I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that I had better go slow that day and regain my strength, a fortunate decision, as it turned out.
Kennedy, also, spent most of the time in the laboratory, so that, after all, I did not feel that I was missing very much.
It was along in the afternoon that the telephone began acting strangely, as it will do sometimes when a long distance connection is being made. Twice Kennedy answered, without getting any response.
"Confound that central," he muttered. "What do you suppose is the matter?"
Again the bell rang.
"Hello," shouted Kennedy, exasperated. "Who's this?"
There was a pause. "Just a minute," he replied.
Quickly he jammed the receiver down on a little metal base which he had placed near the instrument. Three prongs reaching upward from the base engaged the receiver tightly, fitting closely about it.
Then he took up a watch-case receiver to listen through in place of the regular receiver.
"Who is it?" he answered.
Apparently the voice at the other end of the wire replied rather peevishly, for Kennedy endeavoured to smooth over the delay. I wondered what was going on, why he was so careful. His face showed that, whatever it was, it was most important.
As he restored the telephone to its normal condition, he looked at me puzzled.
"I wonder whether that was a frame-up!" he exclaimed, pulling a little cylinder off the instrument into which he had inserted the telephone receiver. "I thought it might be and I have preserved the voice. This is what is known as the telescribe—a recent invention of Edison which records on a specially prepared phonograph cylinder all that is said—both ways—over a telephone wire."
"What was it about?" I asked eagerly.
He shoved the cylinder on a phonograph and started the instrument.
"Professor Kennedy?" called an unfamiliar voice.
"Yes," answered a voice that I recognized as Craig's.
"This is the detective agency employed by Mr. Whitney. He has instructed us to inform you that he has obtained the Peruvian dagger for which you have been searching. That's all. Good-bye."
I looked at Kennedy in blank surprise.
"They rang off before I could ask them a question," said Craig. "Central tells me it was a pay station call. There doesn't seem to be any way of tracing it. But, at least I have a record of the voice."
"What are you going to do?" I queried. "It may be a fake."
"Yes, but I'm going to investigate it. Do you feel strong enough to go down to Whitney's with me?"
The startling news had been like a tonic. "Of course," I replied, seizing my hat.
Kennedy paused only long enough to call Norton. The archaeologist was out, and we hurried on downtown to Whitney's.
Whitney was not there and his clerk was just about to close the office. All the books were put away in the safe and the desks were closed. Now and then there echoed up the hall the clang of an elevator door.
"Where is Mr. Whitney?" demanded Craig of the clerk.
"I can't say. He went out a couple of hours ago."
"Did he have a visit from one of his detectives?" shot out Craig suddenly.
The clerk looked up suspiciously at us.
"No," he replied defiantly.
"Walter—stand by that door," shouted Craig. "Let no one in until they break it down."
His blue-steel automatic gleamed a cold menace at the clerk. A downtown office after office hours is not exactly the place to which one can get assistance quickly. The clerk started back.
"Did he have a visit from one of his detectives?"
"Yes."
"What was it about?"
The clerk winced. "I don't know," he replied, "honest—I don't."
Craig waved the gun for emphasis. "Open the safe," he said.
Reluctantly the clerk obeyed. Under the point of the gun he searched every compartment and drawer of the big chrome steel strong-box which Whitney had pointed out as the safest place for the dagger on our first visit to him. But there was absolutely no trace of it. Had we been hoaxed and was all this risk in vain?
"Where did Mr. Whitney go?" demanded Craig, as he directed the clerk to shut the door and lock the safe again, baffled.
"If I should try to tell you," returned the man, very much frightened, "I would be lying. You would soon find out. Mr. Whitney doesn't make a confidant of me, you know."
It was useless. If he had the dagger, at least we knew that it was not at the office. We had learned only one thing. He had had a visit from one of his detectives.
As fast as the uptown trend of automobiles and surface cars during the rush hour would permit, Kennedy and I hurried in a taxicab to the Prince Edward Albert in the hope of surprising him there.
"It's no use to inquire for him," decided Craig as we entered the hotel. "I still have the key to that room, 827, next to his. We'll ride right up in the elevator boldly and get in."
No one said anything to us, as we let ourselves into the room next to Whitney's. A new lock had been placed on the door between the suites, but, aside from the additional time it took to force it, it presented no great difficulty.
"He wouldn't leave the dagger here, of course," remarked Kennedy, as at last we stepped into Whitney's suite. "But we may as well satisfy ourselves. Hello—what's this?"
The room was all upset, as though some one had already gone through it.For a moment I thought we had been forestalled.
"Packed a grip hastily," Craig remarked, pointing to the marks on the bedspread where it had rested while he must literally have thrown things into it.
We made a hasty search ourselves, but we knew it was hopeless. Two things we had learned. Whitney had had a visit from his detectives, and he had gone away hurriedly. An anonymous telephone message had been sent to Kennedy. Had it been for the purpose of throwing us off the track?
The room telephone rang. Quickly Craig jumped to it and took down the receiver.
"Hello," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Whitney."
A silence ensued during which, of course, I could not gather any idea of what was going on over the wire.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy, working the hook up and down but receiving no response. "The fellow caught on. Something must have happened to Norton, too."
"How's that?" I asked.
"Why," he replied, "some one just called up Whitney and said thatNorton had got away from him."
"Perhaps they're trying to keep him out of the way just as they are with us," I suggested. "I think the thing is a plant."
Down the hall, Kennedy stopped and tapped lightly at the door of 810, the de Moche suite. I think he was surprised when the Senora's maid opened it.
"Tell Senora de Moche it is Professor Kennedy," he said quickly, "and that I must see her."
The maid admitted us into the sitting-room where we had had our first interview with her and a moment later she appeared. She was evidently not dressed for dinner, although it was almost time, and I saw Kennedy's eye travel from her to a chair in the corner over which was draped a linen automobile coat and a heavy veil. Had she been preparing to go somewhere, too? The door to Alfonso's room was open and he clearly was not there. What did it all mean?
"Have you heard anything of a report that the dagger has been found?" demanded Kennedy abruptly.
"Why—no," she replied, greatly surprised, apparently.
