"And the shot?" prompted Craig, tapping the bullet.

"Oh yes, let me tell you. Last night, Marjorie and I arrived from Bar Harbor on my yacht, for the launching. It's anchored off the yard now. Well, early this morning, while it was still gray and misty, I was up. I'll confess I'm worried over to-morrow. I hadn't been able to forget that cruiser. I was out on the deck, peering into the mist, when I'm sure I saw her. I was just giving a signal to the boat we have patrolling, when a shot whistled past me and the bullet buried itself in the woodwork of the main saloon back of me. I dug it out of the wood with my knife—so you see I got it almost unflattened. That's all I have got, too. The cruiser made a getaway, clean."

"I'm sure it was aimed at him," Marjorie exclaimed. "I don't think it was chance. Don't you see? They've tried everything else. Now if they could get my father, the head of the company, that would be a blow that would cripple the trust."

Marlowe patted his daughter's hand reassuringly and smiled again, as though not to magnify the incident.

"Marjorie was so alarmed," he confessed, "that nothing would satisfy her but that I should come ashore and stay here at the Belleclaire, where we always put up when we are in town."

The telephone rang and Marjorie answered it. "I hope you'll pardon me," she excused, hanging up the receiver. "They want me very much down-stairs." Then appealing, she added: "I'll have to leave you with father. But, please, you must catch that crank who is threatening him."

"I shall do my level best," promised Kennedy. "You may depend on that."

"You see," explained the captain as she left us, "I've invited quite a large party to attend the launching, for one reason or another. Marjorie must play hostess. They're mostly here at the hotel. Perhaps you saw some of them as you came in."

Craig was still scanning the bullet. "It looks almost as if some one had dum-dummed it," he remarked, finally. "It's curiously done, too. Just look at those grooves."

Both the captain and I looked. It had a hard jacket of cupro- nickel, like the army bullet, covering a core of softer metal. Some one had notched or scored the jacket as if with a sharp knife, though not completely through it. Had it been done for the purpose of inflicting a more frightful wound if it struck the captain?

"There've been other shots, too," went on Marlowe. "One of my watchmen was wounded the night before. It didn't took like a serious wound, in the leg. Yet the poor fellow seems to be in a bad way, they tell me."

"How is that?" asked Craig, glancing up quickly from studying the bullet.

"The wound seems to be all puffed up, and very painful. It won't heal, and he seems to be weak and feverish. Why, I'm afraid the man will die."

"I'd like to see that case," remarked Kennedy, thoughtfully.

"Very well. I'll have you driven to the hospital where we have had to take him."

"I'd like to see the yards, too, and the Usona," he added.

"All right. After you go to the hospital I'll meet you at the yards at noon. Now if you'll come down-stairs with me, I'll get my car and have you taken to the hospital first."

We followed Marlowe into the elevator and rode down. In the large parlor we saw that Marjorie Marlowe had joined a group of the guests, and the captain turned aside to introduce us.

Among them I noticed a striking-looking woman, somewhat older than Marjorie. She turned as we approached and greeted the captain cordially.

"I'm so glad there was nothing serious this morning," she remarked, extending her hand to him.

"Oh, nothing at all, nothing at all," he returned, holding the hand, I thought, just a bit longer than was necessary. Then he turned to us, "Miss Alma Hillman, let me present Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson."

I was not so preoccupied in taking in the group that I did not notice that the captain was more than ordinarily attentive to her. Nor can I say that I blamed him, for, although he might almost have been her father in age, there was a fascination about her that youth does not often possess.

Talking with her had been a young man, slender, good-looking, with almost a military bearing.

"Mr. Ogilvie Fitzhugh," introduced Marjorie, seeing that her father was neglecting his duties.

Fitzhugh bowed and shook hands, murmured something stereotyped, and turned again to speak to Marjorie.

I watched the young people closely. If Captain Marlowe was interested in Alma, it was more than evident that Fitzhugh was absolutely captivated by Marjorie, and I fancied that Marjorie was not averse to him, for he had a personality and a manner which were very pleasing.

As the conversation ran gaily on to the launching and the gathering party of notables who were expected that night and the next day, I noticed that a dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive- complexioned young man approached and joined us.

"Doctor Gavira," said Marlowe, turning to us, his tone indicating that he was well acquainted about the hotel. "He is our house physician."

Gavira also was welcomed in the party, chatting with animation. It was apparent that the physician also was very popular with the ladies, and it needed only half an eye to discern that Fitzhugh was jealous when he talked to Marjorie, while Marlowe but ill concealed his restlessness when Gavira spoke to Alma. As for Alma, she seemed to treat all men impartially, except that just now it pleased her to bestow the favor of her attention on the captain.

Just then a young lady, all in white, passed. Plainly she did not belong to the group, though she was much interested in it. As his eye roved over the parlor, Gavira caught her glance and bowed. She returned it, but her look did not linger. For a moment she glanced sharply at Fitzhugh, still talking to Marjorie, then at Marlowe and Alma Hillman. She was a very pretty girl with eyes that it was impossible to control. Perhaps there was somewhat of the flirt in her. It was not that that interested me. For there was something almost akin to jealousy in the look she gave the other woman. Marlowe was too engrossed to see her and she passed on slowly. What did it mean, if anything?

The conversation, as usual at such times, consisted mostly of witticisms, and just at present we had a rather serious bit of business in hand. Kennedy did not betray any of the impatience that I felt, yet I knew he was glad when Marlowe excused himself and we left the party and passed down the corridor while the captain called his car.

"I don't know how you are going to get at this thing," he remarked, pausing after he had sent a boy for his driver. "But I'll have to rely on you. I've told you all I know. I'll see you at noon, at the yards. My man will take you there."

As he turned and left us I saw that he was going in the direction of the barber-shop. Next to it and in connection with it, though in a separate room, was a manicure. As we passed we looked in. There, at the manicure's table, sat the girl who had gone by us in the parlor and had looked so sharply at Marlowe and Alma.

The boy had told us that the car was waiting at a side entrance, but Kennedy seemed now in no haste to go, the more so when Marlowe, instead of going into the barber-shop, apparently changed his mind and entered the manicure's. Craig stopped and watched. Prom where we were we could see Marlowe, though his back was turned, and neither he nor the manicure could see us.

For a moment the captain paused and spoke, then sat down. Quite evidently he had a keen eye for a pretty face and trim figure. Nor was there any mistaking the pains which the manicure took to please her rich and elderly customer. After watching them a moment Kennedy lounged over to the desk in the lobby.

"Who is the little manicure girl?" he asked.

The clerk smiled. "Seems as if she was a good drawing-card for the house, doesn't it?" he returned. "All the men notice her. Why, her name is Rae Melzer." He turned to speak to another guest before Kennedy could follow with another inquiry.

As we stood before the desk, a postman, with the parcel post, arrived. "Here's a package addressed to Dr. Fernando Gavira," he said, brusquely. "It was broken in the mail. See?"

Kennedy, waiting for the clerk to be free again, glanced casually at the package at first, then with a sudden, though concealed, interest. I followed his eye. In the crushed box could be seen some thin broken pieces of glass and a wadding of cotton-wool.

As the clerk signed for another package Craig saw a chance, reached over and abstracted two or three of the broken pieces of glass, then turned with his back to the postman and clerk and examined them.

One I saw at once had a rim around it. It was quite apparently the top of a test-tube. The other, to which some cotton-wool still adhered, was part of the rounded bowl. Quickly Craig dropped the pieces into one of the hotel envelopes that stood in a rack on the desk, then, changing his mind about asking more now about the little manicure, strode out of the side entrance where Marlowe's car was waiting for us.

Hurriedly we drove across town to the City Hospital, where we had no difficulty in being admitted and finding, in a ward, on a white cot, the wounded guard. Though his wound was one that should not have bothered him much, it had, as Marlowe said, puffed up angrily and in a most peculiar manner. He was in great pain with it and was plainly in a bad way.

Though he questioned the man, Craig did not get anything out of him except that the shot had come from a cruiser which had been hanging about and was much faster than the patrol boat. The nurse and a young intern seemed inclined to be reticent, as though we might imply that the mail's condition reflected on the care he had received, which they were at pains to convince us had been perfect.

Puzzled himself, Craig did not say much, but as he pondered the case, shook his head gravely to himself and finally walked out of the hospital abstractedly.

"We have almost an hour before we are to meet Marlowe at the yard," he considered, as we came to the car. "I think I'll go up to the laboratory first."

In the quiet of his own workshop, Kennedy carefully examined again the peculiar grooves on the bullet. He was about to scrape it, but paused. Instead, he filled a tube with a soapy solution, placed the bullet in it, and let it stand. Next he did the same with the pieces of glass from the envelope.

Then he opened a drawer and from a number of capillary pipettes selected a plain capillary tube of glass. He held it in the flame of a burner until it was red hot. Then carefully he drew out one end of the tube until it was hair fine. Again he heated the other end, but this time he let the end alone, except that he allowed it to bend by gravity, then cool. It now had a siphon curve. Another tube he treated in the same way.

By this time he was ready to proceed with what he had in mind. He took a glass slide and on it placed a drop from each of the tubes containing the bullet and the glass. That done, he placed the bent, larger end of the capillary tubes in turn on each of the drops on the slide. The liquid ascended the tubes by capillary attraction and siphoned over the curve, running as he turned the tubes up to the finely pointed ends.

Next in a watch glass he placed some caustic soda and in another some pyrogallic acid, from each of which he took just a drop, as he had done before, inclining the tubes to let the fluid gravitate to the throttle end. Finally in the flame he sealed both the tip and butt of the tubes.

"There's a bubble of air in there," he remarked. "The acid and the soda will absorb the oxygen from it. Then I can tell whether I'm right. By the way, we'll have to hurry if we're to be on time to meet Marlowe in the yard," he announced, glancing at his watch as he placed the tubes in his little electric incubator.

We were a little late as the chauffeur pulled in at the executive offices at the gate of the shipyard, and Marlowe was waiting impatiently for us. Evidently he wanted action, but Kennedy said nothing yet of what he suspected and appeared now to be interested only in the yard.

