Reginald Wright Kauffman

“ Only the dead man lay unmoved, his open eyes staring upward.
“The devil's work,” Dan had called Tucker's murder, and certainly with a demoniac ferocity and a demoniac power Peña fought his accuser. Their previous battle had been nothing to this. In Fernando's diminutive and malformed body resided a frightful energy. His muscles were iron, his nerves steel. Seen at his ordinary occupations, he appeared a creature that the average man could break across his thigh; fired by his frenzy for blood, he was all but incapable of defeat, all but irresistible in murder. ”

“ The brief words showed nothing of the shock that the surviving American had sustained. His brain reeled, but he gazed over his shoulder, with quick intensity, at Peña.
Fernando shrugged.
“Just when,” persisted Dan, “was Tucker seized with this—'spasm?'”
The hunchback's face was rarely communicative; it was now a perfect veil. Nevertheless, his mouth answered glibly enough: “But now, Señor Medico. It is three minutes—less. I go at once for doctor. Señor Tucker throw himself; he talk loud—and about nothing. He look black—he look red. I run at once for doctor.” ”

“ He is dead—as I told you—by this hunchback's hand, in the chapel. Did he leave his post deserted? There is a bare chance that he did.”
Though Luis' dark eyes were full of a doglike devotion to his project, he shook his head doubtfully.
“He may have been missed. They may have found him in the chapel,” the Carib answered in a hopeless helplessness. “This is not a house where secrets are kept—except by Don Ramon and Fernando Peña.”
“Well,” Dan responded cheerfully enough, “that's our only chance and. we've got to take it!” ”