“Or else have changed their destination,” returned Craig.  “Tell him that.  Maybe Whitney had no intention of coming up here.  He may have done this thing just to throw these people off up here, too.  I can’t say.  I can tell better whether he intended to come back after I’ve got this safe open.  I’ll let you know.”

Kennedy rang off.

“Any news of Inez?” asked Lockwood who had been fuming with impatience.

“She’s probably on her way up here,” returned Craig briefly, taking up the blow-pipe again.

Alfonso remained silent.  The Senora could scarcely hide her excitement.  If there were anything in telepathy, I am sure that she read everything that was said over the wire.

Quickly Craig resumed his work, biting through the solid steel as if it had been mere pasteboard, the blow-pipe showering on each side a brilliant spray of sparks, a gaudy, pyrotechnic display.

Suddenly, with a quick motion, Kennedy turned off the acetylene and oxygen.  The last bolt had been severed, the lock was useless.  A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he had merely said, “Open sesame.”

Craig reached in and pulled open a steel drawer directly in front of him.

There in the shadow lay the dagger—­with its incalculably valuable secret, a poor, unattractive piece of metal, but with a fascination such as no other object, I had ever seen, possessed.

There was a sudden cry.  The Senora had darted ahead, as if to clasp its handle and unloose the murderous blade that nestled in its three-sided sheath.

Before she could reach it, Kennedy had seized her hand in his iron grasp, while with the other he picked up the dagger.

They stood there gazing into each other’s eyes.

Then the Senora burst into a hysterical laugh.

“The curse is on all who possess it!”

“Thank you,” smiled Kennedy quietly, releasing her wrist as he dropped the dagger into his pocket, “I am only the trustee.”

XXIV

THE POLICE DOG

Craig faced us, but there was no air of triumph in his manner.  I knew what was in his mind.  He had the dagger.  But he had lost Inez.

What were we to do?  There seemed to be no way to turn.  We knew something of the manner of her disappearance.  At first she had, apparently, gone willingly.  But it was inconceivable that she stayed willingly, now.

I recalled all the remarks that Whitney had ever made about her.  Had the truth come out in his jests?  Was it Inez, not the dagger, that he really wanted?

Or was he merely the instrument of one or all of these people before us, and was this an elaborate plan to throw Kennedy off and prove an alibi for them?  He had been the partner of Lockwood, the intimate of de Moche.  Which was he working for, now—­or was he working for himself alone?