As a matter of fact, Whitney had been far-sighted enough to see that scholarship could be capitalized, not only as an advertisement, but in more direct manners.  Just at present one of his pet schemes was promoting trade through the canal between the east coast of North America and the west coast of South America.  He had spent a good deal of money promoting friendship between men of affairs and wealth in both New York and Lima.  It was a good chance, he figured, for his investments down in Peru were large, and anything that popularized the country in New York could not but make them more valuable.

“Norton seemed rather averse to talking about Whitney,” I ventured to Craig, as we rode downtown.

“That may be part of Whitney’s cleverness,” he returned thoughtfully.  “As a patron of art and letters, you know, a man can carry through a good many things that otherwise would be more critically examined.”

Kennedy did not say it in a way that implied that he knew anything very bad about Whitney.  Still, I reflected, it was astute in the man to insure the cooperation of such people as Norton.  A few thousand dollars judiciously spent on archaeology might cover up a multitude of sins of high finance.

Nothing more was said by either of us, and at last we reached the financial district.  We entered a tall skyscraper on Wall Street just around the corner from Broadway and shot up in the elevator to the floor where Whitney and his associates had a really palatial suite of offices.

As we opened the door we saw that Lockwood was still there.  He greeted us with a rather stiff bow.

“Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson,” he said simply, introducing us to Whitney, “friends of Professor Norton, I believe.  I met them to-day up at Mendoza’s.”

“That is a most incomprehensible affair,” returned Whitney, shaking hands with us.  “What do you make out of it?”

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders and turned the remark aside without committing himself.

Stuart Whitney was a typical promoter, a large, full-blooded man, with a face red and inclined to be puffy from the congested veins.  His voice alone commanded respect, whether he said anything worth while or not.  In fact, he had but to say that it was a warm day and you felt that he had scored a telling point in the conversation.

“Professor Norton has asked me to look into the loss of an old Peruvian dagger which he brought back from his last expedition,” explained Kennedy, endeavouring to lead the conversation in channels which might arrive somewhere.

“Yes, yes,” remarked Whitney, with a nod of interest.  “He has told me of it.  Very strange, very strange.  When he came back he told me that he had it, along with a lot of other important finds.  But I had no idea he set such a value on it—­or, rather, that any one else might do so.  It would have been easy to have safeguarded it here, if we had known,” he added, with a wave of his hand in the direction of a huge chrome steel safe of latest design in the outer office.