"You were going out?" asked Kennedy with a significant glance at the coat and veil.
"Only for a little ride with Alfonso, who has gone to hire a car," she answered quickly.
I felt sure that she had heard something about the dagger.
We had no further excuse for staying and on the way out, now that he had satisfied himself that Whitney was not there, Craig inquired at the office for him. They could tell us nothing of his whereabouts, except that he had left in his car late in the afternoon in a great hurry.
Kennedy stepped into a telephone booth and called up Lockwood, but no one answered. Inquiry in the garages in the neighbourhood finally located that at which Lockwood kept his car. There, all that they could tell us was that the car had been filled with gas and oil as if for a trip. Lockwood was gone, too.
Kennedy hastily ordered a touring car himself and placed it at a corner of the Prince Edward Albert where he could watch two of the entrances, while I waited on the next corner where I could see the entrance on the other street.
For some time we waited and still she did not come out. Had she telephoned to Alfonso and had he gone alone? Perhaps she had already been out and had taken this method of detaining us, knowing that we would wait to watch her.
It must have been a mixture of both motives, for at length I was rewarded by seeing her come cautiously out of the rear entrance of the hotel alone and start to walk hurriedly up the street. I signalled to Craig who shot down and picked me up.
By this time the Senora had reached a public cab stand and had engaged a hack.
Sinking back in the shadows of the top, which was up, Craig directed our driver to follow the hack cautiously, keeping a couple of blocks behind. There was some satisfaction, though slight, in it, at least. We felt the possibility of the trail leading somewhere, now.
On uptown the hack went, while we kept discreetly in the rear. We had reached a part of the city where it was sparsely populated, when the hack suddenly turned and doubled back on us.
There was not time for us to turn and we trusted that by shrinking back in the shadow we might not be observed.
As the hack passed us, however, the Senora leaned out until it was perfectly evident that she must recognize us. She said nothing but I fancied I saw a smile of satisfaction as she settled back into the cushions. She was deliberately going back along the very road by which she had led us out. It had been an elaborate means of wasting our time.
She did not have the satisfaction, however, of shaking us off, for we followed all the way back to the hotel and saw her go in. Then Kennedy placed the car where we had it before and left the driver with instructions to follow her regardless of time if she should come out again.
Surely, I reasoned, there must be something very queer going on, if they were all in it to eliminate us and Norton. What had happened to him?
Kennedy hastened back to the campus, late as it was, there to start anew. Norton was not in his quarters and, on the chance that he might have sought to elude Whitney's detectives by doing the unexpected and going to the Museum, Kennedy walked over that way.
There was nothing to indicate that anybody had been at the Museum, but, as we passed our laboratory, we could hear the telephone ringing inside, as though some one had been trying to get us for a long time.
Kennedy opened the door and switched on the lights. Waiting only long enough to jam the receiver down into place on the telescribe, he answered the call.
"The deuce you will!" I heard him exclaim, then apparently whoever was talking rang off and he could not get them back.
"Another of those confounded telephone messages," he said, turning to me and taking the cylinder off. "It looks as though the ready-letter writer who used to send warnings had learned his lesson and taken to the telephone as leaving fewer clues than handwriting."
He placed the record on the phonograph so that I could hear it. It was brief and to the point, as had been the first.
"Hello, is that you, Kennedy? We've got Norton. Next we'll get you.Good-bye."
Kennedy repeated the first message. It was evident that both had been spoken by the same voice.
"Whose is it?" I asked blankly. "What does it mean?"
Before Craig could answer there was a knock at our door and he sprang to open it.
It was Juanita, Inez Mendoza's maid, frantic and almost speechless.
"Why, Juanita," encouraged Kennedy, "what's the matter?"
"The Senorita!" she gasped, breaking down now and sobbing over and over again. "The Senorita!"
"Yes, yes," repeated Kennedy, "but what about her? Is there anything wrong?"
"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," sobbed the poor girl, "I don't know. She is gone. I have had no word from her since this afternoon."
"Gone!" we exclaimed together. "Where was Burke—that man that the police sent up to protect her?"
"He is gone, too—now," replied Juanita in her best English, sadly broken by the excitement.
Kennedy and I looked at each other aghast. This was the hardest blow of all. We had thought that, at least, Inez would be safe with a man like Burke, whom we could trust, detailed to watch her.
"Tell me," urged Kennedy, "how did it happen? Did they carry her off—as they tried to do the other time?"
"No, no," sobbed Juanita. "I do not know. I do not know even whether she is gone. She went out this afternoon for a little walk. But she did not come back. After it grew dark, I was frightened. I remembered that you were here and called up, but you were out. Then I saw that policeman. I told him. He has others working with him now. But I could not find you—until now I saw a light here. Oh, my poor, little girl, what has become of her? Where have they taken her? Oh, MADRE DE DIOS, it is terrible!"
Had that been the purpose for which we had been sent on wild-goose chases? Was Inez really kidnapped this time? I knew not what to think. It seemed hardly possible that all of them could have joined in it.
If she were kidnapped, it must have been on the street in broad daylight. Such things had happened. It would not be the first disappearance of the kind.
Quickly Kennedy called up Deputy O'Connor. It was only too true. Burke had reported that she had disappeared and the police, especially those at the stations and ferries and in the suburbs had been notified to look for her. All this seemed to have taken place in those hours when the mysterious telephone calls had sent us on the wrong trail.
Kennedy said nothing, but I could see that he was doing some keen thinking.
Just then the telephone rang again. It was from the man whom we had left at the Prince Edward Albert. Senora de Moche had gone out and driven rapidly to the Grand Central. He had not been able to find out what ticket she bought, but the train was just leaving.
Kennedy paced up and down, muttering to himself. "Whitney first—then Lockwood—and Alfonso. The Senora takes a train. Suppose the first message were true? Gas and oil for a trip."
He seized the telephone book and hastily turned the pages over. At last his finger rested on a name in the suburban section. I read: "Whitney, Stuart. Res. 174-J Rockledge."
Quickly he gave central the number, then shoved the receiver again into the telescribe.
