Gold of the Gods Part 7

V

THE WALL STREET PROMOTER

Lockwood, as we now knew, had become allied in some way with a group of Wall Street capitalists, headed by Stuart Whitney.

Already I had heard something of Whitney. In the Street he was well known as an intensely practical man, though far above the average exploiter both in cleverness and education.

As a matter of fact, Whitney had been far-sighted enough to see that scholarship could be capitalized, not only as an advertis.e.m.e.nt, but in more direct manners. Just at present one of his pet schemes was promoting trade through the ca.n.a.l between the east coast of North America and the west coast of South America. He had spent a good deal of money promoting friendship between men of affairs and wealth in both New York and Lima. It was a good chance, he figured, for his investments down in Peru were large, and anything that popularized the country in New York could not but make them more valuable.

"Norton seemed rather averse to talking about Whitney," I ventured to Craig, as we rode downtown.

"That may be part of Whitney's cleverness," he returned thoughtfully.

"As a patron of art and letters, you know, a man can carry through a good many things that otherwise would be more critically examined."

Kennedy did not say it in a way that implied that he knew anything very bad about Whitney. Still, I reflected, it was astute in the man to insure the cooperation of such people as Norton. A few thousand dollars judiciously spent on archaeology might cover up a mult.i.tude of sins of high finance.

Nothing more was said by either of us, and at last we reached the financial district. We entered a tall skysc.r.a.per on Wall Street just around the corner from Broadway and shot up in the elevator to the floor where Whitney and his a.s.sociates had a really palatial suite of offices.

As we opened the door we saw that Lockwood was still there. He greeted us with a rather stiff bow.

"Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," he said simply, introducing us to Whitney, "friends of Professor Norton, I believe. I met them to-day up at Mendoza's."

"That is a most incomprehensible affair," returned Whitney, shaking hands with us. "What do you make out of it?"

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and turned the remark aside without committing himself.

Stuart Whitney was a typical promoter, a large, full-blooded man, with a face red and inclined to be puffy from the congested veins. His voice alone commanded respect, whether he said anything worth while or not.

In fact, he had but to say that it was a warm day and you felt that he had scored a telling point in the conversation.

"Professor Norton has asked me to look into the loss of an old Peruvian dagger which he brought back from his last expedition," explained Kennedy, endeavouring to lead the conversation in channels which might arrive somewhere.

"Yes, yes," remarked Whitney, with a nod of interest. "He has told me of it. Very strange, very strange. When he came back he told me that he had it, along with a lot of other important finds. But I had no idea he set such a value on it--or, rather, that any one else might do so. It would have been easy to have safeguarded it here, if we had known," he added, with a wave of his hand in the direction of a huge chrome steel safe of latest design in the outer office.

Lockwood, I noted, was listening intently, quite in contrast with his former cavalier manner of dismissing all consideration of ancient Inca lore as academic or unpractical. Did he know something of the dagger?

"I'm very much interested in old Peruvian antiquities myself," remarked Kennedy, a few minutes later, "though not, of course, a scholar like our friend Norton."

"Indeed?" returned Whitney; and I noticed for the first time that his eyes seemed fairly to glitter with excitement.

They were prominent eyes, a trifle staring, and I could not help studying them.

"Then," he exclaimed, rising, "you must know of the ruins of Chan-Chan, of Chima--those wonderful places?"

Kennedy nodded. "And of Truxillo and the legend of the great fish and the little fish," he put in.

Whitney seemed extraordinarily pleased that any one should be willing to discuss his hobby with him. His eyes by this time were apparently starting from their sockets, and I noticed that the pupils were dilated almost to the size of the iris.

"We must sit down and talk about Peru," he continued, reaching for a large box of cigarettes in the top drawer of his big desk.

Lockwood seemed to sense a long discussion of archaeology. He rose and mumbled an excuse about having something to do in the outer office.

"Oh, it is a wonderful country, Professor Kennedy," went on Whitney, throwing himself back in his chair. "I am deeply interested in it--its mines, its railroads, as well as its history. Let me show you a map of our interests down there."

He rose and pa.s.sed into the next room to get the map. The moment his back was turned, Kennedy reached over to a typewriter desk that stood in a corner of the office, left open by the stenographer, who had gone.

He took two thin second sheets of paper and a new carbon sheet. A hasty dab or two of the library paste completed his work.

Carefully Craig laid the prepared paper on the floor just a few inches from the door into the outer office and scattered a few other sheets about, as though the wind had blown them off the desk.

As Whitney returned, a big map unrolled in his hands, I saw his foot fall on the double sheet that Craig had laid by the door.

Kennedy bent down and began picking up the papers.

"Oh, that's all right," remarked Whitney brusquely. "Never mind that.

Here's where some of our interests lie, in the north."

I don't think I paid much more attention to the map than did Kennedy as we three bent over it. His real attention was on the paper which he had placed on the floor, as though fixing in his mind the exact spot on which Whitney had stepped.

As Whitney talked rapidly about the country, we lighted the cigarettes.

They seemed to be of a special brand. I puffed mine for a moment. There was a peculiar taste about it, however, which I did not exactly like.

In fact, I think that the Latin-American cigarettes do not seem to appeal to most Americans very much, anyhow.

While we talked, I noticed that Kennedy evidently shared my own tastes, for he allowed his cigarette to go out, and, after a puff or two, I did the same. For the sake of my own comfort, I drew one of my own from my case as soon as I could do so politely, and laid the stub of the other in an ash-tray on Whitney's desk.

"Mr. Lockwood and Senor Mendoza had some joint interests in the country, too, didn't they?" queried Kennedy, his eye still on the pieces of paper near the door.

"Yes," returned Whitney. "Lockwood!"

"What is it?" came Lockwood's voice from outside.

"Show Professor Kennedy where you and Mendoza have those concessions."

The young engineer strode into the room, and I saw a smile of gratification cross Kennedy's face as his foot, also, fell on the paper by the door.

Unlike Whitney, however, Lockwood bent over to gather up the sheets.

But before he could actually do so Kennedy reached down and swept them just out of his reach.

"Quite breezy," Kennedy covered up his action, turning to restore the paper to the desk.

Craig had his back to them, but not to me, and I saw him fumble for an instant with the papers. Quickly he pressed his thumb-nail on one side, as though making a rough "W," while on the other side he made what might be an "L." Then he shoved the two sheets and the carbon into his pocket.

I glanced up hastily. Fortunately, neither Whitney nor Lockwood had noted his action.

For the first time, now, I noticed as I watched him that Lockwood's eyes, too, were a trifle stary, though not so noticeable as Whitney's.

"Let me see," continued Whitney, "your concessions are all about here, in the north, aren't they?"