Chapter IV: Part 4

"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.