The Gold of the Gods

V. The Wall Street Promoter

Lockwood, as we now knew, had become allied in some way with a group of Wall Street capitalists, headed by Stuart Whitney.

Already I had heard something of Whitney. In the Street he was well known as an intensely practical man, though far above the average exploiter both in cleverness and education.

As a matter of fact, Whitney had been far-sighted enough to see that scholarship could be capitalized, not only as an advertisement, but in more direct manners. Just at present one of his pet schemes was promoting trade through the canal between the east coast of North America and the west coast of South America. He had spent a good deal of money promoting friendship between men of affairs and wealth in both New York and Lima. It was a good chance, he figured, for his investments down in Peru were large, and anything that popularized the country in New York could not but make them more valuable.

"Norton seemed rather averse to talking about Whitney," I ventured to Craig, as we rode downtown.

"That may be part of Whitney's cleverness," he returned thoughtfully. "As a patron of art and letters, you know, a man can carry through a good many things that otherwise would be more critically examined."

Kennedy did not say it in a way that implied that he knew anything very bad about Whitney. Still, I reflected, it was astute in the man to insure the cooperation of such people as Norton. A few thousand dollars judiciously spent on archaeology might cover up a multitude of sins of high finance.

Nothing more was said by either of us, and at last we reached the financial district. We entered a tall skyscraper on Wall Street just around the corner from Broadway and shot up in the elevator to the floor where Whitney and his associates had a really palatial suite of offices.

As we opened the door we saw that Lockwood was still there. He greeted us with a rather stiff bow.

"Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," he said simply, introducing us to Whitney, "friends of Professor Norton, I believe. I met them to-day up at Mendoza's."

"That is a most incomprehensible affair," returned Whitney, shaking hands with us. "What do you make out of it?"

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and turned the remark aside without committing himself.

Stuart Whitney was a typical promoter, a large, full-blooded man, with a face red and inclined to be puffy from the congested veins. His voice alone commanded respect, whether he said anything worth while or not. In fact, he had but to say that it was a warm day and you felt that he had scored a telling point in the conversation.

"Professor Norton has asked me to look into the loss of an old Peruvian dagger which he brought back from his last expedition," explained Kennedy, endeavouring to lead the conversation in channels which might arrive somewhere.

"Yes, yes," remarked Whitney, with a nod of interest. "He has told me of it. Very strange, very strange. When he came back he told me that he had it, along with a lot of other important finds. But I had no idea he set such a value on it--or, rather, that any one else might do so. It would have been easy to have safeguarded it here, if we had known," he added, with a wave of his hand in the direction of a huge chrome steel safe of latest design in the outer office.

Lockwood, I noted, was listening intently, quite in contrast with his former cavalier manner of dismissing all consideration of ancient Inca lore as academic or unpractical. Did he know something of the dagger?

"I'm very much interested in old Peruvian antiquities myself," remarked Kennedy, a few minutes later, "though not, of course, a scholar like our friend Norton."

"Indeed?" returned Whitney; and I noticed for the first time that his eyes seemed fairly to glitter with excitement.

They were prominent eyes, a trifle staring, and I could not help studying them.

"Then," he exclaimed, rising, "you must know of the ruins of Chan- Chan, of Chima--those wonderful places?"

Kennedy nodded. "And of Truxillo and the legend of the great fish and the little fish," he put in.

Whitney seemed extraordinarily pleased that any one should be willing to discuss his hobby with him. His eyes by this time were apparently starting from their sockets, and I noticed that the pupils were dilated almost to the size of the iris.

"We must sit down and talk about Peru," he continued, reaching for a large box of cigarettes in the top drawer of his big desk.

Lockwood seemed to sense a long discussion of archaeology. He rose and mumbled an excuse about having something to do in the outer office.

"Oh, it is a wonderful country, Professor Kennedy," went on Whitney, throwing himself back in his chair. "I am deeply interested in it--its mines, its railroads, as well as its history. Let me show you a map of our interests down there."

He rose and passed into the next room to get the map. The moment his back was turned, Kennedy reached over to a typewriter desk that stood in a corner of the office, left open by the stenographer, who had gone. He took two thin second sheets of paper and a new carbon sheet. A hasty dab or two of the library paste completed his work.

