answer it I saw through the open door of Kennedy's room that he had
been about early and must already be at the laboratory. How he did it I
don't know. My own newspaper experience had made me considerable of a
nighthawk. But I always paid for it by sleeping the next day. With
Kennedy, when he was on a case, even five hours of sleep was more than
he seemed able to stand.
"Hello, Jameson," greeted a voice, as I opened the door. "Is Kennedy
in--oh, he hasn't come back yet?"
It was Lockwood, at first eager to see Craig, then naturally
crestfallen because he saw that he was not there.
"Yes," I replied, rubbing my eyes. "He must be at the laboratory. If
you'll wait a minute while I slip on my clothes, I'll walk over there
with you."
While I completed my hasty toilet, Lockwood sat in our living room,
gazing about with fascination at the collection of trophies of the
chase of criminals.
"This is positively a terrifying array of material, Jameson," he
declared, as at last I emerged. "Between what Kennedy has here and what
he has stowed away in that laboratory of his, I wonder that any one
dares be a crook."
I could not help eying him keenly. Could he have spoken so heartily if
he had known what it was, damning to himself, that Kennedy had tucked
away in the laboratory? If he knew, he must have been a splendid actor,
one of those whom only the minute blood-pressure test of the
sphygmograph could induce to give up a secret, and then only in spite
of himself.
"It is wonderful," I agreed. "Are you ready?"
We left the apartment and walked along in the bracing morning air
toward the campus and the Chemistry Building. Sure enough, as I had
expected, Kennedy was in his laboratory.
As we entered he was verifying his experiments and checking over his
results, carefully endeavouring to isolate any of the other closely
related mydriatic alkaloids that might be contained in the noxious
fumes of the poisoned tobacco.
Though Craig was already convinced of what was going on, I knew that he
always considered it a matter of considerable medico-legal importance
to be exact, for if the affair ever came to the stage of securing an
indictment the charge could be sustained only by specific proof.
As we appeared in the door, however, he laid aside his work, and
greeted us.
"I suppose Jameson has already told you that I called you up last
night--and what I said?" began Lockwood.
Kennedy nodded. "It was something about Norton, wasn't it?"
Lockwood leaned over impressively and almost whispered: "Of course, you
are in no position to know, but there are ugly rumours current down in
Lima among the natives regarding that dagger."
Kennedy did not appear to be particularly impressed. "Is that so?" he
said merely. "What are they?"
"Well," resumed Lockwood, "I wasn't in Lima at the time. I was up here.
But they tell me that there was something crooked about the way that
that dagger was got away from an Indian--a brother of Senora de Moche."
"Yes," replied Kennedy, "I know something about it. He committed
suicide. But what has that to do with Norton?"
Lockwood hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. "I should think the
inference was plain," he insinuated. Then, looking at Craig fixedly, as
though to take his measure, he added, "We are not out of touch with
what is going on down there, even if we are several thousand miles
away."
I wondered whether he had any information more than we had already
obtained by X-raying the letter to Whitney signed "Haggerty." If he
had, it was not his purpose, evidently, yet to disclose it. I felt from
his manner that he was not playing a trump-card, but was just feeling
us out by this lead.
"There was some crooked business about that dagger down there as well
as here," he pursued. "There are many interests connected with it.
Don't you think that it would be worth while watching Norton?" he
paused, then added: "We do--and we're going to do it."
"Thank you very much," returned Kennedy quietly. "Mr. Whitney has
already told me he intended to do so."
Lockwood eyed us critically, as though not quite sure what to make of
the cool manner in which Craig took it.
"I think if I were you," he said at length, "I'd keep a close watch on
the de Moches, both of them, too."
"Exactly," agreed Craig, without showing undue interest.
Lockwood had risen. "Well," he snapped, "you may not think much of what
I am telling you now. But just wait until OUR detectives begin to dig
up facts." No sooner had he left than I turned to Craig. "What was
that?" I asked. "A plant?"
"Perhaps," he returned, clearing up the materials which he had been
using.
The telephone rang.
"Hello, Norton," I heard Craig answer. "What's that? You are shadowed
by some one--you think it is by Whitney?"
I had been expecting something of the sort, and listened attentively,
but it was impossible to gather the drift of the one-sided conversation.
As Kennedy hung up the receiver I remarked, "So it was not a bluff,
after all."
