A moment later she returned with the dainty note which she had written.
"Shall I send it by a messenger?" she asked.
"Yes, please," answered Kennedy, rising. As he moved a step to the door he held out his hand to her. "Senorita Mendoza," he said simply, in a tone that meant more than words, "you are a wonderful woman."
She took his hand without a word, and a moment later we were whisked down in the elevator.
"I must get on that roof on some pretext," remarked Kennedy, as we reached the street and he got his bearings. "Let me see, that house which backs up to the apartment is around the corner. Have the man drive us around there."
We located the house and mounted the steps. On the wall beside the brownstone door was pasted a little slip of paper, "Furnished Rooms."
"Splendid!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he read it. "Dismiss the taxi and meet me inside with the other package."
By the time I had paid the man and come up the steps again Kennedy had made a d.i.c.ker with the landlady for a double room on the third floor for both of us, and, by payment of a week"s rent, we were to have immediate possession.
"Our baggage will follow to-day," he explained, as we mounted the stairs to the room.
I thought the landlady would never get through expatiating upon what a select place she ran, and thus leave us alone in our room, but at last even her flood of words was stilled by demands from a servant downstairs who must be instructed if the selectness of the establishment were to be maintained.
No sooner were we alone than Kennedy tiptoed into the hall and made sure that we were not watched. It was then the work of only a few seconds to mount a ladder to a scuttle, unhook it, and gain the roof.
There, dangling down from the dizzy height above, swayed the twisted wire. He seized it, unrolled it some more, and sent me downstairs to catch it, as he swung it over the edge of the roof to one of our own windows. Then he rejoined me.
The other package, which had been heavier, consisted of another of those mysterious boxes, as well as several dry cells. Quickly he attached the wires to the box, placing the dry cells in the circuit.
Then he began adjusting the mechanism of the box. So far I had only a vague idea of just what he had in mind, but gradually it began to dawn on me.
It was perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer, after we had left the Senorita, before, sure that everything was all right with his line and the batteries which he had brought, Kennedy turned a little lever that moved in a semicircle, touching one after another of a series of b.u.t.tons on the face of the cedar box, meanwhile holding a little black disc from the back of the box to his ear as he adjusted the thing.
Nothing seemed to happen, but I could tell by the look of intentness on his face that he was getting along all right and was not worrying.
Suddenly the look on his face changed to one of extreme satisfaction.
He dropped the disc he was holding to his ear back into its compartment and turned to me.
All at once it seemed as if the room in which we were was peopled by spirits. There was the sound of voices, loud, clear, distinct. It was uncanny.
"He has just come in," remarked Craig.
"Who?" I asked.
"Lockwood--can"t you recognize his voice? Listen."
I did listen intently, and the more my ears became adjusted, the more plainly I could distinguish two voices, that of a man and that of a woman. It was indeed Lockwood and the Senorita, far above us.
I would have uttered an exclamation of amazement, but I could not miss what they were saying.
"Then you--you believe what he says?" asked Lockwood earnestly.
"Professor Kennedy has the prints," replied Inez tremulously.
"You saw them?"
"Yes."
"And you believe what HE says, too?"
There was a silence.
"What is it?" I asked, tapping the box lightly.
"A vocaphone," replied Kennedy. "The little box that hears and talks."
"Can they hear us?" I asked, in an awestruck whisper.
"Not unless I want them to hear," he replied, indicating a switch. "You remember, of course, the various mechanical and electrical ears, such as the detectaphone, which we have used for eavesdropping in other cases?"
I nodded.
"Well, this is a new application which has been made of the detectaphone. When I was using that disc from the compartment there, I had really a detectaphone. But this is even better. You see how neat it all is? This is the detective service, and more. We can "listen in" and we don"t have to use ear-pieces, either, for this is a regular loud-speaking telephone--it talks right out in meeting. Those square holes with the converging sides act as a sort of megaphone to the receivers, those little circles back there inside magnifying the sound and throwing it out here in the room, so that we can hear just as well as if we were up there in the room where they are talking. Listen--I think they are talking again."
"I suppose you know that Whitney and I have placed detectives on the trail of Norton," we could hear Lockwood say.
"You have?" came back the answer in a voice which for the first time sounded cold.
Lockwood must have recognized it. He had made a mistake. It was no sufficient answer to anything that he had done to a.s.sert that some one else had also done something.
"Inez," he said, and we could almost hear his feet as he moved over the floor in her direction in a last desperate appeal, "can"t you trust me, when I tell you that everything is all right, that they are trying to ruin me--with you?"
There was a silence, during which we could almost hear her quick breath come and go.
"Women--not even Peruvian women are like the women of the past, Chester," she said at length. "We are not playthings. Perhaps we have hearts--but we also have heads. We are not to be taken up and put down as you please. We may love--but we also think. Chester, I have been to see Professor Kennedy, and--"
She stopped. It hurt too much to repeat what she had seen.
"Inez," he implored.
There was evidently a great struggle of love and suspicion going on in her, her love of him, her memory of her father, the recollection of what she had heard and seen. No one could have been as we were without wishing to help her. Yet no one could help her. She must work out her own life herself.
"Yes," she said finally, the struggle ended. "What is it?"
"Do you want me to tell you the truth?"
"Yes," she murmured.
His voice was low and tense.
"I was there--yes--but the dagger was gone!"