The Silent Bullet Part 36

"Oh!" she cried, "this is terrible--terrible! What shall I do? Why did I come here? I don't believe it. I don't believe it."

"Don't believe what, Miss Guerrero?" asked Kennedy rea.s.suringly. "Trust me."

"That he stole the money--oh, what am I saying? You must not look for him--you must forget that I have been here. No, I don't believe it."

"What money?" asked Kennedy, disregarding her appeal to drop the case.

"Remember, it may be better that we should know it now than the police later. We will respect your confidence."

"The junta had been notified a few days ago, they say, that a large sum--five hundred thousand silver dollars--had been captured from the government and was on its way to New York to be melted up as bullion at the sub-treasury," she answered, repeating what she had heard over the telephone as if in a dream. "Mr. Jameson referred to the rumour when he came in. I was interested, for I did not know the public had heard of it yet. The junta has just announced that the money is missing. As soon as the ship docked in Brooklyn this morning an agent appeared with the proper credentials from my father and a guard, and they took the money away. It has not been heard of since--and they have no word from my father."

Her face was blanched as she realised what the situation was. Here she was, setting people to run down her own father, if the suspicions of the other members of the junta were to be credited.

"You--you do not think my father--stole the money?" she faltered pitifully. "Say you do not think so."

"I think nothing yet," replied Kennedy in an even voice. "The first thing to do is to find him--before the detectives of the junta do so."

I felt a tinge--I must confess it--of jealousy as Kennedy stood beside her, clasping her hand in both of his and gazing earnestly down into the rich flush that now spread over her olive cheeks.

"Miss Guerrero," he said, "you may trust me implicitly. If your father is alive I will do all that a man can do to find him. Let me act--for the best. And," he added, wheeling quickly toward me, "I know Mr.

Jameson will do likewise."

I was pulled two ways at once. I believed in Miss Guerrero, and yet the flight of her father and the removal of the bullion swallowed up, as it were, instantly, without so much as a trace in New York--looked very black for him. And yet, as she placed her small hand tremblingly in mine to say good-bye, she won another knight to go forth and fight her battle for her, nor do I think that I am more than ordinarily susceptible, either.

When she had gone, I looked hopelessly at Kennedy. How could we find a missing man in a city of four million people, find him without the aid of the police--perhaps before the police could themselves find him?

Kennedy seemed to appreciate my perplexity as though he read my thoughts. "The first thing to do is to locate this Senor Torreon from whom the first information came," he remarked as we left the apartment.

"Miss Guerrero told me that he might possibly be found in an obscure boarding-house in the Bronx where several members of the junta live. Let us try, anyway."

Fortune favoured us to the extent that we did find Torreon at the address given. He made no effort to evade us, though I noted that he was an unprepossessing looking man--undersized and a trifle over-stout, with an eye that never met yours as you talked with him. Whether it was that he was concealing something, or whether he was merely fearful that we might after all be United States Secret Service men, or whether it was simply a lack of command of English, he was uncommonly uncommunicative at first. He repeated sullenly the details of the disappearance of Guerrero, just as we had already heard them.

"And you simply bade him good-bye as you got on a subway train and that is the last you ever saw of him?" repeated Kennedy.

"Yes," he replied.

"Did he seem to be worried, to have anything on his mind, to act queerly in any way?" asked Kennedy keenly.

"No," came the monosyllabic reply, and there was just that shade of hesitation about it that made me wish we had the apparatus we used in the Bond case for registering a.s.sociation time. Kennedy noticed it, and purposely dropped the line of inquiry in order not to excite Torreon's suspicion.

"I understand no word has been received from him at the headquarters on South Street to-day."

"None," replied Torreon sharply.

"And you have no idea where he could have gone after you left him last night?"

"No, senor, none."

This answer was given, I thought, with suspicious quickness.

"You do not think that he could be concealed by Senora Mendez, then?"

asked Kennedy quietly.

The little man jumped forward with his eyes flashing. "No," he hissed, checking this show of feeling as quickly as he could.

"Well, then," observed Kennedy, rising slowly, "I see nothing to do but to notify the police and have a general alarm sent out."

The fire died in the eyes of Torreon. "Do not do that, Senor," he exclaimed. "Wait at least one day more. Perhaps he will appear.

