7^^> 
 
 153
 
 "I think I'll go this alone," was Kestner's final answer
 
 Supertales of 
 
 MODERN MY5TERY 
 
 By Arthur Stringer 
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 McKINLAY, STONE er MACKENZIE 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, 1014 and 1915. by International Magazine Company 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1915, 
 BY ARTHUR STRINGER 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1915 
 Reprinted May, August, 1915.
 
 URL 
 SRLF 5Mr 
 
 PART I 
 THE QUARTERS IN PARIS
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 i 
 
 " That's your woman! " 
 
 It was Wilsnach of the Paris Office who spoke. He 
 spoke quietly, over the edge of his Le Journal 
 Amusant. But the fingers that held the sheet were a 
 little unsteady. 
 
 " The woman with the bird of paradise plumes ? " 
 asked Kestner of the Secret Service, paddling in his 
 half-melted mousse au chocolat with a long-handled 
 spoon. 
 
 " Yes," answered Wilsnach. " Get her, and get 
 her good ! " 
 
 Kestner, the wandering mouchard whose home was 
 under his hat and whose beat was all Europe, quietly 
 took out a cigar and lighted it. 
 
 He was not studying the woman. Instead, he was 
 sleepily studying the end of his cigar. Yet he studied 
 it persistently, as though its newly formed ash held 
 the solution of many solemn mysteries. 
 
 Across the rue de la Paix, opposite the double row 
 of little iron tables where he sat, his idly wandering 
 gaze caught the gleam of metal letters against a white 
 marble wall. These letters spelt the name of an 
 
 American jeweller. The afternoon sun made them 
 
 3
 
 4 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 shine like gold. The same sun glinted pleasantly 
 through the leaves of a sycamore. It shone on motor- 
 busses threading their way through the heart of Paris. 
 It shone on tonneaux in which lounged painted 
 actresses and on taxicabs in which sat tired-eyed 
 tourists. It shone on promenading sidewalk-throngs 
 and red-trousered Zouaves and bare-headed students 
 in black gowns and pastry-boys with trays balanced 
 on their heads and a street-tumbler with a mat under 
 his arm and a haggard-browed old man in frugal 
 search of cigarette-ends along the boulevarde curbing. 
 
 Kestner, while his mousse au chocolat deliquesced 
 on the little iron table in front of him, saw all this. 
 But incidentally, and as though by accident, he saw 
 other things. Among these was the woman in the 
 bird of paradise hat. 
 
 He sat watching her as his many years in the service 
 had taught him always to watch his quarry, with that 
 casual and intermittent glance, with that discreet 
 obliquity, which could so easily be interpreted as the 
 idle curiosity of an idle-minded sightseer. 
 
 Yet Kestner, at the moment, was anything but idle- 
 minded. At each apparently casual side-glance his 
 quick eye was picking up some new point, very much 
 as a magnet catches up its iron filings. 
 
 " So that's our woman ! " he finally murmured. He 
 spoke without emotion. 
 
 Yet he was a little startled, inwardly, by her appear- 
 ance of youthfulness. At the outside, he concluded, 
 she could not be more than twenty-two or twenty- 
 three. That was younger than most of them. In 
 other ways, too, he saw that she was a distinct devia-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 5 
 
 tion from type. She even puzzled him a little. And 
 he was not a man frequently puzzled by the women he 
 encountered. 
 
 Still again he studied her from under drooping and 
 indifferent eyelids. He could see that she had taken 
 off her gloves and rolled them up into a tight ball. 
 Her bare hands were linked together, as she leaned 
 forward with her elbows on the round-topped table, 
 and on the delicate bridgeway of those interwoven 
 fingers rested the perfect oval of her chin. 
 
 Of these fingers Kestner took especial notice. For 
 all their slenderness there was a nervous strength 
 about them, an odd fastidiousness of movement, a 
 promise of vast executive capabilities. The man 
 watching them saw at a glance that they were the 
 fingers of an artist. 
 
 Kestner*s indolent glance went back to her face. 
 The pallor of that youthful yet ascetic-looking face 
 was accentuated by the dark brim of the hat under 
 the bird of paradise plumes. The violet-blue eyes, at 
 the moment almost as sleepy-looking as Kestner's, 
 were made darker by the heavy fringe of their lashes. 
 Yet there seemed nothing suppressed or circuitous in 
 their outlook on the world. 
 
 Kestner, in fact, could find no fault with the model- 
 ling of the face. It should have had more colour, he 
 might have admitted, yet the ivory creaminess of the 
 skin seemed to atone for that absence of colour. The 
 dull chestnut of the heavily massed hair would have 
 been more effective if done in the mode of the hour 
 but even that, he concluded, was a matter of taste. 
 
 It seemed, on the whole, a face singularly devoid
 
 6 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 of guile. It was only about the lips, with their vague 
 line of revolt, that Kestner dould detect anything 
 Ishmael-like, anything significant of her career and 
 calling. 
 
 " That's right," muttered Wilsnach, as he bent over 
 his illustrated paper. " Get her good she's the 
 kind who'll need it ! " 
 
 " That's where I think you're wrong," remarked the 
 Secret Agent, as he noted the haughtiness of the well- 
 poised head. " I could spot her among a million." 
 
 " But you'll never see her there to be spotted," 
 amended Wilsnach. " She's the one they keep out of 
 sight in working hours." 
 
 " Tell me about 'em," said the listless-eyed Kestner. 
 
 Wilsnach drew his iron chair a little closer to the 
 table. 
 
 " It took us over seven months to fine-comb what we 
 know about them out of six different cities. You see, 
 we could only spot them on the wing, the same as I 
 spotted them to-day when I 'phoned you." 
 
 " Who's the man ? " asked Kestner. 
 
 " He's carrying the name of Lambert, just at pres- 
 ent. In Budapest he was known as Hartmann. In 
 Rome it's probably something else. But we're sure 
 of one thing: he's the manager of their little circle. 
 He's also their paper expert. He's perfected a bleach- 
 ing process of his own, and he's the only man in Europe 
 who can re-fill cheque perforations. He's also a 
 finished etcher and engraver, and an expert in inks and 
 colour-work." 
 
 " Now the woman," prompted Kestner. 
 
 " She's the old man's daughter, as far as we can
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 7 
 
 learn. In fact there's no doubt of it. He's had her 
 in hand for years. She's the free-hand worker for the 
 gang. She can work on stone or steel or copper, and 
 she can do the best imitation of lathe-work on a 
 Treasury note you ever clapped eyes on. The old 
 man taught her all that, the brush work, the photo- 
 engraving process, the silk-thread trick, and the oil 
 washes for ageing a note." 
 
 " Got any samples ? " asked Kestner, revolving his 
 cigar-end about his puckered lips as though life held 
 no serious thoughts for him. 
 
 " The office has one or two. But look at those 
 hands of hers ! You could tell that girl was an adept 
 by those fingers ! " 
 
 "How about the face?" 
 
 " That's what puzzled me. She certainly doesn't 
 look the part. But there were certain things we 
 traced up. This man Lambert brought her to Flor- 
 ence years ago, when she was a mere child. He trained 
 her for miniature painting there. Then he taught 
 her etching and engraving. Then he started her 
 working in oils, and for a couple of years she was 
 forging old masters for him. Next, as far as we can 
 learn, he turned his attention to free-hand script work. 
 He got her copying museum records and manuscripts 
 in the Uffizi. Then they migrated to Pisa for a year. 
 It was there she must have done the ten-kroner Aus- 
 trian note that the office has a sample of. She also 
 got away with an uncommonly good Italian postage- 
 stamp, for which Lambert had made a waterproof ink 
 of his own. Then they bobbed up in Brussels next, 
 and moved on to London, and a year later were back
 
 8 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 in Rome, sliding from city to city, and doing the 
 smoothest forging and cheque-raising and counterfeit- 
 ing and flimflam work of the century." 
 
 " But as you say, she certainly doesn't look the 
 part." 
 
 " She sure doesn't," admitted Wilsnach. " Pouch- 
 er's got a theory that the old man hypnotises the girl 
 and makes her do the work without knowing she does 
 it. But that's fantastic. I don't even think it's 
 worth considering." 
 
 Wilsnach stared down at his paper again, for at 
 the moment Kestner was speaking sotto voce to a 
 withered-cheeked old man with a trayful of street-toys. 
 He was speaking to the camelot in the patois of the 
 street. 
 
 " Galipaux, pipe that woman at the sixth table on 
 my left. Lift her handbag when you get the chance. 
 Take your time about it, and whatever you do, don't 
 mess the job! " 
 
 The old toy-vender called Galipaux neither answered 
 nor looked back. He merely passed on his way 
 through the jostling crowd. Kestner continued to 
 puddle lazily with his melted mousse au chocolat. 
 
 " What's your theory ? " he finally asked. 
 
 " I rather think the old man's a nut. As far as we 
 can gather, he was an expert accountant in his time, 
 and later swung into bankwork. Then he fell. He 
 always claimed it was a frame-up. But he did four 
 years in Sing Sing was the school teacher in the 
 prison there before the other man confessed. That 
 soured him, and he just went bad after that. He did
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL' 9 
 
 time again, in Atlanta, but forged his own pardon and 
 got away with it." 
 
 "What's the rest of the gang? " 
 
 " The only other person we've been able to spot is a 
 Neapolitan named Morello. They call him Tony. 
 He's as big as the old man there, and as smooth as 
 they make 'em. They use him as their breaker and 
 shover. He's been years in America and speaks Eng- 
 lish without an accent. He was a paying-teller in an 
 Italian bank in New York, and later on an olive-oil 
 importer there. He came under the police eye seven 
 years ago for smuggling." 
 
