The Senora might have got up there
+in any fashion without being noticed. But for Inez not to be with
+Whitney, nor with the two who must evidently have been Lockwood
+and Alfonso, was indeed strange. Could it be that we were only
+half right--that they had gathered here but that Inez had really
+disappeared?
+
+The young man set us down at Smith's Corner and it proved to be
+only about an eighth of a mile up the road and up-hill when
+Whitney's house burst in sight, silhouetted against the sky.
+
+There were lights there and it was evident that several people had
+gathered for some purpose.
+
+We made our way up the path and paused a moment to look through
+the window before springing the little surprise. There we could
+see Lockwood, Alfonso, and Senora de Moche, who had arrived, after
+all and probably been met at the station by her son. They seemed
+like anything but a happy party. Never on the best of terms, they
+could not be expected to be happy. But now, if ever, one would
+have thought they might do more than tolerate each other, assuming
+that some common purpose had brought them here.
+
+Kennedy rang the bell and we could see that all looked surprised,
+for they had heard no car approach. A servant opened the door and
+before he knew it, Kennedy had pushed past him, taking no chances
+at a rebuff after the experience over the wire.
+
+"Kennedy!" exclaimed Lockwood and Alfonso together.
+
+"Where is Inez Mendoza?" demanded Craig, without returning the
+greeting.
+
+"Inez?" they repeated blankly.
+
+Kennedy faced them squarely.
+
+"Come, now. Where is she? This is a show-down. You may as well
+lay your cards on the table. Where is she--what have you done with
+her?"
+
+The de Moches looked at Lockwood and he looked at them, but
+neither spoke for a moment.
+
+"Walter," ordered Kennedy, "there's the telephone. Get the
+managing editor of the Star and tell him where we are. Every
+newspaper in the United States, every police officer in every city
+will have the story, in twelve hours, if you precious rascals
+don't come across. There--I give you until central gets die Star."
+
+"Why--what has happened?" asked Lockwood, who was the first to
+recover his tongue.
+
+"Don't stand there asking me what has happened," cried Kennedy
+impatiently. "Tickle that hook again, Walter. You know as well as
+I do that you have planned to get Inez Mendoza away from my
+influence--to kidnap her, in other words--"
+
+"We kidnap her?" gasped Lockwood. "What do you mean, man? I know
+nothing of this. Is she gone?" He wheeled on the de Moches. "This
+is some of your work. If anything happens to that girl--there
+isn't an Indian feud can equal the vengeance I will take!"
+
+Alfonso was absolutely speechless. Senora de Moche started to
+speak, but Kennedy interrupted her. "That will do from you," he
+cut short. "You have passed beyond the bounds of politeness when
+you deliberately went out of your way to throw me on a wrong trail
+while some one was making off with a young and innocent girl. You
+are a woman of the world. You will take your medicine like a man,
+too."
+
+I don't think I have ever seen Kennedy in a more towering rage
+than he was at that moment.
+
+"When it was only a matter of a paltry poisoned dagger at stake
+and a fortune that may be mythical or may be like that of Croesus,
+for all I care, we could play the game according to rules," he
+exclaimed. "But when you begin to tamper with a life like that of
+Inez de Mendoza--you have passed the bounds of all consideration.
+You have the Star? Telephone the story anyhow. We'll arbitrate
+afterward."
+
+I think, as I related the facts to my editor, it sobered us all a
+great deal.
+
+"Kennedy," appealed Lockwood at last, as I hung up the receiver,
+"will you listen to my story?"
+
+"It is what I am here for," replied Craig grimly.
+
+"Believe it or not, as far as I am concerned," asserted Lockwood,
+"this is all news to me. My God--where is she?"
+
+"Then how came you here?" demanded Craig.
+
+"I can speak only for myself," hastened Lockwood. "If you had
+asked where Whitney was, I could have understood, but--"
+
+"Well, where is he?"
+
+"We don't know. Early this afternoon I received a hurried message
+from him--at least I suppose it was from him--that he had the
+dagger and was up here. He said--I'll be perfectly frank--he said
+that he was arranging a conference at which all of us were to be
+present to decide what to do."
+
+"Meanwhile I was to be kept away at any cost," supplied Kennedy
+sarcastically. "Where did he get it?"
+
+"He didn't say."
+
+"And you didn't care, as long as he had it," added Craig, then,
+turning to the de Moches, "And what is your tale?"
+
+Senora de Moche did not lose her self-possession for an instant.
+"We received the same message. When you called, I thought it would
+be best for Alfonso to go alone, so I telephoned and caught him at
+the garage and when my train arrived here, he was waiting."
+
+"None of you have seen Whitney here?" asked Kennedy, to which all
+nodded in the negative. "Well, you seem to agree pretty well in
+your stories, anyhow. Let me take a chance with the servants."
+
+It is no easy matter to go into another's household and without
+any official position quiz and expect to get the truth out of the
+servants. But Kennedy's very wrath seemed to awe them. They
+answered in spite of themselves.
+
+It seemed clear that as far as they went both guests and servants
+were telling the truth. Whitney had made the run up from the city
+earlier in the afternoon, had stayed only a short time, then had
+gone back, leaving word that he would be there again before his
+guests arrived.
+
+They all professed to be as mystified as ourselves now over the
+outcome of the whole affair. He had not come back and there had
+been no word from him.
+
+"One thing is certain," remarked Craig, watching the faces before
+him as he spoke. "Inez is gone. She has been spirited away without
+even leaving a trace. Her maid Juanita told me that. Now if
+Whitney is gone, too, it looks as if he had planned to double-
+cross the whole crowd of you and leave you safely marooned up here
+with nothing left but your common hatred of me. Much good may it
+do you."
+
+Lockwood clenched his fists savagely, not at Kennedy but at the
+thought that Craig had suggested. His face set itself in tense
+lines as he swore vengeance on all jointly and severally if any
+harm came to Inez. I almost forgot my suspicions of him in
+admiration.
+
+"Nothing like this would ever have happened if she had stayed in
+Peru," exclaimed Alfonso bitterly. "Oh, why did her father ever
+bring her here to this land of danger?"