Perhaps he has only gone up to Bridgeport to see about some arms and cartridges--who can tell? No, sir, do not call in the police, I beg you--not yet. I myself will search for him. It may be I can get some word, some clue. If I can I will notify Miss Guerrero immediately."

Kennedy turned suddenly. "Torreon," he flashed quickly, "what do you suspect about that shipment of half a million silver dollars? Where did it go after it left the wharf?"

Torreon kept his composure admirably. An enigma of a smile flitted over his mobile features as he shrugged his shoulders. "Ah," he said simply, "then you have heard that the money is missing? Perhaps Guerrero has not gone to Bridgeport, after all!"

"On condition that I do not notify the police yet--will you take us to visit Senora Mendez, and let us learn from her what she knows of this strange case?"

Torreon was plainly cornered. He sat for a moment biting his nails nervously and fidgeting in his chair. "It shall be as you wish," he a.s.sented at length.

"We are to go," continued Kennedy, "merely as friends of yours, you understand? I want to ask questions in my own way, and you are not to--"

"Yes, yes," he agreed. "Wait. I will tell her we are coming," and he reached for the telephone.

"No," interrupted Kennedy. "I prefer to go with you unexpected. Put down the telephone. Otherwise, I may as well notify my friend Inspector O'Connor of the Central Office and go up with him."

Torreon let the receiver fall back in its socket, and I caught just a glimpse of the look of hate and suspicion which crossed his face as he turned toward Kennedy. When he spoke it was as suavely as if he himself were the one who had planned this little excursion.

"It shall be as you wish," he said, leading the way out to the cross-town surface cars.

Senora Mendez received us politely, and we were ushered into a large music-room in her apartment. There were several people there already.

They were seated in easy chairs about the room.

One of the ladies was playing on the piano as we entered. It was a curious composition--very rhythmic, with a peculiar thread of monotonous melody running through it.

The playing ceased, and all eyes were fixed on us. Kennedy kept very close to Torreon, apparently for the purpose of frustrating any attempt at a whispered conversation with the senora.

The guests rose and with courtly politeness bowed as Senora Mendez presented two friends of Senor Torreon, Senor Kennedy and Senor Jameson.

We were introduced in turn to Senor and Senora Alvardo, Senor Gonzales, Senorita Reyes, and the player, Senora Barrios.

It was a peculiar situation, and for want of something better to say I commented on the curious character of the music we had overheard as we entered.

The senora smiled, and was about to speak when a servant entered, bearing a tray full of little cups with a steaming liquid, and in a silver dish some curious, round, brown, disc-like b.u.t.tons, about an inch in diameter and perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. Torreon motioned frantically to the servant to withdraw, but Kennedy was too quick for him. Interposing himself between Torreon and the servant, he made way for her to enter.

"You were speaking of the music," replied Senora Mendez to me in rich, full tones. "Yes, it is very curious. It is a song of the Kiowa Indians of New Mexico which Senora Barrios has endeavoured to set to music so that it can be rendered on the piano. Senora Barrios and myself fled from Vespuccia to Mexico at the start of our revolution, and when the Mexican government ordered us to leave on account of our political activity we merely crossed the line to the United States, in New Mexico. It was there that we ran across this very curious discovery. The monotonous beat of that melody you heard is supposed to represent the beating of the tom-toms of the Indians during their mescal rites. We are having a mescal evening here, whiling away the hours of exile from our native Vespuccia."

"Mescal?" I repeated blankly at first, then feeling a nudge from Kennedy, I added hastily: "Oh, yes, to be sure. I think I have heard of it. It's a Mexican drink, is it not? I have never had the pleasure of tasting it or of tasting that other drink, pulque--poolkay--did I get the accent right?"

I felt another, sharper nudge from Kennedy, and knew that I had only made matters worse.

"Mr. Jameson," he hastened to remark, "confounds this mescal of the Indians with the drink of the same name that is common in Mexico."

"Oh," she laughed, to my great relief, "but this mescal is something quite different. The Mexican drink mescal is made from the maguey-plant and is a frightfully horrid thing that sends the peon out of his senses and makes him violent. Mescal as I mean it is a little shrub, a G.o.d, a cult, a religion."