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Gold of the Gods

by Arthur B. Reeve · English · Gutenberg #5149 · 391,263 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Gold of the Gods

Author: Arthur B. Reeve


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5149]
                Most recently updated: August 15, 2017

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5149

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLD OF THE GODS ***




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 some 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 Professor 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 professors 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. Lockwood 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 K

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