"Packed a grip hastily," Craig remarked, pointing to the marks on the bedspread where it had rested while he must literally have thrown things into it.
We made a hasty search ourselves, but we knew it was hopeless. Two things we had learned. Whitney had had a visit from his detectives, and he had gone away hurriedly. An anonymous telephone message had been sent to Kennedy. Had it been for the purpose of throwing us off the track?
The room telephone rang. Quickly Craig jumped to it and took down the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo," he called. "Yes, this is Mr. Whitney."
A silence ensued during which, of course, I could not gather any idea of what was going on over the wire.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy, working the hook up and down but receiving no response. "The fellow caught on. Something must have happened to Norton, too."
"How"s that?" I asked.
"Why," he replied, "some one just called up Whitney and said that Norton had got away from him."
"Perhaps they"re trying to keep him out of the way just as they are with us," I suggested. "I think the thing is a plant."
Down the hall, Kennedy stopped and tapped lightly at the door of 810, the de Moche suite. I think he was surprised when the Senora"s maid opened it.
"Tell Senora de Moche it is Professor Kennedy," he said quickly, "and that I must see her."
The maid admitted us into the sitting-room where we had had our first interview with her and a moment later she appeared. She was evidently not dressed for dinner, although it was almost time, and I saw Kennedy"s eye travel from her to a chair in the corner over which was draped a linen automobile coat and a heavy veil. Had she been preparing to go somewhere, too? The door to Alfonso"s room was open and he clearly was not there. What did it all mean?
"Have you heard anything of a report that the dagger has been found?"
demanded Kennedy abruptly.
"Why--no," she replied, greatly surprised, apparently.
"You were going out?" asked Kennedy with a significant glance at the coat and veil.
"Only for a little ride with Alfonso, who has gone to hire a car," she answered quickly.
I felt sure that she had heard something about the dagger.
We had no further excuse for staying and on the way out, now that he had satisfied himself that Whitney was not there, Craig inquired at the office for him. They could tell us nothing of his whereabouts, except that he had left in his car late in the afternoon in a great hurry.
Kennedy stepped into a telephone booth and called up Lockwood, but no one answered. Inquiry in the garages in the neighbourhood finally located that at which Lockwood kept his car. There, all that they could tell us was that the car had been filled with gas and oil as if for a trip. Lockwood was gone, too.
Kennedy hastily ordered a touring car himself and placed it at a corner of the Prince Edward Albert where he could watch two of the entrances, while I waited on the next corner where I could see the entrance on the other street.
For some time we waited and still she did not come out. Had she telephoned to Alfonso and had he gone alone? Perhaps she had already been out and had taken this method of detaining us, knowing that we would wait to watch her.
It must have been a mixture of both motives, for at length I was rewarded by seeing her come cautiously out of the rear entrance of the hotel alone and start to walk hurriedly up the street. I signalled to Craig who shot down and picked me up.
By this time the Senora had reached a public cab stand and had engaged a hack.
Sinking back in the shadows of the top, which was up, Craig directed our driver to follow the hack cautiously, keeping a couple of blocks behind. There was some satisfaction, though slight, in it, at least. We felt the possibility of the trail leading somewhere, now.
On uptown the hack went, while we kept discreetly in the rear. We had reached a part of the city where it was spa.r.s.ely populated, when the hack suddenly turned and doubled back on us.
There was not time for us to turn and we trusted that by shrinking back in the shadow we might not be observed.
As the hack pa.s.sed us, however, the Senora leaned out until it was perfectly evident that she must recognize us. She said nothing but I fancied I saw a smile of satisfaction as she settled back into the cushions. She was deliberately going back along the very road by which she had led us out. It had been an elaborate means of wasting our time.
She did not have the satisfaction, however, of shaking us off, for we followed all the way back to the hotel and saw her go in. Then Kennedy placed the car where we had it before and left the driver with instructions to follow her regardless of time if she should come out again.
Surely, I reasoned, there must be something very queer going on, if they were all it to eliminate us and Norton. What had happened to him?
Kennedy hastened back to the campus, late as it was, there to start anew. Norton was not in his quarters and, on the chance that he might have sought to elude Whitney"s detectives by doing the unexpected and going to the Museum, Kennedy walked over that way.
There was nothing to indicate that anybody had been at the Museum, but, as we pa.s.sed our laboratory, we could hear the telephone ringing inside, as though some one had been trying to get us for a long time.
Kennedy opened the door and switched on the lights. Waiting only long enough to jam the receiver down into place on the telescribe, he answered the call.
"The deuce you will!" I heard him exclaim, then apparently whoever was talking rang off and he could not get them back.
"Another of those confounded telephone messages," he said, turning to me and taking the cylinder off. "I looks as though the ready-letter writer who used to send warnings had learned his lesson and taken to the telephone as leaving fewer clues than handwriting."
He placed the record on the phonograph so that I could hear it. It was brief and to the point, as had been the first.
"h.e.l.lo, is that you, Kennedy? We"ve got Norton. Next we"ll get you.
Good-bye."
Kennedy repeated the first message. It was evident that both had been spoken by the same voice.
"Whose is it?" I asked blankly. "What does it mean?"
Before Craig could answer there was a knock at our door and he sprang to open it.
XXII
THE VANISHER
It was Juanita, Inez Mendoza"s maid, frantic and almost speechless.
"Why, Juanita," encouraged Kennedy, "what"s the matter?"
"The Senorita!" she gasped, breaking down now and sobbing over and over again. "The Senorita!"
"Yes, yes," repeated Kennedy, "but what about her? Is there anything wrong?"
"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," sobbed the poor girl, "I don"t know. She is gone. I have had no word from her since this afternoon."
"Gone!" we exclaimed together. "Where was Burke--that man that the police sent up to protect her?"