The Treasure-Train Part 27

We found Anitra crying softly to herself, while near her sat Eulalie, tearless, stunned by the blow, broken-hearted. In the realization of the tragedy everything had been forgotten, even the mysterious anonymous telegram signed, Judas-like, "A Friend."

Sandoval, we learned, had been there when the end came, and had now gone out to make what arrangements were necessary. I had nothing against the man, but I could not help feeling that, now that the business was all Anitra's, might he not be the one to profit most by the death? The fact was that Kennedy had expressed so little opinion on the case so far that I might be pardoned for suspecting any one--even Teresa de Leon, who must have seen Jose slipping away from her in spite of her pursuit, whatever actuated it.

It was while I was in the midst of these fruitless speculations that Doctor Scott beckoned us outside, and we withdrew quietly.

"I don't know that there is anything more that I can do," he remarked, "but I promised Senor Sandoval that I would stay here until he came back. He begged me to, seems scarcely to know how to do enough to comfort his sister and Senorita Barrios."

I listened to the doctor keenly. Was it possible that Sandoval had one of those Jekyll-Hyde natures which seem to be so common in some of us?

Had his better nature yielded to his worse? To my mind that has often been an explanation of crime, never an adequate defense.

Kennedy was about to say something when the elevator door down the hall opened. I expected that it was Sandoval returning, but it was Burton Page.

"They told me you were here," he said, greeting us. "I have been looking all over for you, down at your laboratory and at your apartment. Would you mind stepping down around the bend in the hall?"

We excused ourselves from Doctor Scott, wondering what Page had to reveal.

"I knew Sandoval had not returned," he began as soon as we were out of ear-shot of the doctor, "and I don't want to see him--again--not after what happened this afternoon. The man is crazy." We had reached an alcove and sank down into a soft settee.

"Why, what was that?" I asked, recalling the look of hate on the man's face as he had watched Page talking to Anitra in the tea-room.

"I'm giving you this for what it may be worth," began Page, turning from me to Kennedy. "Down in the lobby this afternoon, after you had been gone some time, I happened to run into Sandoval. He almost seized hold of me. 'You have been at the office,' he said. 'You've been rummaging around there.' Well, I denied it flatly. 'Who took those letters?' he shot back at me. All I could do was to look at him. 'I don't know about any letters. What letters?' I asked. Oh, he's a queer fellow all right. I thought he was going to kill me by the black look he gave me. He cooled down a bit, but I didn't wait for any apology.

The best thing to do with these hot-headed people is to cut out and let them alone."

"How do you account for his strange actions?" asked Kennedy. "Have you ever heard anything more that he did?"

Page shrugged his shoulders as if in doubt whether to say anything, then decided quickly. "The other day I heard Barrios and Sandoval in the office. They were quite excited. Barrios was talking loudly. I didn't know at first what it was all about. But I soon found out.

Sandoval had gone to him, as the head of the family, following their custom, I believe, to ask whether he might seek to win Anitra."

"Have you ever heard of Teresa de Leon?" interrupted Kennedy suddenly.

Page looked at him and hesitated. "There's some scandal, there, I'm afraid," he nodded, combining his answers. "I heard Sandoval say something about her to Barrios that day--warn him against something.

That was when the argument was heated. It seemed to make Barrios angry.

Sandoval said something about Barrios refusing to let him court Anitra while at the same time Barrios was engaged to Eulalie. Barrios retorted that the cases were different. He said he had decided that Anitra was going to marry an American millionaire."

There could be no doubt about how Page himself interpreted the remark.

It was evident that he took it to mean himself.

"Sandoval had warned against this De Leon?" asked Kennedy, evidently having in mind the anonymous telegram.

"Something--I don't know what it was all about," returned Page, then added, in a burst of confidence: "I never heard of the lady until she came to New York and introduced herself to me. For a time she was interesting. But I'm too old for that sort of thing. Besides, she always impressed me as though she had some ulterior motive, as though she was trying to get at something through me. I cut it all out."

Kennedy nodded, but for a moment said nothing.