 " Ever indicted? " 
 
 " Never in America. He fell in Europe, a year and 
 a half ago. He got the blue-prints of the Heligoland 
 Naval Fortifications and was selling a forged copy to 
 a French secret agent in Brussels when the German 
 government got wise. They got him back across the 
 border and tied him up with a fifteen year sentence. 
 Then the girl and the old man got busy, did the 
 Atlanta trick over again, and got Morello liberated 
 and on a steamer for Harwich before the officials knew 
 the release-order was a forgery. I've every reason to 
 imagine he thinks a lot of that girl. He follows her 
 around like a dog." 
 
 " And that's all you know ? " asked the unemotional 
 Kestner. 
 
 " There's an American girl who calls herself Cherry 
 Dreiser floating somewhere about the fringes of that 
 gang, but we can't connect her with them. She was 
 known in New York as Sadie Wimpel, and has a record
 
 10 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 as a con-woman. We know she worked with a wire- 
 tapper named Davis, and later decided to leave 
 America for a year or two. That was after a badger- 
 game rake-off over there. We first tailed her in 
 Amsterdam on some diamond smuggling work. Later, 
 we found her on her way to Paris with this woman 
 called Maura Lambert." 
 
 " So her name's Maura ! " languidly commented 
 Kestner, as he threw away his cigar. " But I think 
 you're wrong about the old gentleman. That man is 
 not a lunatic." 
 
 " Oh, he's shrewd and keen enough," admitted Wil- 
 snach. " But he has that one obsession of his." 
 
 "Which one?" 
 
 " That nut idea that he can stampede all modern 
 commerce off the range, that one woman's hand, 
 properly trained, can crowbar over the whole modern 
 world of business. His claim, I suppose, is that all 
 our money-machinery, all our business, our banks and 
 credit systems and negotiable security methods, actu- 
 ally depend on one thing. And that thing is the 
 integrity of paper. The modern business man has 
 got to know that his documents are genuine, that his 
 bank-notes are bona-fide, that his drafts are authentic, 
 that his currency certificates are unquestioned." 
 
 " Naturally ! " 
 
 " Lambert's got the idea that he can undermine the 
 whole structure of modern commercial life by striking 
 at that one thing, by making men feel that its paper, 
 its bank-notes and bonds and certificates are no longer 
 to be depended upon. He imagines he is going to 
 make banks crumble and governments totter by simply
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 11 
 
 flooding the country with counterfeits, by leaving every 
 one in doubt as to which is the real thing and which is 
 the worthless imitation." 
 
 " And thereby add a little to his own income? " 
 
 " I don't think that's the prime consideration. He's 
 always had money enough. I know for certain he got 
 eleven thousand marks for supplying the forgeries of 
 the Kiel fortifications when the originals were carried 
 away." 
 
 " And his next move? " prompted Kestner. 
 
 " We've concluded that his next move must mean 
 America. It's what he's been planning for, for years. 
 He's laid all his ropes. He's going into the thing on 
 a big scale. In six months' time he's going to unload 
 three or four million dollars in counterfeit on the re- 
 public. In the second six months he'll put out more 
 than double that amount." 
 
 "And then what?" 
 
 " Isn't that enough ? " inquired Wilsnach. 
 
 " It sounds like a very fine plan. But if you knew 
 all this, why haven't you closed in on them? " 
 
 " Headquarters said hands off until you could take 
 over the case." 
 
 " That was very kind of Headquarters," sighed 
 Kestner. Then Kestner sat without speaking, for a 
 withered-faced street-vendor had placed on his knees 
 a folded copy of an afternoon newspaper. This paper 
 the Secret Agent carefully unfolded and let lie on the 
 table in front of him, and for a short while seemed 
 busied with its contents. 
 
 In that brief space of time, however, Kestner had 
 done several things. One was to hold a lady's bag
 
 !12 THE HAND OF PERU, 
 
 between the flaps of his coatfront, well under the table 
 edge, and there quickly but minutely examine its con- 
 tents. Another was to register a mental note of every 
 name and address found therein. And still another 
 was to trace on a gilt-edged carte des glaces an 
 outline of each key found in the bag of that quiet 
 unsuspecting lady, while the final movement was to slip 
 the bag back into the adroit hands of one Galipaux, 
 who, in due time, drew the attention of a stately lady 
 in a bird of paradise hat to the fact that her purse had 
 fallen to the pavement. And for this, Kestner saw, 
 the mendacious old scoundrel was rewarded with a 
 franc. 
 
 " Her money, I regret to say, was all unmistakably 
 genuine," observed Kestner. 
 
 " And so is her appetite, for I notice that she's just 
 made away with her third Coupe Jacques" 
 
 " She is certainly not true to type," repeated the 
 perplexed Kestner. 
 
 " Well, you'll find her true to her gang ! " 
 
 " I'U teU you that before midnight." 
 
 "You mean you're going to jump right into the 
 case? " 
 
 " I'm in it already," retorted Kestner, looking at 
 his watch. " I have located the lady, and, if I am not 
 vastly mistaken, I have located the plant." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " The first in a little street off the Boulevard Mont- 
 parnasse, and the second in so remote a place as the 
 city of Palermo." 
 
 Wilsnach followed the other man as he rose to his 
 feet.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL' 13 
 
 " What'll be your line of procedure ? " he inquired. 
 
 " That I can't tell until my visit south of the river." 
 
 " Then what men will you want? " 
 
 Kestner lighted a second cigar as usual, he was 
 smoking too much and for a few seconds was deep 
 in thought. 
 
 " I think I'll go this alone," was his final answer to 
 Wilsnach.
 
 II 
 
 KESTNER, who at times gave the appearance of being 
 as lethargic as a blacksnake, could on occasions move 
 with the astounding rapidity of that reptilious animal. 
 
 His activities during the hour that ensued stood 
 proof enough of this. Within that brief space the 
 Lamberts, father and daughter, had been shadowed to 
 the restaurant where they gave every promise of din- 
 ing ; divers messengers had been despatched and inter- 
 viewed; a number of pass-keys had been freshly cut 
 from the diagrams pencilled on a gilt-edged carte des 
 glaces from the Cafe de la Paix; an artfully worded 
 telegram had lured Antonio Morello to the Gare de 
 Lyon to meet an Italian confederate arriving un- 
 expectedly from Milan, and a handsome pourboire had 
 engaged the sympathetic attention of the concierge 
 presiding over the entrance to that remarkably ram- 
 shackle old studio building in that ramshackle old court 
 just off a side-street leading from the Boulevard Mont- 
 parnasse in which the Lamberts were temporarily 
 housed. One of the doors on the top floor of this 
 building, in fact, bore the modest inscription 
 
 Paul Lambert, Graveur Sur Acier 
 
 and it was before this door that Kestner paused, 
 listened, knocked, and then listened again. Taking 
 out one of his newly cut keys, he inserted it in the lock, 
 
 opened the door, and stepped inside. 
 
 14
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 15 
 
 Still again he stood just inside the closed door 
 listening, for several moments. With a catlike quiet- 
 ness of tread he moved first to one door, and then to 
 another. Then, having satisfied himself that he was 
 alone in the apartment, he began an expeditious and 
 systematic search of the place. This search soon nar- 
 rowed itself down to the large studio, lighted only by a 
 skylight of ground glass, which proved itself to be the 
 workroom of his friend, the ** graveur sur acier." For 
 in this studio Kestner found many things of interest. 
 
 The first thing that caught his attention was a pro- 
 jecting lantern and a white cotton screen. Across the 
 room from this stood a camera hooded by a square of 
 black lustre. In the centre of the room stood a large 
 oak table littered with etchings and art prints, while 
 between two doors leading into two closets stood a 
 cabinet filled with miniatures painted on ivory. On & 
 second table, against the remoter wall of the studio,, 
 stood rows of acid bottles, inks, and a collection of 
 engra vin g- to ols . 
 
 All of these, Kestner knew, might be used by an 
 etcher on steel or copper, and none of them implied an. 
 industry that was illicit. So he continued his search, 
 minutely, and sighed with relief when under a drapery 
 of imitation Gobelin tapestry his exploring knuckles 
 came in contact with the metallic surface of a safe- 
 front. 
 
 It took him but a moment to throw back that 
 factory-made affront to the Gobelins and discover him- 
 self face to face with an oblong of japanned steel held 
 shut by a combination lock. Within that wall, he 
 felt, lay the object of his search. He tapped the metal
 
 16 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 sorface, inquiringly, as a physician's fingers tap a 
 patient's chest. He tested the combination, but with- 
 at success. He examined the armoured hinge-sock- 
 ets. Then he stood off and studied the oblong of 
 japanned metal. 
 
 He was an expert in such things ; his life had made 
 iim such. He knew that with a little glazier's putty, 
 an air-pump, and a few ounces of nitroglycerine he 
 could in a quarter of an hour have that metal door 
 blown away. Or with a strong enough current he 
 could corrode away its lock bars by electrolysis, or 
 with a forced acetylene flame cut away its lock-dial. 
 But such procedure was not in keeping with either his 
 awls or his aims. He knew that his attack could not 
 le one of force. 
 
 He suddenly turned, crossed the studio, and stepped 
 quietly out to the entrance door, making sure that it 
 was locked. Then he returned to the studio, took off 
 Ms coat, and went to the large worktable in the centre 
 of the room. 
 
