Don Pedro raised his eyebrows.
"Certainly. Vasa, if anyone, must have killed your assistant,
since he alone could have known that the jewels were buried with
Inca Caxas."
"But, my dear sir," argued Hope good-naturedly, "if Vasa stole
the manuscript, whether translated or not, he certainly must have
learned the truth long, long ago, since thirty years have
elapsed. In that event he must have stolen the jewels, as
Professor Braddock remarked lately, before he sold the mummy to
the Parisian collector."
"That may be so," said Don Pedro obstinately, while the Professor
muttered his approval, "but we cannot be certain on that point.
No one--I agree with the Professor in this--would have risked
his neck to steal a mere mummy, therefore the motive for the
committal of the crime must have been the emeralds. Only Vasa
knew of their existence outside myself and my dead father. He,
therefore, must be the assassin. I shall hunt for him, and, when
I find him, I shall have him arrested."
"But you can't possibly recognize the man after thirty years?"
argued Braddock disbelievingly.
"I have a royal memory for faces," said Don Pedro imperturbably,
"and in the past I saw much of Vasa. He was then a young sailor
of twenty.
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