The detective shook his head. “No,” he returned, reminiscently. “He seems to have disappeared altogether. Believe me, I have been keeping an eye peeled for him. That Jap is a suspicious character. And it’s just when you can’t put your fingers on him that he is plotting some deviltry, depend on it.”
We left the Secret Service operative and continued toward the hotel. In the lobby Kennedy and I looked about eagerly in the hope of finding Winifred, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Our search was partly rewarded, however. At the end of the porch, in the shadow, we did find Frances Walcott and Irene Maddox. It was evident that they had seriously disagreed over something, and it did not require much guessing to conclude that it had to do with Winifred. Though Frances Walcott was really a Maddox and Irene Maddox was not, one would have scarcely guessed it. The stamp of the house of hate was on both.
Just a fragment of the conversation floated over to us, but it was enough.
“Very well, then,” exclaimed Mrs. Maddox. “Let them go their own way. You are like all the rest—you seem to think that a Maddox can do no wrong. I was only trying to warn Winifred, as I wish some one had warned me.”
The answer was lost, but Mrs. Walcott’s reply was evidently a sharp one, for the two parted in unconcealed anger and suspicion. Everywhere the case seemed to drag its slimy trail over all.
Look about as we might, there was no sign of Paquita. Nor was our friend Sanchez about, either. We seemed to have lost them, or else, like Mito, they were under cover.
“I think,” decided Kennedy, “that I’ll just drop into our rooms, Walter. I haven’t much hope that we’ll find anything yet, but it will be just as well to be on the watch.”
Accordingly we mounted by a rear staircase to our floor, and for a moment Kennedy busied himself adjusting the apparatus.
“A bit early, I think,” he remarked, finally. “There are too many people about to expect anything yet. We may as well go down-stairs again. Perhaps Burke may return and I’m rather anxious to know what it is he has been after.”