Kennedy tried the door of Northrop’s room, which was at the far end, in a corner, and communicated with the hall only through the main floor of the museum. It was locked. A pass-key from the janitor quickly opened it.
Such a sight as greeted us, I shall never forget. There, in his big desk-chair, sat Northrop, absolutely rigid, the most horribly contorted look on his features that I have ever seen—half of pain, half of fear, as if of something nameless.
Kennedy bent over. His hands were cold.
Northrop had been dead at least twelve hours, perhaps longer. All night the deserted museum had guarded its terrible secret.
As Craig peered into his face, he saw, in the fleshy part of the neck, just below the left ear, a round red mark, with just a drop or two of now black coagulated blood in the center. All around we could see a vast amount of miscellaneous stuff, partly unpacked, partly just opened, and waiting to be taken out of the wrappings by the now motionless hands.
“I suppose you are more or less familiar with what Northrop brought back?” asked Kennedy of Bernardo, running his eye over the material in the room.
“Yes, reasonably,” answered Bernardo. “Before the cases arrived from the wharf, he told me in detail what he had managed to bring up with him.”
“I wish, then, that you would look it over and see if there is anything missing,” requested Craig, already himself busy in going over the room for other evidence.
Doctor Bernardo hastily began taking a mental inventory of the stuff. While they worked, I tried vainly to frame some theory which would explain the startling facts we had so suddenly discovered.
Mitla, I knew, was south of the city of Oaxaca, and there, in its ruined palaces, was the crowning achievement of the old Zapotec kings. No ruins in America were more elaborately ornamented or richer in lore for the archeologist.