+
+The idea seemed novel to me to look on America as a lawless,
+uncultured country, until I reflected on the usual Latin-American
+opinion of us as barbarians.
+
+Lockwood frowned but said nothing, for a time. Then he turned
+suddenly to the Senora, "You were intimate enough with him," he
+said. "Did he tell you any more than he told us?"
+
+It was clear that Lockwood felt now that every man's hand was
+against him.
+
+I thought I could discover a suppressed gleam of satisfaction in
+her wonderful eyes as she answered, "Nothing more. It was only
+that I carried out what he asked me."
+
+Could it be that she was taking a subtle delight in the turn of
+events--the working out of a curse on the treasure-secret which
+the fatal dagger bore? I could not say. But it would not have
+needed much superstition to convince any one that the curse on the
+Gold of the Gods was as genuine as any that had ever been uttered,
+as it heaped up crime on crime.
+
+We waited in silence, the more hopeless as the singing of the
+night insects italicized our isolation from the organized
+instruments of man for the righting of wrong. Here we were, each
+suspecting the other, in the home of a man whom all mistrusted.
+
+"There's no use sitting here doing nothing," exclaimed Lockwood in
+whose mind was evidently the same thought, "not so long as we have
+the telephone and the automobiles."
+
+These, at least, were our last bonds with the great world that had
+wrapped a dark night about a darker mystery.
+
+"There are many miles of wire--many miles of road. Which way shall
+we turn?"
+
+Senora de Moche seemed to take a fiendish delight in the words as
+she said them. It was as though she challenged our helplessness in
+the face of a power that was greater than us all.
+
+Lockwood flashed a look of suspicion in her direction. As for
+myself, I had never been able to make the woman out. To-night she
+seemed like a sort of dea ex machina, who sat apart, playing on
+the passions of a group of puppet men whom she set against each
+other until all should be involved in a common ruin.
+
+It was impossible, in the silence of this far-off lonely place in
+the country, not to feel the weirdness of it all.
+
+Once I closed my eyes and was startled by the uncanny vividness of
+a mind-picture that came unbidden. It was of a scrap of paper on
+which, in rough capitals was printed:
+
+BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE ACETYLENE TORCH
+
+
+Do you suppose he really had the dagger, or was that a lie?" I
+asked, with an effort shaking off the fateful feeling that had
+come over me as if some one were casting a spell.
+
+"There is one way to find out," returned Craig, as though glad of
+the suggestion.
+
+Though they hated him, they seemed forced to admit, for the time,
+his leadership. He rose and the rest followed as he went into
+Whitney's library.
+
+He switched on the lights. There in a corner back of the desk
+stood a safe. Somehow or other it seemed to defy us, even though
+its master was gone. I looked at it a moment. It was a most
+powerful affair, companion to that in the office of which Whitney
+was so proud, built of layer on layer of chrome steel, with a door
+that was air tight and soup-proof, bidding defiance to all yeggmen
+and petermen.
+
+Lockwood fingered the combination hopelessly. There were some
+millions of combinations and permutations that only a
+mathematician could calculate. Only one was any good. That one was
+locked in the mind of the man who now seemed to baffle us as did
+his strong-box.
+
+I placed my hand on the cold, defiant surface. It would take hours
+to drill a safe like that, and even then it might turn the points
+of the drills. Explosives might sooner wreck the house and bring
+it down over the head of the man who attacked this monster.
+
+"What can we do?" asked Senora de Moche, seeming to mock us, as
+though the safe itself were an inhuman thing that blocked our
+path.
+
+"Do?" repeated Kennedy decisively, "I'll show you what we can do.
+If Lockwood will drive me down to the railroad station in his car,
+I'll show you something that looks like action. Will you do it?"
+
+The request was more like a command. Lockwood said nothing, but
+moved toward the porte-cochere, where he had left his car parked
+just aside from the broad driveway.
+
+"Walter, you will stay here," ordered Kennedy. "Let no one leave.
+If any one comes, don't let him get away. We shan't be gone long."
+
+I sat awkwardly enough, scarcely speaking a word, as Kennedy
+dashed down to the railroad station. Neither Alfonso nor his
+mother betrayed either by word or action a hint of what was
+passing in their minds. Somehow, though I did not understand it, I
+felt that Lockwood might square himself. But I could not help
+feeling that these two might very possibly be at the bottom of
+almost anything.
+
+It was with some relief that I heard the car approaching again. I
+had no idea what Kennedy was after, whether it was dynamite or
+whether he contemplated a trip to New York. I was surprised to see
+him, with Lockwood, hurrying up the steps to the porch, each with
+a huge tank studded with bolts like a boiler.
+
+"There," ordered Craig, "set the oxygen there," as he placed his
+own tank on the opposite side. "That watchman thought I was
+bluffing when I said I'd get an order from the company, if I had
+to wake up the president of the road. It was too good a chance to
+miss. One doesn't find such a complete outfit ready to hand every
+day."
+
+Out of the tanks stout tubes led, with stop-cocks and gauges at
+the top. From a case under his arm Kennedy produced a curious
+arrangement like a huge hook, with a curved neck and a sharp beak.
+Really it consisted of two metal tubes which ran into a sort of
+cylinder, or mixing chamber, above the nozzle, while parallel to
+them ran a third separate tube with a second nozzle of its own.
+
+Quickly he joined the ends of the tubes from the tanks to the
+metal hook, the oxygen tank being joined to two of the tubes of
+the hook, and the second tank being joined to the other. With a
+match he touched the nozzle gingerly. Instantly a hissing,
+spitting noise followed, and an intense, blinding needle of flame.
+
+"Now we'll see what an oxyacetylene blow-pipe will do to you, old
+stick-in-the-mud," cried Kennedy, as he advanced toward the safe,
+addressing it as though it had been a thing of life that stood in
+his way. "I think this will make short work of you."
+
+Almost as he said it, the steel beneath the blow-pipe became
+incandescent. For some time he laboured to get a starting-point
+for the flame of the high-pressure torch.
+
+It was a brilliant sight. The terrific heat from the first nozzle
+caused the metal to glow under the torch as if in an open-hearth
+furnace. From the second nozzle issued a stream of oxygen, under
+which the hot metal of the door was completely consumed.