"Hello, is Mr. Whitney there?" I heard later as he placed the record again in the phonograph for repetition.
"No—who is this?"
"His head clerk. Tell him I must see him. Kennedy has been to the office and—"
"Say—get off the line. We had that story once."
"That's it!" exclaimed Craig. "Don't you see—they've all gone up to Whitney's country place. That clerk was faking. He has already telephoned. And listen. Do you see anything peculiar?"
He was running all three records which we had on the telescribe. As he did so, I saw unmistakably that it was the same voice on all three. Whitney must have had a servant do the telephoning for him.
"Don't fret, Juanita," reassured Kennedy. "We shall find your mistress for you. She will be all right. You had better go back to the apartment and wait. Walter look up the next train to Rockledge while I telephone O'Connor."
We had an hour to wait before the next train left and in the meantime we drove Juanita back to the Mendoza apartment.
It was a short run to Rockledge by railroad, but it seemed to me that it took hours. Kennedy sat in silence most of the time, his eyes closed, as if he were trying to place himself in the position of the others and figure out what they would do.
At last we arrived, the only passengers to get off at the little old station. Which way to turn we had not the slightest idea. We looked about. Even the ticket office was closed. It looked as though we might almost as well have stayed in New York.
Down the railroad we could see that a great piece of engineering was in progress, raising the level of the tracks and building a steel viaduct, as well as a new station, and at the same time not interrupting the through traffic, which was heavy.
"Surely there must be some one down there," observed Kennedy, as we picked our way across the steel girders, piles of rails, and around huge machines for mixing concrete.
We came at last to a little construction house, a sort of general machine-and work-shop, in which seemed to be everything from a file to a pneumatic riveter.
"Hello!" shouted Craig.
There came a sound from a far corner of a pile of ties and a moment later a night-watchman advanced suspiciously swinging his lantern.
"Hello yourself," he growled.
"Which way to Stuart Whitney's estate?" asked Craig.
My heart sank as he gave the directions. It seemed miles away.
Just then the blinding lights of a car flashed on us as it came down the road parallel to the tracks. He waved his light and the car stopped. It was empty, except for a chauffeur evidently returning from a joy ride.
"Take these gentlemen as far as Smith's corner, will you?" asked the watchman. "Then show 'em the turn up to Whitney's."
The chauffeur was an obliging chap, especially as it cost him nothing to earn a substantial tip with his master's car. However, we were glad enough to ride in anything on wheels, and not over-particular at that hour about the ownership.
"Mr. Whitney hasn't been out here much lately," he volunteered as he sped along the beautiful oiled road, and the lights cast shadows on the trees that made driving as easy as in daylight.
"No, he has been very busy," returned Craig glad to turn to account the opportunity to talk with a chauffeur, for it is the chauffeur in the country who is the purveyor of all knowledge and gossip.
"His car passed us when I was driving up from the city. My boss won't let me speed or I wouldn't have taken his dust. Gee, but he does wear out the engines in his cars, Whitney."
"Was he alone?" asked Craig.
"Yes—and then I saw him driving back again when I went down, to the station for some new shoes we had expressed up. Just a flying trip, I guess—or does he expect you?"
"I don't think he does," returned Craig truthfully.
"I saw a couple of other cars go up there. House party?"
"Maybe you'd call it that," returned Craig with a twinkle of the eye."Did you see any ladies?"
"No," returned the chauffeur. "Just a man driving his own car and another with a driver."
"There wasn't a lady with Mr. Whitney?" asked Craig, now rather anxious.
"Neither time."
I saw what he was driving at. The Senora might have got up there in any fashion without being noticed. But for Inez not to be with Whitney, nor with the two who must evidently have been Lockwood and Alfonso, was indeed strange. Could it be that we were only half right—that they had gathered here but that Inez had really disappeared?
The young man set us down at Smith's Corner and it proved to be only about an eighth of a mile up the road and up-hill when Whitney's house burst in sight, silhouetted against the sky.
There were lights there and it was evident that several people had gathered for some purpose.
We made our way up the path and paused a moment to look through the window before springing the little surprise. There we could see Lockwood, Alfonso, and Senora de Moche, who had arrived, after all and probably been met at the station by her son. They seemed like anything but a happy party. Never on the best of terms, they could not be expected to be happy. But now, if ever, one would have thought they might do more than tolerate each other, assuming that some common purpose had brought them here.
Kennedy rang the bell and we could see that all looked surprised, for they had heard no car approach. A servant opened the door and before he knew it, Kennedy had pushed past him, taking no chances at a rebuff after the experience over the wire.
"Kennedy!" exclaimed Lockwood and Alfonso together.
"Where is Inez Mendoza?" demanded Craig, without returning the greeting.
"Inez?" they repeated blankly.
Kennedy faced them squarely.
"Come, now. Where is she? This is a show-down. You may as well lay your cards on the table. Where is she—what have you done with her?"
The de Moches looked at Lockwood and he looked at them, but neither spoke for a moment.
"Walter," ordered Kennedy, "there's the telephone. Get the managing editor of the Star and tell him where we are. Every newspaper in the United States, every police officer in every city will have the story, in twelve hours, if you precious rascals don't come across. There—I give you until central gets die Star."
"Why—what has happened?" asked Lockwood, who was the first to recover his tongue.
"Don't stand there asking me what has happened," cried Kennedy impatiently. "Tickle that hook again, Walter. You know as well as I do that you have planned to get Inez Mendoza away from my influence—to kidnap her, in other words—"
"We kidnap her?" gasped Lockwood. "What do you mean, man? I know nothing of this. Is she gone?" He wheeled on the de Moches. "This is some of your work. If anything happens to that girl—there isn't an Indian feud can equal the vengeance I will take!"
Alfonso was absolutely speechless. Senora de Moche started to speak, but Kennedy interrupted her. "That will do from you," he cut short. "You have passed beyond the bounds of politeness when you deliberately went out of your way to throw me on a wrong trail while some one was making off with a young and innocent girl. You are a woman of the world. You will take your medicine like a man, too."
I don't think I have ever seen Kennedy in a more towering rage than he was at that moment.
