“Would you come out to the Key with me?” hastened Everson, as though grasping at a possible solution.
“I should be delighted to help you in any manner that I can,” returned Craig, heartily.
Everson could not find words to express his gratitude as we hurried back to the hotel. In the excitement, I had completely forgotten the despatch from the Star, but now I suddenly realized that here, ready to hand, was the only way of getting out to the Key of Gold and securing the story.
Asta Everson and Norma, especially, were overjoyed at the news that Kennedy had consented to accompany them back to the wreck. Evidently they had great faith in him, from what they had heard at home.
Accordingly, Everson lost no time in preparing to return to the yacht. Nothing more now could be done for poor Traynor, and delay might mean much in clearing up the mystery, if mystery it should prove. We were well on our way toward the landing place before I realized that we were going over much the same route that Kennedy and I had taken the day before to reach the home of Guiteras.
I was just about to say something about it to Kennedy, and of the impression that Norma had made on me, when suddenly a figure darted from around a corner and confronted us. We stopped in surprise. It was no other than Dolores herself—not the quiet, subdued Dolores we had seen the day before, but an almost wild, passionate creature. What it was that had transformed her I could not imagine. It was not ourselves that she seemed to seek, nor yet the Eversons. She did not pause until she had come close to Norma herself.
For a moment the two women, so different in type, faced each other, Dolores fiery with the ardent beauty of her race, Norma pulsating with life and vigor, yet always mistress of herself.
“I warn you!” cried Dolores, unable to restrain herself. “You thought the other was yours—and he was not. Do not seek revenge. He is mine—MINE, I tell you. Win your own back again. I was only making sport of him. But mine—beware!”
For a moment Norma gazed at her, then, without a word, turned aside and walked on. Another instant and Dolores was gone as suddenly as she had appeared. Asta looked inquiringly, but Norma made no attempt at explanation. What did it mean? Had it anything to do with the dispute in the hotel which Kenmore had witnessed?
At the landing we parted for a time with Everson, to return to our hotel and get what little we needed, including Kennedy’s traveling laboratory, while Everson prepared quarters for our reception on the yacht.
“What do you make of that Dolores incident?” I hastened to ask the moment we were alone.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “except that I feel it has an important bearing on the case. There is something that Norma hasn’t told us, I fear.”
While we waited for a wagon to transfer our goods to the dock, Kennedy took a moment to call up Kenmore on the News. As he turned to me from the telephone, I saw that what he had learned had not helped him much in his idea of the case.
“It was the Interocean Company which had insured the Antilles,” was all he said.
Instantly I thought of Kinsale and his former connection. Was he secretly working with them still? Was there a plot to frustrate Everson’s plans? At least the best thing to do was to get out to the wreck and answer our many questions at first hand.
The Belle Aventure was a trim yacht of perhaps seventy feet, low, slim, and graceful, driven by a powerful gas-engine and capable of going almost anywhere. An hour later we were aboard and settled in a handsomely appointed room, where Craig lost no time in establishing his temporary traveling crime clinic.
It was quite late before we were able to start, for Everson had a number of commissions to attend to on this his first visit to port since he had set out so blithely. Finally, however, we had taken aboard all that he needed and we slipped out quietly past the castle on the point guarding the entrance to the harbor. All night we plowed ahead over the brilliant, starry, tropical sea, making splendid time, for the yacht was one of the fastest that had ever been turned out by the builders.
Now and then I could see that Kennedy was furtively watching Norma, in the hope that she might betray whatever secret it was she was guarding so jealously. Though she betrayed nothing, I felt sure that it had to do with some member of the expedition and that it was a more than ordinarily complicated affair of the heart. The ladies had retired, leaving us with Everson in the easy wicker chairs on the after-deck.
“I can’t seem to get out of my mind, Everson, that meeting with the Spanish girl on the street,” suddenly remarked Kennedy, in the hope of getting something by surprise. “You see, I had already heard of a little unpleasantness in a hotel cafe, before the expedition started. Somehow I feel that there must be some connection.”
For a moment Everson regarded Kennedy under the soft rays of the electric light under the awning as it swayed in the gentle air, then looked out over the easy swell of the summer sea.
“I don’t understand it myself,” he remarked, at length, lowering his voice. “When we came down here Dominick knew that girl, Dolores, and of course Kinsale met her right away, too. I thought Gage was head over ears in love with Norma—and I guess he is. Only that night in the cafe I just didn’t like the way he proposed a toast to Dolores. He must have met her that day. Maybe he was a bit excited. What she said today might mean that it was her fault. I don’t know. But since we’ve been out to the Key I fancy Norma has been pretty interested in Dominick. And Kinsale doesn’t hesitate to show that he likes her. It all sets Donald crazy. It’s so mixed up. I can’t make anything of it. And Norma—well, even Asta can’t get anything out of her. I wish to Heaven you could straighten the thing out.”
We talked for some time, without getting much more light than Everson had been able at first to shed on the affair, and finally we retired, having concluded that only time and events would enable us to get at the truth.
It was early in the morning that I was wakened by a change in the motion of the boat. There was very little vibration from the engine, but this motion was different. I looked out of the port-hole which had been very cleverly made to resemble a window and found that we had dropped anchor.
The Key of Gold was a beautiful green island, set, like a sparkling gem, in a sea of deepest turquoise. Slender pines with a tuft of green at the top rose gracefully from the wealth of foliage below and contrasted with the immaculate white of the sandy beach that glistened in the morning sun. Romance seemed to breathe from the very atmosphere of the place.
We found that the others on the yacht were astir, too, and, dressing hastily, we went out on deck. Across the dancing waves, which seemed to throw a mocking challenge to the treasure-seekers to find what they covered, we could see the trawler. Already a small power-boat had put out from her and was plowing along toward us.
It was as the boat came alongside us that we met Gage for the first time. He was a tall, clean-cut fellow, but even at a glance I recognized that his was an unusual type. I fancied that both proctors and professors had worried over him when he was in college.
Particularly I tried to discover how he acted when he met Norma. It was easy to see that he was very eager to greet her, but I fancied that there was some restraint on her part. Perhaps she felt that we were watching and was on her guard.
Dominick greeted Everson warmly. He was a man of about thirty-five and impressed one as having seen a great deal of the world. His position as purser had brought him into intimate contact with many people, and he seemed to have absorbed much from them. I could imagine that, like many people
