CHAPTER II

THE DOUBLE DAGGER

For a moment or two the telephone bell continued to sound its summons, and both men stared at it. The German detective made a motion as though to answer, and then, recollecting that he was not in his own office, he stepped back with a mutter of impatience.

"Excuse me," murmured Nat as he picked up the instrument.

"Certainly."

To Nat's ears came the voice of Berry Todd in the latter's office near the entrance to the sleuth's suite.

"All right, Chief?" asked Berry in guarded tones.

"All right about what?" Nat countered, for he did not get the drift of the other's question.

Berry went on with:

"Excuse me, Chief, but I happened to notice that bird sliding into your office, and I didn't like his looks. No names, you understand, but I thought he looked desperate, and he might have suddenly gone batty, you know, and might try to slip you a bomb, or something like that. How about it? Need any help? Are you all right?"

"All right," Nat answered, hardly able to keep from chuckling at the odd thought Berry had given voice to. The sleuth, who was very fond of his chief in more than a business way, had noted, with more than a little apprehension, the entrance of Lemberg.

Indeed Lemberg was acting very queerly, but Nat Ridley was not afraid for himself, though he appreciated Berry's precaution.

"Quite all right," said Nat again, as he put the receiver on the hook. "Sorry to have had to interrupt you," he went on to his visitor. "But, being in the same line of business----"

"Oh, of course--yes. Perhaps I shouldn't have come in. But I could not stand it any longer. Though if you have an urgent case----"

"There wouldn't seem to be any more urgent than your own," said Nat. "This was only one of my men reporting. I am quite ready to hear you further. Did I understand you to say that your brother and uncle had been murdered?"

"That's it--foully murdered, Ridley! And now Dan Steele----"

"What?" cried Nat, startled out of his usual calmness. "You don't mean to tell me Steele has been killed? How? When? Where? Why, Dan used to work for me at one time."

"I know he did. A fine chap he is--was, I mean. When I got word that the devils had put the sign on him I decided it was too much for me to handle. And, knowing you had once hired Steele, I decided to come to you."

"You had better sit down and tell me about it," suggested Nat, for, up to this time, Lemberg had been pacing the office.

"It is a long story, but I will make it as short as possible," he said, as he slumped, rather than sat, in a chair. Again he mopped his pale and perspiring face. "You may not know it," went on Lemberg, "but I am in the oil-well business."

"I had not heard it," stated Nat. "The venture must have been recently made."

"It was. I would not have gone into it had not these murders forced it upon me. For years, as you know, I have conducted a private detective agency, just as you have."

Nat did not quite like the simile, for he would not admit that he conducted the same sort of business as had Carl Lemberg. But Nat let that pass, and the other went on:

"My brother, Henry, and my uncle, August, some years ago bought the rights to several valuable oil properties in the neighborhood of Rolamotaza, in Mexico. The wells turned out better than was expected, and my uncle and brother decided to increase their holdings.

"Near their property were some wells belonging to a number of Mexicans, who formed a sort of corporation for marketing the product they pumped out of the earth. As is natural, where natural products are so close together, there were frequent quarrels over mineral rights, and matters got to such a point that my uncle and brother decided they would either have to buy out their rivals or sell to them.

"Finally it settled to a matter of the former, and a deal was made by which the Mexican firm transferred their rights, titles and interests to my two relatives. The Mexicans were paid a large sum, all they had demanded, as a matter of fact, and, getting the money, they disappeared."

Lemberg paused again to mop his face.

"Nothing very remarkable in all this, so far," said Nat, who had been jotting down some pencil characters on a paper. This had been observed by his visitor who sharply asked:

"What are you doing?"

"Taking shorthand notes."

"Have you no stenographer?" the German inquired.

"Yes," and Nat smiled. "But there are some things I do not trust even to my own stenographer. Proceed, if you please. You have yet to come to the murders."

"I will come to them--never fear!" declared the other earnestly. "As I said, the Mexicans, after their wells were bought, disappeared, but some time later they came back."

"Why?"

