Both women glanced quickly at Kennedy. The mention of Shelby’s name came, quite apparently, as a surprise to them. Winifred seemed rather more reticent now than ever before. It was evident that Irene Maddox had not succeeded in what she had intended. Yet she did not betray her disappointment.
“Thank you,” she said, rising. “Then I may expect you to help me—I mean us?”
“In every way in my power,” promised Kennedy, accompanying them to the door.
Kennedy looked after them as the door closed. “I wonder what that visit was for,” he considered as their footsteps died away.
Having no answer for the query, I attempted none.
“What has Burke been doing?” I inquired, suddenly recollecting the Secret Service man. “Have you heard anything from him to-day since we came to the city?”
“Yes,” he replied, opening a cabinet. “Burke has undertaken some work along another line in tracing out the telautomaton robbery and what may have become of that model. I haven’t heard from him and I don’t imagine that anything will develop right away in that direction.”
“What is that?” I inquired, watching Craig as he took from one cabinet an apparatus which appeared to consist of two coils, or rather sets of wires, placed on the ends of a magnet bar. He began to adjust the thing, and I saw from the care with which he was working that it must be an instrument of some delicacy.
“Just an instrument that may enable me to discover how that attack was made on you last night,” Kennedy answered, perfunctorily, forgetting even my question as he worked over the thing.
For several minutes I watched him, wondering at the strange turn of events that had sent both Shelby and Winifred secretly to Kennedy.