It was indeed something to interest any one. Everywhere were tokens of feverish activity, in office, shop, and slip. As we picked our way across, little narrow and big wide gauge engines and trains whistled and steamed about. We passed rolling-mills, forging-machines, and giant shearing-machines, furnaces for heating the frames or ribs, stone floors on which they could be pegged out and bent to shape, places for rolling and trimming the plates, everything needed from the keel plates to the deck.

In the towering superstructure of the building slip we at last came to the huge steel monster itself, the Usona. As we approached, above us rose her bow, higher than a house, with poppets both there and at the stern, as well as bracing to support her. All had been done up to the launching, the stem and stern posts set in place, her sides framed and plated up, decks laid, bulkheads and casings completed, even much of her internal fitting done.

Overhead and all about the huge monster was a fairy network of steel, the vast permanent construction of columns and overhead girders. Suspended beneath was a series of tracks carrying traveling and revolving cranes capable of handling the heaviest pieces. We climbed to the top and looked down at the vast stretch of hundreds of feet of deck. It was so vast that it seemed rather the work of a superman than of the puny little humans working on her.

As I looked down the slip where the Usona stood inclined about half an inch to the foot, I appreciated as never before what a task it was merely to get her into the water.

Below again, Marlowe explained to us how the launching ways were composed of the ground ways, fastened to the ground as the name implied, and the sliding ways that were to move over them. The sliding ways, he said, were composed of a lower course and an upper course, on which rested the "cradle," fitting closely the side of the ship.

To launch her, she must be lifted slightly by the sliding ways and cradle from the keel blocks and bilge blocks, and this was done by oak wedges, hundreds of which we could see jammed between the upper and lower courses of sliding ways. Next he pointed out the rib-bands which were to keep the sliding ways on the ground ways, and at the bow the points on either side where the sliding and ground ways were bolted together by two huge timbers known as sole pieces.

"You see," he concluded, "it is a gigantic task to lift thousands of tons of steel and literally carry it a quarter of a mile to forty feet of water in less than a minute. Everything has to be calculated to a nicety. It's a matter of mathematics—the moment of weight, the moment of buoyancy, and all that. This launching apparatus is strong, but compared to the weight it has to carry it is really delicate. Why, even a stray bolt in the ways would be a serious matter. That's why we have to have this eternal vigilance."

As he spoke with a significant look at Kennedy, I felt that it was no wonder that Marlowe was alarmed for the safety of the ship. Millions were at stake for just that minute of launching.

It was all very interesting and we talked with men whom it was a pleasure to see handling great problems so capably. But none could shed any light on the problem which it was Kennedy's to solve. And yet I felt sure, as I watched Craig, that unsatisfactory as it appeared to Marlowe and to myself, he was slowly forming some kind of theory, or at least plan of action, in his head.

"You'll find me either here or at the hotel—I imagine," returned Marlowe to Kennedy's inquiry as we parted from him. "I've instructed all the men to keep their eyes open. I hope some of us have something to report soon."

Whether or not the remark was intended as a hint to Kennedy, it was unnecessary. He was working as fast and as surely as he could, going over in hours what others had failed to fathom in weeks.

Late in the afternoon we got back to the laboratory and Craig began immediately by taking from the little electric incubator the two crooked tubes he had left there. Breaking off the ends with tweezers, he began examining on slides the two drops that exuded, using his most powerful microscope. I was forced to curb my impatience as he proceeded carefully, but I knew that Craig was making sure of his ground at each step.

"I suppose you're bursting with curiosity," he remarked at last, looking up from his examination of one of the slides. "Well, here is a drop that shows what was in the grooves of that bullet. Just take a look."

I applied my eye to the microscope. All I could see was some dots and rods, sometimes something that looked like chains of dots and rods, the rods straight with square ends, sometimes isolated, but more usually joined end to end in long strings.

"What is it?" I asked, not much enlightened by what he had permitted me to see. "Anaerobic bacilli and spores," he replied, excitedly. "The things that produce the well-known 'gas gangrene' of the trenches, the gas phlegmon bacilli—all sorts, the bacillus aerogenes capsulatus, bacillus proteus, pyogenic cocci, and others, actively gas-forming microbes that can't live in air. The method I took to develop and discover them was that of Col. Sir Almroth Wright of the British army medical corps."

"And that is what was on the bullet?" I queried.

"The spores or seeds," he replied. "In the tubes, by excluding the air, I have developed the bacilli. Why, Walter," he went on, seriously, "those are among the microbes most dreaded in the infection of wounds. The spores live in the earth, it has been discovered, especially in cultivated soil, and they are extraordinarily long-lived, lying dormant for years, waiting for a chance to develop. These rods you saw are only from five to fifteen thousandths of a millimeter long and not more than one- thousandth of a millimeter broad.

"You can't see them move here, because the air has paralyzed them. But these vibrios move among the corpuscles of the blood just as a snake moves through the grass, to quote Pasteur. If I colored them you would see that each is covered with fine vibrating hairs three or four times as long as itself. At certain times an oval mass forms in them. That is the spore which lives so long and is so hard to kill. It was the spores that were on the bullet. They resist any temperature except comparatively high and prolonged, and even resist antiseptics for a long time. On the surface of a wound they aren't so bad; but deep in they distil minute gas bubbles, puff up the surrounding tissues, and are almost impossible to combat."

As he explained what he had found, I could only stare at him while the diabolical nature of the attack impressed itself on my mind. Some one had tried to murder Marlowe in this most hideous way. No need to be an accurate marksman when a mere scratch from such a bullet meant ultimate death anyhow.

Why had it been done and where had the cultures come from? I asked myself. I realized fully the difficulty of trying to trace them. Any one could purchase germs, I knew. There was no law governing the sale.

Craig was at work again over his microscope. Again he looked up at me. "Here on this other film I find the same sort of wisp-like anaerobes," he announced. "There was the same thing on those pieces of glass that I got."

In my horror at the discovery, I had forgotten the broken package that had come to the hotel desk while we stood there.

"Then it was Gavira who was receiving spores and cultures of the anaerobes!" I exclaimed, excitedly.

"But that doesn't prove that it was he who used them," cautioned Craig, adding, "not yet, at least."

Important as the discoveries were which he had made, I was not much farther along in fixing the guilt of anybody in particular in the case. Kennedy, however, did not seem to be perturbed, though I wondered what theory he could have worked out.

"I think the best thing for us to do will be to run over to the Belleclaire," he decided as he doffed his laboratory coat and carefully cleansed his hands in an antiseptic almost boiling hot. "I should like to see Marlowe again, and, besides, there we can watch some of these people around him."

Whom he meant other than Gavira I had no idea, but I felt sure that with the launching now only a matter of hours something was bound to happen soon.

Marlowe was out when we arrived; in fact, had not yet returned from the yard. Nor had many of the guests remained at the hotel during the day. Most of them had been out sightseeing, though now they were returning, and as they began to gather in the hotel parlor Marjorie was again called on to put them at their ease.

Fitzhugh had returned and had wasted no time dressing and getting down-stairs again to be near Marjorie. Gavira also appeared, having been out on a case.

"I wish you would call up the shipyard, Walter," asked Kennedy, as we stood in the lobby, where we could see best what was going on. "Tell him I would like to see him very urgently."

I found the number and entered a booth, but, as often happens, the telephone central was overwhelmed by the rush of early-evening calls, and after waiting some time the only satisfaction I got was that the line was busy.

Meanwhile I decided to stick about the booth so that I could get the yard as soon as possible. From where I stood I could see that Kennedy was closely watching the little manicure, Rae Melzer. A moment later I saw Alma Hillman come out of the manicure shop, and before any one else could get in to monopolize the fascinating little manicure I saw Craig saunter over and enter.

I was so interested in what he was doing that for the moment I forgot about my call and found myself unconsciously moving over in that direction, too. As I looked in I saw that he was seated at the little white table, in much the same position as Marlowe had been, deeply in conversation with the girl, though of course I could not make out what they were talking about.

Once she turned to reach something on a shelf back of her. Quick as a flash Kennedy abstracted a couple of the nearest implements, one being a nail file and the other, I think, a brush. A moment later she resumed her work, Kennedy still talking and joking with her, though furtively observing.

"Where is my nail file—and brush?" I could imagine her saying, as she hunted for them in pretty confusion, aided by Kennedy who, when he wanted to, could act the Fitzhugh and Gavira as well as they. The implements were not to be found and from a drawer she took another set.

Just then Gavira passed on his way to his office in the front of the building, saw me, and smiled. "Kennedy's cut you out," he laughed, catching a glimpse through the door. "Never mind. I used to think I had some influence there myself—till the captain came along. I tell you these oldsters can give us points."

I laughed, too, and joined him down the hall, not because I cared what he thought, but because his presence had reminded me of my original mission to call up Marlowe. However, I decided to postpone calling another moment and take advantage of the chance to talk to the house physician.

"Yes," I agreed, as long as he had opened the subject. "I fancy the captain likes young people. He seems to enjoy being with them —Miss Hillman, for instance."

Gavira shot a sidelong glance at me. "The Belleclaire's a dangerous place for a wealthy widower," he returned. "I had some hopes in that direction myself—in spite of Fitzhugh—but the captain seems to leave us all at the post. Still, I suppose I may still be a brother to her—and physician. So, I should worry."

The impression I got of Gavira was that he enjoyed his freedom too much ever to fall in love, though an intimacy now and then with a clever girl like Alma Hillman was a welcome diversion.

"I'm sorry I sha'n't be able to be with you until late to-night," he said, as he paused at his office door. "I'm in the medical corps of the Guard and I promised to lecture to-night on gunshot wounds. Some of my material got smashed up, but I have my lantern slides, anyhow. I'll try to see you all later, though."

Was that a clever attempt at confession and avoidance on his part? I wondered. But, then, I reflected he could not possibly know that we knew he had anaerobic microbes and spores in his possession. I had cleared up nothing and I hastened to call up the shipyard, sure that the line could not be busy still.

