Inquiries of the clerk at the desk told me that he had been there, but was out just at that moment.  I did not see Whitney around, nor the Senora, so I sat down to wait, having nothing better to do until Kennedy’s return.

I was about to give it up and go, when I heard a cab drive up to the door and, looking up, I saw Alfonso get out.  He saw me about the same time and we bowed.  I do not think he even tried to avoid me.

“I haven’t seen you for some time,” I remarked, searching his face, which seemed to me to be paler than it had been.

“No,” he replied.  “I haven’t been feeling very well lately and I’ve been running up into the country now and then to a quiet hotel—­a sort of rest cure, I suppose you would call it.  How are you?  How is Senorita Inez?”

“Very well,” I replied, wondering whether he had said what he did in the hope of establishing a complete alibi for the events of the night before.

Briefly I told him what had happened, omitting reference to the vocaphone and our real part in it.

“That is terrible,” he exclaimed.  “Oh, if she would only allow me to take care of her—­I would take her back to our own country, where she would be safe, far away from these people who seek to prey on all of us.”

He paced up and down nervously, and I could see that my information had added nothing to his peace of mind, though, at the same time, he had betrayed nothing on his part.

“I was just passing through,” I said finally, looking at my watch, “and happened to see you.  I hope your mother is well?”

“As well as is to be expected, surrounded by people who watch every act,” he replied, I thought with a rap at us for having Norton about and so active, though I could not be sure.

We separated, and I hastened back to the laboratory to report to Craig that Alfonso was rusticating for his health.

Kennedy, on his part, had had an experience, though it was no more conclusive than my own.  After he had left the tobacco district, he had walked up Wall Street to the subway.  In the crowd he had seen Senora de Moche, although she had not seen him.  He had turned and followed her until she entered the building in which Whitney and his associates had their offices.  Whether it indicated that she was still leading them a chase, or they her, was impossible to determine, but it at least showed that they were still on friendly terms with each other.

In the laboratory he could always find something to do on the case, either in perfecting his chemical tests of the various drugs we had discovered, or in trying to decipher some similarities in the rough printing of the four warnings and the anonymous letter with the known handwriting of those connected with the case, many specimens of which he bad been quietly collecting.  That in itself was a tremendously minute job, entailing not only a vast amount of expert knowledge such as he had collected in his years of studying crime scientifically, but the most exact measurements and careful weighing and balancing of trifles, which to the unscientific conveyed no meanings at all.  Still, he seemed to be forging ahead, though he never betrayed what direction the evidence seemed to be taking.