"
Norton eyed us keenly, and shook his head. "You may be right," he
said doubtfully. "Only I had rather that this person, whoever he
may be, had fewer weapons."
"Speaking of weapons," broke in Kennedy, "you have had no further
idea of why the dagger might have been taken?"
"There seems to have been so much about it that I did not know,"
he returned, "that I am almost afraid to have an opinion. I knew
that its three-sided sheath inclosed a sharp blade, yet who would
have dreamed that that blade was poisoned?"
"You are lucky not to have scratched yourself with it by accident
while you were studying it."
"Possibly I might have done it, if I had had it in my possession
longer. It was only lately that I had leisure to study it."
"You knew that it might offer some clue to the hidden treasure of
Truxillo?" suggested Kennedy. "Have you any recollection of what
the inscriptions on it said?"
"Yes," returned Norton, "I had heard the rumours about it. But
Peru is a land of tales of buried treasure. No, I can't say that I
paid much more attention to it than you might have done if some
one asserted that he had another story of the treasure of Captain
Kidd. I must confess that only when the thing was stolen did I
begin to wonder whether, after all, there might not be something
in it.
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