Whatever it was that was the matter, central seemed unable to get me my number. Instead, I found myself cut right into a conversation that did not concern me, evidently the fault of the hotel switchboard operator. I was about to protest when the words I heard stopped me in surprise. A man and a woman were talking, though I could not recognize the voices and no names were used.

"I tell you I won't be a party to that launching scheme," I heard the man's voice. "I wash my hands of it. I told you that all along."

"Then you're going to desert us?" came back the woman's voice, rather tartly. "It's for that girl. Well, you'll regret it. I'll turn the whole organization on you—I will—you—you—" The voices trailed off, and, try as I could to get the operator to find out who it was, I could not.

Who was it? What did it mean?

Kennedy had finished with the manicure some time before and was waiting for me impatiently.

"I haven't been able to get Marlowe," I hastened, "but I've had an earful." He listened keenly as I told him what I had heard, adding also the account of my encounter with Gavira.

"It's just as I thought—I'll wager," he muttered, excitedly, under his breath, taking a hurried turn down the corridor, his face deeply wrinkled.

"Well! Anything new? I expected to hear from you, but haven't," boomed the deep voice of Marlowe, who had just come in from an entrance in another direction from that which we were pacing. "No clue yet to my crank?"

Without a word, Kennedy drew Marlowe aside into a little deserted alcove. Marlowe followed, puzzled at the air of mystery.

Alone, Craig leaned over toward him. "It's no crank," he whispered, in a low tone. "Marlowe, I am convinced that there is a concerted effort to destroy your plans for American commerce building. There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that it is more serious than you think—perhaps a powerful group of European steamship men opposed to you. It is economic war! You know they have threatened it at meetings reported in the press all along. Well, it's here!"

Half doubting, half convinced, Marlowe drew back. One after another he shot a rapid fire of questions. Who, then, was their agent who had fired the shot? Who was it who had deserted, as I had heard over the wire? Above all, what was it they had planned for the launching? The deeper he got the more the beads of perspiration came out on his sunburnt forehead. The launching was only eighteen hours off, too, and ten of them were darkness. What could be done?

Kennedy's mind was working rapidly in the crisis as Marlowe appealed to him, almost helplessly.

"May I have your car to-night?" asked Craig, pausing.

"Have it? I'll give it to you if it'll do any good."

"I'll need it only a few hours. I think I have a scheme that will work perfectly—if you are sure you can guard the inside of the yard to-morrow."

"I'm sure of that. We spent hours to-day selecting picked men for the launching, going over everything."

Late as it was to start out of town, Craig drove across the bridge and out on Long Island, never stopping until we came to a small lake, around the shores of which he skirted, at last pausing before a huge barn-like structure.

As the door swung open to his honking the horn, the light which streamed forth shone on a sign above, "Sprague Aviation School." Inside I could make out enough to be sure that it was an aeroplane hangar.

"Hello, Sprague!" called Kennedy, as a man appeared in the light.

The man came closer. "Why, hello, Kennedy! What brings you out here at such an hour?"

Craig had jumped from the car, and together the two went into the hangar, while I followed. They talked in low tones, but as nearly as I could make out Kennedy was hiring a hydro-aeroplane for to- morrow with as much nonchalance as if it had been a taxicab.

As Kennedy and his acquaintance, Sprague, came to terms, my eye fell on a peculiar gun set up in a corner. It had a tremendous cylinder about the barrel, as though it contained some device to cool it. It was not a machine-gun of the type I had seen, however, yet cartridges seemed to be fed to it from a disk on which they were arranged radially rather than from a band. Kennedy had risen to go and looked about at me.

"Oh, a Lewis gun!" he exclaimed, seeing what I was looking at. "That's an idea. Sprague, can you mount that on the plane?"

Sprague nodded. "That's what I have it here for," he returned. "I've been testing it. Why, do you want it?"

"Indeed I do! I'll be out here early in the morning, Sprague."

"I'll be ready for you, sir," promised the aviator.

Speeding back to the city, Kennedy laid out an extensive program for me to follow on the morrow. Together we arranged an elaborate series of signals, and that night, late as it was, Craig returned to the laboratory, where he continued his studies with the microscope, though what more he expected to discover I did not know.

In spite of his late hours, it was Craig who wakened me in the morning, already prepared to motor out to the aviation school to meet Sprague. Hastily he rehearsed our signals, which consisted mostly of dots and dashes in the Morse code which Craig was to convey with a flag and I to receive with the aid of a powerful glass.

I must admit that I felt somewhat lost when, later in the morning, I took my place alone on the platform that had been built for the favored few of the launching party at the bow of the huge Usona, without Craig. Already, however, he had communicated at least a part of his plan to Marlowe, and the captain and Marjorie were among the first to arrive. Marjorie never looked prettier in her life than she did now, on the day when she was to christen the great liner, nor, I imagine, had the captain ever been more proud of her.

They had scarcely greeted me when we heard a shout from the men down at the end of the slip that commanded a freer view of the river. We craned our necks and in a moment saw what it was. They had sighted the air-boat coming down the river.

I turned the glass on the mechanical bird as it soared closer. Already Kennedy had made us on the platform and had begun to signal as a test. At least a part of the suspense was over for me when I discovered that I could read what he sent.

So fixed had my attention been that I had not noticed that slowly the members of the elect launching party had arrived, while other thousands of the less favored crowded into the spaces set apart for them. On the stand now with us were Fitzhugh and Miss Hillman, while, between glances at Kennedy, I noticed little Rae Melzer over at the right, and Doctor Gavira, quite in his element, circulating about from one group to another.

Every one seemed to feel that thrill that comes with a launching, the appreciation that there is a maximum of risk in a minimum of time.

Down the slip the men were driving home the last of the huge oak wedges which lifted the great Usona from the blocks and transferred her weight to the launching ways as a new support. All along the stationary, or ground, ways and those which were to glide into the water with the cradle and the ship, trusted men were making the final examination to be as sure as human care can be that all was well.

As the clock neared noon, which was high water, approximately, all the preparatory work was done. Only the sole pieces before us held the ship in place. It was as though all bridges had been burned.

High overhead now floated the hydro-aeroplane, on which I kept my eye fixed almost hypnotically. There was still no signal from Kennedy, however. What was it he was after? Did he expect to see the fast express cruiser, lurking like a corsair about the islands of the river? If so, he gave no sign.

Men were quitting now the work of giving the last touches to the preparations. Some were placing immense jack-screws which were to give an initial impulse if it were needed to start the ship down the ways. Others were smearing the last heavy dabs of tallow, lard oil, and soft soap on the ways, and graphite where the ways stretched two hundred feet or so out into the water, for the ship was to travel some hundreds of feet on the land and in the water, and perhaps an equal distance out beyond the end of the ways.

Late comers still crowded in. Men now reported that everything was ready. Steadily the time of high water approached.

"Saw the sole pieces!" finally rang out the order.

That was a thing that must be done by two gangs, one on each side, and evenly, too. If one gang got ahead of the other, they must stop and let the second catch up.

"Zip—zip—zip," came the shrill singing tone of the saws.

Was everything all right? Kennedy and Sprague were still circling overhead, at various altitudes. I redoubled my attention at the glass.

Suddenly I saw Craig's flag waving frantically. A muffled exclamation came from my lips involuntarily. Marlowe, who had been watching me, leaned closer.

"What is it—for God's sake?" he whispered, hoarsely.

"Stop them!" I shouted as I caught Kennedy's signal. At a hurried order from Marlowe the gangs quit. A hush fell over the crowd.

Kennedy was circling down now until at last the air-boat rested on the water and skimmed along toward the ways.

Out on the ways, as far as they were not yet submerged, some men ran, as if to meet him, but Kennedy began signaling frantically again. Though I had not been expecting it, I made it out.

"He wants them to keep back," I called, and the word was passed down the length of the ship.

Instead of coming to rest before the slip, the plane turned and went away, making a complete circle, then coming to rest. To the surprise of every one, the rapid staccato bark of the Lewis gun broke the silence. Kennedy was evidently firing, but at what? There was nothing in sight.

Suddenly there came a tremendous detonation, which made even the launching-slip tremble, and a huge column of water, like a geyser, rose in the air about eight hundred feet out in the river, directly in front of us.

The truth flashed over us in an instant. There, ten feet or so in the dark water out in the river, Craig had seen a huge circular object, visible only against a sandy bottom from the hydro- aeroplane above, as the sun-rays were reflected through the water. It was a contact submarine mine.

Marlowe looked at me, his face almost pale. The moment the great hulk of the Usona in its wild flight to the sea would have hit that mine, tilting it, she would have sunk in a blast of flame.

The air-boat now headed for the shore, and a few moments later, as Craig climbed into our stand, Marlowe seized him in congratulation too deep for words.

"Is it all right?" sang out one of the men in the gangs, less impressionable than the rest.

"If there is still water enough," nodded Craig.

Again the order to saw away the sole pieces was given, and the gangs resumed. "Zip—zip," again went the two saws.

There were perhaps two inches more left, when the hull quivered. There was a crashing and rending as the timbers broke away.

Marjorie Marlowe, alert, swung the bottle of champagne in its silken net on a silken cord and it crashed on the bow as she cried, gleefully, "I christen thee Usona!"

Down the ship slid, with a slow, gliding motion at first, rapidly gathering headway. As her stern sank and finally the bow dipped into the water, cheers broke forth. Then a cloud of smoke hid her. There was an ominous silence. Was she wrecked, at last, after all? A puff of wind cleared the smoke.

"Just the friction of the ways—set the grease on fire," shouted Marlowe. "It always does that."

Wedges, sliding ways, and other parts of the cradle floated to the surface. The tide took her and tugs crept up and pulled her to the place selected for temporary mooring. A splash of a huge anchor, and there she rode—safe!

In the revulsion of feeling, every eye on the platform turned involuntarily to Kennedy. Marlowe, still holding his hand, was speechless. Marjorie leaned forward, almost hysterical.

"Just a moment," called Craig, as some turned to go down. "There is just one thing more."

There was a hush as the crowd pressed close.

