Chapter 15

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Lockwood, who had not heard the suppressed disapproval of Alfonso, and was watching, in undisguised admiration at the thing itself, regardless of consequences. "Kennedy, how did you ever think of such a thing?"

"Why, it's used for welding, you know," answered Craig, as he continued to work calmly in the growing excitement. "I first saw it in actual use in mending a cracked cylinder in an automobile. The cylinder was repaired without being taken out at all. I've seen it weld new teeth and build up worn teeth on gearing, as good as new."

He paused to let us see the terrifically heated metal under the flame.

"You remember when we were talking to the watchman down there at the station, Walter?" he asked. "I saw this thing in that complete little shop of theirs. It interested me. See. I turn on the oxygen now in the second nozzle. The blow-pipe is no longer an instrument for joining metals together, but for cutting them asunder.

"The steel burns just as you, perhaps, have seen a watch-spring burn in a jar of oxygen. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized, it all burns just about as fast, and just about as easily under this torch. And it's cheap, too. This attack--aside from what it costs to the safe--may amount to a couple of dollars as far as the blow-pipe is concerned--quite a difference from the thousands of dollars' loss that would follow an attempt to blow a safe like this one."

We had nothing to say. We stood in awe-struck amazement as the torch slowly, inexorably traced a thin line along the edge of the combination.

Minute after minute sped by, as the line burned by the blow-pipe cut around the lock. It seemed hours, but really it was minutes. I wondered when he would have cut about the whole lock. He was cutting clear through and around it, severing it as if with a superhuman knife.

With something more than half his work done, he paused a moment to rest.

"Walter," he directed, mopping his forehead, for it was real work directing that flaming knife, "get New York on the wire. See if O'Connor is at his office. If he has any report, I want to talk to him."

It was getting late and the service was slackening up. I had some trouble, especially in getting a good connection, but at last I got headquarters and was overjoyed to hear O'Connor's bluff, Irish voice boom back at me.

"Hello, Jameson," he called. "Where on earth are you? I've been trying to get hold of Kennedy for a couple of hours. Rockledge? Well, is Kennedy there? Put him on, will you?"

I called Craig and, as I did so, my curiosity got the better of me and I sought out an extension of the wire in a den across the hall from the library, where I could listen in on what was said.

"Hello, O'Connor," answered Craig. "Anything from Burke yet?"

"Yes," came back the welcome news. "I think he has a clue. We found out from here that she received a long distance message during the afternoon. Where did Jameson say you were--Rockledge?--that's the place. Of course we don't know what the message was, but anyhow she went out to meet some one right after that. The time corresponds with what the maid says."

"Anything else?" asked Craig. "Have you found any one who saw her?"

"Yes. I think she went over to your laboratory. But you were out."

"Confound it!" interrupted Craig.

"Some one saw a woman there."

"It wasn't the maid?"

"No, this was earlier--in the afternoon. She left and walked across the campus to the Museum."

"Oh, by the way, any word of Norton?"

"I'm coming to that. She inquired for Norton. The curator has given a good description. But he was out--hadn't been there for some time. She seemed to be very much upset over something. She went away. After that we've lost her."

"Not another trace?"

"Wait a minute. We had this Rockledge call to work on. So we started backward on that. It was Whitney's place, I found out. We could locate the car at the start and at the finish. He left the Prince Edward Albert and went up there first. Then he must have come back to the city again. No one at the hotel saw him the second time.

"What then?" hastened Craig.

"She may have met him somewhere, though it's not likely she had any intention of going away. All the rest of those people you have up there seem to have gone prepared. We got something on each of them. Also you'll be interested to know I've got a report of your own doings. It was right, Kennedy, I don't blame you. I'd have done the same with Burke on the job. How are you making out? What? You're cracking a crib? With what?"

