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.
"We have to deal in this case," continued Kennedy, his will-power
overcoming his weakness, "with a poison which is apparently among the
most subtle known. A particle of matter so minute as to be hardly
distinguishable by the naked eye, on the point of a lancet or needle, a
prick of the skin not anything like that wound of Mendoza's, were
necessary. But, fortunately, more of the poison was used, making it
just that much easier to trace, though for the time the wound, which
might itself easily have been fatal, threw us off the scent. But given
these things, not all the power in the world--unless one was fully
prepared--could save the life of the person in whose flesh the wound
was made."
Craig paused a moment, and we listened breathlessly.
"This poison, I find, acts on the so-called endplates of the muscles
and nerves. It produces complete paralysis, but not loss of
consciousness, sensation, circulation, or respiration until the end
approaches. It seems to be one of the most powerful agents of which I
have ever heard. When introduced in even a minute quantity it produces
death finally by asphyxiation--by paralyzing the muscles of
respiration. This asphyxia is what puzzled you, Leslie."
He reached over and took a white mouse from the huge box on the corner
of the table.
"Let me show you what I have found," he said. "I am now going to inject
a little of the blood serum of the murdered man into this white mouse."
He took a needle and injected some of a liquid which he had isolated.
The mouse did not even wince, so lightly did he touch it. But as we
watched, its life seemed gently to ebb away, without pain, without
struggle. Its breath simply seemed to stop.
Next he took the gourd which we had brought and with a knife scraped
off just the minutest particle of the black, licorice-like stuff that
incrusted it. He dissolved the particle in some alcohol, and with a
sterilized needle repeated his experiment on a second mouse. The effect
was precisely similar to that produced by the blood on the first.
I was intent on what Craig was doing when Dr. Leslie broke in with a
question. "May I ask," he queried, "whether, admitting that the first
mouse died at least apparently in the same manner as the second, you
have proved that the poison is the same in both cases? And if it is the
same, can you show that it affects human beings in the same way, that
enough of it has been discovered in the blood of Mendoza to have caused
his death? In other words, I want the last doubt set aside."
If ever Craig startled me, it was by his quiet reply:
"I've isolated it in his blood, extracted it, sterilized it, and I've
tried it on myself."
In breathless amazement, with eyes riveted on him, we listened. "Then
that was what was the matter?" I blurted out. "You had been trying the
poison on YOURSELF?"
He nodded unconcernedly. "Altogether," he explained, as Leslie and I
listened, speechless, "I was able to recover from both blood samples
six centigrams of the poison. It is almost unknown. I could only be
sure of what I discovered by testing the physiological effects. I was
very careful. What else was there to do? I couldn't ask you fellows to
try it, if I was afraid."
"Good heavens!" gasped Leslie, "and alone, too."
"You wouldn't have let me do it, if I hadn't got rid of you," he smiled
quietly.
Leslie shook his head. "Tried it on the dog and made himself the dog!"
exclaimed Leslie. "I need the credit of a successful case--but I'll not
take this one."
Kennedy laughed.
"Starting with two centigrams of the stuff as a moderate dose," he
pursued, while I listened, stunned at his daring, "I injected it into
my right arm subcutaneously. Then I slowly worked my way up to three
and then four centigrams. You see what I had recovered was far from the
real thing. They did not seem at first to produce any very appreciable
results other than to cause some dizziness, slight vertigo, a
considerable degree of lassitude, and an extremely painful headache of
rather unusual duration."
"Good night!" I exclaimed. "Didn't that satisfy you?"
"Five centigrams considerably improved on it," he continued, paying no
attention to me. "It caused a degree of lassitude and vertigo that was
most distressing, and six centigrams, the whole amount which I had
recovered from the samples of blood, gave me the fright of my life
right here in this laboratory a few minutes before you came in."
Leslie and I looked at each other and shook our heads.