"There's a conspiracy here," rang out Craig's voice, boldly, "a foreign trade war. From the start I suspected something and I tried to reason it out. Having failed to stop the work, failed to kill Marlowe—what was left? Why, the launching. How? I knew of that motor-boat. What else could they do with it? I thought of recent tests that have been made with express cruisers as mine- planters. Could that be the scheme? The air-boat scheme occurred to me late last night. It at least was worth trying. You see what has happened. Now for the reckoning. Who was their agent? I have something here that will interest you."

Kennedy was speaking rapidly. It was one of those occasions in which Kennedy's soul delighted. Quickly he drew a deft contrast between the infinitely large hulk of the Usona as compared to the infinitely small bacteria which he had been studying the day before. Suddenly he drew forth from his pocket the bullet that had been fired at Marlowe, then, to the surprise of even myself, he quietly laid a delicate little nail file and brush in the palm of his hand beside the bullet.

A suppressed cry from Rae Melzer caused me to recollect the file and brush she had missed.

"Just a second," raced on Kennedy. "On this file and brush I found spores of those deadly anaerobes—dead, killed by heat and an antiseptic, perhaps a one-per-cent. solution of carbolic acid at blood heat, ninety-eight degrees—dead, but nevertheless there. I suppose the microscopic examination of finger-nail deposits is too minute a thing to appeal to most people. But it has been practically applied in a number of criminal cases in Europe. Ordinary washing and even cleaning doesn't alter microscope findings. In this case this trifling clue is all that leads to the real brain of this plot, literally to the hand that directed it." He paused a moment.

"Yesterday I found that anaerobe cultures were being received by some one in the Belleclaire, and—"

"They were stolen from me. Some one must have got into my office, where I was studying them." Doctor Gavira had pressed forward earnestly, but Craig did not pause again.

"Who were these agents sent over to wage this secret war at any cost?" he repeated. "One of them, I know now, fell in love with the daughter of the man against whom he was to plot." Marjorie cast a furtive glance at Fitzhugh.

"Love has saved him. But the other? To whom do these deadly germs point? Who dum-dummed and poisoned the bullet? Whose own fingers, in spite of antiseptics and manicures, point inexorably to a guilty self?"

Rae Melzer could restrain herself no longer. She was looking at the file and brush, as if with a hideous fascination. "They are mine—you took them," she cried, impulsively. "It was she—always having her nails manicured—she who had been there just before— she—Alma Hillman!"



XI

THE GUN-RUNNER

"With the treaty ratified, if the deal goes through we'll all be rich."

Something about the remark which rose over the babel of voices arrested Kennedy's attention. For one thing, it was a woman's voice, and it was not the sort of remark to be expected from a woman, at least not in such a place.

Craig had been working pretty hard and began to show the strain. We had taken an evening off and now had dropped in after the theater at the Burridge, one of the most frequented midnight resorts on Broadway.

At the table next to us—and the tables at the Burridge were so close that one almost rubbed elbows with those at the next—sat a party of four, two ladies in evening gowns and two men in immaculate black and white.

"I hope you are right, Leontine," returned one of the men, with an English accent. "The natural place for the islands is under the American flag, anyway."

"Yes," put in the other; "the people have voted for it before. They want it."

It was at the time that the American and Danish governments were negotiating about the transfer of the Danish West Indies, and quite evidently they were discussing the islands. The last speaker seemed to be a Dane, but the woman with him, evidently his wife, was not. It was a curious group, worth more than a passing glance. For a moment Craig watched them closely.

"That woman in blue," he whispered, "is a typical promoter."

I recognized the type which is becoming increasingly frequent in Wall Street as the competition in financial affairs grows keener and women enter business and professional life.

There were plenty of other types in the brilliantly lighted dining-room, and we did not dwell long on the study of our neighbors. A few moments later Kennedy left me and was visiting another table. It was a habit of his, for he had hundreds of friends and acquaintances, and the Burridge was the place to which every one came.

This time I saw that he had stopped before some one whom I recognized. It was Captain Marlowe of the American Shipping Trust, to whom Kennedy had been of great assistance at the time of the launching of his great ship, the Usona. Marlowe's daughter Marjorie was not with him, having not yet returned from her honeymoon trip, and he was accompanied by a man whose face was unfamiliar to me.

As I recognized who it was to whom Kennedy was speaking, I also rose and made my way over to the table. As I approached, the captain turned from Kennedy and greeted me cordially.

"Mr. Whitson," he introduced the man with him. "Mr. Whitson is sailing to-morrow for St. Thomas on the Arroyo. We're preparing to extend our steamship lines to the islands as soon as the formalities of the purchase are completed."

Marlowe turned again to Kennedy and went on with the remark he had evidently been making.

"Of course," I heard him say, "you know we have Mexico practically blockaded as far as arms and munitions go. Yet, Kennedy, through a secret channel I know that thousands of stands of arms and millions of rounds of ammunition are filtering in there. It's shameful. I can't imagine anything more traitorous. Whoever is at the bottom of it ought to swing. It isn't over the border that they are going. We know that. The troops are there. How is it, then?"

Marlowe looked at us as if he expected Kennedy to catch some one by pure reason. Kennedy said nothing, but it was not because he was not interested.

"Think it over," pursued Marlowe, who was a patriot above everything else. "Perhaps it will occur to you how you can be of the greatest service to the country. The thing is damnable— damnable."

Neither Kennedy nor I having anything definite to contribute to the subject, the conversation drifted to the islands and Whitson's mission. Whitson proved to be very enthusiastic about it. He knew the islands well and had already made a trip there for Marlowe.

A few moments later we shook hands and returned to our own table. It was getting late and the only type that was left to study was the common Broadway midnight-life genus. We paid our check and were about to leave. For an instant we stopped at the coat-room to watch the late arrivals and the departing throng.

"Hello!" greeted a familiar voice beside us. "I've been looking all over town for you. They told me you had gone to the theater and I thought I might possibly find you here."

We turned. It was our old friend Burke, of the Secret Service, accompanied by a stranger.

"I'd like you to meet Mr. Sydney, the new special consular agent whom the government is sending to the Danish West Indies to investigate and report on trade conditions," he introduced. "We're off for St. Thomas on the Arroyo, which sails to-morrow noon."

"Great Scott!" ejaculated Kennedy. "Is everybody daffy over those little islands? What takes you down there, Burke?" Burke looked about hastily, then drew us aside into a recess in the lobby.

"I don't suppose you know," he explained, lowering his voice, "but since these negotiations began, the consular service has been keenly interested in the present state and the possibilities of the islands. The government sent one special agent there, named Dwight. Well, he died a few days ago. It was very suspicious, so much so that the authorities in the island investigated. Yet the doctors in the island have found no evidence of anything wrong, no poison. Still, it is very mysterious—and, you know," he hinted, "there are those who don't want us down there."

The Secret Service man paused as though he had put the case as briefly and pointedly as he could, then went on: "I've been assigned to accompany the new consul down there and investigate. I've no particular orders and the chief will honor any reasonable expense account—but—" He hesitated and stopped, looking keenly at Kennedy's face. I saw what he was driving at.

"Well—to come to the point—what I wanted to see you about, Kennedy, is to find out whether you would go with me. I think," he added, persuasively, "it would be quite worth your while. Besides, you look tired. You're working too hard. The change will do you good. And your conscience needn't trouble you. You'll be working, all right."

Burke had been quick to note the haggard expression on Kennedy's face and turn it into an argument to carry his point. Kennedy smiled as he read the other's enthusiasm. I would have added my own urging, only I knew that nothing but a sense of duty would weigh with Craig.

"I'd like to think the proposal over," he conceded, much to my surprise. "I'll let you know in the morning."

"Mind," wheedled Burke, "I won't take no for an answer. We need you."

The Secret Service man was evidently delighted by the reception Kennedy had given his scheme.

Just then I caught sight of the party of four getting their hats and wraps preparatory to leaving, and Kennedy eyed them sharply.

Marlowe and Whitson passed. As they did so I could not help seeing Whitson pause and shoot a quick glance at the four. It was a glance of suspicion and it was not lost on Craig. Did they know more of this Mexican gun-running business than Marlowe had hinted at? I watched Kennedy's face. Evidently his mind was at work on the same idea as mine.

Burke accompanied us almost all the way home, with Sydney adding his urging. I could tell that the whole combination of circumstances at the Burridge had had an effect on Kennedy.

I went to bed, tired, but through the night I knew Craig was engaged on some work about which he seemed to be somewhat secretive. When I saw him again in the laboratory, in the morning, he had before him a large packing-case of stout wood bound with steel bands.

"What's that?" I asked, mystified. He opened the lid, a sort of door, on which was a strong lock, and I looked inside.

"My traveling laboratory," he remarked, with pride.

I peered in more closely. It was a well-stocked armamentarium, as the doctors would have called it. I shall not make any attempt to describe its contents. They were too varied and too numerous, a little bit of everything, it seemed. In fact, Craig seemed to have epitomized the sciences and arts. It was not that he had anything so wonderful, or even comparable to the collection of his laboratory. But as I ran my eye over the box I would have wagered that from the contents he might have made shift to duplicate in some makeshift form almost anything that he might need. It was truly amazing, representing in miniature his study of crime for years.

"Then you are going with Burke to St. Thomas?" I queried, realizing the significance of it.

Kennedy nodded. "I've been thinking of what I would do if an important case ever called me away. Burke's proposal hurried me, that's all. And you are going, also," he added. "You have until noon to break the news to the Star."

I did not say anything more, fearful lest he might change his mind. I knew he needed the rest, and that no matter what the case was in the islands he could not work as hard as he was doing in New York.

Accordingly my own arrangements with the Star were easily made. I had a sort of roving commission, anyhow, since my close association with Kennedy. Moreover, the possibility of turning up something good in the islands, which were much in the news at the time, rather appealed to the managing editor. If Kennedy could arrange his affairs, I felt that the least I could do was to arrange my own.

Thus it came about that Craig and I found ourselves in the forenoon in a taxicab, on the front of which was loaded the precious box as well as our other hastily packed luggage, and we were on our way over to Brooklyn to the dock from which the Arroyo sailed.

