Had I ever been tempted, indeed, to think that the mission which Don
Jose Casteno had confided to me was some small matter of a collector's
gain, I should not have done so after the part I played as sole witness
of this wordless drama. The very atmosphere of the room was pregnant
with mysterious suggestion of the tremendous issues that were hanging
then in the balance. I knew at last, with as much certainty as though I
had read the documents themselves, that these manuscripts that had
dropped so carelessly from the hands of a dead monk into all the
hurly-burly of a commonplace auction room were precious records that
affected the lives, the happiness, the fortunes of thousands.
Again the problem stated itself: Who would triumph? And again I had to
wait, for neither Peter Zouche nor John Cooper-Nassington would make any
sign.
Suddenly, though, the dwarf stood up and fixed his eager, burning,
avaricious eyes on me. "You, Mr Glynn," he snapped, "are a man who
knows as much about old manuscripts as most folks. I have seen your
collection, and, for one who has had no means to speak of, you have done
exceedingly well. Why don't you tell this big, bullying, aggressive
friend of ours what those three deeds contained? You were employed by
some peculiar people to get possession of them, no matter what the cost
might be. You received very explicit instructions about them. You made
a clever fight for them."
"And," I broke in sternly, "you, sir, filled the room with a `knock out'
of dirty, hungry aliens from Whitechapel; and, when I grew dangerous,
you and your friends did not scruple to hound me down and kidnap me.
That was the way you put me out of competition and snatched your
beggarly triumph, but you know as well as I do that I am ignorant of the
precise contents or qualities of the documents which I was employed to
make such a strenuous battle for."
"But, sir," he sneered, rolling back his lips and showing his toothless
gums, "think of that beautiful sign outside your office: `Mr Hugh
Glynn, Secret Investigator!' why, nothing should be hidden from you!"
And he threw out his hands with a gesture of infinite comprehensiveness
and burst into a loud and offensive mocking laugh.
"Nor will this thing be a mystery to me long," I retorted boldly, rising
and striking the top of the table with my clenched fist. "You, Peter
Zouche, understand that! At present I am merely a private soldier
obeying the orders of a superior officer, but, by heaven! if it were not
so, and I were free to handle this affair in the manner that suited me
best, do you fancy you would be able to play with me like you did at the
auction mart in Covent Garden, that I would walk meekly out of your shop
after I had been kicked and buffeted and imprisoned, and that I would
come here almost immediately afterwards and let you do your level best
to jeer at me and sneer at me and treat me as a dolt or a child? No!"
I thundered, "ten thousand thousand times no!
"Luckily," I went on in a more subdued voice, "fate has given me a share
in this mystery, and as soon as I am free of all the honourable
obligations which I have undertaken you may be sure I shall be here to
be reckoned with. Sooner or later I will make you bitterly regret this
cheap scoffing of yours at my qualifications as a professional
detective. I know that wonderful secrets about buried treasures and
compacts between states and churches and individuals, lie hidden in
those old manuscript deeds that are often left kicking about as so much
idle lumber in garret and cellar and office. Nobody in London, indeed,
knows better; and I will track this precious secret of yours down--"
"Enough," struck in Cooper-Nassington in his most terrible tones. "You,
Glynn, have now justified yourself. It's the hunchback's turn. Once
again I demand of him: What has he deciphered from those three
queer-looking manuscripts which he purchased this afternoon?"
Peter Zouche faltered; to my astonishment I saw that he had been
conquered.
"You know well enough what they contain," he snarled, "or you would not
be here at this hour, and in this mood!"
"And so do you, you wicked old cripple," roared my friend, "or you would
never have spent all that money on packing that auction mart with your
gang of foreign mercenaries to effect a knock-out of the manuscripts;
you are not the kind of philanthropist who throws away two or three
thousand pounds on the relatives of a poor Spanish priest whom you have
never set eyes on. So speak out without any more fuss. Are they what I
have been led to expect?"
"They are," the hunchback muttered, licking his dry and feverish lips;
"but it will take me two or three weeks to decode them. I was looking
at them when you came and knocked at the door with that cursed
all-compelling signal of yours. Why the deuce didn't you leave me in
peace for a time?"
"Because I wanted to be sure I had been correctly informed, of course,"
retorted the Member of Parliament gaily, rising and brushing the cigar
ash off his waistcoat. "In fact, in a word, I shall assume now that you
have got possession of the documents that give the key to the position
and the drainage of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano, which was
for centuries the depository of the treasures of the original tribes of
Mexico, and which has been believed always, upon quite credible
evidence, to contain gold and precious stones to the amount of many
millions sterling."
"Yes; that is so," conceded Zouche, with a sigh.