"I think my plan is working," he remarked thoughtfully. "You heard what
he said? He guesses right the first time, that it is Whitney. The last
thing he said was, 'I'll get even! I'll take some action!' and then he
rang off. I think we'll hear something soon."
Instead of going out, Kennedy pulled out the several unsigned letters
we had collected, and began the laborious process of studying the
printing, analyzing it, in the hope that he might discover some new
clue.
XVI
THE EAR IN THE WALL
Perhaps an hour later our laboratory door was flung open suddenly, and
both Kennedy and I leaped to our feet.
There was Inez Mendoza, alone, pale and agitated.
"Tell me, Professor Kennedy," she cried, her hands clasped before her
in frantic appeal, "tell me--it isn't true--is it? He wasn't
there--no--no--no!"
She would have fainted if Craig had not sprung forward and caught her
in time to place her in our only easy-chair.
"Walter," he said, "quick--that bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia
over there--the second from the left."
I handed it to him, and threw open the window to allow the fresh air to
blow in. As I did so one of the papers Kennedy had been studying blew
off the table, and, as luck would have it, fell almost before her. She
saw it, and in her hypersensitive condition recognized it instantly.
"Oh--that anonymous letter!" she cried. "Tell me--you do not think
that--the friend of my father's that it warned me to beware of--was--"
She did not finish the sentence. She did not need to do so.
"Please, Senorita," pleaded and soothed Kennedy, "try to be calm. What
has happened? Tell me. What is it?"
The ammonia and the fresh air seemed to have done their work, for she
managed to brace herself, gripping the arms of the chair tightly and
looking up searchingly into Craig's face.
"It's about Chester," she managed to gasp; then seemed unable to go on.
It was the first time I had ever heard her use Lockwood's first name,
and I knew that something had stirred her emotions more deeply than at
any time since the death of her father.
"Yes," prompted Kennedy. "Go on."
"I have heard that you found foot-prints, shoe-prints, in the dust in
the Museum after the dagger was stolen," she said, speaking rapidly,
suppressing her feelings heroically. "Since then you have been
collecting prints of shoes--and I've heard that the shoe-prints that
were found are those of--of Mr. Lockwood. Oh, Professor Kennedy, it
cannot be--there must be some mistake."
For a moment Kennedy did not say anything. He was evidently seeking
some way in which to lead up to the revelation of the truth without too
much shock.
"You remember that time in the tea room when we were sitting with
Senora de Moche?" he asked finally.
"Yes," she said shortly, as though the very recollection were
disagreeable to her.
Kennedy, however, had a disagreeable task, and he felt that it must be
performed in the kindest manner.
"You remember then that she said she had one thing more to say, that it
was about Mr. Whitney and Mr. Lockwood."
She was about to interrupt, but he hurried on, giving her no chance to
do so. "She asked you to think it over. Suppose they did not have the
dagger, she said. Then were their chances of finding the treasure any
better than any one else had? And if they did have it, she asked what
that meant. It is a dilemma, my dear Senorita, which you must meet some
time. Why not meet it now?"
Her face was set. "You will remember, also, Professor Kennedy," she
said, with a great effort controlling her voice, "that I said that Mr.
Lockwood was not there to defend himself and I would not have him
attacked by innuendo. I meant it to the Senora--I mean it to you!"
She had also meant it to defy him; but as she proceeded her voice
broke, and before she knew it her nature had triumphed, and she was
alternately sobbing and pleading.
For a minute or two Kennedy let her give vent to her emotions.
"It cannot be. It cannot be," she sobbed over and over. "He could not
have been there. He could not have done it."
It was a terrible thing to have to disillusion her, but it was
something now that had to be done. Kennedy had not sought to do so. He
had postponed it in the hope of finding some other way. But now the
thing was forced upon him.
"Who told you?" he asked finally.
"I was trying to read, to keep my mind occupied, as you asked me, when
Juanita told me that there was some one in the living room who wanted
to see me--a man. I thought it was either you or Mr. Jameson. But it
was--Professor Norton--"
Kennedy and I exchanged glances. That was the action in revenge to
Lockwood and Whitney which he had contemplated over the telephone. It
was so cruel and harsh that I could have hated him for it, the more so
as I recollected that it was he himself who had cautioned us against
doing the very thing which now he had done in the heat of passion.
