Part 8

The clerk turned to look at his list and I took the opportunity to pluck at Kennedy’s sleeve.

“Why don’t you get rooms in the rear?” I whispered. “That’s the side on which the garage is.”

Kennedy nodded hastily to me to be silent and a moment later the clerk turned.

“I can fix you up on the bay side,” he reported, indicating a suite on a printed floor-plan.

“Very fine,” agreed Craig. “If you will send a porter I will have our baggage transferred immediately.”

As we left the desk Kennedy whispered his explanation. “Don’t you understand? We’ll be observed. Everything we do is watched, I am convinced. Just think it over. Selecting a room like this will disarm suspicion.”

In the lobby of the hotel Riley was waiting for us anxiously.

“Where’s Mr. Burke?” asked Kennedy. “Hasn’t he returned?”

“No, sir. And not a word from him yet. I don’t know where he can be. But we are handling the case at this end very well alone. I got your wire,” he nodded to me. “We haven’t missed Sanchez since he got back.”

“Then he didn’t make any attempt to get away,” I remarked, gratified that I had lost nothing by not following him on the earlier train. “Is Paquita back?”

“Yes; she came on the train just before yours.”

“What has she done――anything?”

Riley shook his head in perplexity.

“If it didn’t sound ridiculous,” he replied, slowly, “I would say that that fellow Sanchez was on the trail of Paquita more than we are.”

“How’s that?”

“Why, he follows her about like a dog. While we’re watching her he seems to be watching us.”

“Perhaps he’s part of her gang――her bodyguard, if there is such a thing as a gang,” I remarked.

“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.”

“Mito,” repeated Kennedy, as though the Japanese suggested merely by his name a theory on which his mind was working.

There seemed to be nothing that could be done just now but to wait, and we decided to take the opportunity to get a late dinner. Winifred Walcott and Mrs. Maddox had already dined, but Frances Walcott and her husband were at their table. They seemed to be hurrying to finish and we did the same――not because they did, but because we had work to do.

Dinner over, Hastings excused himself from us, saying that he had some letters to write, and Kennedy made no objection. I think he was rather pleased than otherwise to have the opportunity to get away.

Outside we met Riley again, this time with one of his operatives.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Kennedy.

“Matter enough,” returned Riley, much exercised. “You know I told you that Shelby had come ashore from the _Sybarite_ with Mito? Well, we’ve been following them both pretty closely. I think I told you of his sending a note to Paquita. Both Shelby and Mito have been acting suspiciously. I had this man detailed to watch Shelby. That confounded Jap is always in the way, though. Tell Mr. Kennedy what happened,” he directed.

The operative rubbed his back ruefully. “I was following Mr. Maddox down to the beach,” he began. “It was rather dark and I tried to keep in the shadow. Mr. Maddox never would have known that he was being followed. All of a sudden, from behind, comes that Jap. Before I knew it he had me――like this.”

The man illustrated his remark by lunging forward at Kennedy and seizing both his hands. He stuck his crooked knee upward and started to fall back, just catching himself before he quite lost his balance.

“Over he went backwards, like a tumbler,” went on the man, “threw me clean over his head. If it had been on a stone walk or there had been a wall there, it would have broken my head.”

“Jiu-jitsu!” exclaimed Kennedy.

“I wonder why Mito was so anxious to cover his master?” considered Riley. “He must have had some reason――either of his own or orders from Maddox. Anyhow, they both of them managed to get away, clean.”

Riley looked from Craig to me in chagrin.

“Quite possibly orders,” put in the man, “although it’s not beyond him even to be double-crossing Mr. Maddox, at that.”

“Well, try to pick them up again,” directed Kennedy, turning to me. “I’ve some rather important business just now. If Mr. Burke comes back, let me know at once.”

“You bet I’ll try to pick them up again,” promised the Secret Service man, viciously, as we left him and went to our room.

There Craig quickly unwrapped one of the two packages which he had brought from the laboratory while I watched him curiously but did not interrupt him, since he seemed to be in a great hurry.

As I watched Kennedy placed on a table what looked like a miniature telephone receiver.

Next he opened the window and looked out to make sure that there was no one below. Satisfied, he returned to the table again and took up a pair of wires which he attached to some small dry cells from the package.

