"Never fear about that," reassured Craig. "Not a word of this has been breathed to her yet. We are a long way from fixing the guilt of the murder; inference is one thing, fact another. We must have facts. And the facts I want, which you may be able to get, relate to the strange actions of the de Moches."
Norton scanned Kennedy's face for some hint of what was back of the remark. But there was nothing there.
"They will bear watching, all right," he said, as he rose to go. "Old
Mendoza was never quite the same after he became so intimate with her.
And I think I can see a change in Whitney."
"What do you attribute it to?" asked Kennedy, without admitting that it had attracted his attention, too.
"I haven't the slightest idea," confessed Norton.
"Inez is as afraid of her as any of the rest," remarked Kennedy thoughtfully. "She says it is the evil eye."
"Not an uncommon belief among Latin-Americans," commented Norton. "In fact, I suppose there are people among us who believe in the evil eye yet. Still, you can hardly blame that little girl for believing it is almost anything. Well, I won't keep you any longer. I shall let you know of anything I find out from the de Moches. I think you are getting on remarkably."
Norton left us, his face much brighter than it had been when we met him at the door.
Kennedy, alone at last in the laboratory, went over to a cabinet and took out a peculiar-looking apparatus, which seemed, as nearly as I can describe it, to consist of a sort of triangular prism, set with its edge vertically on a rigid platform attached to a massive stand of brass.
"Norton seems to have suddenly become quite solicitous of the welfare of Senorita Mendoza," I hazarded, as he worked over the adjustment of the thing.