"When it was only a matter of a paltry poisoned dagger at stake and a fortune that may be mythical or may be like that of Croesus, for all I care, we could play the game according to rules," he exclaimed. "But when you begin to tamper with a life like that of Inez de Mendoza—you have passed the bounds of all consideration. You have the Star? Telephone the story anyhow. We'll arbitrate afterward."
I think, as I related the facts to my editor, it sobered us all a great deal.
"Kennedy," appealed Lockwood at last, as I hung up the receiver, "will you listen to my story?"
"It is what I am here for," replied Craig grimly.
"Believe it or not, as far as I am concerned," asserted Lockwood, "this is all news to me. My God—where is she?"
"Then how came you here?" demanded Craig.
"I can speak only for myself," hastened Lockwood. "If you had asked where Whitney was, I could have understood, but—"
"Well, where is he?"
"We don't know. Early this afternoon I received a hurried message from him—at least I suppose it was from him—that he had the dagger and was up here. He said—I'll be perfectly frank—he said that he was arranging a conference at which all of us were to be present to decide what to do."
"Meanwhile I was to be kept away at any cost," supplied Kennedy sarcastically. "Where did he get it?"
"He didn't say."
"And you didn't care, as long as he had it," added Craig, then, turning to the de Moches, "And what is your tale?"
Senora de Moche did not lose her self-possession for an instant. "We received the same message. When you called, I thought it would be best for Alfonso to go alone, so I telephoned and caught him at the garage and when my train arrived here, he was waiting."
"None of you have seen Whitney here?" asked Kennedy, to which all nodded in the negative. "Well, you seem to agree pretty well in your stories, anyhow. Let me take a chance with the servants."
It is no easy matter to go into another's household and without any official position quiz and expect to get the truth out of the servants. But Kennedy's very wrath seemed to awe them. They answered in spite of themselves.
It seemed clear that as far as they went both guests and servants were telling the truth. Whitney had made the run up from the city earlier in the afternoon, had stayed only a short time, then had gone back, leaving word that he would be there again before his guests arrived.
They all professed to be as mystified as ourselves now over the outcome of the whole affair. He had not come back and there had been no word from him.
"One thing is certain," remarked Craig, watching the faces before him as he spoke. "Inez is gone. She has been spirited away without even leaving a trace. Her maid Juanita told me that. Now if Whitney is gone, too, it looks as if he had planned to double-cross the whole crowd of you and leave you safely marooned up here with nothing left but your common hatred of me. Much good may it do you."
Lockwood clenched his fists savagely, not at Kennedy but at the thought that Craig had suggested. His face set itself in tense lines as he swore vengeance on all jointly and severally if any harm came to Inez. I almost forgot my suspicions of him in admiration.
"Nothing like this would ever have happened if she had stayed in Peru," exclaimed Alfonso bitterly. "Oh, why did her father ever bring her here to this land of danger?"
The idea seemed novel to me to look on America as a lawless, uncultured country, until I reflected on the usual Latin-American opinion of us as barbarians.
Lockwood frowned but said nothing, for a time. Then he turned suddenly to the Senora, "You were intimate enough with him," he said. "Did he tell you any more than he told us?"
It was clear that Lockwood felt now that every man's hand was against him.
I thought I could discover a suppressed gleam of satisfaction in her wonderful eyes as she answered, "Nothing more. It was only that I carried out what he asked me."
Could it be that she was taking a subtle delight in the turn of events—the working out of a curse on the treasure-secret which the fatal dagger bore? I could not say. But it would not have needed much superstition to convince any one that the curse on the Gold of the Gods was as genuine as any that had ever been uttered, as it heaped up crime on crime.
We waited in silence, the more hopeless as the singing of the night insects italicized our isolation from the organized instruments of man for the righting of wrong. Here we were, each suspecting the other, in the home of a man whom all mistrusted.
"There's no use sitting here doing nothing," exclaimed Lockwood in whose mind was evidently the same thought, "not so long as we have the telephone and the automobiles."
These, at least, were our last bonds with the great world that had wrapped a dark night about a darker mystery.
"There are many miles of wire—many miles of road. Which way shall we turn?"
Senora de Moche seemed to take a fiendish delight in the words as she said them. It was as though she challenged our helplessness in the face of a power that was greater than us all.
Lockwood flashed a look of suspicion in her direction. As for myself, I had never been able to make the woman out. To-night she seemed like a sort of dea ex machina, who sat apart, playing on the passions of a group of puppet men whom she set against each other until all should be involved in a common ruin.
It was impossible, in the silence of this far-off lonely place in the country, not to feel the weirdness of it all.
Once I closed my eyes and was startled by the uncanny vividness of a mind-picture that came unbidden. It was of a scrap of paper on which, in rough capitals was printed:
Do you suppose he really had the dagger, or was that a lie?" I asked, with an effort shaking off the fateful feeling that had come over me as if some one were casting a spell.
"There is one way to find out," returned Craig, as though glad of the suggestion.
Though they hated him, they seemed forced to admit, for the time, his leadership. He rose and the rest followed as he went into Whitney's library.
He switched on the lights. There in a corner back of the desk stood a safe. Somehow or other it seemed to defy us, even though its master was gone. I looked at it a moment. It was a most powerful affair, companion to that in the office of which Whitney was so proud, built of layer on layer of chrome steel, with a door that was air tight and soup-proof, bidding defiance to all yeggmen and petermen.
Lockwood fingered the combination hopelessly. There were some millions of combinations and permutations that only a mathematician could calculate. Only one was any good. That one was locked in the mind of the man who now seemed to baffle us as did his strong-box.
I placed my hand on the cold, defiant surface. It would take hours to drill a safe like that, and even then it might turn the points of the drills. Explosives might sooner wreck the house and bring it down over the head of the man who attacked this monster.
"What can we do?" asked Senora de Moche, seeming to mock us, as though the safe itself were an inhuman thing that blocked our path.
"Do?" repeated Kennedy decisively, "I'll show you what we can do. If Lockwood will drive me down to the railroad station in his car, I'll show you something that looks like action. Will you do it?"