+
+The force of the blast, as the compressed oxygen and acetylene
+were expelled, carried a fine spray of the disintegrated metal
+visibly before it. And yet it was not a big hole that it made--
+scarcely an eighth of an inch wide, but clean and sharp as if a
+buzz-saw were eating its way through a plank of white-pine.
+
+With tense muscles Kennedy held this terrific engine of
+destruction and moved it as easily as if it had been a mere pencil
+of light. He was the calmest of all of us as we crowded about him,
+but at a respectful distance.
+
+"I suppose you know," he remarked hastily, never pausing for a
+moment in his work, "that acetylene is composed of carbon and
+hydrogen. As it burns at the end of the nozzle it is broken into
+carbon and hydrogen--the carbon gives the high temperature and the
+hydrogen forms a cone that protects the end of the blow-pipe from
+being itself burnt up."
+
+"But isn't it dangerous?" I asked, amazed at the skill with which
+he handled the blow-pipe.
+
+"Not particularly--when you know how to do it. In that tank is a
+porous asbestos packing saturated with acetone, under pressure.
+Thus they carry acetylene safely, for it is dissolved and the
+possibility of explosion is minimized.
+
+"This mixing chamber, by which I am holding the torch, where the
+oxygen and acetylene mix, is also designed in such a way as to
+prevent a flash-back. The best thing about this style of blow-pipe
+is the ease with which it can be transported and the curious
+purposes--like this--to which it can be put."
+
+He paused a moment to test what had been burnt. The rest of the
+safe seemed as firm as ever.
+
+"Humph!" I heard one of them, I think it was Alfonso, mutter. I
+resented it, but Kennedy affected not to hear.
+
+"When I shut off the oxygen in this second jet," he resumed, "you
+see the torch merely heats the steel. I can get a heat of
+approximately sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the
+flame will exert a pressure of fifty pounds to the square inch."
+
+"Wonderful!" exclaimed Lockwood, who had not heard the suppressed
+disapproval of Alfonso, and was watching, in undisguised
+admiration at the thing itself, regardless of consequences.
+"Kennedy, how did you ever think of such a thing?"
+
+"Why, it's used for welding, you know," answered Craig, as he
+continued to work calmly in the growing excitement. "I first saw
+it in actual use in mending a cracked cylinder in an automobile.
+The cylinder was repaired without being taken out at all. I've
+seen it weld new teeth and build up worn teeth on gearing, as good
+as new."
+
+He paused to let us see the terrifically heated metal under the
+flame.
+
+"You remember when we were talking to the watchman down there at
+the station, Walter?" he asked. "I saw this thing in that complete
+little shop of theirs. It interested me. See. I turn on the oxygen
+now in the second nozzle. The blow-pipe is no longer an instrument
+for joining metals together, but for cutting them asunder.
+
+"The steel burns just as you, perhaps, have seen a watch-spring
+burn in a jar of oxygen. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed,
+chrome, or Harveyized, it all burns just about as fast, and just
+about as easily under this torch. And it's cheap, too. This
+attack--aside from what it costs to the safe--may amount to a
+couple of dollars as far as the blow-pipe is concerned--quite a
+difference from the thousands of dollars' loss that would follow
+an attempt to blow a safe like this one."
+
+We had nothing to say. We stood in awe-struck amazement as the
+torch slowly, inexorably traced a thin line along the edge of the
+combination.
+
+Minute after minute sped by, as the line burned by the blow-pipe
+cut around the lock. It seemed hours, but really it was minutes. I
+wondered when he would have cut about the whole lock. He was
+cutting clear through and around it, severing it as if with a
+superhuman knife.
+
+With something more than half his work done, he paused a moment to
+rest.
+
+"Walter," he directed, mopping his forehead, for it was real work
+directing that flaming knife, "get New York on the wire. See if
+O'Connor is at his office. If he has any report, I want to talk to
+him."
+
+It was getting late and the service was slackening up. I had some
+trouble, especially in getting a good connection, but at last I
+got headquarters and was overjoyed to hear O'Connor's bluff, Irish
+voice boom back at me.
+
+"Hello, Jameson," he called. "Where on earth are you? I've been
+trying to get hold of Kennedy for a couple of hours. Rockledge?
+Well, is Kennedy there? Put him on, will you?"
+
+I called Craig and, as I did so, my curiosity got the better of me
+and I sought out an extension of the wire in a den across the hall
+from the library, where I could listen in on what was said.
+
+"Hello, O'Connor," answered Craig. "Anything from Burke yet?"
+
+"Yes," came back the welcome news. "I think he has a clue. We
+found out from here that she received a long distance message
+during the afternoon. Where did Jameson say you were--Rockledge?--
+that's the place. Of course we don't know what the message was,
+but anyhow she went out to meet some one right after that. The
+time corresponds with what the maid says."
+
+"Anything else?" asked Craig. "Have you found any one who saw
+her?"
+
+"Yes. I think she went over to your laboratory. But you were out."
+
+"Confound it!" interrupted Craig.
+
+"Some one saw a woman there."
+
+"It wasn't the maid?"
+
+"No, this was earlier--in the afternoon. She left and walked
+across the campus to the Museum."
+
+"Oh, by the way, any word of Norton?"
+
+"I'm coming to that. She inquired for Norton. The curator has
+given a good description. But he was out--hadn't been there for
+some time. She seemed to be very much upset over something. She
+went away. After that we've lost her."
+
+"Not another trace?"
+
+"Wait a minute. We had this Rockledge call to work on. So we
+started backward on that. It was Whitney's place, I found out. We
+could locate the car at the start and at the finish. He left the
+Prince Edward Albert and went up there first. Then he must have
+come back to the city again. No one at the hotel saw him the
+second time.
+
+"What then?" hastened Craig.
+
+"She may have met him somewhere, though it's not likely she had
+any intention of going away. All the rest of those people you have
+up there seem to have gone prepared. We got something on each of
+them. Also you'll be interested to know I've got a report of your
+own doings. It was right, Kennedy, I don't blame you. I'd have
+done the same with Burke on the job. How are you making out? What?
+You're cracking a crib? With what?"