"Because the properties they sold to my brother and uncle turned out to be much more valuable than had been thought. In other words, much oil began to spout in wells it was thought were running dry, and, as a result, my uncle and brother began to grow very wealthy."

"And the Mexicans came back, I suppose," said Nat, "to get a share of it?"

"Exactly. But as my relatives had paid all that was asked, and as they had no knowledge that the wells would turn out better than was supposed, they did not see why they should pay over any of their profits."

"No, as a business proposition, they couldn't be expected to," Nat agreed.

"And then came the murders!" exclaimed Lemberg suddenly.

"How?" cried Nat.

"One night, after several veiled threats had been made against my two relatives, my brother Henry was found dead--there was a dagger in his heart!"

"The Latin races run to knives," murmured Nat.

"A few days after that," went on Lemberg, "and following the receipt by my uncle of an anonymous threat that if he did not share some of his oil wealth with the former owners of the wells he would be killed, he, too, was found dead."

"Murdered?"

"Murdered!"

"With a dagger?"

"With a dagger, just as my brother had been, and with the same sign."

"What do you mean--with the same sign?"

"This!" and the German sleuth took a little package from his coat pocket. He opened it and spread the contents on Nat's desk. There were two dirty cards, on one of which were tell-tale red stains, and each card bore on one side the drawing, crudely done, of a double dagger.

The weapon seemed to consist of a middle handle, made of some sort of twisted horn, or perhaps hard wood. One of the blades of the double dagger was longer than the other, and both points were shown very keen in the picture.

"Rather an odd weapon," commented Nat, taking up one of the cards by the edges so as to leave no finger prints on those presumably already there. "I think I have seen it before. Just a moment."

He turned to a large book case and opened the glass door.

"What are you going to do?" asked Lemberg.

"Look up this symbol--for a symbol I think it is."

"You are right," said the other. "As I said, it is a sign. But here is one of the daggers," and from another pocket Lemberg took a small box which he turned upside down on Nat's desk.

There was a metallic sound, and there tinkled out on the shining oak a small dagger, exactly like the pictured one on the card, but so small as to be useless as a weapon.

"It looks like a pin," commented Nat Ridley.

"It was used as a pin," the German said. "With these pins these cards were fastened to the clothing of my brother and my uncle."

"I see," murmured Nat. He reached forward to pick up the murderous little implement, but Lemberg caught his hand.

"The points may be poisoned," was the caution.

"They may be," admitted Nat. "I was going to exercise due caution, Lemberg," he added, with a grim laugh. "But did your uncle and brother die from the scratch of a poisoned weapon?"

"They may have, for all I know to the contrary, though from the report of the police in Rolamotaza the cuts in their hearts brought death. If there was poison used, it was to make assurance doubly sure. But it is best to be cautious."

"You are right. So the cards, bearing the picture of this dagger, were fastened on the dead men's clothing with pins made in the same shape. Were the heart stabs made by the same sort of daggers, only larger?"

"That is the supposition. But I can save you time, Ridley. You were going to look up this symbol?"

"Yes," admitted Nat. "I have some books on foreign secret societies. I think I recognize this symbol. It is, I am sure----"

"The Tola," interrupted Lemberg. "I looked it up. Yes, it is an old Mexican society, but it was supposed to have died out years ago."

"Then it has revived," stated Nat.

"Or else it never died. Well, to get on with my story. When I got word of my brother's death, I started the police in Mexico after the murderers. They did what they could--little enough--and while I was waiting their report, my uncle went the same way.

"Then I acted quickly, and sent my best man down to Paloma, Texas, with orders to cross into Mexico and see if he could round up these oil-well killers."

"He went, I suppose?" suggested Nat.

Lemberg bowed gravely.

"But he never came back," he said. "Dan Steele was murdered in Paloma in the same way my brother and uncle had been killed--with a dagger thrust in his heart, and this card pinned on his breast. Do you wonder I am afraid, Ridley?"

"Not after that," was the answer. "But what form does your fear take?"

"A fear for myself. I have reason to believe they will kill me next--those mysterious murderers of the Tola!" and, with a shaking hand, Carl Lemberg again mopped his face.