Carefully Craig laid the prepared paper on the floor just a few inches from the door into the outer office and scattered a few other sheets about, as though the wind had blown them off the desk.

As Whitney returned, a big map unrolled in his hands, I saw his foot fall on the double sheet that Craig had laid by the door.

Kennedy bent down and began picking up the papers.

"Oh, that's all right," remarked Whitney brusquely. "Never mind that. Here's where some of our interests lie, in the north."

I don't think I paid much more attention to the map than did Kennedy as we three bent over it. His real attention was on the paper which he had placed on the floor, as though fixing in his mind the exact spot on which Whitney had stepped.

As Whitney talked rapidly about the country, we lighted the cigarettes. They seemed to be of a special brand. I puffed mine for a moment. There was a peculiar taste about it, however, which I did not exactly like. In fact, I think that the Latin-American cigarettes do not seem to appeal to most Americans very much, anyhow.

While we talked, I noticed that Kennedy evidently shared my own tastes, for he allowed his cigarette to go out, and, after a puff or two, I did the same. For the sake of my own comfort, I drew one of my own from my case as soon as I could do so politely, and laid the stub of the other in an ash-tray on Whitney's desk.

"Mr. Lockwood and Senor Mendoza had some joint interests in the country, too, didn't they?" queried Kennedy, his eye still on the pieces of paper near the door.

"Yes," returned Whitney. "Lockwood!"

"What is it?" came Lockwood's voice from outside.

"Show Professor Kennedy where you and Mendoza have those concessions."

The young engineer strode into the room, and I saw a smile of gratification cross Kennedy's face as his foot, also, fell on the paper by the door.

Unlike Whitney, however, Lockwood bent over to gather up the sheets. But before he could actually do so Kennedy reached down and swept them just out of his reach.

"Quite breezy," Kennedy covered up his action, turning to restore the paper to the desk.

Craig had his back to them, but not to me, and I saw him fumble for an instant with the papers. Quickly he pressed his thumb-nail on one side, as though making a rough "W," while on the other side he made what might be an "L." Then he shoved the two sheets and the carbon into his pocket.

I glanced up hastily. Fortunately, neither Whitney nor Lockwood had noted his action.

For the first time, now, I noticed as I watched him that Lockwood's eyes, too, were a trifle stary, though not so noticeable as Whitney's.

"Let me see," continued Whitney, "your concessions are all about here, in the north, aren't they?"

Lockwood drew a pencil from his pocket and made several cross- marks over the names of some towns on the large map.

"Those are the points that we had proposed to work," he said simply, "before this terrible tragedy to Mendoza."

"Mining, you understand," explained Whitney. Then, after a pause, he resumed quickly. "Of course, you know that much has been said about the chances for mining investments and about the opportunities for fortunes for persons in South America. Peru has been the Mecca for fortune hunters since the days of Pizarro. But where one person has been successful thousands have failed because they don't know the game. Why, I know of one investment of hundreds of thousands that hasn't yielded a cent of profit just because of that."

Lockwood said nothing, evidently not caring to waste time or breath on any one who was not a possible investor. But Whitney had the true promoter's instinct of booming his scheme on the chance that the interest inspired might be carried to some third party.

"American financiers, it is true," he went on excitedly, taking out a beautifully chased gold cigarette case, "have lost millions in mining in Peru. But that is not the scheme that our group, including Mr. Lockwood now, has. We are going to make more millions than they ever dreamed of--because we are simply going to mine for the products of centuries of labour already done--for the great treasure of Truxillo."

One could not help becoming infected by Whitney's enthusiasm.

Kennedy was following him closely, while a frown of disapproval spread over Lockwood's face.

"Then you know the secret of the hiding-place of the treasure?" queried Kennedy abruptly.

Whitney shook his head in the negative. "It is my idea that we don't have to know it," he answered. "With the hints that we have collected from the natives, I think we can locate it with the expenditure of comparatively little time and money. Senor Mendoza has obtained the concession from the government to hunt for it on a large scale in the big mounds about Truxillo. We know it is there. Is not that enough?"

