The Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective MEGAPACK ®. Brander Matthews
is all very well,” insisted Kennedy. “But how about the treasure?”
“Treasure?” repeated Bernardo, looking from one of us to another.
“Yes,” pursued Craig relentlessly, “the treasure. You are an expert in reading the hieroglyphics. By your own statement, you and Northrop had been going over the stuff he had sent up. You know it.”
Bernardo gave a quick glance from Kennedy to me. Evidently he saw that the secret was out.
“Yes,” he said huskily, in a low tone, “Northrop and I were to follow the directions after we had plotted them out and were to share it together on the next expedition, which I could direct as a Mexican without so much suspicion. I should still have shared it with his widow if this unfortunate affair had not exposed the secret.”
Bernardo had risen earnestly.
“Kennedy,” he cried, “before God, if you will get back that stone and keep the secret from going further than this room, I will prove what I have said by dividing the Mixtec treasure with Mrs. Northrop and making her one of the richest widows in the country!”
“That is what I wanted to be sure of,” nodded Craig. “Bernardo, Senora Herreria, of whom your friend wrote to you from Mexico, has been murdered in the same way that Professor Northrop was. Otaka was sent by her husband to murder Northrop, in order that they might obtain the so-called ‘Pillar of Death’ and the key to the treasure. Then, when the senora was no doubt under the influence of sake in the pretty little Oriental bower at the curio shop, a quick jab, and Otaka had removed one who shared the secret with them.”
He had turned and faced the pair.
“Sato,” he added, “you played on the patriotism of the senora until you wormed from her the treasure secret. Evidently rumors of it had spread from Mexican Indians to Japanese visitors. And then, Otaka, all jealousy over one whom she, no doubt, justly considered a rival, completed your work by sending her forth to die, unknown, on the street. Walter, ring up First Deputy O’Connor. The stone is hidden somewhere in the curio shop. We can find it without Sato’s help. The quicker such a criminal is lodged safely in jail, the better for humanity.”
Sato was on his feet, advancing cautiously toward Craig. I knew the dangers, now, of anno-noki, as well as the wonders of jujutsu, and, with a leap, I bounded past Bernardo and between Sato and Kennedy.
How it happened, I don’t know, but, an instant later, I was sprawling.
Before I could recover myself, before even Craig had a chance to pull the hair-trigger of his automatic, Sato had seized the Ainu arrow poison from the table, had bitten the little cylinder in half, and had crammed the other half into the mouth of Otaka.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RADIUM ROBBER
Kennedy simply reached for the telephone and called an ambulance. But it was purely perfunctory. Dr. Leslie himself was the only official who could handle Sato’s case now.
We had planned a little vacation for ourselves, but the planning came to naught. The next night we spent on a sleeper. That in itself is work to me.
It all came about through a hurried message from Murray Denison, president of the Federal Radium Corporation. Nothing would do but that he should take both Kennedy and myself with him post-haste to Pittsburgh at the first news of what had immediately been called “the great radium robbery.”
Of course the newspapers were full of it. The very novelty of an ultra-modern cracksman going off with something worth upward of a couple of hundred thousand dollars—and all contained in a few platinum tubes which could be tucked away in a vest pocket—had something about it powerfully appealing to the imagination.
“Most ingenious, but, you see, the trouble with that safe is that it was built to keep radium IN—not cracksmen OUT,” remarked Kennedy, when Denison had rushed us from the train to take a look at the little safe in the works of the Corporation.
“Breaking into such a safe as this,” added Kennedy, after a cursory examination, “is simple enough, after all.”
It was, however, a remarkably ingenious contrivance, about three feet in height and of a weight of perhaps a ton and a half, and all to house something weighing only a few grains.
“But,” Denison hastened to explain, “we had to protect the radium not only against burglars, but, so to speak, against itself. Radium emanations pass through steel and experiments have shown that the best metal to contain them is lead. So, the difficulty was solved by making a steel outer case enclosing an inside leaden shell three inches thick.”
Kennedy had been toying thoughtfully with the door.
“Then the door, too, had to be contrived so as to prevent any escape of the emanations through joints. It is lathe turned and circular, a ‘dead fit.’ By means of a special contrivance any slight looseness caused by wear and tear of closing can be adjusted. And another feature. That is the appliance for preventing the loss of emanation when the door is opened. Two valves have been inserted into the door and before it is opened tubes with mercury are passed through which collect and store the emanation.”
“All very nice for the radium,” remarked Craig cheerfully. “But the fellow had only to use an electric drill and the gram or more of radium was his.”
“I know that—now,” ruefully persisted Denison. “But the safe was designed for us specially. The fellow got into it and got away, as far as I can see, without leaving a clue.”
“Except one, of course,” interrupted Kennedy quickly.
Denison looked at him a moment keenly, then nodded and said, “Yes—you are right. You mean one which he must bear on himself?”
“Exactly. You can’t carry a gram or more of radium bromide long with impunity. The man to look for is one who in a few days will have somewhere on his body a radium burn which will take months to heal. The very thing he stole is a veritable Frankenstein’s monster bent on the destruction of the thief himself!”
Kennedy had meanwhile picked up one of the Corporation’s circulars lying on a desk. He ran his eye down the list of names.
“So, Hartley Haughton, the broker, is one of your stockholders,” mused Kennedy.
“Not only one but THE one,” replied Denison with obvious pride.
Haughton was a young man who had come recently into his fortune, and, while no one believed it to be large, he had cut quite a figure in Wall Street.
“You know, I suppose,” added Denison, “that he is engaged to Felicie Woods, the daughter of Mrs. Courtney Woods?”
Kennedy did not, but said nothing.
“A most delightful little girl,” continued Denison thoughtfully. “I have known Mrs. Woods for some time. She wanted to invest, but I told her frankly that this is, after all, a speculation. We may not be able to swing so big a proposition, but, if not, no one can say we have taken a dollar of money from widows and orphans.”
“I should like to see the works,” nodded Kennedy approvingly.
“By all means.”
The plant was a row of long low buildings of brick on the outskirts of the city, once devoted to the making of vanadium steel. The ore, as Denison explained, was brought to Pittsburgh because he had found here already a factory which could readily be turned into a plant for the extraction of radium. Huge baths and vats and crucibles for the various acids and alkalis and other processes used in treating the ore stood at various points.
“This must be like extracting gold from sea water,” remarked Kennedy jocosely, impressed by the size of the plant as compared to the product.
“Except that after we get through we have something infinitely more precious than gold,” replied Denison, “something which warrants the trouble and outlay. Yes, the fact is that the percentage of radium in all such ores is even less than