Already the clearance papers had been obtained, and there was the usual last-moment confusion among the passengers as the hour for sailing approached. It seemed as if we had scarcely boarded the ship when Kennedy was as gay as a school-boy on an unexpected holiday. I realized at once what was the cause. The change of scene, the mere fact of cutting loose, were having their effect.

As we steamed slowly down the bay, I ran my eye over the other passengers at the rail, straining their eyes to catch the last glimpse of the towers of New York. There were Burke and Sydney, but they were not together, and, to all appearances, did not know each other. Sydney, of course, could not conceal his identity, nor did he wish to, no matter how beset with unseen perils might be his mission. But Burke was down on the passenger-list as, and had assumed the role of, a traveling salesman for a mythical novelty- house in Chicago. That evidently was part of the plan they had agreed on between themselves. Kennedy took the cue.

As I studied the various groups, I paused suddenly, surprised. There was the party which had sat at the table next to us at the Burridge the night before. Kennedy had already seen them and had been watching them furtively.

Just then Craig jogged my elbow. He had caught sight of Whitson edging his way in our direction. I saw what it was that Craig meant. He wanted purposely to avoid him. I wondered why, but soon I saw what he was up to. He wanted introductions to come about naturally, as they do on shipboard if one only waits.

On deck and in the lounging and smoking rooms it did not take long for him to contrive ways of meeting and getting acquainted with those he wished to know, without exciting suspicion. Thus, by the time we sat down to dinner in the saloon we were all getting fairly chummy.

We had met Burke quite as naturally as if we were total strangers. It was easy to make it appear that Whitson and Sydney were shipboard acquaintances. Nor was it difficult to secure an introduction to the other party of four. The girl whom we had heard addressed as Leontine seemed to be the leader of the group. Leontine Cowell was a striking personality. Her clear blue eyes directed a gaze at one which tested one's mettle to meet. I was never quite sure whether she remembered seeing us at the Burridge, whether she penetrated the parts we were playing. She was none the less feminine because she had aspirations in a commercial way. As Kennedy had first observed, she was well worth study.

Her companion, Barrett Burleigh, was a polished, deferential Englishman, one of those who seem to be citizens of the world rather than subjects of any particular country. I wondered what were the real relations of the two.

Jorgen Erickson was, as I had surmised, a Dane. He proved to be one of the largest planters in the island, already wealthy and destined to be wealthier if real estate advanced. The other woman, Nanette, was his wife. She was also a peculiarly interesting type, a Frenchwoman from Guadeloupe. Younger and more vivacious than her husband, her snappy black eyes betokened an attractive personality.

Leontine Cowell, it seemed, had been in the islands not long before, had secured options on some score of plantations at a low figure, and made no secret of her business. When the American flag at last flew over the islands she stood to win out of the increase of land values a considerable fortune.

Erickson also, in addition to his own holdings, had been an agent for some other planters and thus had met Leontine, who had been the means of interesting some American capital.

As for Burleigh, it seemed that he had made the acquaintance of Leontine in Wall Street. He had been in the Caribbean and the impending changes in the Danish West Indies had attracted his notice. Whether he had some money to invest in the speculation or hoped to profit by commissions derived from sales did not appear. But at any rate some common bond had thrown the quartet together.

I need not dwell on the little incidents of life on ship. It must have been the second day out that I observed Leontine and Sydney together on the promenade-deck. They seemed to be quite interested in each other, though I felt sure that Leontine was making a play for him. At any rate, Burleigh was jealous. Whatever might be the scheme, it was apparent that the young Englishman was head over heels in love with her.

What did it mean? Was she playing with Sydney, seeking to secure his influence to further her schemes? Or did it mask some deeper, more sinister motive? From what I had seen of Sydney, I could not think that he was the man to take such an affair seriously. I felt that he must be merely amusing himself.

Busy with my speculations, I was astonished soon after to realize that the triangle had become a hexagon, so to speak. Whitson and Nanette Erickson seemed to be much in each other's company. But, unlike Burleigh, Erickson seemed to be either oblivious or complacent.

Whatever it might all portend, I found that it did not worry Kennedy, although he observed closely. Burke, however, was considerably excited and even went so far as to speak to Sydney, over whom he felt a sort of guardianship. Sydney turned the matter off lightly. As for me, I determined to watch both of these women closely.

Kennedy spent much time not only in watching the passengers, but in going about the ship, talking to the captain and crew and every one who knew anything about the islands. In fact, he collected enough information in a few days to have satisfied any ordinary tourist for weeks.

Even the cargo did not escape his attention, and I found that he was especially interested in the rather heavy shipments of agricultural implements that were consigned to various planters in the islands. So great was his interest that I began to suspect that it had some bearing on the gun-running plot that had been hinted at by Marlowe.

It was the evening after one of Kennedy's busy days scouting about that he quietly summoned both Burke and Sydney to our cabin.

"There's something queer going on," announced Craig, when he was sure that we were all together without having been observed. "Frankly, I must confess that I don't understand it—yet."

"You needn't worry about me," interrupted Sydney, hastily. "I can take care of myself."

Kennedy smiled quietly. We knew what Sydney meant. He seemed to resent Burke's solicitude over his acquaintance with Leontine and was evidently warning us off. Kennedy, however, avoided the subject.

"I may as well tell you," he resumed, "that I was quite as much influenced by a rumor that arms were somehow getting into Mexican ports as I was by your appeal, Burke, in coming down here. So far I've found nothing that proves my case. But, as I said, there is something under the surface which I don't understand. We have all got to stick together, trust no one but ourselves, and, above all, keep our eyes open."

It was all that was said, but I was relieved to note that Sydney seemed greatly impressed. Still, half an hour later, I saw him sitting in a steamer-chair beside Leontine again, watching the beautiful play of the moonlight on the now almost tropical ocean after we had emerged from the Gulf Stream. I felt that it was rather dangerous, but at least he had had his warning.

Seeking Kennedy, I found him at last in the smoking-room, to my surprise talking with Erickson. I joined them, wondering how I was to convey to Craig what I had just seen without exciting suspicion. They were discussing the commercial and agricultural future of the islands under the American flag, especially the sugar industry, which had fallen into a low estate.

"I suppose," remarked Kennedy, casually, "that you are already modernizing your plant and that others are doing the same, getting ready for a revival."

Erickson received the remark stolidly. "No," he replied, slowly. "Some of us may be doing so, but as for me, I shall be quite content to sell if I can get my price."

"The planters are not putting in modern machinery, then?" queried Kennedy, innocently, while there flashed over me what he had discovered about shipments of agricultural implements.

Erickson shook his head. "Some of them may be. But for one that is, I know twenty whose only thought is to sell out and take a profit."

The conversation trailed off on other subjects and I knew that Kennedy had acquired the information which he sought. As neatly as I could I drew him apart from Erickson.

"Strange he should tell me that," ruminated Kennedy as we gained a quiet corner of the deck. "I know that there is a lot of stuff consigned to planters in the island, some even to himself."

"He must be lying, then," I hastened. "Perhaps these promoters are really plotters. By the way, what I wanted to tell you was that I saw Sydney and Leontine together again."

He was about to reply when the sound of some one approaching caused us to draw back farther into the shadow. It proved to be Whitson and Nanette.

"Then you do not like St. Thomas?" we heard Whitson remark, as if he were repeating something she had just said.

"There is nothing there," she replied. "Why, there aren't a hundred miles of good roads and not a dozen automobiles."

Evidently the swiftness of life in New York of which she had tasted was having its effect.

"St. Croix, where we have the plantation, is just as bad. Part of the time we live there, part of the time at Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas. But there is little difference. I hope Jorgen is able to sell. At least I should like to live a part of the year in the States."

"Would he like that, too?"

"Many of us would," she replied, quickly. "For many years things have been getting worse with us. Just now it seems a bit better because of the high price of sugar. But who knows how long that will last? Oh, I wish something would happen soon so that we might make enough money to live as I want to live. Think; here the best years of life are slipping away. Unless we do something soon, it will be too late! We must make our money soon."

There was an air of impatience in her tone, of restless dissatisfaction. I felt also that there was an element of danger, too, in a woman just passing from youth making a confidant of another man.

It was a mixed situation with the quartet whom we were watching. One thing was sufficiently evident. They were all desperately engaged in the pursuit of wealth. That was a common bond. Nor had I seen anything to indicate that they were over-scrupulous in that pursuit. Within half an hour I had seen Leontine with Sydney and Nanette with Whitson. Both Sydney as consular agent and Whitson through his influence with the shipping trust possessed great influence. Had the party thought it out and were they now playing the game with the main chance in view?

I looked inquiringly at Kennedy as the voices died away while the couple walked slowly down the deck. He said nothing, but he was evidently pondering deeply on some problem, perhaps that which the trend of affairs had raised in my own mind.

Our delay had not been long, but it had been sufficient to cause us to miss finding Leontine and Sydney. We did, however, run across Burke, bent evidently on watching, also.

"I don't like this business," he confessed, as we paused to compare experiences. "I've been thinking of that Mexican business you hinted at, Kennedy. You know the islands would be an ideal out-of-the-way spot from which to start gun-running expeditions to Mexico. I don't like this Leontine and Burleigh. They want to make money too bad."

Kennedy smiled. "Burleigh doesn't seem to approve of everything, though," he remarked.

"Perhaps not. That's one reason why I think it may be more dangerous for Sydney than he realizes. I know she's a fascinating girl. All the more reason to watch out for her. But I can't talk to Sydney," he sighed.

It was an enigma and I had not solved it, though I felt much as Burke did. Kennedy seemed to have determined to allow events to take their course, perhaps in the hope that developments would be quicker that way than by interfering with something which we did not understand.

In the smoking-room, after we left Burke, Kennedy and I came upon Erickson and Burleigh. They had just finished a game of poker with some of the other passengers, in which Burleigh's usual run of luck and skill had been with him.

"Lucky at cards, unlucky in love," remarked Burleigh as we approached.

He said it with an air of banter, yet I could not help feeling that there was a note of seriousness at the bottom of it. Had he known that Leontine had been with Sydney on the deck? His very success at poker had its effect on me. I found myself eying him as if he had been one of the transatlantic card sharps, perhaps an international crook. Yet when I considered I was forced to admit that I had nothing on which to base such a judgment.