The request was more like a command. Lockwood said nothing, but moved toward the porte-cochere, where he had left his car parked just aside from the broad driveway.
"Walter, you will stay here," ordered Kennedy. "Let no one leave. If any one comes, don't let him get away. We shan't be gone long."
I sat awkwardly enough, scarcely speaking a word, as Kennedy dashed down to the railroad station. Neither Alfonso nor his mother betrayed either by word or action a hint of what was passing in their minds. Somehow, though I did not understand it, I felt that Lockwood might square himself. But I could not help feeling that these two might very possibly be at the bottom of almost anything.
It was with some relief that I heard the car approaching again. I had no idea what Kennedy was after, whether it was dynamite or whether he contemplated a trip to New York. I was surprised to see him, with Lockwood, hurrying up the steps to the porch, each with a huge tank studded with bolts like a boiler.
"There," ordered Craig, "set the oxygen there," as he placed his own tank on the opposite side. "That watchman thought I was bluffing when I said I'd get an order from the company, if I had to wake up the president of the road. It was too good a chance to miss. One doesn't find such a complete outfit ready to hand every day."
Out of the tanks stout tubes led, with stop-cocks and gauges at the top. From a case under his arm Kennedy produced a curious arrangement like a huge hook, with a curved neck and a sharp beak. Really it consisted of two metal tubes which ran into a sort of cylinder, or mixing chamber, above the nozzle, while parallel to them ran a third separate tube with a second nozzle of its own.
Quickly he joined the ends of the tubes from the tanks to the metal hook, the oxygen tank being joined to two of the tubes of the hook, and the second tank being joined to the other. With a match he touched the nozzle gingerly. Instantly a hissing, spitting noise followed, and an intense, blinding needle of flame.
"Now we'll see what an oxyacetylene blow-pipe will do to you, old stick-in-the-mud," cried Kennedy, as he advanced toward the safe, addressing it as though it had been a thing of life that stood in his way. "I think this will make short work of you."
Almost as he said it, the steel beneath the blow-pipe became incandescent. For some time he laboured to get a starting-point for the flame of the high-pressure torch.
It was a brilliant sight. The terrific heat from the first nozzle caused the metal to glow under the torch as if in an open-hearth furnace. From the second nozzle issued a stream of oxygen, under which the hot metal of the door was completely consumed.
The force of the blast, as the compressed oxygen and acetylene were expelled, carried a fine spray of the disintegrated metal visibly before it. And yet it was not a big hole that it made—scarcely an eighth of an inch wide, but clean and sharp as if a buzz-saw were eating its way through a plank of white-pine.
With tense muscles Kennedy held this terrific engine of destruction and moved it as easily as if it had been a mere pencil of light. He was the calmest of all of us as we crowded about him, but at a respectful distance.
"I suppose you know," he remarked hastily, never pausing for a moment in his work, "that acetylene is composed of carbon and hydrogen. As it burns at the end of the nozzle it is broken into carbon and hydrogen—the carbon gives the high temperature and the hydrogen forms a cone that protects the end of the blow-pipe from being itself burnt up."
"But isn't it dangerous?" I asked, amazed at the skill with which he handled the blow-pipe.
"Not particularly—when you know how to do it. In that tank is a porous asbestos packing saturated with acetone, under pressure. Thus they carry acetylene safely, for it is dissolved and the possibility of explosion is minimized.
"This mixing chamber, by which I am holding the torch, where the oxygen and acetylene mix, is also designed in such a way as to prevent a flash-back. The best thing about this style of blow-pipe is the ease with which it can be transported and the curious purposes—like this—to which it can be put."
He paused a moment to test what had been burnt. The rest of the safe seemed as firm as ever.
"Humph!" I heard one of them, I think it was Alfonso, mutter. I resented it, but Kennedy affected not to hear.
"When I shut off the oxygen in this second jet," he resumed, "you see the torch merely heats the steel. I can get a heat of approximately sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the flame will exert a pressure of fifty pounds to the square inch."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Lockwood, who had not heard the suppressed disapproval of Alfonso, and was watching, in undisguised admiration at the thing itself, regardless of consequences. "Kennedy, how did you ever think of such a thing?"
"Why, it's used for welding, you know," answered Craig, as he continued to work calmly in the growing excitement. "I first saw it in actual use in mending a cracked cylinder in an automobile. The cylinder was repaired without being taken out at all. I've seen it weld new teeth and build up worn teeth on gearing, as good as new."
He paused to let us see the terrifically heated metal under the flame.
"You remember when we were talking to the watchman down there at the station, Walter?" he asked. "I saw this thing in that complete little shop of theirs. It interested me. See. I turn on the oxygen now in the second nozzle. The blow-pipe is no longer an instrument for joining metals together, but for cutting them asunder.
"The steel burns just as you, perhaps, have seen a watch-spring burn in a jar of oxygen. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized, it all burns just about as fast, and just about as easily under this torch. And it's cheap, too. This attack—aside from what it costs to the safe—may amount to a couple of dollars as far as the blow-pipe is concerned—quite a difference from the thousands of dollars' loss that would follow an attempt to blow a safe like this one."
We had nothing to say. We stood in awe-struck amazement as the torch slowly, inexorably traced a thin line along the edge of the combination.
Minute after minute sped by, as the line burned by the blow-pipe cut around the lock. It seemed hours, but really it was minutes. I wondered when he would have cut about the whole lock. He was cutting clear through and around it, severing it as if with a superhuman knife.
With something more than half his work done, he paused a moment to rest.
"Walter," he directed, mopping his forehead, for it was real work directing that flaming knife, "get New York on the wire. See if O'Connor is at his office. If he has any report, I want to talk to him."
It was getting late and the service was slackening up. I had some trouble, especially in getting a good connection, but at last I got headquarters and was overjoyed to hear O'Connor's bluff, Irish voice boom back at me.
"Hello, Jameson," he called. "Where on earth are you? I've been trying to get hold of Kennedy for a couple of hours. Rockledge? Well, is Kennedy there? Put him on, will you?"
I called Craig and, as I did so, my curiosity got the better of me and I sought out an extension of the wire in a den across the hall from the library, where I could listen in on what was said.