O'Connor whistled as Kennedy related the story of the blow-pipe. "I think you're on the right track," he commended. "There's nothing to show it, but I believe Whitney told her something that changed her mind about going up there. Probably met her in some tea room, although we can't find anything from the tea rooms. Anyhow, Burke's out trailing along the road from New York to Rockledge and I'm getting reports from him whenever he hits a telephone."

"I wish you'd ask him to call me, here, if he gets anything."

"Sure I will. The last call was from the Chateau Rouge,--that's about halfway. There was a car with a man and a woman who answers her description. Then, there was another car, too."

"Another car?"

"Yes--that's where Norton crosses the trail again. We searched his apartment. It was upset--like Whitney's. I haven't finished with that. But we have a list of all the private hacking places. I've located one that hired a car to a man answering Norton's description. I think he's on the trail. That's what I meant by another car."

"What's he doing?"

"Maybe he has a hunch. I'm getting superstitious about this case. You know Luis de Mendoza has thirteen letters in it. Leslie told me something about a threat he had--a curse. You better look out for those two greasers you have up there. They may have another knife for you."

Kennedy glanced over at the de Moches, not in fear but in amusement at what they would think if they could hear O'Connor's uncultured opinion.

"All right, O'Connor," said Craig, "everything seems to be going as well as we can expect. Don't forget to tell Burke I'm here."

"I won't. Just a minute. He's on another wire for me."

Kennedy waited impatiently. He wanted to finish his job on the safe before some one came walking in and stopped it, yet there was always a chance that Burke might turn up something.

"Hello," called O'Connor a few minutes later. "He's still following the two cars. He thinks the one with the woman in it is Whitney's, all right. But they've got off the main road. They must think they're being followed.

"Or else have changed their destination," returned Craig. "Tell him that. Maybe Whitney had no intention of coming up here. He may have done this thing just to throw these people off up here, too. I can't say. I can tell better whether he intended to come back after I've got this safe open. I'll let you know."

Kennedy rang off.

"Any news of Inez?" asked Lockwood who had been fuming with impatience.

"She's probably on her way up here," returned Craig briefly, taking up the blow-pipe again.

Alfonso remained silent. The Senora could scarcely hide her excitement. If there were anything in telepathy, I am sure that she read everything that was said over the wire.

Quickly Craig resumed his work, biting through the solid steel as if it had been mere pasteboard, the blow-pipe showering on each side a brilliant spray of sparks, a gaudy, pyrotechnic display.

Suddenly, with a quick motion, Kennedy turned off the acetylene and oxygen. The last bolt had been severed, the lock was useless. A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he had merely said, "Open sesame."

Craig reached in and pulled open a steel drawer directly in front of him.

There in the shadow lay the dagger--with its incalculably valuable secret, a poor, unattractive piece of metal, but with a fascination such as no other object, I had ever seen, possessed.

There was a sudden cry. The Senora had darted ahead, as if to clasp its handle and unloose the murderous blade that nestled in its three-sided sheath.

Before she could reach it, Kennedy had seized her hand in his iron grasp, while with the other he picked up the dagger.

They stood there gazing into each other's eyes.

Then the Senora burst into a hysterical laugh.

"The curse is on all who possess it!"

"Thank you," smiled Kennedy quietly, releasing her wrist as he dropped the dagger into his pocket, "I am only the trustee."

XXIV

THE POLICE DOG

Craig faced us, but there was no air of triumph in his manner. I knew what was in his mind. He had the dagger. But he had lost Inez.

What were we to do? There seemed to be no way to turn. We knew something of the manner of her disappearance. At first she had, apparently, gone willingly. But it was inconceivable that she stayed willingly, now.

I recalled all the remarks that Whitney had ever made about her. Had the truth come out in his jests? Was it Inez, not the dagger, that he really wanted?

Or was he merely the instrument of one or all of these people before us, and was this an elaborate plan to throw Kennedy off and prove an alibi for them? He had been the partner of Lockwood, the intimate of de Moche. Which was he working for, now--or was he working for himself alone?