"Oh," she wailed, "he was very kind and considerate about it. He said
he felt that it was his duty to tell me, that he would be anything,
like an older brother, to me; that he could not see me blinded any
longer to what was going on, and everybody knew, but had not love
enough for me to tell. It was such a shock. I could not even speak. I
simply ran from the room without another word to him, and Juanita found
me lying on the bed. Then--I decided--I would come to you."
She paused, and her great, deep eyes looked up pathetically. "And you,"
she added bitterly, "you are going to tell me that he was right, that
it is true. You can't prove it. Show me what it is that you have. I
defy you!"
Somehow, as she rested and relieved her feelings, a new strength seemed
to come to her. It was what Kennedy had been waiting for, the reaction
that would leave her able for him to go on and plan for the future.
He reached into a drawer of a cabinet and pulled out the various
shoe-prints which he had already shown Norton, and which he had studied
and restudied so carefully.
"That is the print of the shoe in the dust of the Egyptian sarcophagus
of the Museum," he said quietly. "Some one got in during the daytime
and hid there until the place was locked. That is the print of Alfonso
de Moche's shoe, that of Mr. Whitney's, and that of Mr. Lockwood's."
He said it quickly, as though trying to gloss it over. But she would
not have it that way. She felt stronger, and she was going to see just
what there was there. She took the prints and studied them, though her
hand trembled. Hers was a remarkable mind. It took only seconds to see
what others would have seen only in minutes. But it was not the
reasoning faculty that was aroused by what she saw. It sank deep into
her heart.
She flung the papers down.
"I don't believe it!" she defied. "There is some mistake. No--it cannot
be true!"
It was a noble exhibition of faith. I think I have never seen any
instant more tense than that in Kennedy's laboratory. There stood the
beautiful girl declaring her faith in her lover, rejecting even the
implication that it might have been he who had taken the dagger,
perhaps murdered her father to insure the possession of her father's
share of the treasure as well as the possession of herself.
Kennedy did not try to combat it. Instead he treated her very
intuitions with respect. In him there was room for both fact and
feeling.
"Senorita," he said finally, in a voice that was deep and thrilling
with feeling, "have I ever been other than a friend to you? Have I ever
given you cause to suspect even one little motive of mine?"
She faced him, and they looked into each other's eyes an instant. But
it was long enough for the man to understand the woman and she to
understand him.
"No," she murmured, glancing down again.
"Then trust me just this once. Do as I ask you."
For an instant she struggled with herself. What would he ask?
"What is it?" she questioned, raising her eyes to him again.
"Have you seen Mr. Lockwood?"
"No."
"Then, I want you to see him. Surely you wish to have no secrets from
him any more than you would wish him to have anything secret from you.
See him. Ask him frankly about it all. It is the only fair thing to
him--it is only fair to yourself."
Senorita Mendoza was no coward. "I--I will," she almost whispered.
"Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy in admiration. "I knew that you would.
You are not the woman who could do otherwise. May I see that you get
home safely? Walter, call a taxicab."
Senorita Mendoza was calmer, though pale and still nervous, when I
returned. Kennedy handed her into the car and then returned to the
laboratory for two rather large packages, which he handed to me.
"You must come along with us, Walter," he said. "We shall need you."
Scarcely a word was spoken as we jolted over the city pavements and at
last reached the apartment. Inez and Craig entered and I followed,
carrying just one of the packages as Craig had indicated by dumb show,
leaving the other in the car, which was to wait.
"I think you had better write him a note," suggested Craig, as we
entered the living room. "I don't want you to see him until you feel
better--and, by the way, see him here."
She nodded with a wan smile, as though thinking how unusual it was for
a meeting of lovers to be an ordeal, then excused herself to write the
note.
She had no sooner disappeared than Kennedy unwrapped the package which
I had brought. From it he took a cedar box, oblong, with a sort of
black disc fixed to an arm on the top. In the face of the box were two
little square holes, with sides of cedar which converged inward into
the box, making a pair of little quadrangular pyramidal holes which
ended in a small black circle in the interior.
He looked about the room quickly. Beside a window that opened out over
a house several stories below stood a sectional bookcase. Into this
bookcase, back of the books, in the shadow, he shoved the little box,
to which he had already attached a spool of twisted wires. Then he
opened the window and dropped the spool out, letting it unwind of its
own weight until it fell on the roof far below. He shut the window and
rejoined me without a word.
