“He was an unusual man,” said she; “aged and white-haired, as I remember him, and always dressed in white flannels, which threw his dark skin into sharp relief. He lived alone in the house, having but one man-servant to do all the work, cook his meals and cater to his slightest whim.”
“Miguel Zaloa,” said Inez in a low voice.
“Cristoval was not popular,” said Mildred, “for he loved money so well that he was reputed to be a miser. It was this love of money, I think, that induced him to go into partnership with my father in his illegal smuggling enterprises. Cristoval furnished the money and when my father had slipped across the border with his bales of rare laces, they were hidden in the hollow wall until they could be forwarded to San Francisco and sold.
“And this brings me to a relation of my present interest in this house,” she continued. “When we escaped from California a large lot of very valuable Mexican laces which belonged exclusively to my father was hidden in the wall. The sale of a former lot of smuggled goods had resulted in a large profit and Cristoval had received a bank draft for the amount, one half of which was due my father. When we last saw Cristoval at San Bernardino, before we left for New York, he promised my father to cash the draft and send him the proceeds. This he never did, although he advanced my father, at that time, a sum of money from other sources to pay our expenses until we could establish ourselves in the east.
“To avoid suspicion, my father always allowed Cristoval to bank the partnership money, drawing on the rich Spaniard from time to time for what he required. Father told me that altogether Cristoval owed him nine thousand dollars, besides the bale of laces, valued at ten thousand more. He wrote many times to demand this money, using a cipher they had arranged between them, but his letters were never answered. I know now that Cristoval died soon after we went to New York, so whoever got the letters, being unable to read the secret cipher, of course ignored them.
“Just as Leighton was being taken to prison, the last time I ever saw him, he told me to find some way to come here and get the money. He said that if Cristoval was dead, as he then suspected, the secret of the wall was still safe, for the old man had vowed never to disclose it. He thought I would find the laces still hidden in the wall, and perhaps the money.”
“Did you look to see, while you were there?” asked Arthur Weldon.
“Yes. There is no evidence of any property that I could rightfully claim.”
It was a strange recital, and a fascinating one to those who heard it.
“Who would think,” said Patsy, “that in this prosaic age we would get so close to a real story of smuggling, hidden treasure and secret recesses in walls? It smacks more of the romantic days of past centuries.”