No answer came to my questions, and I reflected that none would ever come, if we sat here. Yet there seemed to be no way to turn, without risking putting ourselves in a worse position than before. At least, until we had some better plan of campaign, we occupied a strategic advantage in Whitney's own house.

The hours of the night wore on. Midnight came. This inaction was killing. Anything would be better than that.

Suddenly the telephone startled us. We had wanted it to ring, yet when it rang we were afraid of it. What was its message? It was with palpitating hearts that we listened, while Craig answered.

"Yes, Burke," we heard him reply, "this is Kennedy."

There came a pause during which we could scarcely wait.

"Where are you now? Cold Stream. That is about twelve miles from Rockledge--not on the New York road--the other road. I see. All right. We'll be there. Yes, wait for us."

As Craig hung up the receiver, we crowded forward. "Have they found her?" asked Lockwood hoarsely.

"It was from Burke," replied Kennedy deliberately. "He is at a place called Cold Stream, twelve miles from here. He tells me that we can find it easily--on a state road, at a sharp curve that has been widened out, just this side of the town. There has been an accident--Whitney's car is wrecked."

Lockwood seized his elbow. "My God," he exclaimed, "tell me--she isn't--hurt, is she? Quick!"

"So far Burke has not been able to discover a trace of a thing, except the wrecked car," replied Kennedy. "I told him I would be over directly. Lockwood, you may take Jameson and Alfonso. I will go with the Senora and their driver."

I saw instantly why he had divided the party. Neither mother nor son was to have a chance to slip away from us. Surely both Lockwood and I should be a match for Alfonso. Senora de Moche he would trust to none but himself.

Eagerly now we prepared for the journey, late though it was. No one now had a thought of rest. There could be no rest with that mystery of Inez challenging us.

We were off at last, Lockwood's car leading, for although he did not know the roads exactly, he had driven much about the country. I should have liked to have sat in front with him, but it seemed safer to stay in the back with Alfonso. In fact, I don't think Lockwood would have consented, otherwise, to have his rival back of him.

Kennedy and the Senora made a strange pair, the ancient order and the ultra-modern. There was a peculiar light in her eyes that gleamed forth at the mere mention of the words, "wreck." Though she said nothing, I knew that through her mind was running the one tenacious thought. It was the working out of the curse! As for Craig, he was always seeking the plausible, natural reason for what to the rest of us was inexplicable, often supernatural. To him she was a fascinating study.

On we sped, for Lockwood was a good driver and now was spurred on by an anxiety that he could not conceal. Yet his hand never faltered at the wheel. He seemed to read the signs at the cross-roads without slackening speed. In spite of all that I knew, I found myself compelled to admire him. Alfonso sat back, for the most part silent. The melancholy in his face seemed to have deepened. He seemed to feel that he was but a toy in the hands of fate. Yet I knew that underneath must smoulder the embers of a bitter resentment.

It seemed an interminable ride even at the speed which we were making. Twelve miles in the blackness of a country night can seem like a hundred.

At last as we turned a curve, and Lockwood's headlights shone on the white fence that skirted the outer edge of the road as it swung around a hill that rose sharply to our left and dropped off in a sort of ravine at the right beyond the fence, I felt the car tremble as he put on the brakes.

A man was waving his arms for us to stop, and as we did, he ran forward. He peered in at us and I recognized Burke.

"Whe-where's Kennedy?" he asked, disappointed, for the moment fearing he had made a mistake and signalled the wrong car.

"Coming," I replied, as we heard the driver of the other car sounding his horn furiously as he approached the curve.

Burke jumped to the safe side of the road and ran on back to signal to stop. It was then for the first time that I paid particular attention to the fence ahead of us on which now both our own and the lights of the other car shone. At one point it was torn and splintered, as though something had gone through it.

"Great heavens, you don't mean to say that they went over that?" muttered Lockwood, jumping down and running forward.

Kennedy had joined us by this time and we all hurried over. Down in the ravine we could see a lantern which Burke had brought and which was now resting on the overturned chassis of the car.