+
+O'Connor whistled as Kennedy related the story of the blow-pipe.
+"I think you're on the right track," he commended. "There's
+nothing to show it, but I believe Whitney told her something that
+changed her mind about going up there. Probably met her in some
+tea room, although we can't find anything from the tea rooms.
+Anyhow, Burke's out trailing along the road from New York to
+Rockledge and I'm getting reports from him whenever he hits a
+telephone."
+
+"I wish you'd ask him to call me, here, if he gets anything."
+
+"Sure I will. The last call was from the Chateau Rouge,--that's
+about halfway. There was a car with a man and a woman who answers
+her description. Then, there was another car, too."
+
+"Another car?"
+
+"Yes--that's where Norton crosses the trail again. We searched his
+apartment. It was upset--like Whitney's. I haven't finished with
+that. But we have a list of all the private hacking places. I've
+located one that hired a car to a man answering Norton's
+description. I think he's on the trail. That's what I meant by
+another car."
+
+"What's he doing?"
+
+"Maybe he has a hunch. I'm getting superstitious about this case.
+You know Luis de Mendoza has thirteen letters in it. Leslie told
+me something about a threat he had--a curse. You better look out
+for those two greasers you have up there. They may have another
+knife for you."
+
+Kennedy glanced over at the de Moches, not in fear but in
+amusement at what they would think if they could hear O'Connor's
+uncultured opinion.
+
+"All right, O'Connor," said Craig, "everything seems to be going
+as well as we can expect. Don't forget to tell Burke I'm here."
+
+"I won't. Just a minute. He's on another wire for me."
+
+Kennedy waited impatiently. He wanted to finish his job on the
+safe before some one came walking in and stopped it, yet there was
+always a chance that Burke might turn up something.
+
+"Hello," called O'Connor a few minutes later. "He's still
+following the two cars. He thinks the one with the woman in it is
+Whitney's, all right. But they've got off the main road. They must
+think they're being followed.
+
+"Or else have changed their destination," returned Craig. "Tell
+him that. Maybe Whitney had no intention of coming up here. He may
+have done this thing just to throw these people off up here, too.
+I can't say. I can tell better whether he intended to come back
+after I've got this safe open. I'll let you know."
+
+Kennedy rang off.
+
+"Any news of Inez?" asked Lockwood who had been fuming with
+impatience.
+
+"She's probably on her way up here," returned Craig briefly,
+taking up the blow-pipe again.
+
+Alfonso remained silent. The Senora could scarcely hide her
+excitement. If there were anything in telepathy, I am sure that
+she read everything that was said over the wire.
+
+Quickly Craig resumed his work, biting through the solid steel as
+if it had been mere pasteboard, the blow-pipe showering on each
+side a brilliant spray of sparks, a gaudy, pyrotechnic display.
+
+Suddenly, with a quick motion, Kennedy turned off the acetylene
+and oxygen. The last bolt had been severed, the lock was useless.
+A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the once impregnable door
+on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he had merely
+said, "Open sesame."
+
+Craig reached in and pulled open a steel drawer directly in front
+of him.
+
+There in the shadow lay the dagger--with its incalculably valuable
+secret, a poor, unattractive piece of metal, but with a
+fascination such as no other object, I had ever seen, possessed.
+
+There was a sudden cry. The Senora had darted ahead, as if to
+clasp its handle and unloose the murderous blade that nestled in
+its three-sided sheath.
+
+Before she could reach it, Kennedy had seized her hand in his iron
+grasp, while with the other he picked up the dagger.
+
+They stood there gazing into each other's eyes.
+
+Then the Senora burst into a hysterical laugh.
+
+"The curse is on all who possess it!"
+
+"Thank you," smiled Kennedy quietly, releasing her wrist as he
+dropped the dagger into his pocket, "I am only the trustee."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE POLICE DOG
+
+
+Craig faced us, but there was no air of triumph in his manner. I
+knew what was in his mind. He had the dagger. But he had lost
+Inez.
+
+What were we to do? There seemed to be no way to turn. We knew
+something of the manner of her disappearance. At first she had,
+apparently, gone willingly. But it was inconceivable that she
+stayed willingly, now.
+
+I recalled all the remarks that Whitney had ever made about her.
+Had the truth come out in his jests? Was it Inez, not the dagger,
+that he really wanted?
+
+Or was he merely the instrument of one or all of these people
+before us, and was this an elaborate plan to throw Kennedy off and
+prove an alibi for them? He had been the partner of Lockwood, the
+intimate of de Moche. Which was he working for, now--or was he
+working for himself alone?
+
+No answer came to my questions, and I reflected that none would
+ever come, if we sat here. Yet there seemed to be no way to turn,
+without risking putting ourselves in a worse position than before.
+At least, until we had some better plan of campaign, we occupied a
+strategic advantage in Whitney's own house.
+
+The hours of the night wore on. Midnight came. This inaction was
+killing. Anything would be better than that
+
+Suddenly the telephone startled us. We had wanted it to ring, yet
+when it rang we were afraid of it. What was its message? It was
+with palpitating hearts that we listened, while Craig answered.
+
+"Yes, Burke," we heard him reply, "this is Kennedy."
+
+There came a pause during which we could scarcely wait.
+
+"Where are you now? Cold Stream. That is about twelve miles from
+Rockledge--not on the New York road--the other road. I see. All
+right. We'll be there. Yes, wait for us."
+
+As Craig hung up the receiver, we crowded forward. "Have they
+found her?" asked Lockwood hoarsely.
+
+"It was from Burke," replied Kennedy deliberately. "He is at a
+place called Cold Stream, twelve miles from here. He tells me that
+we can find it easily--on a state road, at a sharp curve that has
+been widened out, just this side of the town. There has been an
+accident--Whitney's car is wrecked."
+
+Lockwood seized his elbow. "My God," he exclaimed, "tell me--she
+isn't--hurt, is she? Quick!"
+
+"So far Burke has not been able to discover a trace of a thing,
+except the wrecked car," replied Kennedy. "I told him I would be
+over directly. Lockwood, you may take Jameson and Alfonso. I will
+go with the Senora and their driver."