"Perhaps I was not wise in giving myself so large an injection on a day
when I was overheated and below par otherwise, because of the strain I
have been under in handling this case, as well as other work. However
that may be, the added centigram produced so much more on top of the
five centigrams I had previously taken that for a time I had reason to
fear that that additional centigram was just the amount needed to bring
my experiments to a permanent close.
"Within three minutes of the time of injection the dizziness and
vertigo had become so great as to make walking seem impossible. In
another minute the lassitude rapidly crept over me, and the serious
disturbance of my breathing made it apparent to me that walking, waving
my arms, anything, was imperative. My lungs felt glued up, and the
muscles of my chest refused to work. Everything swam before my eyes,
and I was soon reduced to walking up and down the laboratory floor with
halting steps, only preventing falling on the floor by holding fast to
the edge of the table.
"I thought of the tank of oxygen, and managed to crawl over and turn it
on. I gulped at it. It seemed to me that I spent hours gasping for
breath. It reminded me of what I once experienced in the Cave of the
Winds of Niagara, where water is more abundant in the atmosphere than
air. Yet my watch afterward indicated only about twenty minutes of
extreme distress. But that twenty minutes is one period I shall never
forget. I advise you, Leslie, if you are ever so foolish as to try the
experiment, to remain below the five-centigram limit."
"Believe me, I'd rather lose my job," returned Leslie.
"How much of the stuff was administered to Mendoza," went on Kennedy,
"I cannot say. But it must have been a good deal more than I took. Six
centigrams which I recovered from these small samples are only
nine-tenths of a grain. You see what effect that much had. I trust that
answers your question?"
Dr. Leslie was too overwhelmed to reply.
"What is this deadly poison that was used on Mendoza?" I managed to ask.
"You have been fortunate enough to obtain a sample of it from the
Museum of Natural History," returned Craig. "It comes in a little
gourd, or often a calabash. This is in a gourd. It is a blackish,
brittle stuff, incrusting the sides of the gourd just as if it was
poured in in the liquid state and left to dry. Indeed, that is just
what has been done by those who manufacture it after a lengthy and
somewhat secret process."
He placed the gourd on the edge of the table, where we could see it
closely. I was almost afraid even to look at it.
"The famous traveller, Sir Robert Schomburgk, first brought it into
Europe, and Darwin has described it. It is now an article of commerce,
and is to be found in the United States Pharmacoepia as a medicine,
though, of course, it is used in only very minute quantities, as a
heart stimulant."
Craig opened a book to a place he had marked. "Here's an account of
it," he said. "Two natives were one day hunting. They were armed with
blow-pipes and quivers full of poisoned darts made of thin, charred
pieces of bamboo, tipped with this stuff. One of them aimed a dart. It
missed the object overhead, glanced off the tree, and fell down on the
hunter himself. This is how the other native reported the result:
"'Quacca takes the dart out of his shoulder. Never a word. Puts it in
his quiver and throws it in the stream. Gives me his blow-pipe for his
little son. Says to me good-bye for his wife and the village. Then he
lies down. His tongue talks no longer. No sight in his eyes. He folds
his arms. He rolls over slowly. His mouth moves without sound. I feel
his heart. It goes fast and then slow. It stops. Quacca has shot his
last woorali dart.'"
Leslie and I looked at Kennedy, and the horror of the thing sank deep
into our minds. Woorali. What was it?
"Woorali, or curare," explained Craig slowly, "is the well-known poison
with which the South American Indians of the upper Orinoco tip their
arrows. Its principal ingredient is derived from the Strychnos toxifera
tree, which yields also the drug nux vomica, which you, Dr. Leslie,
have mentioned. On the tip of that Inca dagger must have been a large
dose of the dread curare, this fatal South American Indian arrow
poison."
"Say," ejaculated Leslie, "this thing begins to look eerie to me. How
about that piece of paper that I sent to you with the warning about the
curse of Mansiche and the Gold of the Gods. What if there should be
something in it? I'd rather not be a victim of this curare, if it's all
the same to you, Kennedy."