 There he took a huge sheet of draughting paper, 
 twisting it about into the shape of a cone. He secured 
 it in this shape with liquid glue from the smaller table, 
 fashioning it with a flap lip at the larger end. This 
 Kp he in turn glued to the safe-front, over the tumbler, 
 to the left of the combination dial, holding it there 
 until the glue hardened. The pointed apex of the 
 one he carefully cut away with a pair of scissors, 
 leaving it standing out from the safe-front like a huge 
 speaking-trumpet. 
 
 When he knelt before the safe again, however, it 
 icas his ear and not his mouth which he pressed closely
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 17 
 
 against the open apex of the draughting paper 
 trumpet. His ear, even without the aid of this 
 roughly improvised microphone, was one of the most 
 sensitive of organs. But now, through even that thick 
 wall of steel, he could hear the soft click of the tumblers 
 and the noise of the dial as he worked the combination. 
 He knew the possible permutations, and he tried them, 
 one after the other, listening always for the deeper 
 sound when a lock-tumbler had engaged. 
 
 It was expert work, and it called into play both the 
 patience and the delicacy of touch of an expert. Yet 
 it was a full half-hour before Kestner had mastered 
 the combination, and throwing back the lock-bars, 
 swung the heavy safe-door open. 
 
 He was confronted, as he had half-expected, by an 
 array of innocent-looking engravings and art prints. 
 Behind these again was a litter of artist's proofs and 
 etchings, such as might have been gathered together 
 by any collector wandering about the quays and shops 
 of Paris. 
 
 He stopped and looked at his watch, and then turned 
 and worked his way deeper into the vault. He worked 
 rapidly now, impressed by the discovery that time was 
 more than precious. 
 
 In an inner drawer, which he was reluctantly forced 
 to pry open, he found a trayful of photographic 
 plates, and under them a small old-fashioned mother- 
 of-pearl writing-desk. The lock of this desk he was 
 able to pick. Inside, under a scattering of letters and 
 tradesmen's bills, he unearthed a number of neatly 
 baled packages. Still again he showed no hesitation 
 as he tore the wrapper from the first of these.
 
 18 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 He knew, the next moment, that his search had been 
 at least partially rewarded. He held in his hand a 
 package of American yellow-backs. In denomination 
 they were all " tens." The next package, the same in 
 size, was made up of notes in the denomination of " one 
 hundred." Still the next was a twenty-dollar note, 
 and then came more packages, of the " tens," and still 
 more of the " one hundreds." 
 
 Kestner turned these packages over, studiously de- 
 ciding that each package must hold at least three hun- 
 dred bills. He qualified that estimate, however, for 
 he could see that the bills were not new. They all 
 carried the ear-marks of age and wear. It was to 
 determine whether they had been mechanically abraded 
 and worn that he drew one of the bills from the package 
 and carried it to the centre of the room under the more 
 direct light from the skylight above. He warned him- 
 self, as he did so, that he had not yet found the plates, 
 and the plates were the one thing that he wanted, that 
 he must have. 
 
 Kestner was familiar enough with counterfeiting in 
 all its forms. In his work as roving agent for the 
 Treasury Department he stumbled across more coun- 
 terfeit money than did any bank-teller in America. 
 He knew his currency as a mother knows the faces of 
 her children. He knew genuine " paper " instinctively, 
 without hesitation or analysis. He could, in the same 
 way as instinctively detect fraudulent " paper." He 
 did so without conscious thought, by some vague sixth 
 sense, a gift that was not altogether feeling and not 
 altogether the sense of sight. Even before the micro- 
 scope was put over a counterfeit and the line of diver-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 19 
 
 gence was established for somewhere there was 
 always a line of divergence ! he knew in his own mind 
 that a given note was spurious. 
 
 He had long known, too, both the tricks and the 
 limitations of the counterfeiter, the bleaching and 
 raising, the camel-hair brush work, the splitting and 
 pasting, the hand-engraving on steel, and the photo- 
 graphic reproducing. He knew that the camera work 
 was always flat and weak, no matter how artfully 
 retouched and tooled over. He likewise knew that 
 the governmental lathe-work on a note was a series of 
 curves and shadings and backgrounds mathematical 
 in their precision and unvarying in pattern. No 
 human hand could duplicate the nicety of that machine- 
 engraving, each line unvarying and unbroken from end 
 to end. And since these machines cost well upward of 
 one hundred thousand dollars, and their manufacture 
 and sales were closely inspected, no counterfeiter could 
 be expected to possess one. 
 
 Yet as Kestner stood in the late afternoon light that 
 streamed into the silent studio and held his newly found 
 yellow-back up before him, he could not restrain a 
 rather solemn gasp of admiration. 
 
 The note seemed a perfect one. It was on the first 
 Colonial National, of the series of 1909. It carried 
 the Check Letter " C," and the Charter Number of 
 8939. 
 
 Kestner's first thought was as to the paper itself. 
 It was genuine bond, of good quality and weight, and 
 the closest approximation to the " safety paper " of 
 the American Bank Note Company that he had yet 
 encountered. It did not strike him as being two
 
 20 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 thinner sheets pasted together, although he could 
 plainly see the silk-fibre in the actual tissue of the 
 paper. How his government's secret process had been 
 so successfully imitated he could not at the moment 
 tell. But as he turned over the note he saw that the 
 engraving had been as expert a piece of work as the 
 paper-making itself. 
 
 He saw at once it was not a mere photo-etching 
 process, later tooled out by hand, for every line of the 
 lathe-work was clear-cut, and every touch of colour on 
 the vignette was sharp and full. Even the cross- 
 hatching had been worked out with infinite detail and 
 patience. And equally good was the colouring of the 
 border-backs. 
 
 It took but a moment to establish the fact that the 
 note had been printed in waterproof ink and not 
 superimposed with a wash-pigment and camel-hair 
 brush. Equally convincing-looking were the denomi- 
 nation counters. 
 
 It was, in fact, not one especial feature of the note 
 that won Kestner's admiration. It was the beauty 
 and authoritativeness of the bill as a whole, even to 
 the " ageing " oil-wash to which it had been subjected 
 and the mechanically abraded surface and artfully 
 frayed edges. 
 
 He folded up the bill and thrust it down in his vest 
 pocket, chucklingly anticipating Wilsnach's stare of 
 incredulity when it should be passed under the letter's 
 inspection. Then Kestner stepped briskly back to 
 the open safe, dropping on his knees and reaching in 
 for the next package, the one of large denomination. 
 It came home to him, as he did so, that here lay the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 21 
 
 source and origin of what might indeed prove a tidal- 
 wave of illicit money, that here, indeed, lay the means 
 of debauching and imperilling the currency of an entire 
 country. 
 
 Then he stopped short, still kneeling there, anfi 
 scarcely breathing. 
 
 It was just as his fingers had closed about the second 
 package that he heard that first small noise behind 
 him. It sounded like the diminished thud of an outer 
 door being softly closed. A second and nearer soux>4, 
 that of an inaudible gasp, brought him wheeling abosafc 
 on one knee. He did not rise, but his hand shot dow* 
 to his hip, where his automatic always rested in its 
 specially padded pocket. 
 
 " Not this time, honey-boy ! " cried a firm if some- 
 what nasal young voice. 
 
 Facing him, with her back against the closed door 
 of the studio, was a woman who could not have been 
 more than twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. 
 She had a pert young face, with a short nose, a re- 
 bellious and slightly heavy-lipped mouth, and a row of 
 singularly white and singularly large teeth. 
 
 Kestner noted that she wore the small tiptilted hat 
 affected by the Parisienne of the moment. He further 
 noted that she was startlingly well dressed, and that in 
 this attire she had attempted to approach the chicness 
 of the native. Yet it was plain to see, for all her 
 exotic raiment, that she was American to the finger- 
 tips. 
 
 But Kestner's mind did not dwell on these points. 
 His attention was directed to the fact that in her right 
 hand she held a hammerless Colt, and that the barrel
 
 22 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 of this hammer-less Colt was pointed unequivocally at 
 tis own head. 
 
 He did not like the idea of that Colt, for there was 
 a calm audacity about the young woman in the tip- 
 tilted hat that left the next possibility a matter of 
 rather painful conjecture. 
 
 " Put 'em up ! " commanded the girl, taking a step 
 or two nearer him, " and put 'em up quick ! " 
 
 Kestner assumed that she meant his hands at the 
 same moment that he decided it to be expedient to do 
 as she ordered. 
 
 " Now stand up ! " said the girl. 
 
 The audacious grey-green eyes looked him over. 
 Then the owner of the audacious eyes sighed audibly. 
 
 " Gee, an' you an Amurrican ! An' gotta pass away 
 so many miles from home." 
 
 " Oh, put that thing down ! " cried the impatient 
 Kestner, for his attitude was not a comfortable one. 
 
 The girl laughed. But the ever-menacing revolver 
 remained where it was. 
 
 " No, honey-child, not on your life ! " She took 
 still another step nearer him. " Don't you s'pose I've 
 got me home an' mother to purtect? No sir-ee, not on 
 your retouched negative ! " 
 
 ** Then what do you intend doing? " asked Kestner. 
 He risked the movement, as he spoke, of calmly folding 
 his arms. 
 
 Her face hardened, for a second, as she saw the 
 movement. But on second thought she seemed to ac- 
 cept the new position as one sufficiently safe. 
 
