"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 asserted 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."