Erickson had invited us to come late in the afternoon to the dinner and we did not delay in getting there.  His house proved to be a veritable palace on the side of one of the hills rising abruptly back of the shore.  Flights of massive stone steps, quaint walls covered with creepers, balustrades overlooking charming gardens, arcades from which one looked out on splendid vistas and shady terraces combined to make it a veritable paradise such as can be found only in tropical and subtropical lands.  Most wonderful of all was the picture of the other hills unfolded, especially of the two ruined pirates’ castles belonging to semi-mythical personages, Bluebeard and Blackbeard.

The Ericksons were proud of their home, as well they might be, in spite of the complaints we had heard Nanette utter and the efforts of Erickson to sell his holdings.  Mrs. Erickson proved to be a charming hostess and the host extended a hospitality such as one rarely meets.  It quite made me uncomfortable to accept it at the same time that I knew we must view it all with suspicion.  Nor did it make matters any better, but rather worse, to feel that there was some color of excuse for the suspicion.

Burleigh arrived proudly with Leontine, followed closely by Sydney.  At once the game was on again, Leontine pitting one against the other.  Whitson came, his attentions to Mrs. Erickson a trifle restrained, but still obvious.  Burke and ourselves completed the party.

To the repeated urging of Erickson we made ourselves quite as much at home as we politely could.  Kennedy and Burke, acting under his instructions, seemed to be ubiquitous.  Yet, beyond a continuation of the drama that had been unfolded on the ship it did not seem to me at first that we were getting anywhere.

Kennedy and I were passing alone along a colonnade that opened off from the large dining-hall, when Craig paused and looked in through an open door at the massive table set for the dinner.

A servant had just completed setting out cocktails at the various places, pouring them from a huge tankard, for the purpose, which had been standing on a sideboard.  Guests had been walking past through the colonnade ever since we arrived, but at the moment there was no one about, and even the servant had disappeared.

Kennedy stepped lightly into the dining-hall and looked about sharply.  Instinctively I stepped to a window where I could hear any one approaching.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him narrowly scrutinizing the table.  Finally he pulled from his pocket a clean linen handkerchief.  Into an empty glass he poured the contents of one of the cocktail-glasses, straining the liquid through the handkerchief.  Then he poured the filtrate, if I may call it such, back into the original glass.  A second he treated in the same way, and a third.  He had nearly completed the round of the table when I heard a light step.

My warning came only just in time.  It was Burleigh.  He saw us standing now in the colonnade, made some hasty remark, then walked on, as if in search for some one.  Had it been interest in Leontine or in the dining-room that had drawn him thither?