“Who?” asked Kennedy.

Lockwood faced Norton and ourselves.

“I’m not a mind reader,” he said significantly.  “But it doesn’t take much to see that some one wants to throw a brick at me.  When I have anything to say I say it openly.  Inez Mendoza without friends just now would be a mark, wouldn’t she?”

His strong face and powerful jaw were set in a menacing scowl.  He would be a bold man who would have come between Lockwood and the lady under the circumstances.

“You are confident of Mr. Whitney?” inquired Kennedy.

“Ask Norton,” replied Lockwood briefly.  “He knew him long before I did.”

Norton smiled quietly.  “Mr. Kennedy should know what my opinion of Mr. Whitney is, I think,” replied Norton confidently.

“I trust that you will succeed in running these blackmailers down,” pursued Lockwood, still standing.  “If I did not have more than I can attend to already since the murder of Mendoza I’d like to take a hand myself.  It begins to look to me, after reading that letter, as though there was nothing too low for them to attempt.  I shall keep this latest matter in mind.  If either Mr. Whitney or myself get any hint, we’ll turn it over to you.”

Norton left shortly after Lockwood, and Kennedy again picked up the letter and scanned it.  “I could learn something, I suppose, if I analyzed this printing,” he considered, “but it is a tedious process.  Let me see that envelope again.  H-m, postmarked by the uptown sub-station, mailed late last night.  Whoever sent it must have done so not very far from us here.  Lockwood seemed to take it as though it applied to himself very readily, didn’t he?  Much more so than de Moche.  Only for the fact that the fibres show it to be on paper similar to the first warnings, I might have been inclined to doubt whether this was bona fide.  At least, the sender must realize now that it has produced no appreciable effect—­if any was intended.”

Kennedy’s last remark set me thinking.  Could some one have sent the letter not to produce the effect apparently intended, but with the ultimate object of diverting suspicion from himself?  Lockwood, at least, had not seemed to take the letter very seriously.

X

THE X-RAY READER

“I think I’ll pay another visit to Whitney, in spite of all that Norton and Lockwood say about him,” remarked Kennedy, considering the next step he would take in his investigation.

Accordingly, half an hour later we entered his Wall Street office, where we were met by a clerk, who seemed to remember us.

“Mr. Whitney is out just at present,” he said, “but if you will be seated I think I can reach him by telephone.”

As we sat in the outer office while the clerk telephoned from Whitney’s own room the door opened and the postman entered and laid some letters on a table near us.  Kennedy could not help seeing the letter on top of the pile, and noticed that it bore a stamp from Peru.  He picked it up and read the postmark, “Lima,” and the date some weeks previous.  In the lower corner, underscored, were the words “Personal—­Urgent.”