Erickson presented a different problem, to my mind, There was indeed something queer about him. Either he had not been perfectly frank with us in regard to the improvement of his properties or he was concealing something much more sinister. Again and again my mind reverted to the hints that had been dropped by Marlowe, and I recalled the close scrutiny Whitson had given the four that night. So far, I had felt that in any such attempt we might count on Whitson playing a lone hand and perhaps finding out something to our advantage.

It was the morning of the last day of the voyage that most of the passengers gathered on the deck for the first glimpse of the land to which we had been journeying.

Before us lay the beautiful and picturesque harbor and town of Charlotte Amalie, one of the finest harbors in the West Indies, deep enough to float the largest vessels, with shipyards, dry- docks, and repair shops. From the deck it was a strikingly beautiful picture, formed by three spurs of mountains covered with the greenest of tropical foliage. From the edge of the dancing blue waves the town itself rose on the hills, presenting an entrancing panorama.

All was bustle and excitement as the anchor plunged into the water, for not only was this the end of our journey, but the arrival of the boat from New York was an event for the town.

There was much to watch, but I let nothing interfere with my observation of how the affair between Sydney and Leontine was progressing. To my surprise, I saw that this morning she was bestowing the favor of her smile rather on Burleigh. It was Sydney's turn now to feel the pangs of jealousy, and I must admit that he bore them with better grace than Burleigh, whatever that might indicate.

As I watched the two and recalled their intimacy at the Burridge the first night we had seen them, I almost began to wonder whether I might not have been wrong about Leontine. Had it been that I had distrusted the woman merely because I was suspicious of the type, both male and female? Had I been finding food for suspicion because I was myself suspicious?

Erickson was standing beside Sydney, while we were not far away. Evidently he had been saving up a speech for the occasion and now was prepared to deliver it.

"Mr. Sydney," he began, with a wave of his arm that seemed to include us all, "it is a pleasure to welcome you here to our island. Last night it occurred to me that we ought to do something to show that we appreciate it. You must come to dinner to-night at my villa here in the town. You are all invited, all of us who have become so enjoyably acquainted on this voyage which I shall never forget. Believe me when I say that it will be even more a tribute to you personally than because of the official position you are to hold among us."

It was a graceful invitation, more so than I had believed Erickson capable of framing. Sydney could do nothing less than thank him cordially and accept, as we all did. Indeed, I could see that Kennedy was delighted at the suggestion. It would give him an opportunity to observe them all under circumstances different enough to show something.

While we were thanking Erickson, I saw that Whitson had taken the occasion also to thank Mrs. Erickson, with whom he had been talking, just a bit apart from the group. He made no secret of his attentions, though I thought she was a bit embarrassed by them at such a time. Indeed, she started rather abruptly toward the group which was now intent on surveying the town, and as she did so, I noted that she had forgotten her hand-bag, which lay on a deck- chair near where they had been sitting.

I picked it up to restore it. Some uncontrollable curiosity prompted me and I hesitated. All were still looking at the town. I opened the bag. Inside was a little bottle of grayish liquid. What should I do? Any moment she or Whitson might turn around. Hastily I pulled off the cap of my fountain-pen and poured into it some of the liquid, replacing the cork in the bottle and dropping it back into the bag, while I disposed of the cap as best I could without spilling its contents.

Whether either she or any one else had observed me, I was not going to run any chances of being seen. I called a passing steward. "Mrs. Erickson forgot her bag," I said, pointing hastily to it. "You'll find her over there with Mr. Whitson." Then I mingled in the crowd to watch her. She did not seem to show any anxiety when she received it.

I lost no time in getting back to Kennedy and telling him what I had found, and a few moments later he made an excuse to go to our state-room, as eager as I was to know what had been in the little bottle.

First he poured out a drop of the liquid from the cap of my fountain-pen in some water. It did not dissolve. Successively he tried alcohol, ether, then pepsin. None of them had any effect on it. Finally, however, he managed to dissolve it in ammonia.

"Relatively high amount of sulphur," he muttered, after a few moments more of study. "Keratin, I believe."

"A poison?" I asked.

Kennedy shook his head. "No; harmless."

"Then what is it for?"

He shrugged his shoulders. He may have had some half-formed idea, but if he did it was still indefinite and he refused to commit himself. Instead, he placed the sample in his traveling laboratory, closed and locked it, and, with our luggage, the box was ready to be taken ashore.

Nearly every one had gone ashore by the time we returned to the deck. Whitson was there yet, talking to the captain, for the shipping at the port interested him. I wondered whether he, too, might be suspicious of those cases consigned to Erickson and others. If so, he said nothing of it.

By this time several vessels that looked as if they might be lighters, though fairly large, had pulled up. It seemed that they had been engaged to carry shipments of goods to the other islands of St. John and St. Croix.

Kennedy seemed eager now to get ashore, and we went, accompanied by Whitson, and after some difficulty established ourselves in a small hotel.

Most of the tourists were sightseeing, and, while we had no time for that, still we could not help doing so, in going about the town.

Charlotte Amalie, I may say, proved to be one of the most picturesque towns in the Windward Islands. The walls of the houses were mostly of a dazzling whiteness, though some were yellow, others gray, orange, blue. But the roofs were all of a generous bright red which showed up very effectively among the clumps of green trees. Indeed, the town seemed to be one of gaily tinted villas and palaces. There were no factories, no slums. Nature had provided against that and man had not violated the provision.

The people whom we met on the streets were mostly negroes, though there was a fair sprinkling of whites. What pleased us most was that nearly everywhere we went English was spoken. I had half expected Danish. But there was even very little Spanish spoken.

Burke was waiting for us, and in spite of his playing the role of traveling salesman managed to direct us about so that we might as quickly as possible pick up the thread of the mysterious death of Dwight. It did not take long to gather such meager information as there was about the autopsy that had followed the strange death of Sydney's predecessor.

We were able to find out little from either the authorities or the doctor who had investigated the case. Under the stress of suspicion, both the stomach and the contents of the stomach of the unfortunate man had been examined. No trace of anything out of the way had been found, and there the matter had rested, except for suspicion.

One of our first visits was to the American consulate. There Sydney, by virtue of his special commission, had, with characteristic energy, established himself with the consul. Naturally, he, too, had been making inquiries. But they had led nowhere. There seemed to be no clue to the mysterious death of Dwight, not even a hint as to the cause.

All that we were able to discover, after some hours of patient inquiry, was that Dwight had suffered from great prostration, marked cyanosis, convulsions, and coma. Whether it was the result of some strange disease or of a poison no one, not even the doctor, was prepared to say. All that was known was that the blow, if blow it had been, was swift, sudden, sure.

We ran across Whitson once or twice during the day, busily engaged renewing acquaintance with merchants and planters whom he had known before, but I do not recall having seen either Burleigh or Leontine, which, at the time, I thought rather strange, for the town was small and strangers were few. The more I thought of it the more firmly convinced I was that Dwight had discovered some secret which it was extremely inconvenient for somebody to have known. What was it? Was it connected with the rumors we had heard of gun-running to Mexico?

Erickson had invited us to come late in the afternoon to the dinner and we did not delay in getting there. His house proved to be a veritable palace on the side of one of the hills rising abruptly back of the shore. Flights of massive stone steps, quaint walls covered with creepers, balustrades overlooking charming gardens, arcades from which one looked out on splendid vistas and shady terraces combined to make it a veritable paradise such as can be found only in tropical and subtropical lands. Most wonderful of all was the picture of the other hills unfolded, especially of the two ruined pirates' castles belonging to semi- mythical personages, Bluebeard and Blackbeard.

The Ericksons were proud of their home, as well they might be, in spite of the complaints we had heard Nanette utter and the efforts of Erickson to sell his holdings. Mrs. Erickson proved to be a charming hostess and the host extended a hospitality such as one rarely meets. It quite made me uncomfortable to accept it at the same time that I knew we must view it all with suspicion. Nor did it make matters any better, but rather worse, to feel that there was some color of excuse for the suspicion.

Burleigh arrived proudly with Leontine, followed closely by Sydney. At once the game was on again, Leontine pitting one against the other. Whitson came, his attentions to Mrs. Erickson a trifle restrained, but still obvious. Burke and ourselves completed the party.

To the repeated urging of Erickson we made ourselves quite as much at home as we politely could. Kennedy and Burke, acting under his instructions, seemed to be ubiquitous. Yet, beyond a continuation of the drama that had been unfolded on the ship it did not seem to me at first that we were getting anywhere.

Kennedy and I were passing alone along a colonnade that opened off from the large dining-hall, when Craig paused and looked in through an open door at the massive table set for the dinner.

A servant had just completed setting out cocktails at the various places, pouring them from a huge tankard, for the purpose, which had been standing on a sideboard. Guests had been walking past through the colonnade ever since we arrived, but at the moment there was no one about, and even the servant had disappeared.

Kennedy stepped lightly into the dining-hall and looked about sharply. Instinctively I stepped to a window where I could hear any one approaching. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him narrowly scrutinizing the table. Finally he pulled from his pocket a clean linen handkerchief. Into an empty glass he poured the contents of one of the cocktail-glasses, straining the liquid through the handkerchief. Then he poured the filtrate, if I may call it such, back into the original glass. A second he treated in the same way, and a third. He had nearly completed the round of the table when I heard a light step.

My warning came only just in time. It was Burleigh. He saw us standing now in the colonnade, made some hasty remark, then walked on, as if in search for some one. Had it been interest in Leontine or in the dining-room that had drawn him thither?

Kennedy was now looking closely at the handkerchief, and I looked also. In the glasses had been innumerable little seeds as if from the fruit juice used in concocting the appetizer. The fine meshes of the linen had extracted them. What were they?

I took one in my fingers and crushed it between my nails. There was an unmistakable odor of bitter almonds. What did it mean?

We had no time now for speculation. Our prolonged absence might be noticed and we hastened to join the other guests after finishing the round of glasses in which he had been interrupted.