"Hello, O'Connor," answered Craig. "Anything from Burke yet?"
"Yes," came back the welcome news. "I think he has a clue. We found out from here that she received a long distance message during the afternoon. Where did Jameson say you were—Rockledge?—that's the place. Of course we don't know what the message was, but anyhow she went out to meet some one right after that. The time corresponds with what the maid says."
"Anything else?" asked Craig. "Have you found any one who saw her?"
"Yes. I think she went over to your laboratory. But you were out."
"Confound it!" interrupted Craig.
"Some one saw a woman there."
"It wasn't the maid?"
"No, this was earlier—in the afternoon. She left and walked across the campus to the Museum."
"Oh, by the way, any word of Norton?"
"I'm coming to that. She inquired for Norton. The curator has given a good description. But he was out—hadn't been there for some time. She seemed to be very much upset over something. She went away. After that we've lost her."
"Not another trace?"
"Wait a minute. We had this Rockledge call to work on. So we started backward on that. It was Whitney's place, I found out. We could locate the car at the start and at the finish. He left the Prince Edward Albert and went up there first. Then he must have come back to the city again. No one at the hotel saw him the second time.
"What then?" hastened Craig.
"She may have met him somewhere, though it's not likely she had any intention of going away. All the rest of those people you have up there seem to have gone prepared. We got something on each of them. Also you'll be interested to know I've got a report of your own doings. It was right, Kennedy, I don't blame you. I'd have done the same with Burke on the job. How are you making out? What? You're cracking a crib? With what?"
O'Connor whistled as Kennedy related the story of the blow-pipe. "I think you're on the right track," he commended. "There's nothing to show it, but I believe Whitney told her something that changed her mind about going up there. Probably met her in some tea room, although we can't find anything from the tea rooms. Anyhow, Burke's out trailing along the road from New York to Rockledge and I'm getting reports from him whenever he hits a telephone."
"I wish you'd ask him to call me, here, if he gets anything."
"Sure I will. The last call was from the Chateau Rouge,—that's about halfway. There was a car with a man and a woman who answers her description. Then, there was another car, too."
"Another car?"
"Yes—that's where Norton crosses the trail again. We searched his apartment. It was upset—like Whitney's. I haven't finished with that. But we have a list of all the private hacking places. I've located one that hired a car to a man answering Norton's description. I think he's on the trail. That's what I meant by another car."
"What's he doing?"
"Maybe he has a hunch. I'm getting superstitious about this case. You know Luis de Mendoza has thirteen letters in it. Leslie told me something about a threat he had—a curse. You better look out for those two greasers you have up there. They may have another knife for you."
Kennedy glanced over at the de Moches, not in fear but in amusement at what they would think if they could hear O'Connor's uncultured opinion.
"All right, O'Connor," said Craig, "everything seems to be going as well as we can expect. Don't forget to tell Burke I'm here."
"I won't. Just a minute. He's on another wire for me."
Kennedy waited impatiently. He wanted to finish his job on the safe before some one came walking in and stopped it, yet there was always a chance that Burke might turn up something.
"Hello," called O'Connor a few minutes later. "He's still following the two cars. He thinks the one with the woman in it is Whitney's, all right. But they've got off the main road. They must think they're being followed.
"Or else have changed their destination," returned Craig. "Tell him that. Maybe Whitney had no intention of coming up here. He may have done this thing just to throw these people off up here, too. I can't say. I can tell better whether he intended to come back after I've got this safe open. I'll let you know."
Kennedy rang off.
"Any news of Inez?" asked Lockwood who had been fuming with impatience.
"She's probably on her way up here," returned Craig briefly, taking up the blow-pipe again.
Alfonso remained silent. The Senora could scarcely hide her excitement. If there were anything in telepathy, I am sure that she read everything that was said over the wire.
Quickly Craig resumed his work, biting through the solid steel as if it had been mere pasteboard, the blow-pipe showering on each side a brilliant spray of sparks, a gaudy, pyrotechnic display.
Suddenly, with a quick motion, Kennedy turned off the acetylene and oxygen. The last bolt had been severed, the lock was useless. A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he had merely said, "Open sesame."
Craig reached in and pulled open a steel drawer directly in front of him.
There in the shadow lay the dagger—with its incalculably valuable secret, a poor, unattractive piece of metal, but with a fascination such as no other object, I had ever seen, possessed.
There was a sudden cry. The Senora had darted ahead, as if to clasp its handle and unloose the murderous blade that nestled in its three-sided sheath.
Before she could reach it, Kennedy had seized her hand in his iron grasp, while with the other he picked up the dagger.
They stood there gazing into each other's eyes.
Then the Senora burst into a hysterical laugh.
"The curse is on all who possess it!"
"Thank you," smiled Kennedy quietly, releasing her wrist as he dropped the dagger into his pocket, "I am only the trustee."
Craig faced us, but there was no air of triumph in his manner. I knew what was in his mind. He had the dagger. But he had lost Inez.
What were we to do? There seemed to be no way to turn. We knew something of the manner of her disappearance. At first she had, apparently, gone willingly. But it was inconceivable that she stayed willingly, now.
I recalled all the remarks that Whitney had ever made about her. Had the truth come out in his jests? Was it Inez, not the dagger, that he really wanted?
Or was he merely the instrument of one or all of these people before us, and was this an elaborate plan to throw Kennedy off and prove an alibi for them? He had been the partner of Lockwood, the intimate of de Moche. Which was he working for, now—or was he working for himself alone?
No answer came to my questions, and I reflected that none would ever come, if we sat here. Yet there seemed to be no way to turn, without risking putting ourselves in a worse position than before. At least, until we had some better plan of campaign, we occupied a strategic advantage in Whitney's own house.
The hours of the night wore on. Midnight came. This inaction was killing. Anything would be better than that.
Suddenly the telephone startled us. We had wanted it to ring, yet when it rang we were afraid of it. What was its message? It was with palpitating hearts that we listened, while Craig answered.
"Yes, Burke," we heard him reply, "this is Kennedy."
There came a pause during which we could scarcely wait.