"What!" I cried, unable to stifle my excitement at hearing this
extraordinary piece of news. "Do you mean to say there has been
discovered at last that wonderful Mexican lake over which England nearly
went to war with Spain in the days of Elizabeth, a secret that was
supposed to be known only to the Jesuits, who lost in some miraculous
fashion all the documents bearing on the subject nearly three hundred
years ago?"
"I do," replied the hunchback. "What did you think when I took such
extraordinary precautions at the auction this afternoon?--that I was
simply playing up for some quaint and curious cryptogram? Bah! men of
my reputation don't fling one thousand eight hundred pounds about for
childish puzzles like those."
"So I might have guessed," I added to myself a little bitterly. "I
ought to have realised something of the sort was afoot, but, as you
know, we collectors of manuscripts have known so long about these
wonderful missing records that we have actually grown tired of looking
out for them, and some of the best and wisest of us have gone so far as
to doubt their very existence."
"Well, you need not," observed the Member of Parliament genially, fixing
his hat upon his head firmly. "Prescott, in his `Conquest of Mexico,'
sets out the facts about the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano with
great clearness. I remember, very well, he explains that it must be
somewhere about the centre of the uninhabited portion of Mexico and that
its dimensions are not too formidable to tackle for unwatering, being
about only one thousand two hundred feet long by one thousand feet wide
on the surface, but the greatest depth has not been fathomed. It is
known to stand at a height of about ten thousand feet above sea level.
Indeed, its depths are reputed to have been regarded as sacred to their
gods by a numerous aboriginal population long before the appearance of
the Jesuits in that part of the world."
"But why," I queried, "is the value of its treasure always so firmly
insisted on?"
"Because," replied he, "in connection with their religious rites the
aboriginals habitually made offerings to the deities of the lake in the
form of gold dust, golden images, and emeralds, the most famous emerald
mines of the world being situated in the heart of Mexico. Indeed,
Prescott says that this particular gem was held as sacred by the early
tribes inhabiting Mexico as being the emblem of the sun, they themselves
being sun-worshippers. More than that, their king, who was also their
pontiff, was in the habit of being completely covered with gold dust so
applied as to cause him to shine with great lustre like the rays of the
sun. In brief, he was the real `El Dorado' of whom we have heard so
much and seen so little; and, as his principal religious ceremony, he
was wont to perform his ablutions from a raft in the centre of the lake,
until the whole of the precious metal was washed away. This
accomplished, the king, and the chiefs who were with him, made a rule of
throwing costly offerings into the water."
"Better than that," struck in the hunchback, almost with enthusiasm, "I
have just been turning over an article in the _South American Journal_
on this very subject, and I read there that the multitude of
worshippers, thereupon, likewise cast in their humbler contributions in
the midst of singing and dancing and to the sound of such musical
instruments as were available. When the `bearded men' reached the
country it is stated that the Indians, to put their treasure beyond the
power of the ruthless invaders, threw it into the waters of the lake to
a vast value; and, indeed, an attempt was made by the Spaniards to
unwater it, so as to get at the submerged accumulation of gold dust and
precious stones. They were not able to reach the bottom, but succeeded
in lowering the water to such an extent as to expose a portion of the
margins of the lake, whence they obtained sufficient to pay to the
Spanish Government one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, equivalent
to three per cent, on a total recovered of five millions six hundred
thousand dollars. There were also emeralds, one of which realised
seventy thousand dollars in Madrid. Further progress was arrested by
the sides of the cutting on the lip of the lake-cup falling in with a
tremendous crash. The water poured into the mouth of an adjacent
volcano, and a terrible earthquake resulted, before which the Spaniards
and their Jesuit friends fled in terror. A proper record was, however,
made later on of the exact position of the lake, but, as Mr
Cooper-Nassington explained, it was lost."
"And you have recovered it," I burst out.
"That is so; but although repeated expeditions were made to the
district, which is largely of volcanic origin, to discover it without
the key I possess, they all failed; and as the years slipped on they
grew fewer and fewer in number until, as you have heard for yourself,
the whole thing has just become a will-o'-the-wisp of the manuscript
hunter who, of course, has mostly grown to feel he is as likely to
discover the missing documents as he is to find the title-deeds of the
temple of David.
"But," said the hunchback, suddenly changing his tone and confronting my
companion with an angry look, "none of this is to the point. It is, in
a way, all so much ancient history and as familiar to men like yourself,
who rule Mexico through the Stock Exchange or our British Foreign
Office, as your alphabet. What I want to know is: What business is it
of yours what I have bought and what I have discovered? You have no
share in this find. You have no right to information. By what right do
you come here demanding to know what I have learned, and shall learn,
with infinite patience, expense, and labour?"
"All that in good time, my dear sir," calmly returned Cooper-Nassington.
"For the present it must be sufficient for you that I have a very real
and vital stake in what you have found, and you had better treat me well
over the business when I come to you again after you have deciphered the
manuscripts, or you'll live to regret the day I was born."