Then he took the free ends of the wires and carefully let them fall out of the window until they reached down to the ground. Leaning far out, he so disposed the wires under the window that they fell to one side of the windows of the rooms below us and would not be noticed running up the side wall of the hotel, at least not in the twilight. Then he took the other package from the table and was ready to return down-stairs.

We had scarcely reached the lobby again when we ran into Hastings, alone and apparently searching for us.

“Is there anything new?” inquired Kennedy, eagerly.

Hastings seemed to be in doubt. “None of the Maddox family are about,” he began. “I thought it might be strange and was looking for you. Where do you suppose they all can be? I haven’t seen either Paquita or Sanchez. But I just saw Winifred, alone.”

“What was she doing? Where is she?” demanded Kennedy.

Hastings shook his head. “I don’t know. I was really looking for Shelby. I think she was going toward the Casino. Have you heard anything?”

“Not a thing,” returned Kennedy, brusquely. “You will pardon me, I have a very important matter in hand just now. I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything.”

Kennedy hurried from the Lodge toward the Casino, leaving Hastings standing in the hotel, amazed.

“Nothing new!” he almost snorted as he suddenly paused where he could see the Casino. “Yet Hastings sees Winifred going out in a hurry, evidently bent on something. If he was so confounded eager to find Shelby, why didn’t it occur to him to stick about and follow Winifred?”

It was quite dark by this time and almost impossible to see any one in the shadows unless very close. Kennedy and I took a few turns about the Casino and along some of the gravel paths, but could find no trace of any of those whom we were watching.

“I oughtn’t to let anything interfere with this ‘plant’ I am laying,” he fretted. “Riley and the rest ought to be able to cover the case for a time. Anyhow, I must take a chance.”

He turned and for several minutes we waited, as if to make perfectly sure that we were not being watched or followed.

Finally he worked his way by a round-about path from the Casino, turned away from the Lodge into another path, and at last we found ourselves emerging from a little hedge of dwarf poplars just back of the little garage, which had evidently been his objective point.

Mindful of my own experience there, I looked about in some trepidation. I had no intention of running again into the same trap that had nearly finished me before. Nor had Kennedy.

Cautiously, in the darkness, he entered. This time it was deserted. No asphyxiating gun greeted us. He looked about, then went to work immediately.

Back of the tool-box in a far corner he bent down and unwrapped the other package which he had been carrying. As nearly as I could make it out in the darkness, there were two rods that looked as though they might be electric-light carbons, fixed horizontally in a wooden support, with a spindle-shaped bit of carbon between the two ends of the rods, the points of the spindles resting in hollows in the two rods. To binding screws on the free ends of the carbon rods he attached wires, and led them out through a window, just above.

“We don’t want to stay here a minute longer than necessary,” he said, rising hurriedly. “Come――I must take up those wires outside and carry them around the wing of the Harbor House, where our room is.”

Without a word we went out. A keen glance about revealed no one looking, and, trusting that we were right, Kennedy picked up the wires and we dove back into the shadow of the grove from which we came.

Carefully as he could, so that no one would trip on them and rip them out, Kennedy laid the wires along the ground, made the connection with those he had dropped from the window, and then, retracing our steps, managed to come into the hotel from the opposite side from the garage and the other wing from our room.

“Just had a wire from Mr. Burke,” announced Riley, who had been looking all over for us, a fact that gave Craig some satisfaction, for it showed that we had covered ourselves pretty well. “He’s coming up from the city and I imagine he has dug up something pretty good. That’s not what I wanted to tell you, though. You remember I said Shelby Maddox had sent Mito with a note to Paquita?”

Kennedy nodded. No encouragement was necessary for Riley to continue his whispered report.

“Well, Shelby just met her on the beach.”

“Met Paquita?” I exclaimed, in surprise at Shelby’s secret meeting after his public ignoring of the little adventuress.

“On the beach, alone,” reiterated Riley, pleased at retailing even this apparent bit of scandal.

“What then?” demanded Craig.

“They strolled off down the shore together.”

“Have you followed them?”

“Yes, confound it, but it’s low tide and following them is difficult, without their knowing it. I told the men to do the best they could, though――short of getting into another fight. Mito may be about, and, anyhow, Shelby might give a very good account of himself.”

“You’re not sure of Mito, then?”

“No. No one saw him again after he threw my operative. He may have disappeared. However, I took no chance that Shelby was alone.”