Kennedy was thinking deeply. Who could have sent the messages to us
all? Who was likely to have known of curare? I confess that I had not
even an idea. All of them, any of them, might have known.
The deeper we got into it, the more dastardly the crime against Mendoza
seemed. Involuntarily, I thought of the beautiful little Senorita,
about whom these terrible events centred. Though I had no reason for
it, I could not forget the fear that she had for Senora de Moche, and
the woman as she had been revealed to us in our late interview.
"I suppose a Peruvian of average intelligence might know of the arrow
poison of Indians of another country," I ventured to Craig.
"Quite possible," he returned, catching immediately the drift of my
thoughts. "But the shoe-prints indicated that it was a man who stole
the dagger from the Museum. It may be that it was already poisoned,
too. In that case the thief would not have had to know anything of
curare, would not have needed to stab so deeply if he had known."
I must confess that I was little further along in the solution of the
mystery than I had been when I first saw Mendoza's body. Kennedy,
however, did not seem to be worried. Leslie had long since given up
trying to form an opinion and, now that the nature of the poison was
finally established, was glad to leave the case in our hands.
As for me, I was inclined to agree with Dr. Leslie, and, long after he
had left, there kept recurring to my mind those words:
BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS.
VIII
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
"I think I will drop in to see Senorita Mendoza," considered Kennedy,
as he cleared up the materials which he had been using in his
investigation of the arrow poison. "She is a study to me--in fact, the
reticence of all these people is hard to combat."
As we entered the apartment where the Mendozas lived, it was difficult
to realize that only a few hours had elapsed since we had first been
introduced to this strange affair. In the hall, however, were still
some reporters waiting in the vain hope that some fragment of a story
might turn up.
"Let's have a talk with the boys," suggested Craig, before we entered
the Mendoza suite. "After all, the newspaper men are the best
detectives I know. If it wasn't for them, half our murder cases
wouldn't ever be solved. As a matter of fact, 'yellow journals' are
more useful to a city than half the detective force."
Most of the newspaper men knew Craig intimately, and liked him,
possibly because he was one of the few people to-day who realized the
very important part these young men played in modern life. They crowded
about, eager to interview him. But Craig was clever. In the rapid fire
of conversation it was really he who interviewed them.
"Lockwood has been here a long time," volunteered one of the men. "He
seems to have constituted himself the guardian of Inez. No one gets a
look at her while he's around."
"Well, you can hardly blame him for that," smiled Craig. "Jealousy
isn't a crime in that case."
"Say," put in another, "there'd be an interesting quarter of an hour if
he were here now. That other fellow--de Mooch--whatever his name is, is
here."
"De Moche--with her, now?" queried Kennedy, wheeling suddenly.
The reporter smiled. "He's a queer duck. I was coming up to relieve our
other man, when I saw him down on the street, hanging about the corner,
his eyes riveted on the entrance to the apartment. I suppose that was
his way of making love. He's daffy over her, all right. I stopped to
watch him. Of course, he didn't know me. Just then Lockwood left. The
Spaniard dived into the drug store on the corner as though the devil
was after him. You should have seen his eyes. If looks were bullets, I
wouldn't give much for Lockwood's life. With two such fellows about,
you wouldn't catch me making goo-goo eyes at that chicken--not on your
life."
Kennedy passed over the flippant manner in view of the importance of
the observation.
"What do you think of Lockwood?" he asked.
"Pretty slick," replied another of the men. "He's the goods, all right."
"Why, what has he done?" asked Kennedy.
"Nothing in particular. But he came out to see us once. You can't blame
him for being a bit sore at us fellows hanging about. But he didn't
show it. Instead he almost begged us to be careful of how we asked
questions of the girl. Of course, all of us could see how completely
broken up she is. We haven't bothered her. In fact, we'd do anything we
could for her. But Lockwood talks straight from the shoulder. You can
see he's used to handling all kinds of situations."
