"
Inez said nothing, and Craig bowed, as though he, too, wished her
to go on.
"It is about the 'big fish' and the concession which your father
has obtained from the government to search for it."
The Senorita started and grew a bit pale at the reference, but she
seemed to realize that it was something she ought to hear, and
steeled herself to it.
"Yes," she murmured, "I understand."
"As you no doubt know," resumed the Senora, "no one has had the
secret of the hiding-place. It has been by mere tradition that
they were going to dig. That secret, you may know or may not know
now, was in reality contained in the inscriptions on an old Inca
dagger."
Inez shuddered at the mention of the weapon, a shudder that was
not lost on the Senora.
"I have already told Professor Kennedy that both the tradition and
the dagger were handed down in my own family, coming at last to my
brother. As I said, I don't know how it happened, but somehow he
seemed to be getting crazy, until he talked, and the dagger was
stolen from him. It came finally into Professor Norton's hands,
from whom it was in turn stolen."
She looked at Inez searchingly, as if to discover just what she
knew. I wondered whether the Senora suspected the presence of
Lockwood's footprints in the sarcophagus in the Museum--what she
would do if she did.
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