The Gold of the Gods | Page 5

examined the hall-boy who was here last night. He seems to be off his
post a good deal when it is late. He saw Mr. Lockwood come in, and
took him in the elevator up to the sixth floor. After that we can find
nothing but the open door into the apartment. It is not at all impossible
that some one might have come in when the boy was off his post, have
walked up, even have walked down, the stairs again. In fact, it must
have been that way. No windows, not even on the fire-escape, have
been tampered with. In fact, the murder must have been done by some
one admitted to the apartment late by Mendoza himself."
We walked over to the couch on which lay the body covered by a sheet.
Dr. Leslie drew down the sheet.
On the face was a most awful look, a terrible stare and contortion of the
features, and a deep, almost purple, discoloration. The muscles were all
tense and rigid. I shall never forget that face and its look, half of pain,
half of fear, as if of something nameless.
Mendoza had been a heavy-set man, whose piercing black eyes beetled
forth, in life, from under bushy brows. Even in death, barring that
horrible look, he was rather distinguished-looking, and his
close-cropped hair and moustache set him off as a man of affairs and
consequence in his own country.
"Most peculiar, Kennedy," reiterated Dr. Leslie, pointing to the breast.
"You see that wound? I can't quite determine whether that was the real
cause of death or not. Of course, it's a bad wound, it's true. But there

seems to be something else here, too. Look at the pupils of his eyes,
how contracted they are. The lungs seem congested, too. He has all the
marks of having been asphyxiated. Yet there are no indications on his
throat of violence such as would be necessary if that were the case.
There could have been no such thing as illuminating gas, nor have we
found any trace of any receptacles which might have held poison. I
can't seem to make it out."
Kennedy bent over the body and looked at it attentively for several
minutes, while we stood back of him, scarcely uttering a word in the
presence of this terrible thing.
Deftly Kennedy managed to extract a few drops of blood from about
the wound and transfer them to a very small test-tube which he carried
in a little emergency pocket-case in order to preserve material for future
study.
"You say the dagger was triangular, Norton?" he asked finally, without
looking up from his minute examination.
"Yes, with another blade that shot out automatically when you knew
the secret of pressing the hilt in a certain way. The outside triangular
blade separated into three to allow an inner blade to shoot out."
Kennedy had risen and, as Norton described the Inca dagger, looked
from one to the other of us keenly.
"That blade was poisoned," he concluded quietly. "We have a clue to
your missing dagger. Mendoza was murdered by it!"

II
THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
"I should like to have another talk with Senorita Inez," remarked
Kennedy, a few minutes later, as with Dr. Leslie and Professor Norton
we turned into the living room and closed the door to the den.
While Norton volunteered to send one of the servants in to see whether
the young lady was able to stand the strain of another interview, Dr.
Leslie received a hurry call to another case.
"You'll let me know, Kennedy, if you discover anything?" he asked,
shaking hands with us. "I shall keep you informed, also, from my end.
That poison completely baffles me--so far. You know, we might as
well work together."
"Assuredly," agreed Craig, as the coroner left. "That," he added to me,

as the door closed, "was one word for me and two for himself. I can do
the work; he wants to save his official face. He never will know what
that poison was--until I tell him."
Inez had by this time so far recovered her composure that she was able
to meet us again in the living room.
"I'm very sorry to have to trouble you again," apologized Kennedy,
"but if I am to get anywhere in this case I must have the facts."
She looked at him, half-puzzled, and, I fancied, half-frightened, too.
"Anything I can tell you--of course, ask me," she said.
"Had your father any enemies who might desire his death?" shot out
Kennedy, almost without warning.
"No," she answered slowly, still watching him carefully, then adding
hastily: "Of course, you know, no one who tries to do anything is
absolutely without enemies, though."
"I mean," repeated Craig, carefully noting a certain hesitation