"Where are you now? Cold Stream. That is about twelve miles fromRockledge—not on the New York road—the other road. I see. All right.We'll be there. Yes, wait for us."
As Craig hung up the receiver, we crowded forward. "Have they found her?" asked Lockwood hoarsely.
"It was from Burke," replied Kennedy deliberately. "He is at a place called Cold Stream, twelve miles from here. He tells me that we can find it easily—on a state road, at a sharp curve that has been widened out, just this side of the town. There has been an accident—Whitney's car is wrecked."
Lockwood seized his elbow. "My God," he exclaimed, "tell me—she isn't—hurt, is she? Quick!"
"So far Burke has not been able to discover a trace of a thing, except the wrecked car," replied Kennedy. "I told him I would be over directly. Lockwood, you may take Jameson and Alfonso. I will go with the Senora and their driver."
I saw instantly why he had divided the party. Neither mother nor son was to have a chance to slip away from us. Surely both Lockwood and I should be a match for Alfonso. Senora de Moche he would trust to none but himself.
Eagerly now we prepared for the journey, late though it was. No one now had a thought of rest. There could be no rest with that mystery of Inez challenging us.
We were off at last, Lockwood's car leading, for although he did not know the roads exactly, he had driven much about the country. I should have liked to have sat in front with him, but it seemed safer to stay in the back with Alfonso. In fact, I don't think Lockwood would have consented, otherwise, to have his rival back of him.
Kennedy and the Senora made a strange pair, the ancient order and the ultra-modern. There was a peculiar light in her eyes that gleamed forth at the mere mention of the words, "wreck." Though she said nothing, I knew that through her mind was running the one tenacious thought. It was the working out of the curse! As for Craig, he was always seeking the plausible, natural reason for what to the rest of us was inexplicable, often supernatural. To him she was a fascinating study.
On we sped, for Lockwood was a good driver and now was spurred on by an anxiety that he could not conceal. Yet his hand never faltered at the wheel. He seemed to read the signs at the cross-roads without slackening speed. In spite of all that I knew, I found myself compelled to admire him. Alfonso sat back, for the most part silent. The melancholy in his face seemed to have deepened. He seemed to feel that he was but a toy in the hands of fate. Yet I knew that underneath must smoulder the embers of a bitter resentment.
It seemed an interminable ride even at the speed which we were making. Twelve miles in the blackness of a country night can seem like a hundred.
At last as we turned a curve, and Lockwood's headlights shone on the white fence that skirted the outer edge of the road as it swung around a hill that rose sharply to our left and dropped off in a sort of ravine at the right beyond the fence, I felt the car tremble as he put on the brakes.
A man was waving his arms for us to stop, and as we did, he ran forward. He peered in at us and I recognized Burke.
"Whe-where's Kennedy?" he asked, disappointed, for the moment fearing he had made a mistake and signalled the wrong car.
"Coming," I replied, as we heard the driver of the other car sounding his horn furiously as he approached the curve.
Burke jumped to the safe side of the road and ran on back to signal to stop. It was then for the first time that I paid particular attention to the fence ahead of us on which now both our own and the lights of the other car shone. At one point it was torn and splintered, as though something had gone through it.
"Great heavens, you don't mean to say that they went over that?" muttered Lockwood, jumping down and running forward.
Kennedy had joined us by this time and we all hurried over. Down in the ravine we could see a lantern which Burke had brought and which was now resting on the overturned chassis of the car.
Lockwood was down there ahead of us all, peering under the heavy body fearfully, as if he expected to see two forms of mangled flesh. He straightened up, then took the lantern and flashed it about. There was nothing except cushions and a few parts of the car within the radius of its gleam.
"Where are they?" he demanded, turning to us. "It's Whitney's car, all right."
Burke shook his head. "I've traced the car so far. They were getting ahead of me, when this happened."
Together we managed to right the car which was on a hillock. It sank a little further down the hill, but at least we could look inside it.
"Bring the lantern," ordered Kennedy.
Minutely, part by part, he went over the car. "Something went wrong," he muttered. "It is too much wrecked to tell what it was. Flash the light over here," he directed, stepping over the seat into the back of the tonneau.
A moment later he took the light himself and held it close to the rods that supported the top. I saw him reach down and pull from them a few strands of dark hair that had caught between the rods and had been pulled out or broken.
"No need of Bertillon's palette of human hair to identify that," he exclaimed. "There isn't time to study it and if there were it would be unnecessary. She was with him, all right."
"Yes," agreed Lockwood. "But where is she now—where is he? Could they have been hurt, picked up by some one and carried where they could get aid?"
Burke shook his head. "I inquired at the nearest house ahead. I had to do it in order to telephone. They knew nothing."
"But they are gone," persisted Lockwood. "There is the bottom of the bank. You can see that they are not here."
Kennedy had taken the light and climbed the bank again and was now going over the road as minutely as if he were searching for a lost diamond.
"Look!" he exclaimed.
Where the Whitney car had skidded and gone over the bank, the tires had dug deep into the top dressing, making little mounds. Across them now we could see the tracks of other tires that had pressed down the mounds.
"Some one else has been here," reconstructed Kennedy. "He passed, then stopped and backed up. Perhaps they were thrown out, unconscious, and he picked them up."
It seemed to be the only reasonable supposition.
"But they knew nothing at the next house," persisted Burke.
"Is there a road leading off before you get to the house?" askedKennedy.
"Yes—it crosses the line into Massachusetts."
"It is worth trying—it is the only thing we can do," decided Kennedy. "Drive slowly to the crossroads. Perhaps we can pick out the tire-prints there. They certainly won't show on the road itself. It is too hard."
At the crossing we stopped and Kennedy dropped down on his hands and knees again with the light.
"There it is," he exclaimed. "The same make of anti-skid tire, at least. There was a cut in the rear tire—just like this. See? It is the finger-print of the motor car. I think we are right. Turn up here and run slowly."
On we went slowly, Kennedy riding on the running-board of the car ahead. Suddenly he raised his hand to stop, and jumped down.
We gathered about him. Had he found a continuation of the tire-tracks? There were tracks but he was not looking at them. He was looking between them. There ran a thin line.
