The little man jumped forward with his eyes flashing. “No,” he hissed, checking this show of feeling as quickly as he could.
“Well, then,” observed Kennedy, rising slowly, “I see nothing to do but to notify the police and have a general alarm sent out.”
The fire died in the eyes of Torreon. “Do not do that, Señor,” he exclaimed. “Wait at least one day more. Perhaps he will appear. Perhaps he has only gone up to Bridgeport to see about some arms and cartridges—who can tell? No, sir, do not call in the police, I beg you—not yet. I myself will search for him. It may be I can get some word, some clue. If I can I will notify Miss Guerrero immediately.”
Kennedy turned suddenly. “Torreon,” he flashed quickly, “what do you suspect about that shipment of half a million silver dollars? Where did it go after it left the wharf?”
Torreon kept his composure admirably. An enigma of a smile flitted over his mobile features as he shrugged his shoulders. “Ah,” he said simply, “then you have heard that the money is missing? Perhaps Guerrero has not gone to Bridgeport, after all!”
“On condition that I do not notify the police yet—will you take us to visit Señora Mendez, and let us learn from her what she knows of this strange case?”
Torreon was plainly cornered. He sat for a moment biting his nails nervously and fidgeting in his chair. “It shall be as you wish,” he assented at length.
“We are to go,” continued Kennedy, “merely as friends of yours, you understand? I want to ask questions in my own way, and you are not to—”
“Yes, yes,” he agreed. “Wait. I will tell her we are coming,” and he reached for the telephone.
“No,” interrupted Kennedy. “I prefer to go with you unexpected. Put down the telephone. Otherwise, I may as well notify my friend Inspector O’Connor of the Central Office and go up with him.”
Torreon let the receiver fall back in its socket, and I caught just a glimpse of the look of hate and suspicion which crossed his face as he turned toward Kennedy. When he spoke it was as suavely as if he himself were the one who had planned this little excursion.
“It shall be as you wish,” he said, leading the way out to the crosstown surface cars.
Señora Mendez received us politely, and we were ushered into a large music-room in her apartment. There were several people there already. They were seated in easy chairs about the room.
One of the ladies was playing on the piano as we entered. It was a curious composition—very rhythmic, with a peculiar thread of monotonous melody running through it.
The playing ceased, and all eyes were fixed on us. Kennedy kept very close to Torreon, apparently for the purpose of frustrating any attempt at a whispered conversation with the señora.
The guests rose and with courtly politeness bowed as Señora Mendez presented two friends of Señor Torreon, Señor Kennedy and Señor Jameson. We were introduced in turn to Señor and Señora Alvardo, Señor Gonzales, Señorita Reyes, and the player, Señora Barrios.
It was a peculiar situation, and for want of something better to say I commented on the curious character of the music we had overheard as we entered.
The señora smiled, and was about to speak when a servant entered, bearing a tray full of little cups with a steaming liquid, and in a silver dish some curious, round, brown, disc-like buttons, about an inch in diameter and perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. Torreon motioned frantically to the servant to withdraw, but Kennedy was too quick for him. Interposing himself between Torreon and the servant, he made way for her to enter.
“You were speaking of the music,” replied Señora Mendez to me in rich, full tones. “Yes, it is very curious. It is a song of the Kiowa Indians of New Mexico which Señora Barrios has endeavoured to set to music so that it can be rendered on the piano. Señora Barrios and myself fled from Vespuccia to Mexico at the start of our revolution, and when the Mexican government ordered us to leave on account of our political activity we merely crossed the line to the United States, in New Mexico. It was there that we ran across this very curious discovery. The monotonous beat of that melody you heard is supposed to represent the beating of the tom-toms of the Indians during their mescal rites. We are having a mescal evening here, whiling away the hours of exile from our native Vespuccia.”
“Mescal?” I repeated blankly at first, then feeling a nudge from Kennedy, I added hastily: “Oh, yes, to be sure. I think I have heard of it. It’s a Mexican drink, is it not? I have never had the pleasure of tasting it or of tasting that other drink, pulque—poolkay—did I get the accent right?”
I felt another, sharper nudge from Kennedy, and knew that I had only made matters worse.
“Mr. Jameson,” he hastened to remark, “confounds this mescal of the Indians with the drink of the same name that is common in Mexico.”
“Oh,” she laughed, to my great relief, “but this mescal is something quite different. The Mexican drink mescal is made from the maguey-plant and is a frightfully horrid thing that sends the peon out of his senses and makes him violent. Mescal as I mean it is a little shrub, a god, a cult, a religion.”
“Yes,” assented Kennedy; “discovered by those same Kiowa Indians, was it not?”
“Perhaps,” she admitted, raising her beautiful shoulders in polite deprecation. “The mescal religion, we found, has spread very largely in New Mexico and Arizona among the Indians, and with the removal of the Kiowas to the Indian reservation it has been adopted by other tribes even, I have heard, as far north as the Canadian border.”
“Is that so?” asked Kennedy. “I understood that the United States government had forbidden the importation
