Part 20 (1/2)
”I know,” I pursued, watching Kennedy's interest in our conversation, ”but this was not tattooed.”
”Well, then, it must have been false,” insisted Bernardo.
The curator chatted a few moments, during which I expected Kennedy to lead the conversation around to Senora Herreria. But he did not, evidently fearing to show his hand.
”What did you make of it?” I asked, when he had gone. ”Is he trying to hide something?”
”I think he has simplified the case,” remarked Craig, leaning back, his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling. ”h.e.l.lo, here's Leslie!
What did you find, Doctor?” The coroner had entered with a look of awe on his face, as if Kennedy had directed him by some sort of necromancy.
”It was Senora Herreria!” he exclaimed. ”She has been missing from the hotel ever since late yesterday afternoon. What do you think of it?”
”I think,” replied Kennedy, speaking slowly and deliberately, ”that it is very much like the Northrop case. You haven't taken that up yet?”
”Only superficially. What do you make of it?” asked the coroner.
”I had an idea that it might be aconitin poisoning,” he said.
Leslie glanced at him keenly for a moment. ”Then you'll never prove anything in the laboratory,” he said.
”There are more ways of catching a criminal, Leslie,” put in Craig, ”than are set down in the medico-legal text-books. I shall depend on you and Jameson to gather together a rather cosmopolitan crowd here to-night.”
He said it with a quiet confidence which I could not gainsay, although I did not understand. However, mostly with the official aid of Doctor Leslie, I followed out his instructions, and it was indeed a strange party that a.s.sembled that night. There were Doctor Bernardo; Sato, the curio dealer; Otaka, the Ainu, and ourselves. Mrs. Northrop, of course, could not come.
”Mexico,” began Craig, after he had said a few words explaining why he had brought us together, ”is full of historical treasure. To all intents and purposes, the government says, 'Come and dig.' But when there are finds, then the government swoops down on them for its own national museum. The finder scarcely gets a chance to export them.
However, now seemed to be the time to Professor Northrop to smuggle his finds out of the country.
”But evidently it could not be done without exciting all kinds of rumors and suspicions. Stories seem to have spread far and fast about what he had discovered. He realized the unsettled condition of the country--perhaps wanted to confirm his reading of a certain inscription by consultation with one scholar whom he thought he could trust. At any rate, he came home.”
Kennedy paused, making use of the silence for emphasis. ”You have all read of the wealth that Cortez found in Mexico. Where are the gold and silver of the conquistadores? Gone to the melting pot, centuries ago.
But is there none left? The Indians believe so. There are persons who would stop at nothing--even at murder of American professors, murder of their own comrades, to get at the secret.”
He laid his hand almost lovingly on his powerful little microscope as he resumed on another line of evidence.
”And while we are on the subject of murders, two very similar deaths have occurred,” he went on. ”It is of no use to try to gloss them over.
Frankly, I suspected that they might have been caused by aconite poisoning. But, in the case of such poisoning, not only is the lethal dose very small but our chemical methods of detection are nil. The dose of the active principle, aconitin nitrate, is about one six-hundredth of a grain. There are no color tests, no reactions, as in the case of the other organic poisons.”
I wondered what he was driving at. Was there, indeed, no test? Had the murderer used the safest of poisons--one that left no clue? I looked covertly at Sato's face. It was impa.s.sive. Doctor Bernardo was visibly uneasy as Kennedy proceeded. Cool enough up to the time of the mention of the treasure, I fancied, now, that he was growing more and more nervous.
Craig laid down on the table the reed stick with the little darkened cylinder on the end.
”That,” he said, ”is a little article which I picked up beneath Northrop's window yesterday. It is a piece of anno-noki, or bus.h.i.+.” I fancied I saw just a glint of satisfaction in Otaka's eyes.
”Like many barbarians,” continued Craig, ”the Ainus from time immemorial have prepared virulent poisons with which they charged their weapons of the chase and warfare. The formulas for the preparations, as in the case of other arrow poisons of other tribes, are known only to certain members, and the secret is pa.s.sed down from generation to generation as an heirloom, as it were. But in this case it is no longer a secret. It has now been proved that the active principle of this poison is aconite.”
”If that is the case,” broke in Doctor Leslie, ”it is hopeless to connect anyone directly in that way with these murders. There is no test for aconitin.”