The Treasure-Train

by Arthur B. Reeve

To increase its efficiency, he had later established a New York office to look after the sale of the raw sugar and had placed it in charge of a friend, Manuel Sandoval. A month or so before he had come to New York with his sister to sell the plantation, to get the high price that the boom in sugar had made it worth. It was while he had been negotiating for the sale that he had fallen in love with Eulalie and they had become engaged.

Doctor Scott met us in the sitting-room of the suite which Anitra and her brother occupied, and, as she introduced us, with an anxious glance in the direction of the door of the sick-room, he shook his head gravely, though he did his best to seem encouraging.

"It's a case of poisoning of some kind, I fear," he whispered aside to us, at the first opportunity. "But I can't quite make out just what it is."

We followed the doctor into the room. Eulalie had preceded us and had dropped down on her knees by the bed, passing her little white hand caressingly over the pale and distorted face of Jose.

He was still unconscious, gasping and fighting for breath, his features pinched and skin cold and clammy. Kennedy examined the stricken man carefully, first feeling his pulse. It was barely perceptible, rapid, thready, and irregular. Now and then there were muscular tremblings and convulsive movements of the limbs. Craig moved over to the side of the room away from the two girls, where Doctor Scott was standing.

"Sometimes," I heard the doctor venture, "I think it is aconite, but the symptoms are not quite the same. Besides, I don't see how it could have been administered. There's no mark on him that might have come from a hypodermic, no wound, not even a scratch. He couldn't have swallowed it. Suicide is out of the question. But his nose and throat are terribly swollen and inflamed. It's beyond me."

I tried to recall other cases I had seen. There was one case of Kennedy's in which several deaths had occurred due to aconite. Was this another of that sort? I felt unqualified to judge, where Doctor Scott himself confessed his inability. Kennedy himself said nothing, and from his face I gathered that even he had no clue as yet.

As we left the sick-room, we found that another visitor had arrived and was standing in the sitting-room. It was Manuel Sandoval.

Sandoval was a handsome fellow, tall, straight as an arrow, with bushy dark hair and a mustache which gave him a distinguished appearance. Born in Cuba, he had been educated in the United States, had taken special work in the technology of sugar, knew the game from cane to centrifugal and the ship to the sugar trust. He was quite as much a scientist as a business man.

He and Eulalie talked for a moment in low tones in Cuban Spanish, but it needed only to watch his eyes to guess where his heart was. He seemed to fairly devour every move that Anitra made about the apartment.