“Well, he acts very strangely,” returned Riley, doubtfully. “I’m not the only one who has noticed it.”
“Who else has?” demanded Kennedy, quickly.
“Mrs. Maddox, for one. She went up to the city later—oh, you know? Miss Walcott went with her. You know that, too? They returned on the train with Paquita.”
“What has Mrs. Maddox done since she came back?” inquired Craig.
“It wasn’t half an hour before they returned that Paquita came down-stairs,” replied the Secret Service man. “As usual Sanchez was waiting, in the background, of course. As luck would have it, just as she passed out of the door Mrs. Maddox happened along. She saw Sanchez following Paquita—you remember she had already paid him off for the shadowing he had done for her. I don’t know what it was, but she went right up to him. Oh, she was some mad!”
“What was it all about?” asked Craig, interested.
“I didn’t hear it all. But I did hear her accuse him of being in with Paquita even at the time he was supposed to be shadowing her for Mrs. Maddox. He didn’t answer directly. ‘Did I ever make a false report about her?’ he asked Mrs. Maddox. She fairly sputtered, but she didn’t say that he had. ‘You’re working for her—you’re working for somebody. You’re all against me!’ she cried. Sanchez never turned a hair. Either he’s a fool or else he’s perfectly sure of his ground, as far as that end of it went.”
“I suppose he might have double-crossed her and still made honest reports to her,” considered Kennedy; “that is, if he made the same reports to some one else who was interested, I mean.”
Riley nodded, though it was evident the remark conveyed no more idea to him than it did to me.
“Shelby Maddox has returned, too,” added Riley. “I found out that he sent that Jap, Mito, with a note to Paquita. I don’t know what it was, but I have a man out trying to get a line on it.”