How, in my suppressed excitement, I managed to get through that dinner I do not know. It was a brilliant affair, yet I found that I had completely lost my appetite, as well one might after having observed Kennedy's sleuthing.

However, the dinner progressed, though each course that brought it nearer a conclusion afforded me an air of relief. I was quite ready when, over the coffee, Kennedy contrived to make some excuse for us, promising to call again and perhaps to visit the Erickson plantation.

In the secrecy of our room in the little hotel, Craig was soon deeply buried in making use of his traveling laboratory. As he worked I could no longer restrain my impatience. "What about that little bottle of keratin?" I asked, eagerly.

"Oh yes," he replied, not looking up from the tests he was making. "Well, keratin, you know, is also called epidermose. It is a scleroprotein present largely in cuticular structures such as hair, nails, horn. I believe it is usually prepared from pieces of horn steeped in pepsin, hydrochloric acid, and water for a long time. Then the residue is dissolved in ammonia and acetic acid."

"But what's its use?" I demanded. "You said it was harmless."

"Why, the pepsin of the stomach won't digest it," he returned. "For that reason its chief use is for coating what are known as 'enteric capsules.' Anything coated with keratin is carried on through the stomach into the intestines. It is used much in hot countries in order to introduce drugs into the intestines in the treatment of the tropical diseases that affect the intestines." He paused and devoted his entire attention to his work, but he had told me enough to assure me that at least the bottle of keratin I had found had proved to be a clue.

I waited as long as I could, then interrupted again. "What are the seeds?" I queried. "Have you found out yet?"

He paused as though he had not quite finished his hasty investigation, yet had found out enough to convince him. "There seem to be two kinds. I wish I had had time to keep each lot separate. Some of them are certainly quite harmless. But there are others, I find, that have been soaked in nitro-benzol, artificial oil of bitter almonds. Even a few drops, such as might be soaked up in this way, might be fatal. The new and interesting phase, to me, is that they were all carefully coated with keratin. Really, they are keratin-coated enteric capsules of nitro-benzol, a deadly poison."

I looked at him, aghast at what some of us had been rescued from by his prompt action.

"You see," he went on, excitedly, "that is why the autopsies probably showed nothing. These doctors down here sought for a poison in the stomach. But if the poison had been in the stomach the odor alone would have betrayed it. You smelt it when you crushed a seed. But the poisoning had been devised to avoid just that chance of discovery. There was no poison in the stomach. Death was delayed long enough, also, to divert suspicion from the real poisoner. Some one has been diabolically clever in covering up the crimes."

I could only gasp my amazement. "Then," I blurted out, "you think the Ericksons—"

Our door burst open. It was Burke, in wild excitement.

"Has anybody—died?" I managed to demand.

He seemed not to hear, but dashed to the window and threw it open. "Look!" he exclaimed.

We did. In the late twilight, through the open sash we could see the landlocked basin of the harbor. But it was not that at which Burke pointed. On the horizon an ugly dark cloud rose menacingly. In the strange, unearthly murkiness, I could see people of the town pouring out into the narrow streets, wildly, fearfully, with frantic cries and gesticulations.

For a moment I gazed at the sight blankly. Then I realized that sweeping on us was one of those sudden, deadly West-Indian hurricanes. Our harbor was sheltered from the north and east winds. But this wind was southern born, rare, oncoming in a fury against which we had no protection.

Hastily closing his armamentarium, Kennedy also hurried out on the street. The gale had become terrific already in the few minutes that had elapsed. From our terrace we could see the water, gray and olive, with huge white breakers, like gnashing teeth, coming on to rend and tear everything in their path. It was as though we stood in an amphitheater provided by nature for a great spectacle, the bold headlands standing out like the curves of a stadium.

I looked about. The Ericksons had just driven up with Burleigh and Leontine, as well as Whitson, all of whom were stopping at our hotel, and were about to take Sydney on to the consulate when the approach of the storm warned them to stay.

Leontine had hurried into the hotel, evidently fearful of the loss of something she treasured, and the rest were standing apart from the trees and buildings, where the formation of the land offered some protection. As we joined them I peered at the pale faces in the ghastly, unnatural light. Was it, in a sense, retribution?

Suddenly, without further warning, the storm broke. Trees were turned up by roots, like weeds, the buildings rocked as if they had been houses of cards. It was a wild, catastrophic spectacle.

"Leontine," I heard a voice mutter by my side, as a form catapulted itself past through the murkiness into the crazily swaying hotel. It was Burleigh. I turned to speak to Kennedy. He was gone. Where to find him I had no idea. The force of the wind was such that search was impossible. All we could do was to huddle back of such protection as the earth afforded against the million needles of rain that cut into our faces.

The wind almost blew me flat to the earth as, no longer able to stand the suspense, I stumbled toward the hotel, thinking perhaps he had gone to save his armamentarium, although if I had stopped to think I should have realized that that strong box was about the safest piece of property on the island.

I was literally picked up and hurled against an object in the darkness—a man. "In the room—more keratin—more seeds."

It was Kennedy. He had taken advantage of the confusion to make a search which otherwise might have been more difficult. Together we struggled back to our shelter.

Just then came a crash, as the hotel crumpled under the fierce stress of the storm. Out of the doorway struggled a figure just in time to clear the falling walls. It was Burleigh, a huge gash from a beam streaming blood down his forehead which the rain washed away almost as it oozed. In his arms, clinging about his neck, was Leontine, no longer the sophisticated, but in the face of this primeval danger just a woman. Burleigh staggered with his burden a little apart from us, and in spite of everything I could fancy him blessing the storm that had given him his opportunity.

Far from abating, the storm seemed increasing in fury, as though all the devils of the underworld were vexed at anything remaining undestroyed. It seemed as if even the hills on which the old pirates had once had their castles must be rocking.

"My God!" exclaimed a thick voice, as an arm shot out, pointing toward the harbor.

There was the Arroyo tugging at every extra mooring that could be impressed into service. The lighters had broken or been cut away and were scudding, destruction-bent, squarely at the shore almost below us. A moment and they had crashed on the beach, a mass of timbers and spars, while the pounding waves tore open and flung about heavy cases as though they were mere toys.

Then, almost as suddenly as it had come, the storm began to abate, the air cleared, and nothing remained but the fury of the waves.

"Look!" exclaimed Kennedy, pointing down at the strange wreckage that strewed the beach. "Does that look like agricultural machinery?" We strained our eyes. Kennedy did not pause. "The moment I heard that arms were getting into Mexico I suspected that somewhere here in the Caribbean munitions were being transhipped. Perhaps they have been sent to Atlantic ports ostensibly for the Allies. They have got down here disguised. Even before the storm exposed them I had reasoned it out. From this port, the key to the vast sweep of mainland, I reasoned that they were being taken over to secret points on the coast where big ships could not safely go. It was here that blockade-runners were refitted in our Civil War. It is here that this new gun-running plot has been laid."

He turned quickly to Sydney. "The only obstacle between the transfer of the arms and success was the activity of an American consulate. Those lighters were not to carry goods to other islands. They were really destined for Mexico. It was profitable. And the scheme for removing opposition was evidently safe."

Kennedy was holding up another bottle of keratin and some fruit seeds. "I found these in a room in the hotel," he added.

I did not comprehend. "But," I cut in, "the hand-bag—the dinner— what of them?"

"A plant—a despicable trespass on hospitality—all part of a scheme to throw the guilt on some one else, worthy of a renegade and traitor."

Craig wheeled suddenly, then added, with an incisive gesture, "I suppose you know that there is reputed to have been on one of these hills the headquarters of the old pirate, Teach—'the mildest manner'd man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat!'"

Kennedy paused, then added, quickly, "In respect to covering up your gun-running, Whitson, you are superior even to Teach!"



XII

THE SUNKEN TREASURE

"Get story Everson and bride yacht Belle Aventure seeking treasure sunk Gulf liner Antilles."

Kennedy and I had proceeded after a few leisurely days in St. Thomas to Porto Rico. We had no particular destination, and San Juan rather appealed to us as an objective point because it was American.

It was there that I found waiting for me the above message by wireless from the Star in New York.

San Juan was, as we had anticipated, a thoroughly Americanized town and I lost no time in getting around at once to the office of the leading newspaper, the Colonial News. The editor, Kenmore, proved to be a former New York reporter who had come out in answer to an advertisement by the proprietors of the paper.

"What's the big story here now?" I asked by way of preface, expecting to find that colonial newspapermen were provincial.

"What's the big story?" repeated Kenmore, impatiently pushing aside a long leader on native politics and regarding me thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not superstitious, but a honeymoon spent trying to break into Davy Jones's locker for sunken treasure—I guess that's a good story, isn't it?"

I showed him my message and he smiled. "You see, I was right," he exclaimed. "They're searching now at the Cay d'Or, the Golden Key, one of the southernmost of the Bahamas, I suppose you would call it. I wish I was like you. I'd like to get away from this political stuff long enough to get the story."

He puffed absently on a fragrant native cigar. "I met them all when they were here, before they started," he resumed, reminiscently. "It was certainly a picturesque outfit—three college chums—one of them on his honeymoon, and the couple chaperoning the bride's sister. There was one of the college boys —a fellow named Gage—who fairly made news."

"How was that?" inquired Kennedy, who had accompanied me, full of zest at the prospect of mixing in a story so romantic.

"Oh, I don't know that it was his fault—altogether," replied Kenmore. "There's a young lady here in the city, the daughter of a pilot, Dolores Guiteras. She had been a friend of some one in the expedition, I believe. I suppose that's how Gage met her. I don't think either of them really cared for each other. Perhaps she was a bit jealous of the ladies of the party. I don't know anything much about it, only I remember one night in the cafe of the Palace Hotel, I thought Gage and another fellow would fight a duel— almost—until Everson dropped in and patched the affair up and the next day his yacht left for Golden Key."

"I wish I'd been here to go with them," I considered. "How do you suppose I'll be able to get out there, now?"

"You might be able to hire a tug," shrugged Kenmore. "The only one I know is that of Captain Guiteras. He's the father of this Dolores I told you about."

