"Indeed I think there was," she replied, quickly. "None of us has any idea how it happened. Let me tell you about our party. You see, there are three college chums, Orrin and two friends, Bertram Traynor and Donald Gage. They were all on a cruise down here last winter, the year after they graduated. It was in San Juan that Orrin first met Mr.

Dominick, who was the purser on the Antilles--you know, that big steamer of the Gulf Line that was burned last year and went down with seven million dollars aboard?"

Kennedy nodded to the implied query, and she went on: "Mr. Dominick was among those saved, but Captain Driggs was lost with his ship. Mr.

Dominick had been trying to interest some one here in seeking the treasure. They knew about where the Antilles went down, and the first thing he wanted to do was to locate the wreck exactly. After that was done of course Mr. Dominick knew about the location of the ship's strong room and all that."

"That, of course, was common knowledge to any one interested enough to find out, though," suggested Kennedy.

"Of course," she agreed. "Well, a few months later Orrin met Mr.

Dominick again, in New York. In the mean time he had been talking the thing over with various people and had become acquainted with a man who had once been a diver for the Interocean Marine Insurance Company--Owen Kinsale. Anyhow, so the scheme grew. They incorporated a company, the Deep Sea Engineering Company, to search for the treasure. That is how Orrin started. They are using his yacht and Mr. Dominick is really in command, though Mr. Kinsale has the actual technical knowledge."

She paused, but again her feelings seemed to get the better of her.

"Oh," she cried, "I've been afraid all along, lately. It's dangerous work. And then, the stories that have been told of the ship and the treasure. It seems ill-fated. Professor Kennedy," she appealed, "I wish you would come and see us. We're not on the yacht just now. We came ash.o.r.e as soon as we arrived back, and Asta and Orrin are at the Palace Hotel now. Perhaps Orrin can tell you more. If you can do nothing more than quiet my fears--"

Her eyes finished the sentence. Norma Sanford was one of those girls who impress you as quite capable of taking care of themselves. But in the presence of the tragedy and a danger which she felt but could not seem to define, she felt the need of outside a.s.sistance and did not hesitate to ask it. Nor was Kennedy slow in responding. He seemed to welcome a chance to help some one in distress.

We found Everson and his young wife at the hotel, quite different now from the care-free adventurers who had set out only a few days before to wrest a fortune from chance.

I had often seen portraits of the two Sanford sisters in the society pages of the papers in the States and knew that the courtship of Orrin Everson and Asta Sanford had been a true bit of modern romance.

Asta Everson was a unique type of girl. She had begun by running fast motor cars and boats. That had not satisfied her, and she had taken up aviation. Once, even, she had tried deep-sea diving herself. It seemed as if she had been born with the spirit of adventure.

To win her, Everson had done about everything from Arctic exploration one summer when he was in college to big-game hunting in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Andes. Odd though the romance might seem to be, one could not help feeling that the young couple were splendidly matched in their tastes. Each had that spirit of restlessness which, at least, sent them out playing at pioneering.

Everson had organized the expedition quite as much in the spirit of revolt against a prosaic life of society at home as for gain. It had appealed strongly to Asta. She had insisted that nothing so much as a treasure hunt would be appropriate for their wedding-trip and they had agreed on the unconventional. Accordingly, she and her sister had joined Everson and his party, Norma, though a year younger, being quite like her sister in her taste for excitement.

"Of course, you understand," explained Everson, as he hurriedly tried to give us some idea of what had happened, "we knew that the Antilles had sunk somewhere off the Cay d'Or. It was first a question of locating her. That was all that we had been doing when Bertram died. It is terrible, terrible. I can't believe it. I can't understand it."

In spite of his iron nerve, the tragedy seemed to have shaken Everson profoundly.

"You had done nothing that might have been dangerous?" asked Kennedy, pointedly.

"Nothing," emphasized Everson. "You see, we located the wreck in a way somewhat similar to the manner in which they sweep the seas for mines and submarines. It was really very simple, though it took us some time.

All we did was to drag a wire at a fixed depth between the yacht and the tug, or rather, I suppose you'd almost call it a trawler, which I chartered from Havana. What we were looking for was to have the wire catch on some obstruction. It did, too, not once, but many times, due to the unevenness of the ocean bed. Once we located a wreck, but it was in shallow water, a small boat, not the one we were looking for."