A moment later she returned with the dainty note which she had written.
"Shall I send it by a messenger?" she asked.
"Yes, please," answered Kennedy, rising. As he moved a step to the door
he held out his hand to her. "Senorita Mendoza," he said simply, in a
tone that meant more than words, "you are a wonderful woman."
She took his hand without a word, and a moment later we were whisked
down in the elevator.
"I must get on that roof on some pretext," remarked Kennedy, as we
reached the street and he got his bearings. "Let me see, that house
which backs up to the apartment is around the corner. Have the man
drive us around there."
We located the house and mounted the steps. On the wall beside the
brownstone door was pasted a little slip of paper, "Furnished Rooms."
"Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he read it. "Dismiss the taxi and
meet me inside with the other package."
By the time I had paid the man and come up the steps again Kennedy had
made a dicker with the landlady for a double room on the third floor
for both of us, and, by payment of a week's rent, we were to have
immediate possession.
"Our baggage will follow to-day," he explained, as we mounted the
stairs to the room.
I thought the landlady would never get through expatiating upon what a
select place she ran, and thus leave us alone in our room, but at last
even her flood of words was stilled by demands from a servant
downstairs who must be instructed if the selectness of the
establishment were to be maintained.
No sooner were we alone than Kennedy tiptoed into the hall and made
sure that we were not watched. It was then the work of only a few
seconds to mount a ladder to a scuttle, unhook it, and gain the roof.
There, dangling down from the dizzy height above, swayed the twisted
wire. He seized it, unrolled it some more, and sent me downstairs to
catch it, as he swung it over the edge of the roof to one of our own
windows. Then he rejoined me.
The other package, which had been heavier, consisted of another of
those mysterious boxes, as well as several dry cells. Quickly he
attached the wires to the box, placing the dry cells in the circuit.
Then he began adjusting the mechanism of the box. So far I had only a
vague idea of just what he had in mind, but gradually it began to dawn
on me.
It was perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer, after we had left the
Senorita, before, sure that everything was all right with his line and
the batteries which he had brought, Kennedy turned a little lever that
moved in a semicircle, touching one after another of a series of
buttons on the face of the cedar box, meanwhile holding a little black
disc from the back of the box to his ear as he adjusted the thing.
Nothing seemed to happen, but I could tell by the look of intentness on
his face that he was getting along all right and was not worrying.
Suddenly the look on his face changed to one of extreme satisfaction.
He dropped the disc he was holding to his ear back into its compartment
and turned to me.
All at once it seemed as if the room in which we were was peopled by
spirits. There was the sound of voices, loud, clear, distinct. It was
uncanny.
"He has just come in," remarked Craig.
"Who?" I asked.
"Lockwood--can't you recognize his voice? Listen."
I did listen intently, and the more my ears became adjusted, the more
plainly I could distinguish two voices, that of a man and that of a
woman. It was indeed Lockwood and the Senorita, far above us.
I would have uttered an exclamation of amazement, but I could not miss
what they were saying.
"Then you--you believe what he says?" asked Lockwood earnestly.
"Professor Kennedy has the prints," replied Inez tremulously.
"You saw them?"
"Yes."
"And you believe what HE says, too?"
There was a silence.
"What is it?" I asked, tapping the box lightly.
"A vocaphone," replied Kennedy. "The little box that hears and talks."
"Can they hear us?" I asked, in an awestruck whisper.
"Not unless I want them to hear," he replied, indicating a switch. "You
remember, of course, the various mechanical and electrical ears, such
as the detectaphone, which we have used for eavesdropping in other
cases?"
I nodded.
"Well, this is a new application which has been made of the
detectaphone. When I was using that disc from the compartment there, I
had really a detectaphone. But this is even better. You see how neat it
all is? This is the detective service, and more. We can 'listen in' and
we don't have to use ear-pieces, either, for this is a regular
loud-speaking telephone--it talks right out in meeting. Those square
holes with the converging sides act as a sort of megaphone to the
receivers, those little circles back there inside magnifying the sound
and throwing it out here in the room, so that we can hear just as well
as if we were up there in the room where they are talking. Listen--I
think they are talking again."