+
+I saw instantly why he had divided the party. Neither mother nor
+son was to have a chance to slip away from us. Surely both
+Lockwood and I should be a match for Alfonso. Senora de Moche he
+would trust to none but himself.
+
+Eagerly now we prepared for the journey, late though it was. No
+one now had a thought of rest. There could be no rest with that
+mystery of Inez challenging us.
+
+We were off at last, Lockwood's car leading, for although he did
+not know the roads exactly, he had driven much about the country.
+I should have liked to have sat in front with him, but it seemed
+safer to stay in the back with Alfonso. In fact, I don't think
+Lockwood would have consented, otherwise, to have his rival back
+of him.
+
+Kennedy and the Senora made a strange pair, the ancient order and
+the ultra-modern. There was a peculiar light in her eyes that
+gleamed forth at the mere mention of the words, "wreck." Though
+she said nothing, I knew that through her mind was running the one
+tenacious thought. It was the working out of the curse! As for
+Craig, he was always seeking the plausible, natural reason for
+what to the rest of us was inexplicable, often supernatural. To
+him she was a fascinating study.
+
+On we sped, for Lockwood was a good driver and now was spurred on
+by an anxiety that he could not conceal. Yet his hand never
+faltered at the wheel. He seemed to read the signs at the cross-
+roads without slackening speed. In spite of all that I knew, I
+found myself compelled to admire him. Alfonso sat back, for the
+most part silent. The melancholy in his face seemed to have
+deepened. He seemed to feel that he was but a toy in the hands of
+fate. Yet I knew that underneath must smoulder the embers of a
+bitter resentment.
+
+It seemed an interminable ride even at the speed which we were
+making. Twelve miles in the blackness of a country night can seem
+like a hundred.
+
+At last as we turned a curve, and Lockwood's headlights shone on
+the white fence that skirted the outer edge of the road as it
+swung around a hill that rose sharply to our left and dropped off
+in a sort of ravine at the right beyond the fence, I felt the car
+tremble as he put on the brakes.
+
+A man was waving his arms for us to stop, and as we did, he ran
+forward. He peered in at us and I recognized Burke.
+
+"Whe-where's Kennedy?" he asked, disappointed, for the moment
+fearing he had made a mistake and signalled the wrong car.
+
+"Coming," I replied, as we heard the driver of the other car
+sounding his horn furiously as he approached the curve.
+
+Burke jumped to the safe side of the road and ran on back to
+signal to stop. It was then for the first time that I paid
+particular attention to the fence ahead of us on which now both
+our own and the lights of the other car shone. At one point it was
+torn and splintered, as though something had gone through it.
+
+"Great heavens, you don't mean to say that they went over that?"
+muttered Lockwood, jumping down and running forward.
+
+Kennedy had joined us by this time and we all hurried over. Down
+in the ravine we could see a lantern which Burke had brought and
+which was now resting on the overturned chassis of the car.
+
+Lockwood was down there ahead of us all, peering under the heavy
+body fearfully, as if he expected to see two forms of mangled
+flesh. He straightened up, then took the lantern and flashed it
+about. There was nothing except cushions and a few parts of the
+car within the radius of its gleam.
+
+"Where are they?" he demanded, turning to us. "It's Whitney's car,
+all right."
+
+Burke shook his head. "I've traced the car so far. They were
+getting ahead of me, when this happened."
+
+Together we managed to right the car which was on a hillock. It
+sank a little further down the hill, but at least we could look
+inside it.
+
+"Bring the lantern," ordered Kennedy.
+
+Minutely, part by part, he went over the car. "Something went
+wrong," he muttered. "It is too much wrecked to tell what it was.
+Flash the light over here," he directed, stepping over the seat
+into the back of the tonneau.
+
+A moment later he took the light himself and held it close to the
+rods that supported the top. I saw him reach down and pull from
+them a few strands of dark hair that had caught between the rods
+and had been pulled out or broken.
+
+"No need of Bertillon's palette of human hair to identify that,"
+he exclaimed." There isn't time to study it and if there were it
+would be unnecessary. She was with him, all right."
+
+"Yes," agreed Lockwood. "But where is she now--where is he? Could
+they have been hurt, picked up by some one and carried where they
+could get aid?"
+
+Burke shook his head. "I inquired at the nearest house ahead. I
+had to do it in order to telephone. They knew nothing."
+
+"But they are gone," persisted Lockwood. "There is the bottom of
+the bank. You can see that they are not here."
+
+Kennedy had taken the light and climbed the bank again and was now
+going over the road as minutely as if he were searching for a lost
+diamond.
+
+"Look!" he exclaimed.
+
+Where the Whitney car had skidded and gone over the bank, the
+tires had dug deep into the top dressing, making little mounds.
+Across them now we could see the tracks of other tires that had
+pressed down the mounds.
+
+"Some one else has been here," reconstructed Kennedy. "He passed,
+then stopped and backed up. Perhaps they were thrown out,
+unconscious, and he picked them up."
+
+It seemed to be the only reasonable supposition.
+
+"But they knew nothing at the next house," persisted Burke.
+
+"Is there a road leading off before you get to the house?" asked
+Kennedy.
+
+"Yes--it crosses the line into Massachusetts."
+
+"It is worth trying--it is the only thing we can do," decided
+Kennedy. "Drive slowly to the crossroads. Perhaps we can pick out
+the tire-prints there. They certainly won't show on the road
+itself. It is too hard."
+
+At the crossing we stopped and Kennedy dropped down on his hands
+and knees again with the light.
+
+"There it is," he exclaimed. "The same make of anti-skid tire, at
+least. There was a cut in the rear tire--just like this. See? It
+is the finger-print of the motor car. I think we are right. Turn
+up here and run slowly."
+
+On we went slowly, Kennedy riding on the running-board of the car
+ahead. Suddenly he raised his hand to stop, and jumped down.
+
+We gathered about him. Had he found a continuation of the tire-
+tracks? There were tracks but he was not looking at them. He was
+looking between them. There ran a thin line.
+
+He stuck his finger in it and sniffed. "Not gas," he remarked. "It
+must have been the radiator, leaking. Perhaps he ran his car into
+Whitney's--forced it too far to the edge of the road. We can't
+tell. But he couldn't have gone far with that leak without finding
+water--or cracked cylinders."
