A few moments later I rejoined Kennedy at the laboratory. He was still immersed in work, and, scarcely stopping, nodded to me to tell what I had discovered. He listened with interest until I came to the receipt of the anonymous telegram.
“Did you get it?” he asked, eagerly.
He almost seized it from my hands as I pulled it out of my pocket and studied it intently.
“Strange,” he muttered. “Any of them might have sent it.”
“Have you discovered anything?” I asked, for I had been watching him, consumed by curiosity, as I told my story. “Do you know yet how the thing was done?”
“I think I do,” he replied, abstractedly.
“How was it?” I prompted, for his mind was now on the telegram.
“A poison-gas pistol,” he resumed, coming back to the work he had just been doing. “Instead of bullets, this pistol used cartridges charged with some deadly powder. It might have been something like the anesthetic pistol devised by the police authorities in Paris some years ago when the motor bandits were operating.”
“But who could have used it?” I asked.
Kennedy did not answer directly. Either he was not quite sure yet or did not feel that the time was ripe to hazard a theory. “In this case,” he continued, after a moment’s thought, “I shouldn’t be surprised if even the wielder of the pistol probably wore a mask, doubly effective, for disguise and to protect the wielder from the fumes that were to overcome the victim.”
“You have no idea who it was?” I reiterated.
Before Kennedy could answer there came a violent ring at the laboratory bell, and I hurried to the door. It was one of the bell-boys from the hotel where the Barrioses had their apartment, with a message for Kennedy.
Craig tore it open and read it hurriedly. “From Doctor Scott,” he said, briefly, in answer to my anxious query. “Barrios is dead.”
Even though I had been prepared for the news by my last visit, death came as a shock, as it always does. I had felt all along that Kennedy had been called in too late to do anything to save Barrios, but I had been hoping against hope. But I knew that it was not too late to catch the criminal who had done the dastardly, heartless deed. A few hours and perhaps all clues might have been covered up. But there is always something that goes wrong with crime, always some point where murder cannot be covered up. I think if people could only be got to realize it, as my experience both on the Star and with Kennedy have impressed it on me, murder would become a lost art.
Without another word Kennedy seized his hat and together we hurried to the hotel.
We found Anitra crying softly to herself, while near her sat Eulalie, tearless, stunned by the blow, broken-hearted. In the realization of the tragedy everything had been forgotten, even the mysterious anonymous telegram signed, Judas-like, “A Friend.”
Sandoval, we learned, had been there when the end came, and had now gone out to make what arrangements were necessary. I had nothing against the man, but I could not help feeling that, now that the business was all Anitra’s, might he not be the one to profit most by the death? The fact was that Kennedy had expressed so little opinion on the case so far that I might be pardoned for suspecting any one—even Teresa de Leon, who must have seen Jose slipping away from her in spite of her pursuit, whatever actuated it.
It was while I was in the midst of these fruitless speculations that Doctor Scott beckoned us outside, and we withdrew quietly.
“I don’t know that there is anything more that I can do,” he remarked, “but I promised Senor Sandoval that I would stay here until he came back. He begged me to, seems scarcely to know how to do enough to comfort his sister and Senorita Barrios.”
I listened to the doctor keenly. Was it possible that Sandoval had one of those Jekyll-Hyde natures which seem to be so common in some of us? Had his better nature yielded to his worse? To my mind that has often been an explanation of crime, never an adequate defense.
Kennedy was about to say something when the elevator door down the hall opened. I expected that it was Sandoval returning, but it was Burton Page.
“They told me you were here,” he said, greeting us. “I have been looking all over for you, down at your laboratory and at your apartment. Would you mind stepping down around the bend in the hall?”
We excused ourselves from Doctor Scott, wondering what Page had to reveal.
“I knew Sandoval had not returned,” he began as soon as we were out of ear-shot of the doctor, “and I don’t want to see him—again—not after what happened this afternoon. The man is crazy.” We had reached an alcove and sank down into a soft settee.
“Why, what was that?” I asked, recalling the look of hate on the man’s face as he had watched Page talking to Anitra in the tea-room.
“I’m giving you this for what it may be worth,” began Page, turning from me to Kennedy. “Down in the lobby this afternoon, after you had been gone some time, I happened to run into Sandoval. He almost seized hold of me. ‘You have been at the office,’ he said. ‘You’ve been rummaging around there.’ Well, I denied it flatly. ‘Who took those letters?’ he shot back at me. All I could do was to look at him. ‘I don’t know about any letters. What letters?’ I asked. Oh, he’s a queer fellow all right. I thought he was going to kill me by the black look he gave me. He cooled down a bit, but I didn’t wait for any apology. The best thing to do with these hot-headed people is to cut out and let them alone.”
“How do you account for his strange actions?” asked Kennedy. “Have you ever heard anything more that he did?”
Page shrugged his shoulders as if in doubt whether to say anything, then decided quickly. “The other day I heard Barrios and Sandoval in the office. They were quite excited. Barrios was talking loudly. I didn’t know at first what it was all about. But I soon found out. Sandoval had gone to him, as the head of the family, following their custom, I believe, to ask whether he might seek to win Anitra.”
“Have you ever heard of Teresa de Leon?” interrupted Kennedy suddenly.
Page looked at him and hesitated. “There’s some scandal, there, I’m afraid,” he nodded, combining his answers. “I heard Sandoval say something about her to Barrios that day—warn him against something. That was when the argument was heated. It seemed to make Barrios angry. Sandoval said something about Barrios refusing to let him court Anitra while at the same time Barrios was engaged to Eulalie. Barrios retorted that the cases were different. He said he had decided that Anitra was going to marry an American millionaire.”
There could be no doubt about how Page himself interpreted the remark. It was evident that he took it to mean himself.
“Sandoval had warned against this De Leon?” asked Kennedy, evidently having in mind the anonymous telegram.
“Something—I don’t know what it was all about,” returned Page, then added, in a burst of confidence: “I never heard of the lady until she came to New York and introduced herself to me. For a time she was interesting. But I’m too old for that sort of thing. Besides, she always impressed me as though she had some ulterior motive, as though she was trying to get at something through me. I cut it all out.”
Kennedy nodded, but for a moment said nothing.
“I think I’ll be getting out,” remarked Page, with a half smile. “I don’t want a knife in the back. I thought you ought to know all this, though. And if I hear anything else I’ll let you know.”
Kennedy thanked him and together we rode down in the next elevator, parting with Page at the hotel entrance.
It was still early in the evening, and Kennedy had no intention