Lockwood was down there ahead of us all, peering under the heavy body fearfully, as if he expected to see two forms of mangled flesh. He straightened up, then took the lantern and flashed it about. There was nothing except cushions and a few parts of the car within the radius of its gleam.

"Where are they?" he demanded, turning to us. "It's Whitney's car, all right."

Burke shook his head. "I've traced the car so far. They were getting ahead of me, when this happened."

Together we managed to right the car which was on a hillock. It sank a little further down the hill, but at least we could look inside it.

"Bring the lantern," ordered Kennedy.

Minutely, part by part, he went over the car. "Something went wrong," he muttered. "It is too much wrecked to tell what it was. Flash the light over here," he directed, stepping over the seat into the back of the tonneau.

A moment later he took the light himself and held it close to the rods that supported the top. I saw him reach down and pull from them a few strands of dark hair that had caught between the rods and had been pulled out or broken.

"No need of Bertillon's palette of human hair to identify that," he exclaimed. "There isn't time to study it and if there were it would be unnecessary. She was with him, all right."

"Yes," agreed Lockwood. "But where is she now--where is he? Could they have been hurt, picked up by some one and carried where they could get aid?"

Burke shook his head. "I inquired at the nearest house ahead. I had to do it in order to telephone. They knew nothing."

"But they are gone," persisted Lockwood. "There is the bottom of the bank. You can see that they are not here."

Kennedy had taken the light and climbed the bank again and was now going over the road as minutely as if he were searching for a lost diamond.

"Look!" he exclaimed.

Where the Whitney car had skidded and gone over the bank, the tires had dug deep into the top dressing, making little mounds. Across them now we could see the tracks of other tires that had pressed down the mounds.

"Some one else has been here," reconstructed Kennedy. "He passed, then stopped and backed up. Perhaps they were thrown out, unconscious, and he picked them up."

It seemed to be the only reasonable supposition.

"But they knew nothing at the next house," persisted Burke.

"Is there a road leading off before you get to the house?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes--it crosses the line into Massachusetts."

"It is worth trying--it is the only thing we can do," decided Kennedy. "Drive slowly to the crossroads. Perhaps we can pick out the tire-prints there. They certainly won't show on the road itself. It is too hard."

At the crossing we stopped and Kennedy dropped down on his hands and knees again with the light.

"There it is," he exclaimed. "The same make of anti-skid tire, at least. There was a cut in the rear tire--just like this. See? It is the finger-print of the motor car. I think we are right. Turn up here and run slowly."

On we went slowly, Kennedy riding on the running-board of the car ahead. Suddenly he raised his hand to stop, and jumped down.

We gathered about him. Had he found a continuation of the tire-tracks? There were tracks but he was not looking at them. He was looking between them. There ran a thin line.

He stuck his finger in it and sniffed. "Not gas," he remarked. "It must have been the radiator, leaking. Perhaps he ran his car into Whitney's--forced it too far to the edge of the road. We can't tell. But he couldn't have gone far with that leak without finding water--or cracked cylinders."

With redoubled interest now we resumed the chase. We had mounted a hill and had run down into the shadows of a valley when, following in the second car, we heard a shout from Kennedy in the first.

Halfway up the hill across the valley, he had come upon an abandoned car. It had evidently reached its limit, the momentum of the previous hill had carried it so far up the other, then the driver had stopped it and let it back slowly off the road into a clump of bushes that hid a little gully.

But that was all. There was not a sign of a person about. Whatever had happened here had happened some hours before. We looked about. All was Cimmerian darkness. Not a house or habitation of man or beast was in sight, though they might not be far away.

We beat about the under-brush, but succeeded in stirring up nothing but mosquitoes.

What were we to do? We were wasting valuable time. Where should we go?

"I doubt whether they would have kept on the road," reasoned Kennedy. "They must have known they would be followed. The hardest place to follow them would be across country."

