Kennedy did not appear to be particularly impressed. "Is that so?" he said merely. "What are they?"
"Well," resumed Lockwood, "I wasn't in Lima at the time. I was up here. But they tell me that there was something crooked about the way that that dagger was got away from an Indian—a brother of Senora de Moche." "Yes," replied Kennedy, "I know something about it. He committed suicide. But what has that to do with Norton?"
Lockwood hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. "I should think the inference was plain," he insinuated. Then, looking at Craig fixedly, as though to take his measure, he added, "We are not out of touch with what is going on down there, even if we are several thousand miles away."
I wondered whether he had any information more than we had already obtained by X-raying the letter to Whitney signed "Haggerty." If he had, it was not his purpose, evidently, yet to disclose it. I felt from his manner that he was not playing a trump-card, but was just feeling us out by this lead.
"There was some crooked business about that dagger down there as well as here," he pursued. "There are many interests connected with it. Don't you think that it would be worth while watching Norton?" he paused, then added: "We do—and we're going to do it."
"Thank you very much," returned Kennedy quietly. "Mr. Whitney has already told me he intended to do so."
Lockwood eyed us critically, as though not quite sure what to make of the cool manner in which Craig took it.
"I think if I were you," he said at length, "I'd keep a close watch on the de Moches, both of them, too."
"Exactly," agreed Craig, without showing undue interest.
Lockwood had risen. "Well," he snapped, "you may not think much of what I am telling you now. But just wait until OUR detectives begin to dig up facts." No sooner had he left than I turned to Craig. "What was that?" I asked. "A plant?"