"But did he say anything, has he done anything?" persisted Kennedy.
"N-no," admitted the reporter. "I can't say he has."
Craig frowned a bit. "I thought not," he remarked. "These people aren't
giving away any hints, if they can help it."
"It's my idea," ventured another of the men, "that when this case
breaks, it will break all of a sudden. I shouldn't wonder if we are in
for one of the sensations of the year, when it comes."
Kennedy looked at him inquiringly. "Why?" he asked simply.
"No particular reason," confessed the man. "Only the regular detectives
act so chesty. They haven't got a thing, and they know it, only they
won't admit it to us. O'Connor was here."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing. He went through all the motions--'Now, pens lifted, boys,'
and all that--talked a lot--and after it was all over he might have
been sure no one would publish a line of his confidences. There wasn't
a stick of copy in the whole thing."
Kennedy laughed. "O'Connor's all right," he replied. "We may need him
sorely before we get through. After all, nothing can take the place of
the organization the police have built up. You say de Moche is in there
yet?"
"Yes. He seemed very anxious to see her. We never get a word out of
him. I've been thinking what would happen if we tried to get him mad.
Maybe he'd talk."
"More likely he'd pull a gun," cautioned another. "Excuse ME."
Kennedy said nothing, evidently content to let the newspaper men go
their own sweet way.
He nodded to them, and pressed the buzzer at the Mendoza door.
"Tell Senorita Mendoza that it is Professor Kennedy," he said to
Juanita, who opened the door, keeping it on the chain, to be sure it
was no unwelcome intruder.
Evidently she had had orders to admit us, for a second later we found
ourselves again in the little reception room.
We sat down, and I saw that Craig's attention had at once been fixed on
something. I listened intently, too. On the other side of the heavy
portieres that cut us off from the living room I could distinguish low
voices. It was de Moche and Inez.
Whatever the ethics of it, we could not help listening. Besides there
was more at stake than ethics.
Evidently the young man was urging her to do something that she did not
agree with.
"No," we heard her say finally, in a quiet tone, "I cannot believe it,
Alfonso. Mr. Whitney is Mr. Lockwood's associate now. My father and Mr.
Lockwood approved of him. Why should I do otherwise?"
De Moche was talking earnestly but in a very muffled voice. We could
not make out anything except a few scattered phrases which told us
nothing. Once I fancied he mentioned his mother. Whatever it was that
he was urging, Inez was firm.
"No, Alfonso," she repeated, her voice a little higher and excited. "It
cannot be. You must be mistaken."
She had risen, and now moved toward the hall door, evidently forgetting
that the folding doors behind the portieres were open. "Professor
Kennedy and Mr. Jameson are here," she said. "Would you care to meet
them?"
He replied in the negative. Yet as he passed the reception room he
could not help seeing us.
As Inez greeted us, I saw that Alfonso was making a desperate effort to
control his expression. He seemed to be concealing a bitter
disappointment. Seeing us, he bowed stiffly, and, with just the murmur
of a greeting, excused himself.
He had no sooner closed the door to run the gauntlet of the sharp eyes
in the hall than the Senorita faced us fully. She was pale and nervous.
Evidently something that he had said to her had greatly agitated her.
Yet with all her woman's skill she managed to hide all outward traces
of emotion that might indicate what it was that racked her mind.
"You have something to report?" she asked, a trifle anxiously.
"Nothing of any great importance," admitted Craig.
Was it actually a look of relief that crossed her face? Try as I could,
it seemed to me to be an anomalous situation. She wanted the murderer
of her father caught, naturally. Yet she did not seem to be offering us
the natural assistance that was to be expected. Could it be that she
suspected some one perhaps near and dear to her of having some
knowledge, which, now that the deed was done, would do more harm than
good if revealed? It was the only conclusion to which I could come. I
was surprised at Kennedy's next question. Was the same idea in his
mind, also?
"We have seen Mr. Whitney," he ventured. "Just what are Mr. Lockwood's
relations with him--and yours?"
