"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 G.o.ds 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 cla.s.s, another caste."
Kennedy had been following her closely, and I could see now that the cross-currents of superst.i.tion, 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.