For a second the two men stood glaring at each other in angry defiance,
but again I saw that the millionaire won. Whatever was the mysterious
hold he had over the hunchback there was no doubt but that it was a very
potent and a very effective one, and that, however much Zouche might
kick and threaten, in the end he was bound to come to the other's heel.
"All right. Come to me in a fortnight's time," he growled, "and I'll
see then what can be done. Don't fancy, though, that this business is
simply fitting out a yacht with a party of Cornish miners and engineers
and going to take possession of the loot."
"I don't," said the Member of Parliament coolly; "there are the Jesuits
to reckon with."
"Yes; but that's not the worst," retorted Zouche; "there are others."
"Others!" cried the man in astonishment. "What do you mean?"
"Well, first, who was the man that put you on the track of my discovery,
eh? What, for instance, is the name or position of Mr Glynn's
employer?"
In spite of myself I flushed and started. Should I now hear who Don
Jose Casteno really was, if he were really a friend of Lord Cyril
Cuthbertson, and why he was a resident at that home of mystery, St
Bruno's. Alas! no. I was doomed to disappointment.
"We decline to tell you," said my companion with great firmness.
"I shall find out for myself," roared the dwarf.
"Do, if you can," returned the man coolly. "For the present, stick to
the point we are discussing. Who else have we to fear?"
"The cut-throats who did this," snarled the hunchback, stepping quickly
across the room and taking down a cloak from the walls. Then he spread
the garment out on the table and indicated certain bullet holes in the
back. "They did this to me this afternoon as I walked homeward," he
added. "The shots came just as I was crossing Westminster Bridge. I
searched everywhere for a sight of the man, who must have done it with
some new-fangled air-gun. I could find none at all.
"Nor is that all," he proceeded the next moment; "just cast a glance in
this direction, will you?" He stumbled across the parlour to a point
where stood an old oaken chest about two feet high, the lid of which he
threw back with a bang. "Do you see that fine mastiff in there?"
pointing to the shadowy form of a huge dog in the depths of the chest.
"Well, an hour ago he was poisoned. By whom? For what? I have lived
here in this house, in this neighbourhood, for five and forty years and
nothing of the sort has ever occurred before.
"Ten minutes before your carriage rattled up I had another weird
experience. Explain it if you can--I can't. I was seated at this very
table poring over one of those precious manuscripts, which I hide in a
place practically inaccessible to anybody except myself, when I became
conscious I was not alone. Somebody, I felt certain, had come
mysteriously on the scene and was watching me intently. I glanced up
suddenly, and found there, at that small casement window which opens on
the street, and which is usually guarded by the shutter you now see
placed in position, the face of a man. `What do you want?' I cried
angrily, and darted across the room to fling the shutter back into
position with all the force I could exert. But he was much too swift
for me. With incredible rapidity he flung an envelope through the
opening and darted off, and the shutter and window slammed together, as
I intended, but with an empty bang. The scoundrel had escaped!
"Well, by that time I was accustomed to surprises, and so I took up the
envelope, which was of a cheap, inferior make, similar to those sold by
small stationers in poor districts. It had no address upon it, but it
was sealed. I tore it open, and found inside a piece of paper bearing
this message." After fumbling behind an ornament on the mantelpiece he
produced a slip that had been evidently torn out of some child's
exercise book, and upon which was written in feigned handwriting to
resemble a schoolboy's:
"Your secret is known. At the right moment I shall come to you and
claim it for its lawful owner. Meanwhile, breathe not a word to a soul
as you value your property and your life."
"Of course," added the hunchback, with a shrug of the shoulders, "all
this sounds the merest melodrama, and so it may be. But you and I know
quite enough of the importance of those manuscripts to understand how
many rich and extraordinary personages in England, in Spain, in Mexico
have the keenest interest in their contents, their recovery, and their
translation. Your Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, for one," shot out Zouche,
glancing at the millionaire with eyes full of meaning, yet bright with
the springs of his own hidden resentment.
The Member of Parliament bit his lip. "Maybe, maybe," he said, but I
could see the shot went home and that inwardly he was much perturbed.
"Still, you must do your best, that's all. Personally, I should say it
is your friend, Lord Fotheringay, who feels he can't trust you, but,
really, it is your lookout. Come along, Glynn." And he led the way
impatiently down the passage, and, before the dwarf could say another
word, he had hurried me out into Tufton Street, which seemed still to be
as deserted as the grave.
As we stepped out we heard the door close behind us; and, remembering
the mysterious letter which Don Jose had instructed me to hand to Lord
Cuthbertson in the case of certain eventualities, I resolved on a bold
step of my own.
"Why," said I suddenly to my companion, "do you fear the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs getting wind of this discovery of yours?"
Never shall I forget the effect of this apparently innocent question of
mine!
Never!