+
+With redoubled interest now we resumed the chase. We had mounted a
+hill and had run down into the shadows of a valley when, following
+in the second car, we heard a shout from Kennedy in the first.
+
+Halfway up the hill across the valley, he had come upon an
+abandoned car. It had evidently reached its limit, the momentum of
+the previous hill had carried it so far up the other, then the
+driver had stopped it and let it back slowly off the road into a
+clump of bushes that hid a little gully.
+
+But that was all. There was not a sign of a person about. Whatever
+had happened here had happened some hours before. We looked about.
+All was Cimmerian darkness. Not a house or habitation of man or
+beast was in sight, though they might not be far away.
+
+We beat about the under-brush, but succeeded in stirring up
+nothing but mosquitoes.
+
+What were we to do? We were wasting valuable time. Where should we
+go?
+
+"I doubt whether they would have kept on the road," reasoned
+Kennedy. "They must have known they would be followed. The hardest
+place to follow them would be across country."
+
+"With a lantern?" I objected. "We can't do it."
+
+Kennedy glanced at his watch. "It will be three hours before there
+is light enough to see anything by," he considered. "They have had
+at least a couple of hours. Five hours is too good a start. Burke-
+-take one of the cars. Go ahead along the road. We mustn't neglect
+that. I'll take the other. I want to get back to that house and
+call O' Connor. Walter, you stay here with the rest."
+
+We separated and I felt that, although I was doing nothing, I had
+my hands full watching these three.
+
+Lockwood was restless and could not help beating around in the
+under-brush, in the hope of turning up something. Now and then he
+would mutter to himself some threat if anything happened to Inez.
+I let him occupy himself, for our own, as much as his, peace of
+mind. Alfonso had joined his mother in the car and they sat there
+conversing in low tones in Spanish, while I watched them
+furtively.
+
+Of a sudden, I became aware that I missed the sound of Lockwood
+beating about the under-brush. I called, but there was no answer.
+Then we all called. There came back nothing but a mocking echo. I
+could not follow him. If I did, I would lose the de Moches.
+
+Had he been laying low, waiting his opportunity to get away? Or
+was he playing a lone hand? Much as I suspected about him, during
+the past few hours I had come to admire him.
+
+I sent the de Moche driver out to look for him, but he seemed
+afraid to venture far, and, of course, returned and said that he
+could not find him. Even in his getaway, Lockwood had been
+characteristic. He had been strong enough to bide his time, clever
+enough to throw every one off guard. It put a new aspect on the
+case for me. Had Whitney intended the capture of Inez for
+Lockwood? Had our coming so unexpectedly into the case thrown the
+plans awry and was it the purpose to leave them marooned at
+Rockledge while we were shunted off in the city? That, too, was
+plausible. I wished Kennedy would return before anything else
+happened.
+
+It was not long by the clock before Kennedy did return. But it
+seemed ages to me.
+
+He was not alone. With him was a man in a uniform, and a powerful
+dog, for all the world like a huge wolf.
+
+"Down, Searchlight," he ordered, as the dog began to show an
+uncanny interest in me. "Let me introduce my new dog detective,"
+he chuckled. "She has a wonderful record as a police dog. I got
+O'Connor out of bed and he telephoned out to the nearest suburban
+station. That saved a good deal of time in getting her up here."
+
+I mustered up courage to tell Kennedy of the defection of
+Lockwood. He did not seem to mind it especially.
+
+"He won't get far, with the dog after him, if we want to take the
+time," he said. "She's a German sheep dog, a Schaeferhund."
+
+Searchlight seemed to have many of the characteristics of the
+wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the
+wild dog, which are such a great help to it. She was a fine,
+alert, upstanding dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a
+tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat
+of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a
+full brush of tail. Untamed as she seemed, she was perfectly under
+Kennedy's control and rendered him absolute and unreasoning
+obedience.
+
+They took her over to the abandoned car. There they let her get a
+good whiff of the bottom of the car about the driver's feet, and a
+moment later she started off.
+
+Alfonso and his mother insisted on going with us and that made our
+progress across country slow.
+
+On we went over the rough country, through a field, then skirting
+a clump of woods until at last we came to a lane.
+
+We stopped in the shadow of a thicket. There was an empty summer
+home. Was there some intruder there? Was it really empty?
+
+Now and then we could hear Searchlight scouting about in the
+under-brush, crouching and hiding, watching and guarding. We
+paused and waited in the heavily-laden night air, wondering. The
+soughing of the night wind in the evergreens was mournful. Did it
+betoken a further tragedy?
+
+There was a slight noise from the other side of the house. Craig
+reached out and drew us back into the shadow of the thicket,
+deeper.
+
+"Some one is prowling about, I think. Leave it to the dog."
+
+Searchlight, who had been near us, was sniffing eagerly. From our
+hiding-place we could just see her. She had heard the sounds, too,
+even before we had, and for an instant stood with every muscle
+tense.
+
+Then, like an arrow, she darted into the underbrush. An instant
+later, the sharp crack of a revolver rang out. Searchlight kept
+right on, never stopping a second, except, perhaps, in surprise.
+
+"Crack!" almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the
+darkness, and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried
+itself in a tree with a ping. The intruder's marksmanship was
+poor, but the dog paid no attention to it.
+
+"One of the few animals that show no fear of gun-fire," muttered
+Kennedy, in undisguised admiration.
+
+"G-r-r-r," we heard from the police dog.
+
+"She has made a leap at the hand that holds the gun," cried
+Kennedy, now rising and moving rapidly in the same direction. "She
+has been taught that a man once badly bitten in the hand is nearly
+out of the fight."
+
+We followed also. As we approached we were just in time to see
+Searchlight running in and out between the legs of a man who had
+heard us approach and was hastily making tracks away. As he
+tripped, the officer who brought her blew shrilly on a police
+whistle just in time to stop a fierce lunge at his back.
+
+Reluctantly, Searchlight let go. One could see that with all her
+canine instinct she wanted to "get" that man. Her jaws were open,
+as, with longing eyes, she stood over the prostrate form in the
+grass. The whistle was a signal, and she had been taught to obey
+unquestioningly.