For a moment Kennedy seemed to consider the surprising turn that Shelby’s secret meeting with the little dancer might give to the affair.

“Walter,” he said at last, turning to me significantly, “would you like to take a stroll down to the dock? This matter begins to look interesting.”

We left Riley, after cautioning him to make sure that Burke saw us the moment he arrived, and again made our way quietly from the Lodge toward the Casino, in which we now could hear the orchestra.

A glance was sufficient to reveal that none of those whom he sought were there, and Kennedy continued down the bank toward the shore and the Harbor House dock.

XII

THE EAVESDROPPERS

It was a clear, warm night, but with no moon. From the Casino the lights shone out over the dark water, illuminating here and seeming to deepen the already dark shadows there.

A flight of steps ran down to the dock from the dance pavilion, but, instead of taking this natural way, Kennedy plunged into the deeper shadow of a path that wound around the slight bluff and came out on the beach level, below the dock. From the path we could still hear the sounds of gaiety in the Casino.

We were about to emerge on the beach, not far from the spiling on which the dock platform rested, when I felt Kennedy’s hand on my elbow. I drew back into the hidden pathway with him and looked in the direction he indicated.

There, in a little summer-house above us, at the shore end of the dock, I could just distinguish the figures of two women, sitting in the shadow and looking out intently over the strip of beach and the waves of the rising tide that were lapping up on it. It was apparent that they were waiting for some one.

I turned and strained my eyes to catch a glimpse down the beach, but in the blackness could make out nothing. A look of inquiry toward Kennedy elicited nothing but a further caution to be silent. Apparently he was determined to play the eavesdropper on the two above us.

They had been talking in a low tone when we approached and we must have missed the first remark. The answer was clear enough, however.

“I tell you, Winifred, I saw them together,” we heard one voice in the summer-house say.

Instantly I recognized it as that of Irene Maddox. It needed no clairvoyancy to tell precisely of whom she was talking. I wondered whether she was trying to vent her grudge against Paquita at the expense of Shelby and Winifred. At least I could fancy how Shelby would bless his sister-in-law as a trouble-maker, if he knew.

“I can’t believe that you are right,” returned the other voice, and it was plainly that of Winifred.

There was a quiver of emotion in it, as though Winifred were striving hard to convince herself that something she had heard was not true.

“I can’t help it,” replied Mrs. Maddox. “That is what I used to think――once――that it couldn’t be so. But you do not know that woman――nor men, either.”

She made the last remark with unconcealed bitterness. I could not help feeling sorry for her in the misfortune in which her own life with Maddox had ended. Yet it did not seem right that she should poison all romance. Still, I reflected, what, after all, did I really know, and why should I rise to the defense of Shelby? Better, far, that Winifred should learn now than to learn when it was too late.

“I have been watching her,” pursued Irene. “I found that I could not trust any man where that woman was concerned. I wish I had never trusted any.”

“I cannot believe that Shelby would deliberately deceive me,” persisted Winifred.

Irene Maddox laughed, hollowly. “Yet you know what we discovered this afternoon,” she pressed. “Why, I cannot even be sure that that detective, Kennedy, may not be working against me. And as for that lawyer of my husband’s, Hastings, I don’t know whether I detest him more than I fear him. Let me warn you to be careful of him, too. Remember, I have been observing for a long time. I don’t trust him, or any other lawyer. You never can tell how far they may be concerned in anything.”

There was a peculiar piquancy to the innuendo. Evidently Irene Maddox suspected Hastings of much. And again I was forced to ask myself, what did I really so far know?

I fancied I could detect that the poor woman had reached a point where she was suspicious of everybody and everything, not an unnatural situation, I knew, with a woman in her marital predicament.

“What has Mr. Hastings done?” inquired Winifred.

“Done?” repeated Mrs. Maddox. “What has he left undone? Why, he shielded Marshall in everything, whenever I mentioned to him this Paquita woman――said it was not his business what his client’s private life was unless he was directed to interest himself in it by his client himself. He was merely an attorney, retained for certain specific purposes. Beyond that he was supposed to know nothing. Oh, my dear, you have much to learn about the wonderful freemasonry that exists among men in matters such as this.”

