XXV
THE GOLD OF THE GODS
"What are you doing here?" demanded Craig, astonished.
"I couldn't wait for you to get back. I thought I'd do a littledetective work on my own account. I kept getting further and furtheraway, knew you'd find me, anyhow. But I didn't think you'd have a brutelike that," he added, binding up his hand ruefully. "Is there any traceof Inez?"
"Not yet. Why did you pick out this house?" asked Kennedy, stillsuspicious.
"I saw a light here, I thought," answered Lockwood frankly. "But as Iapproached, it went out. Maybe I imagined it."
"Let us see."
Kennedy spoke a few words to the man with the dog. He slipped theleash, with a word that we did not catch, and the dog bounded off,around the house, as she was accustomed to do when out on duty with anofficer in the city suburbs, circling about the backs of houses as theman on the beat walked the street. She made noise enough about it, too,tumbling over a tin pail that had been standing on the back porch steps.
"Bang!"
Some one was in the house and was armed. In the darkness he had notbeen able to tell whether an attack was being made or not, but hadtaken no chances. At any rate, now we knew that he was desperate.
I thought of all the methods Kennedy had adopted to get into houses inwhich the inmates were desperate. But always they had been about thecity where he could call upon the seemingly exhaustless store ofapparatus in his laboratory. Here we were faced by the proposition withnothing to rely on but our native wit and a couple of guns.
Besides, I did not know whether to count on Lockwood as an ally or not.My estimation of him had been rising and falling like the barometer ina summer shower. I had been convinced that he was against us. But hismanner and plausibility now equally convinced me that I had beenmistaken. I felt that it would take some supreme action on his part tosettle the question. That crisis was coming now.
I think all of us would willingly have pushed Alfonso forward. But therelations of the de Moches with Whitney had been so close that I nomore trusted him than I did Lockwood. And if I could not make outLockwood, a man at least of our own race and education, how could Iexpect to fathom Alfonso?
It seemed, then, to rest with Kennedy and myself. At least so Craigappraised the situation.
"You have a gun, Walter," he directed, "Lockwood, give yours toJameson."
Lockwood hesitated. Could he trust being unarmed, while Kennedy and Ihad all the weapons?
Craig had not stopped to ask Alfonso. As he laid out the attack hemerely tapped the young man's pockets to see whether he was armed ornot, and finding nothing faced us again, Lockwood still hesitating.
"I want Walter," explained Craig, "to go around back of the house. Itis there they must be expecting an attack. He can take up his positionbehind that oak. It will be safe enough. By firing one gun on each sideof the tree he can make enough noise for half a dozen. Then you and Ican rush the front of the house."
Lockwood had nothing better to suggest. Reluctantly he handed over hisrevolver.
I dropped back from them and skirted the house at a safe distance so asnot to be seen, then came up back of the tree.
Carefully I aimed at the glass of a window on the first floor, asoffering the greatest opportunity for making a racket, which was theobject I had in mind.
I fired from the right and the glass was shattered in a thousand bits.Another shot from the left broke the light out of another window on theopposite side.
The house was a sort of bungalow, with most of the rooms on the firstfloor, and a small second story or attic window. That went next.Altogether I felt that I was giving a splendid account of myself.
From the house came a rapid volley in reply. Whoever was in there wasnot going to surrender without a fight. One after another I pluggedaway with my shots, now bent on making the most of them. With theanswering shots it made quite a merry little fusillade, and I was gladenough to have the shelter of the staunch oak which two or three timeswas hit squarely at about the level of my shoulders. I had never beforeheard the whirr of so many bullets about me, and I cannot say that Ienjoyed it.
But my attack was what Craig wanted. I heard a noise in the front ofthe house, as of feet running, and then I knew that in spite of all hehad given me the least dangerous part of the attack.
I plugged away valiantly with what shots I had left, then leaving justone more in the chamber of each gun, I hurried around in the shadow, myblood up, to help them.
With the aid of the officer, they had just forced the light door andSearchlight had been allowed to leap in ahead of them, as I came up.
"Here," I said to Lockwood, handing him back his gun, "take it, thereis just one shot left."
I, at least, had expected to find one, perhaps two desperate menwaiting for us. Evidently our ruse had worked. The room was dark, butthere seemed to be no one in it, though we could hear sounds as thoughsome one were hastily barricading the door that led from the front tothe room at which I had been firing.
Lockwood struck a match.
"Confound it, don't!" muttered Craig, knocking it from his hand. "Theycan see us well enough without helping them."
"Chester!"
We stood transfixed. It was a woman's voice. Where did it come from?Could she be in the room?
"Chester--is that you?"
"Yes, Inez. Where are you?"
"I ran up here--in this attic--when I heard the shots."
"Come down, then. All is right, now."
She came down a half ladder, half flight of steps. At the foot shepaused just a moment and hesitated. Then, like a frightened bird, sheflew to the safety of Lockwood's arms.
"Mr. Whitney," she sobbed, "called me up and told me that he hadsomething very important to say, a message from you. He said that hehad the dagger, in his safe, up in the country. He told me you'd bethere and that you expected me to come up with him in his car. I went.We had some trouble with the engine. And then that other car--the onethat followed us, came up behind and forced us off the bank. Mr.Whitney and I were both stunned. I don't remember a thing after that,until I woke up here. Where is it?"
