Very sincerely yours,
DR. EMILIO SANCHEZ, Director.
“Bernardo is a Mexican,” I exclaimed, as Kennedy finished reading, “and there can be no doubt that the woman he mentioned was this Señora Herreria.”
Kennedy said nothing, but seemed to be weighing the various paragraphs in the letter.
“Still,” I observed, “so far, the only one against whom we have any direct suspicion in the case is the shaggy Russian, whoever he is.”
“A man whom Bernardo says looked like a Russian,” corrected Craig.
He was pacing the laboratory restlessly.
“This is becoming quite an international affair,” he remarked finally, pausing before me, his hat on. “Would you like to relax your mind by a little excursion among the curio shops of the city? I know something about Japanese curios—more, perhaps, than I do of Mexican. It may amuse us, even if it doesn’t help in solving the mystery. Meanwhile, I shall make arrangements for shadowing Bernardo. I want to know just how he acts after he reads that letter.”
He paused long enough to telephone his instructions to an uptown detective agency which could be depended on for such mere routine work, then joined me with the significant remark: “Blood is thicker than water, anyhow, Walter. Still, even if the Mexicans are influenced by sentiment, I hardly think that would account for the interest of our friends from across the water in the matter.”
I do not know how many of the large and small curio shops of the city we visited that afternoon. At another time, I should have enjoyed the visits immensely, for anyone seeking articles of beauty will find the antique shops of Fifth and Fourth Avenues and the side streets well worth visiting.
We came, at length, to one, a small, quaint, dusty rookery, down in a basement, entered almost directly from the street. It bore over the door a little gilt sign which read simply, “Sato’s.”