“I’m not afraid. I’ve been here alone before,” said Eva. “But,” she went on, “I don’t understand yet how you came to be here. And then, what was my father doing on board that yacht? It all seems a puzzle.”
“It’s more than a puzzle.”
Anything to distract her mind now, and he plunged into an account of his adventures on board the Cavite. He had to tread warily. He suppressed the fact that her father had been tortured, that he was unconscious and paralyzed. He represented that Morrison had been obstinately keeping silence. And when he came to the man’s last incoherent instructions, Eva interrupted, anxiously.
“He wanted you to find something important. He must have meant you to pass it to me. What did you find?”
“It was that steel dispatch box; it had some stock certificates—nothing else but a bundle of drawings and photographs. We sold the stock. I didn’t understand, of course. I thought it was for the Rockett creditors. We were lucky enough to catch it just at its high point and we—well, we speculated on it a little. Eventually we got out with over twelve thousand dollars. It’s all in the bank at Mobile. It’s all yours, of course. I’ll have it transferred to you to-morrow.”
What luck, he thought, that he had neither split it with Carroll nor turned it in to the courts.
Eva was reflecting gravely. “That was the money for his next expedition. It’s more than he often had. His expeditions generally cost far more than they brought in. He’s just come back from southern Chile, you know. He was going again this season, and he was going to take me with him, as far as Valparaiso, anyway.”
“Well, the money is here all waiting for him,” Lang returned.
“And the photographs and sketches you spoke of—have you them safely, too?”
“No, I believe Carroll still has them,” he admitted. “I’ve not thought of them since. But I’ll get them back for you. Do you suppose that gang imagined that your father had large quantities of valuables hidden? Surely they didn’t take all that trouble for his little block of oil stock. Why should they have carried him off against his will? Or, did they? What were they trying to get out of him? Have you any idea?”