Gold of the Gods Part 26

"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 pa.s.sion.

"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 n.o.ble 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.