The suggestion seemed good, and after a few moments more of conversation, absorbing what little Kenmore knew, we threaded our way across the city to the home of the redoubtable Guiteras and his pretty daughter.

Guiteras proved to be a man of about fifty, a sturdy, muscular fellow, his face bronzed by the tropical sun.

I had scarcely broached the purpose of my visit when his restless brown eyes seemed literally to flash. "No, sir," he exclaimed, emphatically. "You cannot get me to go on any such expedition. Mr. Everson came here first and tried to hire my tug. I wouldn't do it. No, sir—he had to get one from Havana. Why, the whole thing is unlucky—hoodooed, you call it. I will not touch it."

"But," I remonstrated, surprised at his unexpected vehemence, "I am not asking you to join the expedition. We are only going to—"

"No, no," he interrupted. "I will not consider it. I—"

He cut short his remarks as a young woman, radiant in her Latin- American beauty, opened the door, hesitated at sight of us, then entered at a nod from him. We did not need to be told that this was the Dolores whom Kenmore's rumor had credited with almost wrecking Everson's expedition at the start. She was a striking type, her face, full of animation and fire, betraying more of passion than of intellect.

A keen glance of inquiry from her wonderful eyes at her father was followed by a momentary faraway look, and she remained silent, while Guiteras paused, as if considering something.

"They say," he continued, slowly, his features drawn sharply, "that there was loot of Mexican churches on that ship—the jewels of Our Lady of the Rosary at Puebla.... That ship was cursed, I tell you!" he added, scowling darkly.

"No one was lost on it, though," I ventured at random.

"I suppose you never heard the story of the Antilles?" he inquired, turning swiftly toward me. Then, without stopping: "She had just sailed from San Juan before she was wrecked—on her way to New York from Vera Cruz with several hundred Mexican refugees. Treasure? Yes; perhaps millions, money that belonged to wealthy families in Mexico—and some that had the curse on it.

"You asked a moment ago if everybody wasn't rescued. Well, everybody was rescued from the wreck except Captain Driggs. I don't know what happened. No one knows. The fire had got into the engine-room and the ship was sinking fast. Passengers saw him, pale, like a ghost, some said. Others say there was blood streaming from his head. When the last boat-load left they couldn't find him. They had to put off without him. It was a miracle that no one else was lost."

"How did the fire start?" inquired Kennedy, much interested.

"No one knows that, either," answered Guiteras, shaking his head slowly. "I think it must have been smoldering in the hold for hours before it was discovered. Then the pumps either didn't work properly or it had gained too great headway for them. I've heard many people talk of it and of the treasure. No, sir, you wouldn't get me to touch it. Maybe you'll call it superstition. But I won't have anything to do with it. I wouldn't go with Mr. Everson and I won't go with you. Perhaps you don't understand, but I can't help it."

Dolores had stood beside her father while he was speaking, but had said nothing, though all the time she had been regarding us from beneath her long black eyelashes. Arguments with the old pilot had no effect, but I could not help feeling that somehow she was on our side, that whether she shared his fears and prejudices, her heart was really somewhere near the Key of Gold.

There seemed to be nothing for us to do but wait until some other way turned up to get out to the expedition, or perhaps Dolores succeeded in changing the captain's mind. We bowed ourselves out, not a little puzzled by the enigma of the obdurate old man and his pretty daughter. Try as I might among the busy shipping of the port, I could find no one else willing at any reasonable price to change his plans to accommodate us.

It was early the next morning that a young lady, very much perturbed, called on us at our hotel, scarcely waiting even the introduction of her plainly engraved card bearing the name, Miss Norma Sanford.

"Perhaps you know of my sister, Asta Sanford, Mrs. Orrin Everson," she began, speaking very rapidly as if under stress. "We're down here on Asta's honeymoon in Orrin's yacht, the Belle Aventure." Craig and I exchanged glances, but she did not give us a chance to interrupt.

"It all seems so sudden, so terrible," she cried, in a burst of wild, incoherent feeling. "Yesterday Bertram Traynor died, and we've put back to San Juan with his body. I'm so worried for Orrin and my sister. I heard you were here, Professor Kennedy, and I couldn't rest until I saw you."

She was looking anxiously at Craig. I wondered whether she had heard of our visit to the Guiterases and what she knew about that other woman.

"I don't quite understand," interposed Kennedy, with an effort to calm her. "Why do you fear for your sister and Mr. Everson? Was there something—suspicious—about the death of Mr. Traynor?"

"Indeed I think there was," she replied, quickly. "None of us has any idea how it happened. Let me tell you about our party. You see, there are three college chums, Orrin and two friends, Bertram Traynor and Donald Gage. They were all on a cruise down here last winter, the year after they graduated. It was in San Juan that Orrin first met Mr. Dominick, who was the purser on the Antilles— you know, that big steamer of the Gulf Line that was burned last year and went down with seven million dollars aboard?"

Kennedy nodded to the implied query, and she went on: "Mr. Dominick was among those saved, but Captain Driggs was lost with his ship. Mr. Dominick had been trying to interest some one here in seeking the treasure. They knew about where the Antilles went down, and the first thing he wanted to do was to locate the wreck exactly. After that was done of course Mr. Dominick knew about the location of the ship's strong room and all that."

"That, of course, was common knowledge to any one interested enough to find out, though," suggested Kennedy.

"Of course," she agreed. "Well, a few months later Orrin met Mr. Dominick again, in New York. In the mean time he had been talking the thing over with various people and had become acquainted with a man who had once been a diver for the Interocean Marine Insurance Company—Owen Kinsale. Anyhow, so the scheme grew. They incorporated a company, the Deep Sea Engineering Company, to search for the treasure. That is how Orrin started. They are using his yacht and Mr. Dominick is really in command, though Mr. Kinsale has the actual technical knowledge."

She paused, but again her feelings seemed to get the better of her. "Oh," she cried, "I've been afraid all along, lately. It's dangerous work. And then, the stories that have been told of the ship and the treasure. It seems ill-fated. Professor Kennedy," she appealed, "I wish you would come and see us. We're not on the yacht just now. We came ashore as soon as we arrived back, and Asta and Orrin are at the Palace Hotel now. Perhaps Orrin can tell you more. If you can do nothing more than quiet my fears—"

Her eyes finished the sentence. Norma Sanford was one of those girls who impress you as quite capable of taking care of themselves. But in the presence of the tragedy and a danger which she felt but could not seem to define, she felt the need of outside assistance and did not hesitate to ask it. Nor was Kennedy slow in responding. He seemed to welcome a chance to help some one in distress.

We found Everson and his young wife at the hotel, quite different now from the care-free adventurers who had set out only a few days before to wrest a fortune from chance.

I had often seen portraits of the two Sanford sisters in the society pages of the papers in the States and knew that the courtship of Orrin Everson and Asta Sanford had been a true bit of modern romance.

Asta Everson was a unique type of girl. She had begun by running fast motor cars and boats. That had not satisfied her, and she had taken up aviation. Once, even, she had tried deep-sea diving herself. It seemed as if she had been born with the spirit of adventure.

To win her, Everson had done about everything from Arctic exploration one summer when he was in college to big-game hunting in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Andes. Odd though the romance might seem to be, one could not help feeling that the young couple were splendidly matched in their tastes. Each had that spirit of restlessness which, at least, sent them out playing at pioneering.

Everson had organized the expedition quite as much in the spirit of revolt against a prosaic life of society at home as for gain. It had appealed strongly to Asta. She had insisted that nothing so much as a treasure hunt would be appropriate for their wedding- trip and they had agreed on the unconventional. Accordingly, she and her sister had joined Everson and his party, Norma, though a year younger, being quite like her sister in her taste for excitement.

"Of course, you understand," explained Everson, as he hurriedly tried to give us some idea of what had happened, "we knew that the Antilles had sunk somewhere off the Cay d'Or. It was first a question of locating her. That was all that we had been doing when Bertram died. It is terrible, terrible. I can't believe it. I can't understand it."

In spite of his iron nerve, the tragedy seemed to have shaken Everson profoundly.

"You had done nothing that might have been dangerous?" asked Kennedy, pointedly.

"Nothing," emphasized Everson. "You see, we located the wreck in a way somewhat similar to the manner in which they sweep the seas for mines and submarines. It was really very simple, though it took us some time. All we did was to drag a wire at a fixed depth between the yacht and the tug, or rather, I suppose you'd almost call it a trawler, which I chartered from Havana. What we were looking for was to have the wire catch on some obstruction. It did, too, not once, but many times, due to the unevenness of the ocean bed. Once we located a wreck, but it was in shallow water, a small boat, not the one we were looking for."

"But you succeeded finally?"

"Yes, only day before yesterday we located her. We marked the spot with a buoy and were getting ready for real work. It was just after that that Bertram was taken ill and died so suddenly. We've left Dominick, Kinsale, Gage, and the rest on the trawler there, while I came here with Traynor's body. God! but it was awful to have to send the news back to New York. I don't know what to think or what to do."

"How did he die?" asked Kennedy, endeavoring to gain the confidence of young Everson. "Do you recall any of his symptoms?"

"It came on him so suddenly," he replied, "that we hadn't much time to think. As nearly as we could make out, it began with a faintness and difficulty in breathing. We asked him how he felt— but it seemed as if he was deaf. I thought it might be the 'bends'—you know, caisson disease—and we started to put him in the medical lock which we had for the divers, but before we could get it ready he was unconscious. It was all so sudden that it stunned us. I can't make it out at all."

Neither Asta nor Norma seemed able to tell anything. In fact, the blow had been so swift and unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it had left them thoroughly alarmed.

The body of Traynor had already been brought ashore and placed in a local undertaking shop. With Everson, Kennedy and I hastened to visit it.

Traynor had been an athlete and powerfully built, which made his sudden death seem all the more strange. Without a word, Craig set to work immediately examining his body, while we stood aside, watching him in anxious silence. Kennedy consumed the greater part of the morning in his careful investigation, and after some time Everson began to get restless, wondering how his wife and sister- in-law were getting on in his absence. To keep him company I returned to the hotel with him, leaving Kennedy to pursue his work alone.