Was this,
after all, but a reincarnation of the bloody history of the Gold
of the Gods?
There were the shoe-prints in the mummy case. They were
Lockwood's. How about them? Was he telling the truth? Now had come
the poisoned cigarettes. All had followed the threats:
BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS.
Several times I had been forced already to revise my theories of
the case. At first I had felt that it pointed straight toward
Lockwood. But did it seem to do so now?
Suppose Lockwood had stolen the dagger from the Museum, although
he denied even that. Did that mean, necessarily that he committed
the murder with it, that he now had it? Might he not have lost it?
Might not some one else--the Senora, or Alfonso, or both--have
obtained it? Might not Mendoza have been murdered with it by some
other hand to obtain or to hide the secret on its bloody blade?
I went to bed, still thinking, no nearer a conclusion than before,
prepared to dream over it.
That is the last I remember.
When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the bed still, but
Craig was bending over me. He had just taken a rubber cap off my
face, to which was attached a rubber tube that ran to a box
perhaps as large as a suitcase, containing a pump of some kind.
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