 " You don't dream you're goin' to get out o' here 
 alive, do you ? " innocently demanded the girl.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 23 
 
 " Why not ? " questioned Kestner. He was watch- 
 ing her closely, every second of the time. And she, in 
 turn, was watching him as closely. His sense of com- 
 fort did not increase. Yet the look of fixed som- 
 nolence still hung about his eyes. 
 
 The girl did not answer him, for at that moment the 
 further studio swung open and with a quick movement 
 a man stepped inside. 
 
 Kestner liked neither that man nor his unheralded 
 intrusion. The newcomer stood there, a little breath- 
 less, as though he had been conscious of danger im- 
 pending and had raced up the stairs. He was an olive- 
 skinned, square-shouldered man of about thirty, with 
 close-set eyes, seal-brown in colour. While he was in 
 no way conspicuous as to attire, there was both 
 audacity and cunning in those calm and ever-searching 
 eyes. Kestner knew, even before the girl spoke, that 
 this was the Neapolitan called Morello. 
 
 " Got your gink for you, Tony ! " said the girl, with 
 a look of relief, clearly at the thought of a con- 
 federate's advent. 
 
 That confederate, however, still stood by the door, 
 alert and non-committal. It was several moments be- 
 fore he spoke. 
 
 " Who is he ? " he asked, tensely, yet without 
 moving, and all the while studying the face of Kestner.. 
 
 " That's what we're goin' to squeeze out o' him," 
 was the girl's reply. 
 
 Kestner noticed that the Neapolitan spoke English 
 without a trace of accent. He also noticed the expres- 
 sion in the seal-brown eyes as they turned and studied 
 the open safe.
 
 24 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " What did he get? " asked Morello. 
 
 *' You mean, what's he gain' to get ! " cried the girl, 
 with her curt laugh. She did not lower her fire-arm 
 as the newcomer stepped towards the centre of the 
 room. 
 
 " Tony," she suddenly called out, " this guy's 
 heeled. Get his gun ! " 
 
 She herself stepped still closer to Kestner as she 
 spoke, holding her revolver so that it pointed directly 
 at his upper left-hand vest-pocket. On the whole, 
 Kestner saw with dampening spirits, they were two 
 extremely capable and clear-witted individuals. 
 
 So capable were they, in fact, that their prisoner 
 stood silent and helpless, with a revolver-barrel within 
 a yard of his heart, while the quick-fingered Neapolitan 
 explored and felt about Kestner's clothing. He emit- 
 ted a faint grunt of satisfaction as he drew the auto- 
 matic from its padded hip-pocket. 
 
 " What next ? " he asked, as he stepped back with 
 the revolver in his hand. 
 
 " Pull out that old oak chair, the one with the high 
 back," commanded the girl. " Then get that bunch o' 
 picture-cord from the top shelf there." 
 
 Morello did as directed. But the girl, all the while, 
 kept her eyes on Kestner. His sustained air of com- 
 posure seemed to worry her. 
 
 " Now you back up," she commanded, with sudden 
 roughness. " Back up ! Right back until you're 
 sittin' in that chair ! " 
 
 Kestner turned and looked at the heavy fauteuil of 
 carved oak. A suspicion of what their intentions were 
 crept over him.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 35 
 
 " Supposing I don't care to? " he ventured. 
 
 The girl confronted him with a show of anger. 
 
 " Look here, Mister Pretty-man, you've put yourself 
 in Dutch an' you're goin 5 to do what I sayl D' you 
 get me? Poke him into that chair, Tony, and poke 
 him quick ! " 
 
 Kestner sat down with a sigh. The sleepy and half- 
 amused smile was still on his face. He was still watch- 
 ing for his chance. 
 
 The smile disappeared, however, before the unlocked 
 for and lightning-like movement of Morello. That 
 worthy suddenly garroted his captive's head against 
 the fauteuil back while the girl promptly and securely 
 tied his wrists to the chair-arms. His ankles were also 
 made fast in the same way, and all were for the second 
 time wrapped and reinforced with many yards of the 
 heavy crimson cord. Then his neck was released and 
 he could breathe quite freely again. 
 
 There was now something more than a look of con- 
 cern on the face of that sleepy-eyed captive. Deep 
 down in his heart was a vast rage at the indignities to 
 which his body had been subjected. And when the 
 time came, he inwardly vowed, some one would pay for 
 those outrages. He was still straining uselessly at 
 the cords holding him when he heard a quick cry from 
 the girl. 
 
 " Thank Gawd, here's the Governor ! " she said over 
 her shoulder, as she helped Morello with the final knots.
 
 m 
 
 THE studio-door opened quietly and the same 
 austere and self-contained man who had sat at the cafe 
 table stepped into the room. 
 
 There was no visible change of facial expression as 
 his eye swept the studio and at one circling glance 
 seemed to take in every detail of the situation. 
 
 " What's this ? " was his final curt demand. 
 
 " We caught this guy rubberin' into our safe," was 
 the girl's answer. She stepped over and swung half- 
 shut the steel door to which still clung Kestner's sound- 
 ing-tube of pasteboard. " And, say, Governor, he 
 ain't no sandpaper artist, either ! " 
 
 Kestner saw it was time to talk. 
 
 " I want you to listen to me, Lambert," he began, in 
 that clear and steady note of authority which his office 
 could at times give to him. 
 
 " Shut up ! " was Lambert's command. 
 
 " No ; I'll not shut up ! We've got something to 
 talk out here, and '* 
 
 " Gag him, Tony ! " cried Lambert, with an impa- 
 tient gesture towards the door at the far end of the 
 studio. 
 
 Morello stepped through this door, and promptly 
 stepped back into the room with a towel in his hands. 
 This towel he quickly tore in two, knotting the two 
 pieces together as he approached the chair where 
 
 Kestner sat. 
 
 26
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 7 
 
 " There's no need to do this, Lam " 
 
 Kestner's cry was shut off by the towel with the 
 tightened knot being dexterously tossed over his head 
 and drawn taut, so taut that the pressure of the knot 
 on his lips became unendurable. Involuntarily the 
 jaws relaxed, to relieve the pain. 
 
 " Tighter ! " commanded Lambert. The band, now 
 against the slightly parted teeth, was tightened and 
 securely knotted at the back of the captive's head. 
 
 It was then that the man designated as the Governor 
 stepped quietly back and closed the door which he had 
 left partly open. Then he stood in silent thought for 
 a moment or two. 
 
 It was the girl in the tip-tilted hat who spoke first. 
 
 " What's the matter with givin' him a crack on the 
 coco? " she gravely volunteered. " Put 'im to sleep 
 until we're dead sure of a get-away? " 
 
 The man called the Governor did not seem to hear 
 her. 
 
 " Tony," he suddenly said with a crisp and in- 
 cisive authority, " take that gun from Cherry. Now 
 hand me that automatic. Keep that man covered. 
 If anything happens, plug him where he sits. If any 
 one tries to get in here, plug him first, him first, re- 
 member. Cherry, you frisk him ! I want everything, 
 everything, mind you, out of his pockets." 
 
 The girl, with a small frown of intentness, bent over 
 the heavy oak fauteuU and went through Kestner's 
 pockets, one at a time. The man called the Governor 
 stood in deep thought as she did so. 
 
 As she placed the fruits of her search upon the 
 drawing-table to the left the older man stepped over
 
 28 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 and examined the little collection. He looked up 
 quickly as he came to the neatly folded bank-note. 
 
 "So you wanted only one? " he said, and the grim 
 lines about his mouth hardened a little as he stared at 
 Kestner. Then he bent over the drawing-table again. 
 
 " Tell Maura to come here," he said, with a quick 
 motion towards the girl in the tip-tilted hat. He was 
 studying a sheet of writing which had been taken from 
 Kestner's pocket. 
 
 " Where'll I get her? " asked the girl. 
 
 " Downstairs in Bennoit's. Promptly, please ! " 
 
 The girl slipped out through the studio-door, and 
 closed it after her. Kestner sat there and watched 
 Lambert wheel a projecting-lantern out into the middle 
 of the studio and direct the lens towards the screen of 
 white cotton at the farther end of the room. He saw 
 the sheet of paper inserted in the lens, heard the snap 
 of a switch, and black across the white screen beheld 
 his own signature, magnified many times, magnified 
 until each letter was at least a foot in height. 
 
 Morello, tired of standing, sank into a chair, facing 
 the prisoner. In his hand, however, the Neapolitan 
 still held the revolver, and never for a moment did his 
 gaze wander from Kestner. 
 
 Lambert, going back to the drawing-table, suddenly 
 turned and crossed to the open safe. His search there 
 seemed a brief one. But his face paled as he 
 turned and stood erect again. He was still beside the 
 safe when the girl called Cherry stepped back into the 
 room. She was followed by the woman Lambert had 
 spoken of as Maura, the woman whom Kestner had
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 29 
 
 watched as she sat at the little round table of the Cafe 
 de la Paix. 
 
 Kestner's intent gaze was fixed on this woman's face 
 as she stepped into the room. More than ever he was 
 struck by its sense of reserve, of spiritual isolation, 
 and more than ever he was impressed by its youthful 
 yet austere beauty. He was struck, too, by a newer 
 note, by something that seemed almost a touch of 
 fragility. And about the softer lines of the mouth he 
 detected a trace of latent rebelliousness. 
 
 The newcomer, however, scarcely looked at Kestner. 
 The sight of a man tied and trussed and gagged there 
 seemed in no wise to disturb her. Her eyes went close 
 to the face of Lambert and remained there while she 
 spoke. 
 
 " What is it? " she asked, in a clear and reedy voice 
 that made Kestner think of a clarionet. 
 