+
+"Don't move until we get to you, or you are a dead man," shouted
+Kennedy, pulling an automatic as he ran. "Are you hurt?"
+
+There was no answer, but, as we approached, the man moved, ever so
+little, through curiosity to see his pursuers.
+
+Searchlight shot forward. Again the whistle sounded and she
+dropped back. We bent over to seize him, as Kennedy secured the
+dog.
+
+"She's a devil," ground out the prone figure on the grass.
+
+"Lockwood!" exclaimed Kennedy.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE GOLD OF THE GODS
+
+
+"What are you doing here?" demanded Craig, astonished.
+
+"I couldn't wait for you to get back. I thought I'd do a little
+detective work on my own account. I kept getting further and
+further away, knew you'd find me, anyhow. But I didn't think you'd
+have a brute like that," he added, binding up his hand ruefully.
+"Is there any trace of Inez?"
+
+"Not yet. Why did you pick out this house?" asked Kennedy, still
+suspicious.
+
+"I saw a light here, I thought," answered Lockwood frankly. "But
+as I approached, it went out. Maybe I imagined it."
+
+"Let us see."
+
+Kennedy spoke a few words to the man with the dog. He slipped the
+leash, with a word that we did not catch, and the dog bounded off,
+around the house, as she was accustomed to do when out on duty
+with an officer in the city suburbs, circling about the backs of
+houses as the man on the beat walked the street. She made noise
+enough about it, too, tumbling over a tin pail that had been
+standing on the back porch steps.
+
+"Bang!"
+
+Some one was in the house and was armed. In the darkness he had
+not been able to tell whether an attack was being made or not, but
+had taken no chances. At any rate, now we knew that he was
+desperate.
+
+I thought of all the methods Kennedy had adopted to get into
+houses in which the inmates were desperate. But always they had
+been about the city where he could call upon the seemingly
+exhaustless store of apparatus in his laboratory. Here we were
+faced by the proposition with nothing to rely on but our native
+wit and a couple of guns.
+
+Besides, I did not know whether to count on Lockwood as an ally or
+not. My estimation of him had been rising and falling like the
+barometer in a summer shower. I had been convinced that he was
+against us. But his manner and plausibility now equally convinced
+me that I had been mistaken. I felt that it would take some
+supreme action on his part to settle the question. That crisis was
+coming now.
+
+I think all of us would willingly have pushed Alfonso forward. But
+the relations of the de Moches with Whitney had been so close that
+I no more trusted him than I did Lockwood. And if I could not make
+out Lockwood, a man at least of our own race and education, how
+could I expect to fathom Alfonso?
+
+It seemed, then, to rest with Kennedy and myself. At least so
+Craig appraised the situation.
+
+"You have a gun, Walter," he directed, "Lockwood, give yours to
+Jameson."
+
+Lockwood hesitated. Could he trust being unarmed, while Kennedy
+and I had all the weapons?
+
+Craig had not stopped to ask Alfonso. As he laid out the attack he
+merely tapped the young man's pockets to see whether he was armed
+or not, and finding nothing faced us again, Lockwood still
+hesitating.
+
+"I want Walter," explained Craig, "to go around back of the house.
+It is there they must be expecting an attack. He can take up his
+position behind that oak. It will be safe enough. By firing one
+gun on each side of the tree he can make enough noise for half a
+dozen. Then you and I can rush the front of the house."
+
+Lockwood had nothing better to suggest. Reluctantly he handed over
+his revolver.
+
+I dropped back from them and skirted the house at a safe distance
+so as not to be seen, then came up back of the tree.
+
+Carefully I aimed at the glass of a window on the first floor, as
+offering the greatest opportunity for making a racket, which was
+the object I had in mind.
+
+I fired from the right and the glass was shattered in a thousand
+bits. Another shot from the left broke the light out of another
+window on the opposite side.
+
+The house was a sort of bungalow, with most of the rooms on the
+first floor, and a small second story or attic window. That went
+next. Altogether I felt that I was giving a splendid account of
+myself.
+
+From the house came a rapid volley in reply. Whoever was in there
+was not going to surrender without a fight. One after another I
+plugged away with my shots, now bent on making the most of them.
+With the answering shots it made quite a merry little fusillade,
+and I was glad enough to have the shelter of the staunch oak which
+two or three times was hit squarely at about the level of my
+shoulders. I had never before heard the whirr of so many bullets
+about me, and I cannot say that I enjoyed it.
+
+But my attack was what Craig wanted. I heard a noise in the front
+of the house, as of feet running, and then I knew that in spite of
+all he had given me the least dangerous part of the attack.
+
+I plugged away valiantly with what shots I had left, then leaving
+just one more in the chamber of each gun, I hurried around in the
+shadow, my blood up, to help them.
+
+With the aid of the officer, they had just forced the light door
+and Searchlight had been allowed to leap in ahead of them, as I
+came up.
+
+"Here," I said to Lockwood, handing him back his gun, "take it,
+there is just one shot left."
+
+I, at least, had expected to find one, perhaps two desperate men
+waiting for us. Evidently our ruse had worked. The room was dark,
+but there seemed to be no one in it, though we could hear sounds
+as though some one were hastily barricading the door that led from
+the front to the room at which I had been firing.
+
+Lockwood struck a match.
+
+"Confound it, don't!" muttered Craig, knocking it from his hand.
+"They can see us well enough without helping them."
+
+"Chester!"
+
+We stood transfixed. It was a woman's voice. Where did it come
+from? Could she be in the room?
+
+"Chester--is that you?"
+
+"Yes, Inez. Where are you?"
+
+"I ran up here--in this attic--when I heard the shots."
+
+"Come down, then. All is right, now."
+
+She came down a half ladder, half flight of steps. At the foot she
+paused just a moment and hesitated. Then, like a frightened bird,
+she flew to the safety of Lockwood's arms.