"I think I'll be getting out," remarked Page, with a half smile. "I don't want a knife in the back. I thought you ought to know all this, though. And if I hear anything else I'll let you know."

Kennedy thanked him and together we rode down in the next elevator, parting with Page at the hotel entrance.

It was still early in the evening, and Kennedy had no intention now of wasting a moment. He beckoned for a cab and directed the man to drive immediately to the Pan-America.

This time Teresa de Leon was plainly prepared for a visit, though I am not sure that she was prepared to receive two visitors.

"I believe you were acquainted with Senior Barrios, who died to-night?"

opened Kennedy, after I had introduced him.

"He was acquainted with me," she corrected, with a purr in her voice that suggested claws.

"You were not married to him," shot out Kennedy; then before she could reply, "nor even engaged."

"He had known me a long time. We were intimate--"

"Friends," interrupted Kennedy, leaving no doubt as to the meaning of his emphasis.

She colored. It was evident that, at least to her, it was more than friends.h.i.+p.

"Senor Sandoval says," romanced Kennedy, in true detective style, "that you wrote--"

It was her turn to interrupt. "If Senor Sandoval says anything against me, he tells what is not--the truth."

In spite of Kennedy's grilling she was still mistress of herself.

"You introduced yourself to Burton Page, and--"

"You had better remember your own proverb," she retorted. "Don't believe anything you hear and only half you see."

Kennedy snapped down the yellow telegram before her. It was a dramatic moment. The woman did not flinch at the anonymous implication. Straight into Kennedy's eyes she shot a penetrating glance.

"Watch both of THEM," she replied, shortly, then turned and deliberately swept out of the hotel parlor as though daring us to go as far as we cared.

"I think we have started forces working for us," remarked Kennedy, coolly consulting his watch. "For the present at least let us retire to the laboratory. Some one will make a move. My game is to play one against the other--until the real one breaks."

We had scarcely switched on the lights and Kennedy was checking over the results he had obtained during his afternoon's investigations, when the door was flung open and a man dashed in on us unexpectedly. It was Sandoval, and as he advanced furiously at Kennedy I more than feared that Page's idea was correct.

"It was you, Kennedy," he hissed, "who took those letters from Jose's desk. It is you--or Page back of you--who are trying to connect me with that woman, De Leon. But let me tell you--"

A sharp click back of Sandoval caused him to cut short the remark and look about apprehensively. Kennedy's finger, sliding along the edge of the laboratory table, had merely found an electric b.u.t.ton by which he could snap the lock on the door.

"We are two to one," returned Kennedy, nonchalantly. "That was nothing but the lock on the door closing. Mr. Jameson has a revolver in the top drawer of his desk over there. You will pardon me if I do a little telephoning--through the central office of the detective bureau? Some of our friends may not be overanxious to come here, and it may be necessary to compel their attendance."

Sandoval subsided into a sullen silence as Kennedy made arrangements to have Burton Page, Anitra, Eulalie, and Teresa de Leon hurried to us at once.

There was nothing for me to do but watch Sandoval as Kennedy prepared a little instrument with a scale and dial upon which rested an indicator resembling a watch hand, something like the new horizontal clocks which have only one hand to register seconds, minutes, and hours. In them, like a thermometer held sidewise, the hand moves along from zero to twenty-four. In this instrument a little needle did the same thing.

Pairs of little wire-like strings ran to the instrument.

Kennedy had finished adjusting another instrument which was much like the saccharimeter, only more complicated, when the racing of an engine outside announced the arrival of the party in one of the police department cars.

Between us, Craig and I lost no time in disposing the visitors so that each was in possession of a pair of the wire-like strings, and then disdaining to explain why he had gathered them together so unceremoniously, Kennedy turned and finished adjusting the other apparatus.

"Most people regard light, so abundant, so necessary, so free as a matter of course," he remarked, contemplatively. "Not one person in ten thousand ever thinks of its mysterious nature or ever attempts to investigate it. In fact, most of us are in utter darkness as to light."