 Lambert waved a hand towards the signature thrown 
 on the screen by the projecting lantern. 
 
 " Try that, freehand," he said. " Then do it over 
 again on the tracing-desk. I want it right." 
 
 The woman took paper and ink and from a row of 
 pens selected a particular point. She stared for a few 
 seconds at the signature, and then bent over her task. 
 
 She did not speak as she handed the slip of paper to 
 Lambert. He took it, too, in silence, switching off his 
 lantern, withdrawing Kestner's signature, and adjust- 
 ing the newly written imitation in its place. Then he 
 switched on the light again. 
 
 Even Kestner, accustomed as he was to the cleverest 
 of forgeries, was plainly startled as he saw that name
 
 30 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 projected on the cotton screen. It disturbed him in a 
 manner which he would have found hard to describe. 
 For even in its magnified form, where any deviation 
 from the original would be doubly and trebly accen- 
 tuated, it stood out a practically perfect facsimile 
 of his own handwriting. 
 
 This quiet-mannered woman with the violet-blue eyes 
 and the misleading delicacy of Dresden china was one 
 of the most accomplished forgers who ever handled a 
 pen. That much Kestner could see at a glance. And 
 at a second glance it came home to him that this same 
 woman, in the right hands, could indeed develop into 
 an actual peril to society. 
 
 " Try tracing it," Lambert was saying to her. 
 
 She took the Kestner signature and crossed to a 
 small table, the top of which consisted of plate glass. 
 She reached in under this glass and turned a switch. 
 The moment she did so a powerful electric light showed 
 itself directly below the table-top. 
 
 On this top she placed the paper, covered by a second 
 sheet. Then she tested a number of pens, and having 
 found one to her purpose, carried on a similar test 
 with regard to her ink. Then for a silent moment or 
 two she bent over her task. 
 
 Lambert took the paper from her when she had 
 finished. This time he placed the three signatures in 
 the lens and threw them on the screen, one above the 
 other. 
 
 Kestner, studying the three, could not be sure which 
 was his own and which were the imitations. The other 
 occupants of the room, he noticed, were studying the 
 letters quite as intently as he had done.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 31 
 
 It was the girl called Cherry who spoke first. 
 
 " Take it from me," she said with sudden convic- 
 tion, " the freehand wins ! " 
 
 Lambert turned to the woman who had done the 
 writing. 
 
 " Your tracing is stiff to-day. .What's the mat- 
 ter? " 
 
 The question remained unanswered for several 
 seconds. The troubled violet-blue eyes moved from 
 the screen to the man in the fauteuil and then back to 
 the screen again. 
 
 " I'd like to know what this means," she finally de- 
 clared. 
 
 Lambert stepped quickly across the room. For a 
 man of his years and a career such as his that gaunt 
 old counterfeiter retained a startling degree of virility. 
 
 " You'll find that out quick enough," was his half 
 impatient retort. He tossed the papers he had with- 
 drawn from the lens across the table and motioned for 
 her to be seated. 
 
 " Take half a sheet of that bond and write what I 
 tell you. I want it done in the handwriting of that 
 signature, and I want it done right. Are you ready ? " 
 
 " I'm ready," answered the woman. She spoke in 
 the flat and lifeless tones of a coerced child. 
 
 " Then write this : ' I have made a mess of things, 
 and I am tired of life. I'm sorry, but this seems the 
 only way out.' Then add the signature. No ; wait a 
 minute. Add this : * The finder will please notify the 
 American Embassy, where the secretary, I trust, will 
 cable the Treasury Department at Washington.' 
 Have you got that ? "
 
 W, THE HAND OF PERIL 1 
 
 The woman at the table went on writing for a 
 second or two. 
 
 " Yes," she said at last, with her head a little on one 
 side as she studied the sheet in front of her. 
 
 " Then we'll put it on the slide and see how it looks," 
 answered Lambert. He took the sheet from her, 
 adjusted it in the lantern, and turned on the light. 
 
 An undeniable tingle crept up and down Kestner's 
 backbone as he read the words on the screen. It was, 
 to the eye, his own handwriting. It would and could 
 be accepted as his own. Not one person in a thousand 
 would even stop to question its authenticity. 
 
 The woman named Maura, who had been supporting 
 herself with one hand on the end of the table, turned 
 and faced Lambert. 
 
 " Are you going to kill him ? " 
 
 It was spoken so quietly that Kestner could scarcely 
 hear it. But the last of the colour had gone from the 
 woman's face, and her eyes, as she spoke, took on an 
 animal-like translucence. 
 
 " On the contrary," was Lambert's calm retort, " he 
 is going to kill himself." 
 
 " Why ? " demanded the woman. 
 
 " Because, as he himself says, he's tired of living. 
 He confesses that in this paper he's leaving behind. 
 And he's proved it by invading our home the way he 
 did. Homes have to be protected. And I intend to 
 protect mine." 
 
 " You're not protecting it," she contended. 
 
 " Well, I'm making a stab at it and a stab at 
 saving your neck at the same time ! " 
 
 " Oh, what's the good of all this ! " cried the white-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL S3 
 
 faced woman, with a gesture of both protest and repu- 
 diation. For the second time Kestner saw the lines 
 about Lambert's mouth harden. There was no doubt 
 of his domination in that little circle. 
 
 " It's necessary, and that's enough. You've done 
 your part, now, Tony and I will do ours." 
 
 " But you can't kill a man in cold blood, you 
 can't ! " she cried, her voice shaking with a vibrato, of 
 horror. 
 
 " I've already told you," retorted Lambert, quite 
 untouched by her outburst, " that he's going to do the 
 thing himself ! " 
 
 " Himself? " 
 
 " He's going to hold his own gun, and pull his own 
 trigger with his own finger. And to make sure it's 
 his own act, he's even going to hold that gun in his 
 mouth, pointing upward and backward ! " 
 
 He met her staring eyes without a moment's flinch- 
 ing. 
 
 " Tony, of course, may help him a trifle, but that's 
 our business. There's one too many in this game. 
 And it's too big a game to drop now. Somebody has 
 to step down and out." 
 
 " But you can't do this ! " she still protested. 
 
 Lambert turned on her. 
 
 " Can you suggest something better? " was his quick 
 and half -mo eking demand. 
 
 She looked from Kestner to Lambert, and then back 
 at the man so securely tied down to the huge oak 
 fauteuil. 
 
 " Yes," she replied. 
 
 " Well," mocked Lambert. " Out with it."
 
 34 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " If this man knows what you hint he knows, we 
 can't stay in Paris." 
 
 " Naturally not." 
 
 " But whatever he knows, or whoever he is, he can't 
 be acting alone." 
 
 " I fail to see his friends, at the moment." 
 
 " But there must be others, others who " 
 
 " But we've got him! " 
 
 " Yes, you've got him precisely. You've got him 
 there, and he'll be safe there for at least several hours ! " 
 
 " How about us? " 
 
 (i Those few hours are all we need. We can leave 
 him as he is. By that time we can be be wherever 
 you say." 
 
 Lambert and Morello did not openly and patently 
 exchange glances ; but the watching Kestner knew that 
 a silent message had been given out by one and re- 
 ceived by the other. 
 
 " All right," suddenly acquiesced the older man. 
 " Go and get your things together and remember, 
 we've got to travel light ! " 
 
 He nodded towards the woman called Cherry. 
 *' And you do the same. But I want you both to move 
 quick ! " 
 
 The woman called Cherry stepped towards the 
 door. But the more resolute-eyed woman still hesi- 
 tated. She seemed to have her doubts as to Lam- 
 bert's promises. The latter, however, was not in a 
 mood to endure equivocations. 
 
 " I said I wanted you to move quick ! " was the 
 sharp and sudden cry.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 35 
 
 She stood there, staring at him, almost challeng- 
 ingly at first. Then her eyes fell, as though worsted 
 in that silent duel of wills. She started to speak, hesi- 
 tated, and remained silent. Then she turned slowly 
 about and walked quietly out of the room. 
 
 The moment she was gone Lambert's manner 
 changed. He moved with a celerity surprising in one 
 of his years. 
 
 " Now, Tony, quick get the notes into that bag 
 of yours. And the plates. We must have every 
 plate, remember ! " He was himself busy going 
 through the drawers of one of the work-tables as he 
 talked. " Never mind the other stuff that will take 
 time. And there's been too much time wasted here 
 already." 
 
 Lambert snapped shut the club bag into which he 
 had been cramming the different things caught up 
 from the rummaged drawers. Then he stepped 
 quickly to the door, listened for a moment, and crossed 
 to Kestner's side. The expression on his face was 
 extremely disturbing to the man in the high-backed 
 chair. 
 
 " So you work alone, Monsieur Kestner ! " he said 
 with a cold smile of mockery. " You come after us 
 singlehanded ! I admire your courage, sir, but I de- 
 plore your lack of judgment ! " 
 
 With his left hand, as he spoke, he deftly cut the 
 gag which held apart Kestner's aching jaws. With 
 his right hand at the same instant, he reached down 
 into his pocket and brought forth the girl's sombre- 
 looking hammerless Colt. With an equally quick
 
 S6 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 movement he cut the cord holding Kestner's right wrist 
 so firmly down to the arm of the chair. 
 
 Before Kestner could cry out, before even he could 
 raise that throbbing and stiffened right arm, Lambert 
 had caught him by the hand, forced the prisoner's fin- 
 gers about the grip of the revolver, and covered those 
 flaccid fingers with his own muscular and bony hand. 
 
