The package of cigarettes which he had ordered downtown was delivered about an hour after his return and seemed to be the signal for him to drop work, for the meeting with Lockwood and Whitney had been set early.  He stowed the package in his pockets and then went over to a cabinet in which he kept a number of rather uncommon drugs.  From it he took a little vial which he shoved into his waistcoat pocket.

“Are you ready, Walter?” he asked.

“Whenever you are,” I said, laying aside my writing.

Together we made our way down to the Mendoza apartment which had been the scene of the near-tragedy the night before.  Outside, he paused for several moments to make inquiries about any suspicious persons that might have been seen lurking about the neighbourhood.  None of the attendants in the apartment remembered having seen any, and they were now very alert after the two events, the murder and the attempted abduction.  Not a clue seemed to have been left by the villain who had been called “Doc.”

“How do you feel after your thrilling experience?” greeted Craig pleasantly, as Juanita admitted us and Inez came forward.

“Oh, Mr. Kennedy,” she answered, with a note of sadness in her tone.  “It makes me feel so alone in the world.  If it were not for ’Nita—­and you, I don’t know what I should do.”

“Doesn’t Mr. Lockwood count?” asked Kennedy observantly.

“Of course—­everything,” she answered hastily.  “But he has to be away so much on business, and—­”

She paused and sighed.  I could not help wondering whether, after all, his explanation of the dagger episode had been enough to satisfy her.  Had she really accepted it?

Neither Lockwood nor Whitney had arrived, and Kennedy improved the opportunity to have a quiet talk aside with her, at which, I imagine, he was arranging a programme of what was to happen at this meeting and her part in it to co-operate with him.

She had left the room for a moment and we were alone.  It was evidently a part of his plan, for no sooner was she gone than he opened the package of cigarettes which he had ordered and took out from the box in which Mendoza had kept his cigarettes those that were there, substituting those he had brought.

We had not long to wait, now.  Lockwood and Whitney came together.  I was interested to see the greeting of Inez and her lover.  Was it pure fancy, or did I detect a trace of coldness as though there had sprung up something between them?  As far as Lockwood was concerned, I felt sure that he was eager to break down any barrier that kept them from being as they had been.

Whitney took her hand and held it, in a playful sort of way.  “I wish I were a young buck,” he smiled.  “No one would dare look at you—­much less try to carry you off.  Yes, we must be more careful of our little beauty, or we shall lose her.”

They turned to greet us.  I felt, as we shook hands, that it was much the same sort of handshake that one sees in the prize ring—­ to be followed by the clang of a bell, then all going to it, in battle royal, with the devil after the hindmost.