I wanted to believe Lockwood.  As for Craig he said nothing.

“Then, when I did have a chance to get away that night,” he continued, “I went over to Mendoza’s.  The rest you know.”

“You have told Inez that?” asked Kennedy in order to seem properly surprised.

“Yes—­and I think she believes me.  I can’t say.  Things are strained with her.  It will take time.  I’m not one of those who can take a girl by main force and make her do what she won’t do.  I wish I could smooth things over.  Let me see the prints.”

Kennedy handed them over to him.  He looked at them, long and closely, then handed back the damning evidence against himself.

“I know it would be no use to destroy these,” he remarked.  “In the first place that would really incriminate me.  And in the second I suppose you have copies.”

Craig smiled blandly.

“But I can tell you,” he exclaimed, bringing his fist down on the laboratory table with a bang, “that before I lose that girl, somebody will pay for it—­and there won’t be any mistakes made, either.”

The scowl on his face and the menacing look in his eye showed that now, with his back up against the wall, he was not bluffing.

He seemed to get little satisfaction out of his visit to us, and in fact I think he made it more in a spirit of bravado than anything else.

Lockwood had scarcely gone before Kennedy pulled out the University schedule, and ran his finger down it.

“Alfonso ought to be at a lecture in the School of Mines,” he said finally, folding up the paper.  “I wish you’d go over and see if he is there, and, if he is, ask him to step into the laboratory.”

The lecture was in progress all right, but when I peered into the room it was evident that de Moche was not there.  Norton was right.  The young man was neglecting his work.  Evidently the repeated rebuffs of Inez had worked havoc with him.

Nor was he at the hotel, as we found out by calling up.

There was only one other place that I could think of where he would be likely to be and that was at the apartment of Inez.  Apparently the same idea occurred to Kennedy, for he suggested going back to our observation point in the boarding-house and finding out.

All the rest of the day we listened through the vocaphone, but without finding out a thing of interest.  Now and then we would try the detective instrument, the little black disc in the back, but with no better success.  Then we determined to listen in relays, one listening, while the other went out for dinner.

It must have been just a bit after dark that we could hear Inez talking in a low tone with Juanita.

A buzzing noise indicated that there was some one at the hall door.

“If it’s any one for me,” we heard Inez say, “tell them that I will be out directly.  I’m not fit to be seen now.”

The door was opened and a voice which we could not place asked for the senorita.  A moment later Juanita returned and asked the visitor to be seated a few moments.