 It was not until he had forced up Kestner's inert 
 right forearm that the Secret Agent fully awakened to 
 the imminence of his peril. As always, he had counted 
 on some intervention, on some moment of relaxed vigi- 
 lance when his chance should come. But here there 
 seemed to be no chance. 
 
 He saw, in a flash, what it all meant, and how 
 quickly it could all be over. His position was against 
 him. The suspended circulation of that over-bound 
 right arm was against him. But still he fought, 
 fought every inch of the way, with every jot of 
 strength at his command. 
 
 The third man stood watching the tableau, his im- 
 passive and olive-skinned face giving no sign of height- 
 ened emotion as the contending forces centralised in 
 those two quivering arms came into the equilibrium of 
 nicely matched strength. Then one arm weakened a 
 trifle. The dark-barrelled weapon of gun-metal was 
 slowly forced further and further upward. 
 
 Kestner knew quite well what it meant. But he was 
 now powerless to withstand that cruel pressure. He 
 knew that the forefinger of that muscular hand, held 
 so firmly over his own, would contract the moment the 
 barrel was levelled in the right direction. He felt it 
 was all but useless to cry out. Under no condition
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 37 
 
 would he cry out. Yet at the moment the revolver 
 was in a perpendicular position, a flash of hope came 
 to him. 
 
 It was with that flash of hope that he quickly and 
 deliberately did the unexpected thing. He pulled on 
 the trigger with his own finger. 
 
 The sharp bark of the revolver reverberated through 
 the high-walled room as the bullet went splintering 
 into the framework of the skylight overhead. Kest- 
 ner had hoped it might crash through the panes them- 
 selves. He doubted if the sound of a small calibre 
 revolver would carry much beyond the closed apart- 
 ment. 
 
 Yet that unexpected discharge of the fire-arm star- 
 tled Lambert. The arm still forlornly straining 
 against his relentless upward pressure gained several 
 inches of precious space before the struggle could be 
 renewed. But inch by quavering inch the fire-arm was 
 again forced up. 
 
 " Tony," panted Lambert, " give me a hand ! " 
 
 Kestner was only dimly conscious of the other man 
 sliding up to him. 
 
 " Get his jaws apart," was the next command 
 gasped out by Lambert. 
 
 Kestner was conscious enough now of gross fingers 
 on his face, bruising his lips, of knuckles rowelling the 
 cheek-flaps against his clenched teeth. And a corrod- 
 ing wave of rage and resentment swept through him, 
 at the ignominy of it all. Then he clenched his jaws 
 still closer together, in the face of that rowelling 
 knuckle, for at that moment a second interruption 
 was taking place.
 
 38 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 This interruption took the form of a door flung open 
 and a white-faced woman calling into the studio. 
 
 " Stop ! " gasped the woman, as she flung through 
 the door and turned the key in the lock. 
 
 Both men looked up, a little stupidly, their mouths 
 still open, their postures still those of strained muscles 
 and sinews. Kestner saw it was the woman called 
 Maura. 
 
 " Stop ! " she gasped, a little weakly. " We're be- 
 ing watched ! " 
 
 Her hat was awry of her head, her veil was hanging 
 loose, and she was plainly out of breath. 
 
 " Quick," she gasped again, leaning against the wall ; 
 " there's a man at every door ! and two gendarmes are 
 on the stairs ! Listen ! I hear them coming ! " 
 
 Morello was the first to stoop and catch up his 
 handbag. Lambert's grip on the prisoner's arm re- 
 laxed. He wrenched the revolver from Kestner's fin- 
 gers, dropped it into his pocket, and darted for his 
 bag. 
 
 " Then the closet ! " he cried as he ran. 
 
 " Why the closet ? " asked the bewildered Neapoli- 
 tan. 
 
 " The secret passage, you fool ! " called Lambert, 
 as he dove through the door leading into the second 
 closet. He was followed by Morello. Kestner heard 
 the soft scrape and stutter of a sliding-panel. It had 
 been a piece of stupidity, he told himself, to overlook 
 those closet-walls. 
 
 " It leads to the roof, and then down through the 
 Poret's passage," explained the woman, still leaning 
 against the wall. She stood watching Kestner as he
 
 worked frantically at the cord still binding his left 
 arm down to the heavy chair. 
 
 " They're safe by now," she murmured. 
 
 "But you're not!" cried Kestner, vindictively, all 
 the indignities to which he had been subjected lending 
 anger to his voice. 
 
 " Quite safe, monsieur," she replied, as she pro- 
 ceeded to straighten her hat and then adjust the 
 heavy veil about its brim. 
 
 " Oh, are you ! " cried the infuriated Kestner. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur. There are no men, and no gen- 
 darmes" 
 
 " Then why did you lie ? " gasped Kestner. 
 
 She smiled a little wanly. 
 
 " They would have shot you through the head, mon- 
 sieur ! " 
 
 She had turned the key in the lock. Her hand 
 was on the doorknob as she looked back. 
 
 " I hope," she said, " that we shall not meet again ! " 
 
 " One minute," called Kestner, imagining that by 
 hook or crook he might delay her until that fatal cord 
 was loosened. " Pardon my asking, but how long did 
 that plate take you to make? " 
 
 "Which plate?" 
 
 " That First Colonial Ten." 
 
 Again he caught a shadow of the wan and half 
 ironical smile. 
 
 " Why are you interested ? " 
 
 " I shall always be interested in you." 
 
 " That is something you cannot afford." 
 
 Their eyes met. They continued to stare at each 
 other for several seconds.
 
 40 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " I think we shall meet again," he finally said, with 
 the utmost conviction. 
 
 " Adieu, monsieur, for we shall never meet again ! " 
 
 " You leave that to me ! " cried the defeated Kest- 
 ner, and into those five words he threw both the bit- 
 terness and the tenaciousness born of that momentary 
 defeat. 
 
 But the woman had already closed the door and 
 locked it after her.
 
 PART II 
 THE QUARTERS IN PALERMO
 
 IT was two weeks later that, after the docking of a 
 Navigazione Generate Italiana steamer at Palermo, an 
 old woman wearing amber-coloured spectacles stepped 
 solemnly ashore. 
 
 As this old woman had taken the pains to await 
 the departure of all other passengers, and as she car- 
 ried only a hand-bag of the same faded hue as her 
 attire, her visit to the Dogana was a brief one. Then, 
 for all her humped shoulders and a somewhat sidling 
 method o-f progression suggestive of sciatic rheuma- 
 tism, she proceeded with a melancholy briskness along 
 the Via del Molo. It was not until she had entered the 
 Piazza Ucciardone that she encountered an idle vet- 
 tura. 
 
 After looking peevishly about her in all directions, 
 she signalled to the driver. The dilapidated vehicle 
 swung about and drew up beside her with a mingled 
 clatter of wheels and hooves. The long arm in faded 
 black thrust up to the cabman a scratch-pad on which 
 a city address was written. 
 
 The small and swarthy man of the reins, having 
 scrutinised this address, blithely nodded his under- 
 standing. Then he showed his teeth in a still broader 
 grin. For his Saracenic black eye had swept the 
 dowdy figure, noting the well-worn metal ear-trumpet 
 
 hanging from one arm by a frayed black cord, the 
 
 43
 
 44 THE HAND OF PERDU 
 
 antiquated silver-mounted black cane, the gloves of 
 faded black silk, and the shimmer of jet spangles ar- 
 rayed along the somewhat opulent breast. He was 
 murmuring the all-condoning word of *' Inglese! " 
 when he made note of a further and more compelling 
 fact. The black-gloved hand was holding out to him 
 a ten lire note. Thereupon, having promptly pock- 
 eted the same, he sent his long-lashed Sicilian whip 
 whistling about his pony's ears and his cab-wheels 
 went rattling up through the streets of the city. 
 
 Arrived at the desired address, his fare stepped 
 painfully and lumberingly from the little open cab, 
 watched hesitatingly until that vehicle was out of 
 sight, and then rounded a corner. This eccentric- 
 minded tourist then walked six doors southward, limp- 
 ing stolidly into the entrance-court of a grey-stone 
 house, as silent and sepulchral of aspect as a mediaeval 
 mausoleum. 
 
 Here, after being accosted by a rotund and mild- 
 eyed little man in grass slippers and after writing 
 certain words on the pad which she carried, the new- 
 comer was given a key and instructed, in Italian, to 
 mount the stairs. 
 
 This she did, unlocking the first door on the left, 
 withdrawing the key, and again carefully locking the 
 'door after she had stepped inside. 
 
 Once there, she surveyed the chamber with much 
 deliberation. Then she sighed, took off the amber- 
 coloured glasses, divested herself first of the black silk 
 gloves and later of the faded widow's-bonnet. Then 
 she placed her hand-bag on the bed beside them, con- 
 sulted a watch, and with a second deep sigh unbut-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 45 
 
 toned the jet-spangled waist and groped about the 
 voluminous corsage. 
 
 With a still deeper sigh the hand was withdrawn, 
 bringing with it a cigar. A match was struck, the 
 cigar was lighted, and the figure in dowdy black sank 
 into a chair, resting its boot-heels high on the end of 
 the bed. 
 
 Before six luxurious puffs had been taken at that 
 cigar a quiet knock sounded on the door. This knock 
 was oddly repeated, translating itself to the attentive 
 ear into a sort of organised tattoo. 
 
 The smoker arose, crossed the room and unlocked 
 the door. Then he opened it, but without showing 
 himself. His right hand, as he did so, was thrust 
 through a slit in the black silk skirt, resting on the 
 grip of a revolver half withdrawn from a padded hip- 
 pocket. 
 