If it had been any one less than Whitney, we should probably have said it was not. But it took more than that to deny anything he asserted. Lockwood's face was a study. I cannot say that it betrayed anything except disapproval of the mere discussion of the subject. In fact, it left me in doubt as to whether Whitney himself might not have been bluffing, in the certainty of finding the treasure--perhaps had already the secret he denied having and was preparing to cover it up by stumbling on it, apparently, in some other way. I recognized in Stuart Whitney as smooth an individual as ever we had encountered. His was all the sincerity of a crook. Yet he contrived to leave the whole matter in doubt. Perhaps in this case he actually knew what he was talking about.

The telephone rang and Lockwood answered it. Though he did not mention her name, I knew from his very tone and manner that it was Senorita de Mendoza who was calling up. Evidently his continued absence had worried her.

"There's absolutely nothing to worry about," we heard him say. "Nothing has changed. I shall be up to see you as soon as I can get away from the office."

There was an air of restraint about Lockwood's remarks, not as though he were keeping anything from the Senorita, but as though he were reluctant for us to overhear anything about his affairs.

Lockwood had been smoking, too, and he added the stubs of his cigarettes to the pile in the ash-tray on Whitney's desk. Once I saw Craig cast a quick glance at the tray, and I understood that in some way he was anxious to have a chance to investigate those cigarettes.

"You saw the dagger which Norton brought back, did you not?" asked Kennedy of Whitney.

"Only as I saw the rest of the stuff after it was unpacked," he replied easily. "He brought back a great many interesting objects on this last trip."

It was apparent that whether he actually knew anything about the secret of the Inca dagger or not, Whitney was not to be trapped into betraying it. I had an idea that Lockwood was interested in knowing that fact, too. At any rate, one could not be sure whether these two were perfectly frank with each other, or were playing a game for high stakes between themselves.

Lockwood seemed eager to get away and, with a hasty glance at his watch, rose.

"If you wish to find me, I shall be with Senorita de Mendoza," he said, taking his hat and stick, and bowing to us.

Whitney rose and accompanied him to the door in the outer office, his arm on his shoulder, conversing in a low tone that was inaudible to us.

No sooner, however, had the two passed through the door, with their backs toward us, than Kennedy reached over quickly and swept the contents of the ash-tray, cigarette stubs, ashes, and all, into an empty envelope which was lying with some papers. Then he sealed it and shoved it into his pocket, with a sidelong glance of satisfaction at me.

"Evidently Mr. Lockwood and the Senorita are on intimate terms," hazarded Kennedy, as Whitney rejoined us.

"Poor little girl," soliloquized the promoter. "Yes, indeed. And Lockwood is a lucky dog, too. Such eyes, such a figure--did you ever see a more beautiful woman?"

One could not help recognizing that whatever else Whitney might have said that did not ring true his admiration for the unfortunate girl was genuine. That was not so remarkable, however. It could hardly have been otherwise.

"You are acquainted, I suppose, with a Senora de Moche?" ventured Kennedy again, taking a chance shot.

Whitney looked at him keenly. "Yes," he agreed, "I have had some dealings with her. She was an acquaintance of old Mendoza's--a woman of the world, clever, shrewd. I think she has but one ambition--her son. You have met her?"

"Not the Senora," admitted Craig, "but her son is a student at the University."

"Oh, yes, to be sure," said Whitney. "A fine fellow--but not of the type of Lockwood."

Why he should have coupled the names was not clear for the moment. But he had risen, and was moving deliberately up and down the office, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, as though he were thinking of something very perplexing.

"If I were younger," he remarked finally, of a sudden, "I would give both of them a race for that girl. She is the greatest treasure that has ever come out of the country. Ah, well--as it is, I would not place my money on young de Moche!"

Kennedy had risen to go.

"I trust you will be able to unearth some clue regarding that dagger," said Whitney, as we moved toward the door. "It seems to have worried Norton considerably, especially since you told him that Mendoza was undoubtedly murdered with it."

Evidently Norton kept in close touch with his patron, but Kennedy did not appear to be surprised at it.

"I am doing my best," he returned. "I suppose I may count on your help as the case develops?"

"Absolutely," replied Whitney, accompanying us out into the hall to the elevator. "I shall back Norton in anything he wants to keep the Peruvian collection intact and protected."

Our questions were as yet unanswered. Not only had we no inkling as to the whereabouts of the dagger, but the source of the four warnings that had been sent us was still as much shrouded in mystery.

Kennedy beckoned to a passing taxicab.

"The Prince Edward Albert," he directed briefly.