The Gold of the G.o.ds.
by Arthur B. Reeve.
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 a.s.sented 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 G.o.ds 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 ma.s.s 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 superst.i.tions 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 a.s.signment.
"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 a.s.sistants on this story, apparently."
"Perhaps you can be of some a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sed 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, ma.s.ses of dark hair, and l.u.s.trous, 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sistant, 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."