 The man who stepped into the room exhibited no 
 surprise at either the scene or the figure confronting 
 him. Like the first-comer, in fact, he scrutinised the 
 chamber with the utmost care. 
 
 " Speak quietly," said the first occupant of the 
 room as he re-locked the door. 
 
 " You can trust Maresi," explained the other, with 
 a head-nod towards the outer passage. 
 
 " Then what's new ? " was the prompt inquiry. 
 
 " Nothing of importance," answered the other, 
 " since my last wire." 
 
 " Anything of Lambert ? " 
 
 "Not a sign!" 
 
 " Morello? " 
 
 " Still under cover ! "
 
 46 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " The Wirapel woman? " 
 
 " Not a trace of her so far ! " 
 
 There was a moment's pause. 
 
 " And the other woman ? " asked the man in the 
 half-demolished make-up, " the woman called Mau- 
 ra? " 
 
 The other man permitted himself the luxury of a 
 smile. 
 
 " Has set up a miniature-painting studio on the 
 other side of this block, as I first wired you. A show- 
 case of 'em in the window! And not even a stab at 
 secrecy ! " 
 
 " And you say she's put in a telephone ? " 
 
 " The wiring goes to the top of the house, across a 
 couple of others, and from there rounds south to the 
 street-main. I've traced it out. It can be reached 
 from the roof of this building ! " 
 
 " That's worth a mint to us," murmured the other. 
 " And it hasn't been interfered with? " 
 
 " I left that expert work for you." 
 
 " Then the sooner we get a loop in that circuit the 
 better ! " 
 
 " You may be right, but, Kestner, I think your gang 
 has flown the coop ! " 
 
 It was Wilsnach who spoke, but not the shabby and 
 self-effacing Wilsnach of the rue de la Paix. Instead, 
 it was a dandified, edition-de-luxe Wilsnach as a tour- 
 ist in peg-top trousers and pointed patent leathers, a 
 Wilsnach with a waist line and a waxed imperial. 
 
 Kestner pulled off the iron-grey wig that had been 
 making his head uncomfortably warm. 
 
 " I think you're wrong," he replied without emo-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 47 
 
 fion, " and later on I'll tell you why. But did you get 
 the girl? " 
 
 " Yes. Not as young as I wanted, though." 
 
 " Where have you quartered her ? " 
 
 " She's at the Hotel des Palmes with her mother." 
 
 "With her mother?" 
 
 " Couldn't get her alone she's only twelve. But 
 she's small for her age. I gathered them up in Taor- 
 mina. The mother was working at the Hotel Trvnac- 
 ria there. The father's a German named Vandersmis- 
 sen, a tubercular chef, sent South, on his last legs. 
 They're glad of the money ! " 
 
 " But that mother ! " demurred Kestner. 
 
 " I've rigged the woman out in a uniform as a Ger- 
 man nurse." 
 
 "And the child?" 
 
 " Is dolled up the best the island could do. Neither 
 speak a word of English. They're here waiting, meek 
 but mystified. They'll do anything we want, in rea- 
 son. And she's a pretty kid, yellow hair, blue eyes, 
 German type. But they're costing us sixty francs a 
 day." 
 
 "They'll be worth it!" 
 
 " But what's your plan? " 
 
 " My plan is simply this : Lambert knows I'm after 
 him. He isn't quite sure how much I've found out 
 about him and this daughter of his. He can't be cer- 
 tain if he's shadowed or not. And that's what he 
 wants to make sure of. So he's posted the girl here 
 at this miniature-painting business. He's made her 
 into a wooden decoy-duck." 
 
 " But I can't see what he gains by that."
 
 48 THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 " Well, here's his game, as I figure it out : People 
 in hiding don't usually advertise their whereabouts. 
 They don't post markers. So don't you see what 
 they're driving at? They simply intend her for the 
 fly, and I am the trout that's to jump at it. They 
 can't even be sure the trout's in this particular pool. 
 But they know that trout have a habit of rising to 
 flies!" * 
 
 " And this is sure a handsome one ! " 
 
 " I'm going to rise to it, at any rate. Only, in this 
 case, let's hope we're big enough fish to carry the fly 
 off with us when we go ! " 
 
 " Now I'm beginning to see daylight," acknowledged 
 Wilsnach. " But what must I do ? " 
 
 Kestner smoked in silence for several moments. 
 
 " Where have you put up ? " 
 
 " At the Hotel de France, in the Piazza Marina. I 
 thought it best for us to scatter a bit." 
 
 " Good ! I'm a widow from Hamburg, remember, 
 named Vendersmissen we can't improve on that 
 name. I've a room at the Hotel des Palmes, next to 
 my grandchild and her nurse. I'm deaf, and I'm ec- 
 centric, but I've got money." 
 
 " I understand all that, but what does it lead to ? " 
 
 " Simply that I'm going to take my little blue-eyed 
 grandchild and have her miniature painted on ivory. 
 And I want to be with Maura Lambert when she's 
 doing it." 
 
 " She's pretty keen, that young woman ! " 
 
 " Well, I worked for a week on this make-up. I 
 tried it out on Todaro, in Naples, and on Coletta, at 
 the wharf. It passed both of them."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 49 
 
 " And when you're getting the portrait ? " 
 
 "When the first chance comes, I'll plant a dicto- 
 graph. I'll toss a metal spool from the window and 
 you'll get the wires and run them across the roofs to 
 this room. Keep them under cover. Then I want to 
 get the lay-out of that house, and ward-impressions for 
 the different door-keys. And in the meanwhile I'll be 
 feeling my way for still the next step." 
 
 " But why are you so sure the gang's here in 
 Palermo ? " 
 
 " Where the treasure is there also is the heart ! 
 Those people 've got a plant somewhere in this city. 
 It's something more than a desk and an etching out- 
 fit. It's a big plant for doing their business in a big 
 way. It's going to be hidden, naturally, and hidden 
 deep. But it's our business to dig it out." 
 
 " And when we dig it out ? " 
 
 " It will be no earthly use to us. But I want to 
 know where it is and what it is. In the meantime, I 
 also want a canvass of every printing place in this 
 town. You're a political refugee, with a revolutionary 
 pamphlet to print. And you want an anarchist 
 printer to do this job. That will get you next ta 
 anything that looks suspicious." 
 
 " And supposing we find their plant ? " 
 
 " If we get the plant, we'll get them! They won't 
 be far away from where their work comes from." 
 
 " They'll fight like cornered rats ! " 
 
 " Then we'll keep 'em cornered. And while we're 
 at it, I want to look into that olive-oil export business 
 of Morello's. I imagine some of those cans of his hold 
 stuff that never came out of an olive-press."
 
 50 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Kestner was on his feet again, readjusting the iron- 
 grey wig. 
 
 " You're sure this man Maresi is to be relied on? " 
 he was asking. 
 
 " As true as steel," was Wilsnach's answer. " He's 
 been doing Department work for us." 
 
 Kestner stopped to consult his watch. 
 
 " I've got to get back to that hotel. We can't 
 leave here together. You have Maresi tip you off 
 when the court is clear, and get away. Then I'll meet 
 you in thirty minutes at Beppino's. You've got to 
 plant me in that hotel. You see I'm deaf, and don't 
 speak the language." 
 
 One half hour later, as the two drove away from 
 Beppino's in a clattering carrozza, Wilsnach stared up 
 through the soft-aired Sicilian evening with a shrug of 
 vague apprehension. 
 
 " I hate this country," he said. 
 
 *' It's a very beautiful place," retorted the old lady 
 in dowdy black, as she stared out through her amber- 
 coloured spectacles. 
 
 " You remember what happened just about here? " 
 casually inquired the other. 
 
 They were crossing a square bathed in the soft 
 golden light of a tropical evening. This square lay 
 before them as calm and peaceful as a garden. But a 
 small and ominous silence fell over the two of them, 
 for Kestner remembered it was the square where a 
 great man and a brave officer, once known as Petrosini, 
 had been shot down.
 
 II 
 
 IT was the next morning that an eccentric old lady 
 in dowdy black, accompanied by a child and nurse, 
 left the Hotel des Palmes and wandered idly and un- 
 concernedly about the streets of Palermo. 
 
 For a time this erratic trio followed a tinkling herd 
 of milk-goats leisurely out towards the suburbs. Then, 
 apparently tiring of this, they made a purchase from 
 a native pedlar of sponges. A keen observer might 
 have noticed that notwithstanding the silver-mounted 
 ear-trumpet, several quietly spoken words passed be- 
 tween the sponge-seller and the old lady in black. 
 
 Taking up their course again, the idle-minded trio 
 stopped before a house of the pink-stucco villa type. 
 There they peered through the glass front of a cabinet 
 filled with miniatures, showed open admiration for the 
 work which they were inspecting, and after some debate 
 entered the house itself. 
 
 There they encountered a quiet-mannered and violet- 
 eyed young woman who announced herself as " Miss 
 Keating," the owner of the studio. It was to this 
 young lady, whose knowledge of German was manifestly 
 limited, that the nurse politely and patiently explained 
 that the old lady in black who, she confessed, was 
 erratic but wealthy had decided to have a painting 
 
 on ivory of her grandchild. 
 
 51
 
 &t THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Miss Keating, who showed small delight at the pros- 
 pect of a sitter, explained that the cost of a miniature 
 would be forty pounds. 
 
