Part 32 (2/2)
”Oh,” returned Whitney, ”he's scared, all right. Why, he has been hanging around this hotel--watching me. He thinks I don't know it, I suppose, but I do.”
Kennedy and I exchanged glances.
”But he's slippery,” went on Whitney. ”He knows that he is being shadowed and the men tell me that they lose him, now and then. To tell the truth I don't trust most of these private detectives. I think their little tissue paper reports are half-faked, anyhow.”
He seemed to want to say no more on the subject, from which I took it that he had discovered nothing of importance.
”One thing, though,” he recollected, after a moment. ”He has been going to see Inez Mendoza, they tell me.”
”Yes?” queried Kennedy.
”Confound him. He pretty nearly got Lockwood in bad with her, too,”
said Whitney, then leaning over confidentially added, ”Say, Kennedy, honestly, now, you don't believe that shoe-print stuff, do you?”
”I see no reason to doubt it,” returned Kennedy with diplomatic firmness. ”Why?”
”Well,” continued Whitney, still confidential, ”we haven't got the dagger--that's all. There--I never actually a.s.serted that before, though I've given every one to understand that our plans are based on something more than hot-air. We haven't got it, and we never had it.”
”Then who has it?” asked Kennedy colourlessly.
Whitney shook his head. ”I don't know,” he said merely.
”And these attacks on you--this cigarette business--how do you explain that,” asked Craig, ”if you haven't the dagger?”
”Jealousy, pure jealousy,” replied Whitney quickly. ”They are so afraid that we will find the treasure. That's my dope.”
”Who is afraid?”
”That's a serious matter,” he evaded. ”I wouldn't say anything that I couldn't back up in a case of that kind. I'd get into trouble.”
There was nothing to be gained by prolonging the conversation and Kennedy made a move as though to go.
”Just give us a square deal,” said Whitney as we left. ”That's all we want--a square deal.”
Kennedy and I walked out of the Prince Edward Albert and turned down the block.
”Well, have you found out anything more?” asked a voice in the shadow beside us.
We turned. It was Norton.
”I saw you talking to Whitney in the writing-room,” he said, with a laugh, ”then in the cafe, and I saw Alfonso come in. He still has those shadows on me. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one of them around in a doorway, now.”
”No,” returned Kennedy, ”he didn't say anything that was important.
They still say they haven't the dagger.”
”Of course,” said Norton.
”You'll wait around a little longer?” asked Kennedy as we came to a corner and stopped.
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