"With a lantern?" I objected. "We can't do it."

Kennedy glanced at his watch. "It will be three hours before there is light enough to see anything by," he considered. "They have had at least a couple of hours. Five hours is too good a start. Burke--take one of the cars. Go ahead along the road. We mustn't neglect that. I'll take the other. I want to get back to that house and call O' Connor. Walter, you stay here with the rest."

We separated and I felt that, although I was doing nothing, I had my hands full watching these three.

Lockwood was restless and could not help beating around in the under-brush, in the hope of turning up something. Now and then he would mutter to himself some threat if anything happened to Inez. I let him occupy himself, for our own, as much as his, peace of mind. Alfonso had joined his mother in the car and they sat there conversing in low tones in Spanish, while I watched them furtively.

Of a sudden, I became aware that I missed the sound of Lockwood beating about the under-brush. I called, but there was no answer. Then we all called. There came back nothing but a mocking echo. I could not follow him. If I did, I would lose the de Moches.

Had he been laying low, waiting his opportunity to get away? Or was he playing a lone hand? Much as I suspected about him, during the past few hours I had come to admire him.

I sent the de Moche driver out to look for him, but he seemed afraid to venture far, and, of course, returned and said that he could not find him. Even in his getaway, Lockwood had been characteristic. He had been strong enough to bide his time, clever enough to throw every one off guard. It put a new aspect on the case for me. Had Whitney intended the capture of Inez for Lockwood? Had our coming so unexpectedly into the case thrown the plans awry and was it the purpose to leave them marooned at Rockledge while we were shunted off in the city? That, too, was plausible. I wished Kennedy would return before anything else happened.

It was not long by the clock before Kennedy did return. But it seemed ages to me.

He was not alone. With him was a man in a uniform, and a powerful dog, for all the world like a huge wolf.

"Down, Searchlight," he ordered, as the dog began to show an uncanny interest in me. "Let me introduce my new dog detective," he chuckled. "She has a wonderful record as a police dog. I got O'Connor out of bed and he telephoned out to the nearest suburban station. That saved a good deal of time in getting her up here."

I mustered up courage to tell Kennedy of the defection of Lockwood. He did not seem to mind it especially.

"He won't get far, with the dog after him, if we want to take the time," he said. "She's a German sheep dog, a Schaeferhund."

Searchlight seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog, which are such a great help to it. She was a fine, alert, upstanding dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail. Untamed as she seemed, she was perfectly under Kennedy's control and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience.

They took her over to the abandoned car. There they let her get a good whiff of the bottom of the car about the driver's feet, and a moment later she started off.

Alfonso and his mother insisted on going with us and that made our progress across country slow.

On we went over the rough country, through a field, then skirting a clump of woods until at last we came to a lane.

We stopped in the shadow of a thicket. There was an empty summer home. Was there some intruder there? Was it really empty?

Now and then we could hear Searchlight scouting about in the under-brush, crouching and hiding, watching and guarding. We paused and waited in the heavily-laden night air, wondering. The soughing of the night wind in the evergreens was mournful. Did it betoken a further tragedy?

There was a slight noise from the other side of the house. Craig reached out and drew us back into the shadow of the thicket, deeper.

"Some one is prowling about, I think. Leave it to the dog."

Searchlight, who had been near us, was sniffing eagerly. From our hiding-place we could just see her. She had heard the sounds, too, even before we had, and for an instant stood with every muscle tense.

Then, like an arrow, she darted into the underbrush. An instant later, the sharp crack of a revolver rang out. Searchlight kept right on, never stopping a second, except, perhaps, in surprise.

"Crack!" almost in her face came a second spit of fire in the darkness, and a bullet crashed through the leaves and buried itself in a tree with a ping. The intruder's marksmanship was poor, but the dog paid no attention to it.

"One of the few animals that show no fear of gun-fire," muttered Kennedy, in undisguised admiration.

"G-r-r-r," we heard from the police dog.