I caught Kennedy’s quizzical smile. We were having a most telling example of freemasonry among women, into which Irene was initiating a neophyte. I felt sure that Winifred would be much happier if she had been left alone, and events might have a chance to explain themselves without being misinterpreted――a situation from which most of the troubles both in fact and in fiction arise. In her watching of her errant husband, Irene had expected every one immediately to fall in line and aid her――forgetting the very human failing that most people possess of objecting to play the rôle of informer.

“What fools men are!” soliloquized Irene Maddox a moment later, as though coming to the point of her previous random remarks. “Just take that little dancer. What do they see in her? Not brains, surely. As for me, I don’t think she has even beauty. And yet, look at them! She has only to appear up there in the Casino at this very moment to be the most popular person on the floor, while other girls go begging for partners.”

I could feel Winifred bridling at the challenge in the remark. She had tasted popularity herself. Was she to admit defeat at the hands of the little adventuress? Criticize as one might, there was still a fascination about the mystery of Paquita.

One could feel the coolness that had suddenly risen in the summer-house――as if a mist from the water had thrown it about. Nor did the implication of the silence escape Irene Maddox.

“You will pardon me, my dear,” she said, rising. “I know how thankless such a job is. Perhaps I had better not be seen with you. Yes, I am sure of it. I think I had better return to the hotel.”

For a moment Winifred hesitated, as if in doubt whether to go, too, or to stay.

Finally it seemed as if she decided to stay. I do not know which course would have been better for Winifred――to accompany the elder woman and imbibe more of the enforced cynicism, or to remain, brooding over the suspicions which had been injected into her mind. At any rate, Winifred decided to stay, and made no move either to detain or accompany the other.

Irene Maddox arose and left Winifred alone. If she had been watching Paquita there was no further need. Winifred would watch now quite as closely.

As her footsteps died away, instead of remaining near the dock Kennedy turned and, keeping back in the shadows where we could not be seen by the silent watcher in the summer-house, we went down along the shore.

In the shelter of a long line of bath-houses that belonged to the hotel we paused. There was no one in bathing at this hour, and we sat down and waited.

“What did you make of that conversation?” I whispered, cautiously, lowering my voice so that we might not be eavesdropped upon in turn.

“Not strange that Mrs. Maddox hates the little dancer,” replied Craig, sententiously. “It’s quite evident Riley was right and that Shelby must be with her. I wonder whether they will return this way or on the land? It’s worth taking a chance. Let’s stay awhile, anyway.”

He lapsed into silence, as though trying to motivate the actors in the little drama which was unfolding.

It was not long before, down the beach, we saw a man and a woman coming toward us rapidly. Kennedy and I drew back farther, and as we did so I saw that the figure above us in the summer-house had moved away from the edge so as to be less conspicuous.

The crackle of some dry sea-grass back of the bath-house startled us, but we did not move. It was one of the Secret Service men. There was no reason why we should conceal from him that we were on a similar quest. Yet Kennedy evidently considered it better that nothing should happen to put any one on guard. We scarcely breathed. He passed, however, without seeing us, and we flattered ourselves that we were well hidden.

A few minutes later the couple approached. It was unmistakably Shelby Maddox and Paquita.

“It’s no use,” we heard Shelby say, as they passed directly beside the bath-houses. “Even down here on the beach they are watching. Still, I have had a chance to say some of the things I wanted to say. From now on――we are strangers――you understand?”

It was not said as brutally as it sounds on paper. Rather it gave the impression, from Shelby’s tone, that they had never been much more.

For a moment Paquita said nothing. Then suddenly she burst forth with a little bitter laugh.

“It takes two to be strangers. We shall see!”

Without another word she turned, as though in a fit of pique and anger, and ran up the flight of steps from the bath-houses to the Casino, passing within five feet of us, without seeing us.

“We shall see,” she muttered under her breath; “we shall see!”

In surprise Shelby took a step or two after her, then paused.

“The deuce take her,” he swore under his breath, then strode on in the direction of the steps to the dock and the summer-house.

He had scarcely gained the level when the figure in the summer-house emerged from the gloom.

“Well, Shelby――a tryst with the other charmer, was it?”

“Winifred!”

Miss Walcott laughed sarcastically. “Is that all that your fine speeches mean, Shelby?” she said, reproachfully. “At the Lodge you scarcely bow to her; then you meet her secretly on the beach.”