"Merely that Mr. Lockwood and my father were partners," she answered
hastily. "They had decided that their interests would be more valuable
by some arrangement with Mr. Whitney, who controls so much down in
Peru."
"Do you think that Senora de Moche exercises a very great influence on
Mr. Whitney?" asked Craig, purposely introducing the name of the Indian
woman to see what effect it might have on her.
"Oh," she cried, with a little exclamation of alarm, "I hope not."
Yet it was evident that she feared so.
"Why is it that you fear it?" insisted Kennedy. "What has she done to
make you fear it?"
"I don't like her," returned Inez, with a frown. "My father knew
her--too well. She is a schemer, an adventuress. Once she has a hold on
a man, one cannot say--" She paused, then went on in a different tone.
"But I would rather not talk about the woman. I am afraid of her. Never
does she talk to me that she does not get something out of me that I do
not wish to tell her. She is uncanny."
Personally, I could not blame Inez for her opinion. I could understand
it. Those often baleful eyes had a penetrating power that one might
easily fall a victim to.
"But you can trust Mr. Lockwood," he returned. "Surely he is proof
against her, against any woman."
Inez flushed. It was evident that of all the men who were interested in
the little beauty, Lockwood was first in her mind. Yet when Kennedy put
the question thus she hesitated. "Yes," she replied, "of course, I
trust him. It is not that woman whom I fear with him."
She said it with an air almost of defiance. There was some kind of
struggle going on in her mind, and she was too proud to let us into the
secret.
Kennedy rose and bowed. For the present he had come to the conclusion
that if she would not let us help her openly the only thing to do was
to help her blindly.
Half an hour later we were at Norton's apartment, not far from the
University campus. He listened intently as Kennedy told such parts of
what we had done as he chose. At the mention of the arrow poison, he
seemed startled beyond measure.
"You are sure of it?" he asked anxiously.
"Positive, now," reiterated Kennedy.
Norton's face was drawn in deep lines. "If some one has the secret," he
cried hastily, "who knows when and on whom next he may employ it?"
Coming from him so soon after the same idea had been hinted at by the
coroner, I could not but be impressed by it.
"The very novelty of the thing is our best protection," asserted
Kennedy confidently. "Once having discovered it, if Walter gives the
thing its proper value in the Star, I think the criminal will be
unlikely to try it again. If you had had as much experience in crime as
I have had, you would see that it is not necessarily the unusual that
is baffling. That may be the surest way to trace it. Often it is
because a thing is so natural that it may be attributed to any person
among several, equally well."
Norton eyed us keenly, and shook his head. "You may be right," he said
doubtfully. "Only I had rather that this person, whoever he may be, had
fewer weapons."
"Speaking of weapons," broke in Kennedy, "you have had no further idea
of why the dagger might have been taken?"
"There seems to have been so much about it that I did not know," he
returned, "that I am almost afraid to have an opinion. I knew that its
three-sided sheath inclosed a sharp blade, yet who would have dreamed
that that blade was poisoned?"
"You are lucky not to have scratched yourself with it by accident while
you were studying it."
"Possibly I might have done it, if I had had it in my possession
longer. It was only lately that I had leisure to study it."
"You knew that it might offer some clue to the hidden treasure of
Truxillo?" suggested Kennedy. "Have you any recollection of what the
inscriptions on it said?"
"Yes," returned Norton, "I had heard the rumours about it. But Peru is
a land of tales of buried treasure. No, I can't say that I paid much
more attention to it than you might have done if some one asserted that
he had another story of the treasure of Captain Kidd. I must confess
that only when the thing was stolen did I begin to wonder whether,
after all, there might not be something in it. Now it is too late to
find out. From the moment when I found that it was missing from my
collection I have heard no more about it than you have found out. It is
all like a dream to me. I cannot believe even yet that a mere bit of
archaeological and ethnological specimen could have played so important
a part in the practical events of real life."