Outside, in the darkness, Peter clutched Roddy by the hand, and for an instant crushed it in his own.
“Do you hear?” he whispered. “He is answering you.”
“Yes,” stammered Roddy. The excitement or the dampness of the prison had set him shivering, and with the back of his hand he wiped the cold moisture from his forehead. He laughed mirthlessly. “Yes,” he answered, “he understood me. And now, we’ve got to make good!”
That afternoon when the carriages of the aristocracy of Porto Cabello were solemnly circling the Plaza, Roddy came upon McKildrick, seated on one of the stone benches, observing the parade of local wealth and fashion with eyes that missed nothing and told nothing. McKildrick was a fine type of the self-taught American. He possessed a thorough knowledge of his profession, executive skill, the gift of handling men, and the added glory of having “worked his way up.” He was tall, lean, thin-lipped, between thirty and forty years of age. During business hours he spoke only to give an order or to put a question. Out of working hours, in his manner to his assistants and workmen, he was genially democratic. He had, apparently, a dread of being alone, and was seldom seen without one of the younger engineers at his elbow. With them he was considered a cynic, the reason given for his cynicism being that “the Chief” had tried to “take a fall out of matrimony,” and had come out of it a woman-hater. Officially he was Roddy’s superior, but it never was possible for any one in the pay of the F. C. C. to forget that Roddy was the son of his father. Even McKildrick, in certain ways, acknowledged it. One way was, in their leisure moments, not to seek out Roddy, but to wait for the younger man to make advances. On this occasion, after for a brief moment contemplating McKildrick severely, Roddy, with an impatient exclamation, as though dismissing doubts and misgivings, sat down beside him.
“McKildrick,” he began impetuously, “I want to ask you an impertinent question. It concerns your moral character.”
McKildrick grinned appreciatively.
“We court investigation,” he said.
“Under what pressure to the square inch,” demanded Roddy, “would a secret confided to you be liable to burst its boiler?”
“I’ve never,” returned the engineer, “had an accident of that kind.”
“Good!” exclaimed Roddy. “Then suppose I said to you, ‘McKildrick, I know where there’s buried treasure, but I don’t know how to get it out.’ You would know. Now, if I led you to the buried treasure, would you, as an expert engineer, tell me how to dig it out, and then could you forget you’d given that advice and that you’d ever heard of the treasure?”