“Plot! Why do you speak of a plot?” asked the girl, hoping that the word betokened some more promising clue than she could discern thus far.
“Why did the furnaces blow up? Tell me that, and I can answer you. Good, honest coal isn’t made of gunpowder. José, or some one behind him, meant to sink the ship, and, as I might have proved awkward, they were willing that I should go down with her. Maybe I shall meet José if we get out of this rat-trap; then we shall have a little talk.”
Again his hand wandered towards his waist, but he bethought himself, and bent in pretense that the bandage on his leg needed readjusting.
Despite the man’s shrewd guess as to the cause of the accident in the stoke-hold, Elsie was at a loss to connect the freak of some Valparaiso loafer with the deep-laid scheme which contemplated the destruction of the Kansas. She had followed the discussion in the chart-room with full appreciation of its significance. Valuable as the ship and cargo were, there was far more at stake in the effect of the loss on the copper markets of the world. The most important copper-exporting firm in Chile would practically be ruined, while the Paris “ring,” of which she had read in the newspapers, would have matters its own way. Financial interests of such magnitude would hardly be bound up with the carousals and quarrels of Frascuelo and José the Wine-bag. Yet—
“Have you ever heard of a Señor Pedro Ventana?” she asked suddenly.
“Has he to do with mines?” inquired the Chilean, tentatively.
“Yes.”
“I know him by sight, señorita.”
“Would he be acquainted with this man, Anacleto, do you think?”
“Can’t say. José would know anybody whom he could touch for a few pesetas.”