“It seems to me that Senora de Moche is ambitious for her son, too,” remarked Kennedy, tenaciously trying to force the conversation into the channel he chose.

“How’s that?” demanded Whitney, narrowing his eyes down into a squint at Kennedy’s face, a proceeding that served by contrast to emphasize the abnormal condition of the pupils which I had already noticed both in his eyes and Lockwood’s.

“I don’t think she’d object to having him marry into one of the leading families in Peru,” ventured Kennedy, paraphrasing what we had already read in the letter.

“Perhaps Senorita Mendoza herself can be trusted to see to that,” Whitney replied with a quick laugh.

“To say nothing of Mr. Lockwood,” suggested Craig.

Whitney looked at him quizzically, as though in doubt just how much this man knew.

“Senora de Moche puzzles me,” went on Kennedy.  “I often wonder whether superstition or greed would rule her if it came to the point in this matter of the Gold of the Gods, as they all seem to call the buried treasure at Truxillo.  She’s a fascinating woman, but I can’t help feeling that with her one is always playing with fire.”

Whitney eyed us knowingly.  I had long ago taken his measure as a man quite susceptible to a pretty face, especially if accompanied by a well-turned ankle.

“I never discuss politics during business hours,” he laughed, with a self-satisfied air.  “You will excuse me?  I have some rather important letters that I must get off.”

Kennedy rose, and Whitney walked to the door with us, to call his stenographer.

We had scarcely said good-bye and were about to open the outer door when it was pushed open from outside, and Lockwood bustled in.

“No more anonymous letters, I hope?” he queried, in a tone which I could not determine whether serious or sarcastic.

Kennedy answered in the negative.  “Not unless you have one.”

“I?  I rather think the ready letter-writers know better than to waste time on me.  That little billet doux seems to have quite upset the Senorita, though.  I don’t know how many times she has called me up to see if I was all right.  I begin to think that whoever wrote it has done me a good turn, after all.”

Lockwood did not say it in a boastful way, but one could see that he was greatly pleased at the solicitude of Inez.

“She thinks it referred to you, then?” asked Kennedy.

“Evidently,” he replied; then added, “I won’t say but that I have taken it seriously, too.”

He slapped his hip pocket.  Under the tail of his coat bulged a blue-steel automatic.

“You still have no idea who could have sent it, or why?”

Lockwood shook his head.  “Whoever he is, I’m ready,” he replied grimly, bowing us out.

XI

THE SHOE-PRINTS

“I’m afraid we’ve neglected the Senorita a bit, in our efforts to follow up what clues we have in the case,” remarked Kennedy, as we rode uptown again.  “She needs all the protection we can give her.  I think we’d better drop around there, now that she is pretty likely to be left alone.”