"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 l.u.s.trous 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 rea.s.sure 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 pa.s.sing in her mind. She met his gaze for a moment, then looked away.
"You heard Mr. Lockwood say that he had become a.s.sociated 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 cla.s.ses.
"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 att.i.tude. 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.