"Sometimes I think she is trying to double-cross me," he said, at length. "I know that when she talks to others about me she says many things that aren't so. Yet when she is with me everything is fine, and she is ready soon to join us, use her influence with influential Peruvians; in fact, there isn't anything she won't do—manana, to-morrow."
All that Whitney said we now knew to be true.
"She has one interesting dilemma, however, which I do not mind telling you," remarked Kennedy at length. "She cannot expect me to keep secret what she said before all of us. Inez Mendoza would mention it, anyhow."
"What was that?" queried Whitney, dissembling his interest.
"Why," replied Kennedy slowly, "it was that, with the plans for digging for the treasure which you say you have, suppose you and Lockwood and your associates have not the dagger—how are you better off than previous hunters? And supposing you have it—what does that imply?"
Whitney thought a moment over the last proposition of the dilemma. "Imply?" he repeated slowly. Then the significance of it seemed to dawn on him, the possession of the dagger and its implication in regard to the murder of Mendoza. "Well," he answered, "we haven't the dagger. You know that. But, on the other hand, we think our plans for getting at the treasure are better than any one else has ever had, more certain of success."
"Yet the possession of the dagger, with its inscription, is the only thing that absolutely insures success," observed Kennedy.
"That's true enough," agreed Whitney. "Confound that man Norton. How could he be such a boob as to let the chance slip through his fingers?"
"He never told you of it?" asked Kennedy.
"Yes, he told me of the dagger, but hadn't read the inscription, he said," answered Whitney. "I was so busy at the time with Lockwood and Mendoza, who had the concession to dig for the treasure, that I didn't pay much attention to what Norton brought back. I thought that could wait until Lockwood had been persuaded to join the interests I represent."