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The Evil Eye
by
“Tonight surely,” answered Craig, holding the door for her to pass out.
“Well,” I said, when we were alone, “what is it–a romance or a crime?”
“Both, I think,” he replied abstractedly, taking up the experiment which the visit had interrupted.
“I think,” he remarked late in the afternoon, as he threw off his acid-stained smock, “that I will go over to the University library before it closes and refresh my mind on some of those old Peruvian antiquities and traditions. The big fish or peje grande, as I remember it, was the name given by the natives to one of the greatest buried treasures about the time of Pizarro’s conquest. If I remember correctly, Mansiche was the great cacique, or something of that sort–the ruler in northern Peru at that time. He is said to have left a curse on any native who ever divulged the whereabouts of the treasure and the curse was also to fall on any Spaniard who might discover it.”
For more than an hour Kennedy delved into the archeological lore in the library. Then he rejoined me at the laboratory and after a hasty bite of dinner we hurried down to the station.
That evening we stepped off the train at Atlantic Beach to make our way to the Beach Inn. The resort was just springing into night life, as the millions of incandescent lights flooded it with a radiance which we could see reflected in the sky long before our train arrived. There was something intoxicating about the combination of the bracing salt air and the gay throngs seeking pleasure.
Instead of taking the hotel ‘bus, Kennedy decided to stroll to the inn along the boardwalk. We were just about to turn into the miniature park which separated the inn from the walk when we noticed a wheel chair coming in our direction. In it were a young man and a woman of well-preserved middle age. They had evidently been enjoying the ocean breeze after dinner, and the sound of music had drawn them back to the hotel.
We entered the lobby of the inn just as the first number of the evening concert by the orchestra was finishing. Kennedy stood at the desk for a moment while Senorita Mendoza was being paged, and ran his eye over the brilliant scene. In a minute the boy returned and led us through the maze of wicker chairs to an alcove just off the hall which later in the evening would be turned into a ballroom.
On a wide settee, the Senorita was talking with animation to a tall, clean-cut young man in evening clothes, whose face bore the tan of a sun much stronger than that at Atlantic Beach. He was unmistakably of the type of American soldier of fortune. In a deep rocker before them sat a heavy-set man whose piercing black eyes beetled forth from under bushy eyebrows. He was rather distinguished looking, and his close-cropped hair and mustache set him off as a man of affairs and consequence in his own country.
As we approached, Senorita Mendoza rose quickly. I wondered how she was going to get over the awkward situation of introducing us, for surely she did not intend to let her father know that she was employing a detective. She did it most cleverly, with a significant look at Kennedy which he understood.
“Good-evening. I am delighted to see you,” she greeted. Then, turning to her father, she introduced Craig. “This is Professor Kennedy,” she explained, “whom I met at the reception of the Hispano-American Society. You remember I told you he was so much interested in our Peruvian ruins.”
Don Luis’s eyes seemed fairly to glitter with excitement. They were prominent eyes, staring, and I could not help studying them.
“Then, Senor Kennedy,” he exclaimed, “you know of our ruins of Chan-Chan, of Chima–those wonderful places–and have heard the legend of the peje grande ?” His eyes, by that time, were almost starting from their sockets, and I noticed that the pupils were dilated almost to the size of the iris. “We must sit down,” he went on, “and talk about Peru.”