"Cane saw the man and strenuously denied his allegation. He, indeed, went to the local Commissary of Police and lodged a complaint against the man Senos for falsely accusing him, saying that he had done so out of spite, because a few days before he had had occasion to reprimand him for inattention to his duties. Further, Cane brought up a man living five miles from Huacho who swore that the accused man was at his bungalow on that night, arriving at nine o'clock. He drank so heavily that he could not get home, so he remained there the night, returning at eight o'clock next morning."
"And the police officials believed him—eh?" I asked.
"Yes. But next day he left Huacho, expressing a determination to go to Lima and make a statement to the Consul there. But he never arrived at the capital, and he has never been seen since."
"Then a grave suspicion rests upon him?" I remarked, reflecting upon my startling adventure of the previous night.
"Certainly. But the curious thing is that no attempt seems to have been made by the police authorities in Lima to trace the man. They allowed him to disappear, and took no notice of the affair, even when the British Consul reported it. I fancy police methods must be very lax ones there," he added.
"But what could have been the method of the assassin?" I asked.
"Why, simply to allow the snake to strike at the sleeping man, I presume," said the detective. "Yet, one would have thought that after the snake had bitten him he would have cried out for help. But he did not."
Had the victim, I wondered, swallowed that same tasteless drug that I had swallowed, and been paralysed, as I had been?
"And the motive of the crime?" I asked.
Edwards shrugged his shoulders, and raised his brows.