Gold of the Gods Part 25

"But you would think they'd feel the effect and attribute it to smoking."

"Perhaps they do feel the effect. But when it comes to tracing causes, some people are loath to admit that tobacco and liquor can be the root of the evil. No, some one is slipping these cigarettes in on them, perhaps subst.i.tuting the doped brand for those that are ordered. If you will notice, both Whitney and Lockwood have cigarettes that are made especially for them. So had Mendoza. It is a circ.u.mstance which some one has turned to account, though how and by whom the subst.i.tution has been made I cannot say yet. I wish I had time to follow out this one line, to the exclusion of everything else. But I've got to keep my fingers on every rope at once, else the thing will pull away from me.

It is enough for the present that we know what the poison is. I shall take up the tracing of the person who is administering it the moment I get a hint."

It was almost daylight before Craig and I left the laboratory after his discovery of the manner of the cigarette poisoning by stramonium. But that was the only way in which he was able to make progress--taking time for each separate point by main force.

I was thoroughly tired, though not so much so that my dreams were not haunted by a succession of baleful eyes peering at me from the darkness.

I slept late, but was awakened by a knocking on the door. As I rose to 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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, d.a.m.ning 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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, a.n.a.lyzing 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.