"I suppose you know that Whitney and I have placed detectives on the
trail of Norton," we could hear Lockwood say.
"You have?" came back the answer in a voice which for the first time
sounded cold.
Lockwood must have recognized it. He had made a mistake. It was no
sufficient answer to anything that he had done to assert that some one
else had also done something.
"Inez," he said, and we could almost hear his feet as he moved over the
floor in her direction in a last desperate appeal, "can't you trust me,
when I tell you that everything is all right, that they are trying to
ruin me--with you?"
There was a silence, during which we could almost hear her quick breath
come and go.
"Women--not even Peruvian women are like the women of the past,
Chester," she said at length. "We are not playthings. Perhaps we have
hearts--but we also have heads. We are not to be taken up and put down
as you please. We may love--but we also think. Chester, I have been to
see Professor Kennedy, and--"
She stopped. It hurt too much to repeat what she had seen.
"Inez," he implored.
There was evidently a great struggle of love and suspicion going on in
her, her love of him, her memory of her father, the recollection of
what she had heard and seen. No one could have been as we were without
wishing to help her. Yet no one could help her. She must work out her
own life herself.
"Yes," she said finally, the struggle ended. "What is it?"
"Do you want me to tell you the truth?"
"Yes," she murmured.
His voice was low and tense.
"I was there--yes--but the dagger was gone!"
XVII
THE VOICE FROM THE AIR
"Do you believe it?" I asked Kennedy, as the voices died away, leaving
us with a feeling that some one had gone out of the very room in which
we were.
He shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. But I cannot say that he
seemed ill pleased at the result of the interview.
"We'll just keep this vocaphone in," he remarked. "It may come in handy
some time. Now, I think we had better go back to the laboratory! Things
have begun to move."
On the way back he stopped to telephone Norton to meet us and a few
minutes after we arrived, the archaeologist entered.
Kennedy lost no time in coming directly to the point, and Norton could
see, in fact seemed to expect and be prepared for what was coming.
"Well," exclaimed Kennedy, "you've done it, this time!"
"I know what you are going to ask," returned Norton. "You are going to
ask me why I did it. And I'm going to tell you. After I left you, the
other day, I thought about it a long time. The more I thought, the more
of a shame it seemed to me that a girl like that should be made a
victim of her feelings. It wasn't so much what they have done to me
that made me do it. I would have acted the same if it had been de Moche
instead of Lockwood who was playing on her heart. I was afraid, to tell
the truth, that you wouldn't tell her until it was too late. And she's
too good to throw herself away and allow her fortune to be wasted by a
couple of speculators."
"Very well," said Craig. "For the sake of argument, let us admit all
that. What did you expect to accomplish by it?"
"Why--put an end to it, of course."
"But do you think she was going to accept as truth what you told her?
Would that be natural for one so high-strung?"
"Perhaps not--right away. But I supposed she would come to you--as I
see she has, for you know about it. After that, it was only a question
of time. It may have been a heroic remedy, but the disease was
critical."
"Suppose," suggested Craig, "that, after all, he told her that he was
there in the Museum, but that he did not get the dagger. And suppose
that she believed it. What then?"
Norton looked up quickly. "Did he tell her that?"
"I am supposing that he did," repeated Craig, declining to place
himself in a position which might lead to disclosing how he found out.
"Then I should say that he was a great deal cleverer than I gave him
credit for being," returned Norton.
"Well, it's done now, and can't be undone. Have you found out anything
about the de Moches?"
"Not very much, I must admit. Of course, you know I'm not on the best
of terms with them, for some reason or other. But I've been around the
Prince Edward Albert a good deal, and I don't think they've been able
to do much that I haven't some kind of line on. Alfonso seems to be
moping. His professors here tell me that he has been neglecting his
work sadly for the past few days. The Senora and Whitney seem to be as
friendly as ever. I should say that they were going the pace fast, and
it shows on him."
I glanced significantly at Kennedy, but he betrayed nothing that might
lead one to suppose he had discovered the cause. Evidently he was not
ready yet to come out into the open and expected further developments
on the poisoned cigarette clue.
The telephone rang and Craig took down the receiver.
"Yes, this is Kennedy," he answered. "Oh, hello, Lockwood. What's that?
You've been trying to get me all day? I just came in. Why, yes, I can
see you in about half an hour."