I listened, with one eye on that door that had been barricaded. WasLockwood really innocent, after all? I could not think that InezMendoza could make such a mistake, if he were not.
Lockwood clenched his fists. "Some one shall pay for this," heexclaimed.
There was the problem--the inner room. Who would go in? We looked ateach other a moment.
The room in which we were was a living room, and perhaps, when therewere visitors in the little house, was a guest-room. At any rate, onone side was a huge davenport by day which could be transformed into afolding bed at night.
Lockwood looked about hastily and his eye fell on the door, then onthis folding bed.
With a wrench, he opened it and seized the cotton mattress from theinside. With his gun ready he advanced toward the barricaded door,holding the mattress as a shield, for his experience in wild countrieshad taught him that a cotton mattress is about as good a thing to stopbullets as one could find on the spur of the moment.
Kennedy and the officer followed just behind, and the three threw theirweights on the door almost before we knew what they were about.
"Chester--don't!" cried Inez in alarm, too late. "He'll--kill you!"
The excitement had been too much for her. She reeled, fainting, and Icaught her.
Before I could restore the davenport to something like its originalcondition so that we could take care of her, the first onslaught wasover.
Three guns were sticking their blue noses into the darkness of the nextroom.
"Hands up!" shouted Craig, "Drop your gun! Let me hear it fall!"
There followed a thud and Kennedy, followed by Lockwood and the officerentered.
As they fumbled to strike a light, I managed to open a window and letin some fresh air, while the Senora, for once human, loosened thethroat of Inez' dress and fanned her.
Through the open door
, now, I could hear what was going on in the nextroom, but could not see.
"It was you, Lockwood," I heard a familiar voice accusing, "who was inthe Museum the night the dagger disappeared."
"Yes," replied Lockwood, a bit disdainfully. "I suspected somethingcrooked about that dagger. I thought that if I made a copy of theinscription on the blade, I might decipher it myself, or get some oneto do it for me. I went in and, when a chance came, I hid in thesarcophagus. There I waited until the Museum was closed. Then, whenfinally I got to the place where I thought the dagger was--it was gone!"
"The point is," cut in Craig, interrupting, "who was the mysteriousvisitor to Mendoza the night of his murder?"
He paused. No one seemed to be disposed to answer and he went on, "Whoelse than the man who sought to sell the secret on its blade, in returnfor Inez for whom he had a secret passion? I have reasoned it allout--the offer, the quarrel, the stabbing with the dagger itself, andthe escape down the stairs, instead of by the elevator."
"And I," put in Lockwood, "coming to report to Mendoza my failure tofind the dagger, found him dead--and at once was suspected of being themurderer!"
Inez had revived and her quick ears had caught her lover's voice andthe last words.
Weak as she was, she sprang up and fairly ran into the next room."No--Chester--No!" she cried. "I never suspected--not even when I sawthe shoe-prints. No--that is the man,--there--I know it--I know it!"
I hurried after her, as she flung herself again between Lockwood andthe rest of us, as if to shield him, while Lockwood proudly caressedthe stray locks of dark hair that fluttered on his shoulder.
I looked in the direction all were looking.
Before us stood, unmasked at last, the scientific villain who had beenplotting and scheming to capture both the secret and Inez--well knowingthat suspicion would rest either on Lockwood, the soldier of fortune,or on the jealous Indian woman whose son had been rejected and whosebrother he had himself already, secretly, driven to an insane suicidein his unscrupulous search for the treasure of Truxillo.
It was Professor Norton, himself--first thief of the dagger which laterhe had hidden but which Whitney's detectives had stolen in turn fromhim; writer of anonymous letters, even to himself to throw others offthe trail; maker of stramonium cigarettes with which to confuse theminds of his opponents, Whitney, Mendoza, and the rest; secret lover ofInez whom he demanded as the price of the dagger; and murderer of DonLuis.
Senora de Moche and Alfonso, behind me, could only gasp theirastonishment. Much as she would have liked to have the affair end in ageneral vindication of the curse she could not control a single,triumphant thrust.
"His blood," she cried, transfixing Norton with her stern eyes, "hascried out of Titicaca for vengeance from that day to this!"
"Want any help?"
We all turned toward the door as Burke, dust-covered and tired, stampedin, followed by a man whose face was bandaged and bloody.
"I heard shots. Is it all over?"
But we paid no attention to Burke.
There was Whitney, considerably banged up by the fall, but lucky to bealive.
"I tried to shake him," he explained, catching sight of Norton. "But hestuck to us, even on our detours. Finally he grew desperate--forced mycar off the road. What happened after that, I don't know. He must havecarried me some miles, insensible, and dumped me in the bushes again. Iwas several miles up the hill, tramping along, looking for aroad-house, when this gentleman found me and said I had gone too far."
Senora de Moche turned from Lockwood and Inez who were standing,oblivious to the rest of us, and stared at Whitney's bruised andbattered face.
"It is the curse," she muttered. "It will never--"
"Just a moment," interrupted Craig, drawing the dagger from his pocket,and turning toward Inez. "It was to your ancestor that the originalpossessor of the secret promised to give the 'big fish,' when he waskilled."
He paused and handed the dagger to her. She touched it shuddering, butas though it were a duty.
"Take it," he said simply. "The secret is yours. Only love can destroythe curse on the Gold of the Gods."
THE END
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