“I’d dare,” retorted Mr. Seaton, his eyes flashing. “But what would be the use of daring? I am almost certain to be killed if I ever show my face in Vahia while Terrero is alive. So, then, this is what I have done: Since my return to this country I have been arranging, ever so quietly, with moneyed men who have faith in me and in my honesty. After much dickering we have arranged a syndicate that is backed by millions of dollars, if need be. And we may need to spend a good deal of money before we get through. We may even have to try to turn Terrero’s most trusted lieutenants against him. We won’t, if we can help it, but we may have to. The stake is a big one!
“Through turning this business over to the syndicate I am bound to lose the greater portion of the fortune that might have been mine from this great enterprise. Yet, even as it is, 98 I stand to reap rich returns if ever the syndicate can locate and secure the patent to the diamond fields that I discovered.
“At this moment three members of our syndicate are in Rio Janeiro. They are big, solid American men of moneyed affairs. As far as they permit to be known, they are in Brazil only as a matter of vacation and pleasure. In truth, they are awaiting the arrival of Albert Clodis on the ‘Constant.’ When he had arrived, with the papers from me showing where and how to locate the diamond field, they were to have moved quickly, spending plenty of money, and filing a patent to the fields. Under the law the Brazilian Government would be entitled to a large share of the find in precious stones, but even at that our share would have been enormous. Once the patent to the diamond field was filed, the President and the whole National Government of that country could be depended upon to protect the owner’s rights, even against the greed and treachery of Terrero. So all that appeared to be left to do was to get to my friends of the syndicate the two sets of papers that would enable them to locate the unknown diamond field. Neither set of papers is worth anything by itself, but with the two sets the field can be promptly located.
“My first thought was to send the two sets 99 of papers by two different men. Yet, strange as it may appear to you boys, I could not decide upon two men whom I felt I could fully trust under all circumstances. You have no idea how I have been watched, the last year, by agents of Terrero. Dalton, though an American, is one of the worst of these secret agents of the governor of Vahia. I knew how thoroughly I was being watched, and I, in turn, have had others watching Anson Dalton as effectively as it could be done in a free country like the United States.
“Well, to make this long story short, when I had all else in readiness I decided upon Bert Clodis as the one man I could fully trust to deliver the two sets of papers to the members of the syndicate at Rio Janeiro. I believed, too, at the time, though I could not be sure, that my relations with Bert Clodis were unknown to Anson Dalton.
“Yet, not for a moment did I trust too thoroughly to that belief. I had Dalton watched. If he engaged passage aboard the ‘Constant,’ my suspicions would be at once aroused. We now know that he secured passage, by mail, under the name of Arthur Hilton. Beyond the slightest doubt Dalton, that infernal spy, had succeeded in discovering that I was sending Clodis with the papers. Yet Dalton, or Hilton, as he chose to call himself, did not go aboard 100 the ‘Constant’ openly at New York. I can only guess that he boarded from the tug that took off the pilot when the liner had reached open sea.
“I had impressed upon Bert Clodis the importance of keeping the two sets of papers apart, and had advised him that it might not be safe to deposit either in the purser’s safe, from which they might be taken through the means of a deep-sea burglary.
“So the probability is that Bert Clodis had one set of papers concealed on his person. The other set of papers—the one I now have safe—he seems to have put away in his trunk, believing that no one seeking to rob him would think him simple enough to leave valuable papers in a trunk that could be rather easily entered in the hold of a liner.
“As I have already told you, I had the ship watched at New York, and received a message, after her sailing, which told me that no one answering Dalton’s description had boarded the ‘Constant’ at her pier.
“As the liner entered this latitude Bert Clodis was to send off a wireless message which, though apparently rather blind, would be enough to advise me that no one answering to Dalton’s description had appeared among the passengers or crew of the ‘Constant.’ This 101 news I awaited at the wireless station at Beaufort, and you can imagine my anxiety.”