Kennedy nodded, but for a moment said nothing.

“I think I’ll be getting out,” remarked Page, with a half smile.  “I don’t want a knife in the back.  I thought you ought to know all this, though.  And if I hear anything else I’ll let you know.”

Kennedy thanked him and together we rode down in the next elevator, parting with Page at the hotel entrance.

It was still early in the evening, and Kennedy had no intention now of wasting a moment.  He beckoned for a cab and directed the man to drive immediately to the Pan-America.

This time Teresa de Leon was plainly prepared for a visit, though I am not sure that she was prepared to receive two visitors.

“I believe you were acquainted with Senior Barrios, who died to-night?” opened Kennedy, after I had introduced him.

“He was acquainted with me,” she corrected, with a purr in her voice that suggested claws.

“You were not married to him,” shot out Kennedy; then before she could reply, “nor even engaged.”

“He had known me a long time.  We were intimate—­”

“Friends,” interrupted Kennedy, leaving no doubt as to the meaning of his emphasis.

She colored.  It was evident that, at least to her, it was more than friendship.

“Senor Sandoval says,” romanced Kennedy, in true detective style, “that you wrote—­”

It was her turn to interrupt.  “If Senor Sandoval says anything against me, he tells what is not—­the truth.”

In spite of Kennedy’s grilling she was still mistress of herself.

“You introduced yourself to Burton Page, and—­”

“You had better remember your own proverb,” she retorted.  “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half you see.”

Kennedy snapped down the yellow telegram before her.  It was a dramatic moment.  The woman did not flinch at the anonymous implication.  Straight into Kennedy’s eyes she shot a penetrating glance.

“Watch both of them,” she replied, shortly, then turned and deliberately swept out of the hotel parlor as though daring us to go as far as we cared.

“I think we have started forces working for us,” remarked Kennedy, coolly consulting his watch.  “For the present at least let us retire to the laboratory.  Some one will make a move.  My game is to play one against the other—­until the real one breaks.”

We had scarcely switched on the lights and Kennedy was checking over the results he had obtained during his afternoon’s investigations, when the door was flung open and a man dashed in on us unexpectedly.  It was Sandoval, and as he advanced furiously at Kennedy I more than feared that Page’s idea was correct.

“It was you, Kennedy,” he hissed, “who took those letters from Jose’s desk.  It is you—­or Page back of you—­who are trying to connect me with that woman, De Leon.  But let me tell you—­”

A sharp click back of Sandoval caused him to cut short the remark and look about apprehensively.  Kennedy’s finger, sliding along the edge of the laboratory table, had merely found an electric button by which he could snap the lock on the door.