He stuck his finger in it and sniffed. "Not gas," he remarked. "It must have been the radiator, leaking. Perhaps he ran his car into Whitney's—forced it too far to the edge of the road. We can't tell. But he couldn't have gone far with that leak without finding water—or cracked cylinders."
With redoubled interest now we resumed the chase. We had mounted a hill and had run down into the shadows of a valley when, following in the second car, we heard a shout from Kennedy in the first.
Halfway up the hill across the valley, he had come upon an abandoned car. It had evidently reached its limit, the momentum of the previous hill had carried it so far up the other, then the driver had stopped it and let it back slowly off the road into a clump of bushes that hid a little gully.
But that was all. There was not a sign of a person about. Whatever had happened here had happened some hours before. We looked about. All was Cimmerian darkness. Not a house or habitation of man or beast was in sight, though they might not be far away.
We beat about the under-brush, but succeeded in stirring up nothing but mosquitoes.
What were we to do? We were wasting valuable time. Where should we go?
"I doubt whether they would have kept on the road," reasoned Kennedy. "They must have known they would be followed. The hardest place to follow them would be across country."
"With a lantern?" I objected. "We can't do it."
Kennedy glanced at his watch. "It will be three hours before there is light enough to see anything by," he considered. "They have had at least a couple of hours. Five hours is too good a start. Burke—take one of the cars. Go ahead along the road. We mustn't neglect that. I'll take the other. I want to get back to that house and call O' Connor. Walter, you stay here with the rest."
We separated and I felt that, although I was doing nothing, I had my hands full watching these three.
Lockwood was restless and could not help beating around in the under-brush, in the hope of turning up something. Now and then he would mutter to himself some threat if anything happened to Inez. I let him occupy himself, for our own, as much as his, peace of mind. Alfonso had joined his mother in the car and they sat there conversing in low tones in Spanish, while I watched them furtively.
Of a sudden, I became aware that I missed the sound of Lockwood beating about the under-brush. I called, but there was no answer. Then we all called. There came back nothing but a mocking echo. I could not follow him. If I did, I would lose the de Moches.
Had he been laying low, waiting his opportunity to get away? Or was he playing a lone hand? Much as I suspected about him, during the past few hours I had come to admire him.
I sent the de Moche driver out to look for him, but he seemed afraid to venture far, and, of course, returned and said that he could not find him. Even in his getaway, Lockwood had been characteristic. He had been strong enough to bide his time, clever enough to throw every one off guard. It put a new aspect on the case for me. Had Whitney intended the capture of Inez for Lockwood? Had our coming so unexpectedly into the case thrown the plans awry and was it the purpose to leave them marooned at Rockledge while we were shunted off in the city? That, too, was plausible. I wished Kennedy would return before anything else happened.
It was not long by the clock before Kennedy did return. But it seemed ages to me.
He was not alone. With him was a man in a uniform, and a powerful dog, for all the world like a huge wolf.
"Down, Searchlight," he ordered, as the dog began to show an uncanny interest in me. "Let me introduce my new dog detective," he chuckled. "She has a wonderful record as a police dog. I got O'Connor out of bed and he telephoned out to the nearest suburban station. That saved a good deal of time in getting her up here."
I mustered up courage to tell Kennedy of the defection of Lockwood. He did not seem to mind it especially.
"He won't get far, with the dog after him, if we want to take the time," he said. "She's a German sheep dog, a Schaeferhund."
Searchlight seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog, which are such a great help to it. She was a fine, alert, upstanding dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail. Untamed as she seemed, she was perfectly under Kennedy's control and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience.
They took her over to the abandoned car. There they let her get a good whiff of the bottom of the car about the driver's feet, and a moment later she started off.
Alfonso and his mother insisted on going with us and that made our progress across country slow.
On we went over the rough country, through a field, then skirting a clump of woods until at last we came to a lane.
We stopped in the shadow of a thicket. There was an empty summer home.Was there some intruder there? Was it really empty?
Now and then we could hear Searchlight scouting about in the under-brush, crouching and hiding, watching and guarding. We paused and waited in the heavily-laden night air, wondering. The soughing of the night wind in the evergreens was mournful. Did it betoken a further tragedy?
There was a slight noise from the other side of the house. Craig reached out and drew us back into the shadow of the thicket, deeper.
"Some one is prowling about, I think. Leave it to the dog."
Searchlight, who had been near us, was sniffing eagerly. From our hiding-place we could just see her. She had heard the sounds, too, even before we had, and for an instant stood with every muscle tense.
Then, like an arrow, she darted into the underbrush. An instant later, the sharp crack of a revolver rang out. Searchlight kept right on, never stopping a second, except, perhaps, in surprise.
"Crack!" almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the darkness, and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried itself in a tree with a ping. The intruder's marksmanship was poor, but the dog paid no attention to it.
"One of the few animals that show no fear of gun-fire," mutteredKennedy, in undisguised admiration.
"G-r-r-r," we heard from the police dog.
"She has made a leap at the hand that holds the gun," cried Kennedy, now rising and moving rapidly in the same direction. "She has been taught that a man once badly bitten in the hand is nearly out of the fight."
We followed also. As we approached we were just in time to see Searchlight running in and out between the legs of a man who had heard us approach and was hastily making tracks away. As he tripped, the officer who brought her blew shrilly on a police whistle just in time to stop a fierce lunge at his back.
Reluctantly, Searchlight let go. One could see that with all her canine instinct she wanted to "get" that man. Her jaws were open, as, with longing eyes, she stood over the prostrate form in the grass. The whistle was a signal, and she had been taught to obey unquestioningly.
"Don't move until we get to you, or you are a dead man," shoutedKennedy, pulling an automatic as he ran. "Are you hurt?"
There was no answer, but, as we approached, the man moved, ever so little, through curiosity to see his pursuers.
Searchlight shot forward. Again the whistle sounded and she dropped back. We bent over to seize him, as Kennedy secured the dog.
"She's a devil," ground out the prone figure on the grass.
"Lockwood!" exclaimed Kennedy.