"But you succeeded finally?"

"Yes, only day before yesterday we located her. We marked the spot with a buoy and were getting ready for real work. It was just after that that Bertram was taken ill and died so suddenly. We've left Dominick, Kinsale, Gage, and the rest on the trawler there, while I came here with Traynor's body. G.o.d! but it was awful to have to send the news back to New York. I don't know what to think or what to do."

"How did he die?" asked Kennedy, endeavoring to gain the confidence of young Everson. "Do you recall any of his symptoms?"

"It came on him so suddenly," he replied, "that we hadn't much time to think. As nearly as we could make out, it began with a faintness and difficulty in breathing. We asked him how he felt--but it seemed as if he was deaf. I thought it might be the 'bends'--you know, caisson disease--and we started to put him in the medical lock which we had for the divers, but before we could get it ready he was unconscious. It was all so sudden that it stunned us. I can't make it out at all."

Neither Asta nor Norma seemed able to tell anything. In fact, the blow had been so swift and unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it had left them thoroughly alarmed.

The body of Traynor had already been brought ash.o.r.e and placed in a local undertaking shop. With Everson, Kennedy and I hastened to visit it.

Traynor had been an athlete and powerfully built, which made his sudden death seem all the more strange. Without a word, Craig set to work immediately examining his body, while we stood aside, watching him in anxious silence. Kennedy consumed the greater part of the morning in his careful investigation, and after some time Everson began to get restless, wondering how his wife and sister-in-law were getting on in his absence. To keep him company I returned to the hotel with him, leaving Kennedy to pursue his work alone.

There was nothing much that either of us could say or do, but I thought I observed, on closer acquaintance with Norma, that she had something weighing on her mind. Was it a suspicion of which she had not told us?

Evidently she was not prepared to say anything yet, but I determined, rather than try to quiz her, to tell Kennedy, in the hope that she might confide in him what she would not breathe to any one else.

It was perhaps an hour or more later that we returned to Craig. He was still at work, though from his manner it was evident that his investigations had begun to show something, however slight.

"Have you found anything?" asked Everson, eagerly.

"I think I have," returned Craig, measuring his words carefully. "Of course you know the dangers of diving and the view now accepted regarding the rapid effervescence of the gases which are absorbed in the body fluids during exposure to pressure. I think you know that experiment has proved that when the pressure is suddenly relieved the gas is liberated in bubbles within the body. That is what seems to do the harm. His symptoms, as you described them, seemed to indicate that.

It is like charged water in a bottle. Take out the cork and the gas inside which has been under pressure bubbles up. In the human body, air and particularly the nitrogen in the air, literally form death bubbles."

Everson said nothing as he regarded Kennedy's face searchingly, and Craig went on: "Set free in the spinal cord, for instance, such bubbles may cause partial paralysis, or in the heart may lead to stoppage of the circulation. In this case I am quite sure that what I have found indicates air in the arteries, the heart, and the blood vessels of the brain. It must have been a case of air embolism, insufflation."

Though Everson seemed all along to have suspected something of the sort, Kennedy's judgment left him quite as much at a loss for an explanation. Kennedy seemed to understand, as he went on:

"I have tried to consider all the ways such a thing could have happened," he considered. "It is possible that air might have been introduced into the veins by a hypodermic needle or other instrument.

But I find no puncture of the skin or other evidence that would support that theory. I have looked for a lesion of the lungs, but find none.

Then how could it have occurred? Had he done any real deep diving?"

Everson shook his head slowly. "No," he replied. "As I said, it wouldn't have been so incomprehensible if he had. Besides, if we had been diving, we should have been on the lookout. No, Bertram had only tested the apparatus once, after we located the wreck. He didn't much more than go under the surface--nothing like the practice dives we all made up in Long Island Sound before we came down here. He was only testing the pumps and other things to see whether they had stood the voyage. Why, it was nothing at all! I don't see how it could have given any one the 'bends'--much less a fellow like Traynor. Why, I think he could have stood more than Kinsale with a little practice. Kennedy, I can't get it out of my mind that there's something about this that isn't RIGHT."

Craig regarded Everson gravely. "Frankly," he confessed, "I must say that I don't understand it myself--at this distance."

"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 grat.i.tude 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, pa.s.sionate 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.