“Beware the curse of Mansiche on the gold of the gods.”

Kennedy and I looked at him.  Already, evidently, he had seen that Kennedy held in his hand the note that had come to me.

“I can’t make anything out of it,” went on Norton, evidently much worried.  “First I lose the dagger.  Next you say it was used to murder Mendoza.  Then I get this.  Now, if any one can get into the Museum to steal the dagger, they could get in to carry out any threat of revenge, real or fancied.”

Looked at in that respect, I felt that it was indeed a real cause of worry for Norton.  But, then, it flashed over me, was not my own case worse?  I was to be responsible for telling the story.  Might not some unseen hand strike at me, perhaps sooner than at him?

Kennedy had taken the two notes and was scanning them eagerly.

Just then an automobile drew up outside, and a moment later we heard a tap at the door which Kennedy had closed after the entrance of Norton.  I opened it.

“Is Professor Kennedy here?” I heard a voice inquire.  “I’m one of the orderlies at the City Hospital, next to the Morgue, where Dr. Leslie has his laboratory.  I’ve a message for Profesor Kennedy, if he’s in.”

Kennedy took the envelope, which bore the stamp of Dr. Leslie’s department, and tore it open.

“My dear Kennedy,” he read, in an undertone.  “I’ve been engaged in investigating that poison which probably surrounds the wound in the Mendoza case, but as yet have nothing to report.  It is certainly none of the things which we ordinarily run up against.  Enclosed you will find a slip of paper and the envelope which it came in—­something, I take it, that has been sent me by a crank.  Would you treat it seriously or disregard it?  Leslie.”

As Kennedy had unfolded Leslie’s own letter a piece of paper had fluttered to the floor.  I picked it up mechanically, and only now looked at it, as Craig finished reading.

On it was another copy of the threat that had been sent to both Norton and myself!

The hospital orderly had scarcely gone when another tap came at the door.

“Your books from the library, Professor,” announced a student who was employed in the library as part payment of his tuition.  “I’ve signed the slip for them, sir.”

He deposited the books on a desk, a huge pile of them, which reached from his outstretched arms to his chin.  As he did so the pressure of his arms released the pile of books and the column collapsed.

From a book entitled “New and Old Peru,” which fell with the pile, slipped a plain white envelope.  Kennedy saw it before either of us, and seized it.

“Here’s one for me,” he said, tearing it open.

Sure enough, in the same rude printing on a quarter sheet were the words: 

“Beware the curse of Mansiche on the gold of the gods.”