+
+"Mr. Whitney," she sobbed, "called me up and told me that he had
+something very important to say, a message from you. He said that
+he had the dagger, in his safe, up in the country. He told me
+you'd be there and that you expected me to come up with him in his
+car. I went. We had some trouble with the engine. And then that
+other car--the one that followed us, came up behind and forced us
+off the bank. Mr. Whitney and I were both stunned. I don't
+remember a thing after that, until I woke up here. Where is it?"
+
+I listened, with one eye on that door that had been barricaded.
+Was Lockwood really innocent, after all? I could not think that
+Inez Mendoza could make such a mistake, if he were not.
+
+Lockwood clenched his fists. "Some one shall pay for this," he
+exclaimed.
+
+There was the problem--the inner room. Who would go in? We looked
+at each other a moment.
+
+The room in which we were was a living room, and perhaps, when
+there were visitors in the little house, was a guest-room. At any
+rate, on one side was a huge davenport by day which could be
+transformed into a folding bed at night.
+
+Lockwood looked about hastily and his eye fell on the door, then
+on this folding bed.
+
+With a wrench, he opened it and seized the cotton mattress from
+the inside. With his gun ready he advanced toward the barricaded
+door, holding the mattress as a shield, for his experience in wild
+countries had taught him that a cotton mattress is about as good a
+thing to stop bullets as one could find on the spur of the moment.
+
+Kennedy and the officer followed just behind, and the three threw
+their weights on the door almost before we knew what they were
+about.
+
+"Chester--don't!" cried Inez in alarm, too late. "He'll--kill
+you!"
+
+The excitement had been too much for her. She reeled, fainting,
+and I caught her.
+
+Before I could restore the davenport to something like its
+original condition so that we could take care of her, the first
+onslaught was over.
+
+Three guns were sticking their blue noses into the darkness of the
+next room.
+
+"Hands up!" shouted Craig, "Drop your gun! Let me hear it fall!"
+
+There followed a thud and Kennedy, followed by Lockwood and the
+officer entered.
+
+As they fumbled to strike a light, I managed to open a window and
+let in some fresh air, while the Senora, for once human, loosened
+the throat of Inez' dress and fanned her.
+
+Through the open door, now, I could hear what was going on in the
+next room, but could not see.
+
+"It was you, Lockwood," I heard a familiar voice accusing, "who
+was in the Museum the night the dagger disappeared."
+
+"Yes," replied Lockwood, a bit disdainfully. "I suspected
+something crooked about that dagger. I thought that if I made a
+copy of the inscription on the blade, I might decipher it myself,
+or get some one to do it for me. I went in and, when a chance
+came, I hid in the sarcophagus. There I waited until the Museum
+was closed. Then, when finally I got to the place where I thought
+the dagger was--it was gone!"
+
+"The point is," cut in Craig, interrupting, "who was the
+mysterious visitor to Mendoza the night of his murder?"
+
+He paused. No one seemed to be disposed to answer and he went on,
+"Who else than the man who sought to sell the secret on its blade,
+in return for Inez for whom he had a secret passion? I have
+reasoned it all out--the offer, the quarrel, the stabbing with the
+dagger itself, and the escape down the stairs, instead of by the
+elevator."
+
+"And I," put in Lockwood, "coming to report to Mendoza my failure
+to find the dagger, found him dead--and at once was suspected of
+being the murderer!"
+
+Inez had revived and her quick ears had caught her lover's voice
+and the last words.
+
+Weak as she was, she sprang up and fairly ran into the next room.
+"No--Chester--No!" she cried. "I never suspected--not even when I
+saw the shoe-prints. No--that is the man,--there--I know it--I
+know it!"
+
+I hurried after her, as she flung herself again between Lockwood
+and the rest of us, as if to shield him, while Lockwood proudly
+caressed the stray locks of dark hair that fluttered on his
+shoulder.
+
+I looked in the direction all were looking.
+
+Before us stood, unmasked at last, the scientific villain who had
+been plotting and scheming to capture both the secret and Inez--
+well knowing that suspicion would rest either on Lockwood, the
+soldier of fortune, or on the jealous Indian woman whose son had
+been rejected and whose brother he had himself already, secretly,
+driven to an insane suicide in his unscrupulous search for the
+treasure of Truxillo.
+
+It was Professor Norton, himself--first thief of the dagger which
+later he had hidden but which Whitney's detectives had stolen in
+turn from him; writer of anonymous letters, even to himself to
+throw others off the trail; maker of stramonium cigarettes with
+which to confuse the minds of his opponents, Whitney, Mendoza, and
+the rest; secret lover of Inez whom he demanded as the price of
+the dagger; and murderer of Don Luis.
+
+Senora de Moche and Alfonso, behind me, could only gasp their
+astonishment. Much as she would have liked to have the affair end
+in a general vindication of the curse she could not control a
+single, triumphant thrust.
+
+"His blood," she cried, transfixing Norton with her stern eyes,
+"has cried out of Titicaca for vengeance from that day to this!"
+
+"Want any help?"
+
+We all turned toward the door as Burke, dust-covered and tired,
+stamped in, followed by a man whose face was bandaged and bloody.
+
+"I heard shots. Is it all over?"
+
+But we paid no attention to Burke.
+
+There was Whitney, considerably banged up by the fall, but lucky
+to be alive.
+
+"I tried to shake him," he explained, catching sight of Norton.
+"But he stuck to us, even on our detours. Finally he grew
+desperate--forced my car off the road. What happened after that, I
+don't know. He must have carried me some miles, insensible, and
+dumped me in the bushes again. I was several miles up the hill,
+tramping along, looking for a road-house, when this gentleman
+found me and said I had gone too far."
+
+Senora de Moche turned from Lockwood and Inez who were standing,
+oblivious to the rest of us, and stared at Whitney's bruised and
+battered face.
+
+"It is the curse," she muttered. "It will never--
+
+"Just a moment," interrupted Craig, drawing the dagger from his
+pocket, and turning toward Inez. "It was to your ancestor that the
+original possessor of the secret promised to give the 'big fish,'
+when he was killed."
+
+He paused and handed the dagger to her. She touched it shuddering,
+but as though it were a duty.
+
+"Take it," he said simply. "The secret is yours. Only love can
+destroy the curse on the Gold of the Gods."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GOLD OF THE GODS ***
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