 The uniformed nurse made it as clear as she could 
 that the old lady was quite deaf, that she was whimsi- 
 cal, but that she was too wealthy to quibble over a 
 matter of price. And Miss Keating, having lifted the 
 child's face and gazed into its shy and innocent eyes, 
 admitted that a portrait might be attempted and that 
 it might be completed in a couple of sittings. After 
 some hesitation, she even acknowledged that the first 
 sitting might take place that morning. 
 
 Thereupon, this being vociferously explained to the 
 old lady, through the ear-trumpet, that worthy calmly 
 settled herself in an arm-chair at the far end of the 
 big room with its all but bare walls and its moderated 
 north light. 
 
 There, with the self-immuring tendency of the deaf, 
 she promptly fell asleep. She dozed, huddled up in 
 her chair, apparently oblivious of the further arrange- 
 ments for the sitting, such as the placing of the sub- 
 ject in the most favourable light, the addition of a 
 touch of colour in the form of a hair-ribbon, the wheel- 
 ing about of a bevel-topped drawing-desk, and the ar- 
 raying of the needed pigments. The nurse, seating 
 herself by one of the windows, produced a paper- 
 covered edition of a Sudernaann novel and promptly 
 lost herself in its pages. 
 
 The old lady in the shadows at the far end of the 
 room apparently continued to doze behind her amber- 
 coloured glasses. But in a light less accommodating 
 it might have been observed that nothing which took
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 53 
 
 place in the room escaped the somnolent eye behind the 
 amber-tinted lens. 
 
 These eyes made note of the fact that the wires of 
 telephone, so recently installed in the apartment, ran 
 from the table-edge to the floor, close beside the light- 
 wires. They made note of these incongruous innova- 
 tions in a villa so antiquated, and they also made note 
 of the doors, and the modern manner of lock with which 
 they were now protected. They appraised the furni- 
 ture and the work-table on which the telephone stood. 
 
 But most of all they quietly studied the face of the 
 young woman on the far side of the drawing-desk. 
 This face revealed itself as being thinner and paler 
 than when last seen by those same studious eyes. It 
 showed a deepened sense of trouble about the clouded 
 white brow, a more wistful line of revolt about the full 
 lines of the red lips that parted in a curve that was 
 almost child-like. But the dull chestnut of the heavily 
 massed hair was the same, and the same, too, was the 
 light in the violet-blue eyes with their adumbrating 
 fringe of lashes. The delicate oval of the face carried 
 the same incongruous suggestion of fragility, of un- 
 blunted sensibilities. The tilt of the chin as the head 
 was thrown back to observe through drooping lids the 
 effect of the first hurrying brush-strokes seemed as 
 unstudied and adorable as before. 
 
 Yet the watcher did not fail to observe the facile and 
 quick-fingered hand as it worked, and the thought that 
 this hand belonged to the most skilful forger in all 
 Europe suddenly robbed the face of its inherent love- 
 liness. The mere memory of it sent a twitch of revolt 
 through the dowdy old lady in black. It seemed in-
 
 54 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 credible. A look of shadowy bewilderment troubled 
 the eyes behind the amber lenses. But the painting 
 went on in silence. 
 
 This silence was shatterd by the sudden shrill of a 
 call-bell. At that sound, however, the old lady in the 
 arm-chair neither stirred nor blinked. 
 
 It was the younger woman at the drawing-desk who 
 started, looked apprehensively about, paused a mo- 
 ment, and then quickly crossed to the table where the 
 telephone stood. There, placing the receiver at her 
 ear, she listened intently, speaking back an occasional 
 guarded monosyllable or two, in Italian. It was plain 
 that she was receiving and not delivering a message. 
 When she returned to her work she did so with some- 
 what heightened colour and with a more energetic move- 
 ment of the fingers as she bent over the little oval of 
 ivory. 
 
 A second interruption to this work came in the form 
 of a peremptory knock on the entrance-door. Again 
 the woman who called herself Miss Keating stopped in 
 her labours, looked from the novel-reading nurse to the 
 slumberous figure in black, and then promptly answered 
 the knock. 
 
 It turned out to be nothing more than a street ped- 
 lar, selling sponges. So eager was he to make a sale, 
 so eloquent was he in his talk, that the preoccupied 
 woman apparently purchased a sponge as the most 
 -expeditious way of ending his importunities. 
 
 That young woman, however, had scarcely reached 
 her chair before the knock was repeated, more per- 
 emptorily than ever. 
 
 This time she was greeted by the Sicilian sponge-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 55 
 
 seller with fire in his eye and indignation in his voice. 
 He loudly proclaimed that the silver coin she had given 
 him was spurious. This, once she had comprehended 
 his dialect, she firmly but gently denied, only to be 
 met with a louder storm of abusive anger. So per- 
 sistent were his outcries that first the child and then 
 the uniformed nurse followed the miniature-painter 
 into the hallway, where, apparently by accident, the 
 door closed behind them. 
 
 Yet in the few moments during which that alterca- 
 tion took place the dowdy old lady in black was the 
 most active figure in Palermo. She had fitted key- 
 blanks covered with coloured wax to each of the doors 
 leading from that room. She had experimentally 
 lifted the telephone receiver and heard a voice answer 
 from the other end of the wire. She had examined 
 the desk drawers, and had traced out the wire-circuits, 
 and had even made careful note of what lay immedi- 
 ately beyond the north-fronting windows. 
 
 When the miniature-painter and her youthful sitter 
 re-entered the room they saw this same old lady dozing 
 heavily in her arm-chair. The child resumed her pose 
 in the mellow side-light from the north window. The 
 nurse went back to her Sudermann. The painter once 
 more took up her brush. But those repeated inter- 
 ruptions seemed to have taken the zest from her touch. 
 
 She bent over her work for several minutes. Then 
 she suddenly pushed back her chair, stood up, and 
 announced that the sitting would have to end. There 
 could be another appointment, if necessary. But she 
 could not go on with the picture that day. 
 
 The old lady in black, pulling herself together after
 
 56 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 being shaken out of her sleep, fumbled with scratch- 
 pad and ear-trumpet and finally came to an under- 
 standing of the situation. 
 
 She was by no means willing to be put off. The 
 miniature was begun, and there was no reason why 
 it should not be finished, and finished before they 
 started North. 
 
 " Then it will have to be in the evening," announced 
 the owner of the studio, " for my days for the rest of 
 the week will be quite taken up." 
 
 To this the old lady in black eventually agreed, pro- 
 vided the work could be properly done by electric- 
 light. On being reassured of this the group moved 
 brokenly towards the door. 
 
 But for one brief moment the eyes behind the amber- 
 coloured lenses searched the face of the woman so in- 
 hospitably ushering them out. Still again about that 
 self-contained and ascetic face the searching eyes 
 seemed able to discern some vague sense of the pathos 
 of isolation, as though a once ardent and buoyant 
 spirit had been driven under protest into a shadowy 
 underworld of solitude. 
 
 " To-morrow evening at eight," the young woman 
 with the voice as clear and reedy as a clarionet was 
 quietly repeating, as she held the door for her oddly- 
 sorted visitors. 
 
 The child smiled shyly back at her. The German 
 nurse nodded pleasantly. But the figure in black with 
 the silver-mounted old ear-trumpet neither ventured 
 a word of farewell nor essayed a backward glance. 
 She merely trudged stolidly out behind the others. 
 
 At the entrance door her cane slipped from her
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 57 
 
 rheumatic fingers and she stooped to pick it up. This 
 was not easy to do. She had to steady herself, as she 
 stooped, with one hand clinging to the door beside her. 
 
 Yet in that brief space of time a skeleton-blank had 
 been thrust into the key-hole, a quick turn made, and 
 an exact imprint of the wards of the lock left on the 
 wax-coated metal of the key-flange. 
 
 Waving her cane in a splutter of anger, she hobbled 
 on after the others, without so much as a glance back 
 over her shoulder as she went.
 
 m 
 
 WILSNACH, as had been planned, waited until am 
 hour past midnight. 
 
 Then he left his room in the Hotel de France, struck 
 through the Via Bottai to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 
 swung back out of the life and lights of that thorough- 
 fare, and by streets more obscure threaded his way 
 steadily westward. Then he rounded a block, to make 
 sure he was not being shadowed, and quietly admitted 
 himself to the same house where he and Kestner had 
 met earlier in the day 
 
 On the closed door at the top of the stairs he played 
 a tattoo with his finger-tips, the same tattoo that had 
 been used before, but this time more lightly. 
 
 A key turned, and he was admitted to the room. 
 
 There he beheld Kestner in his shirt-sleeves, with a 
 half-smoked cigar in his mouth, and a switchboard 
 operator's " helmet " made from the wires of a bed- 
 spring clamped over his head. To one side of this 
 improvised helmet was tied a small watch-case receiver, 
 connected with two wires covered with insulation-silk, 
 which ran to the window. Attached to the other side 
 of the helmet and held still close to Kestner's ear by 
 his own hand was a small metal microphone, also con- 
 nected with two wires which led to the window and 
 from there ran somewhere out into the night. 
 
 " Well, we're getting down to tin tacks ! " quietlj 
 58
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 59 
 
 announced Kestner, as he motioned Wilsnach into a 
 chair and at the same time resumed his own seat. 
 
 ** What have you got? " asked Wilsnach, still stand- 
 ing. 
 
 " I've got their telephone wire tapped, and I've got 
 a dictograph planted." 
 
 " Anything coming in?" anxiously inquired the 
 newcomer. 
 
 " Not a thing from the dictograph. They're all 
 lying low. The whole place is like a hen-run with a 
 hawk overhead. And I can't figure out what's made 
 them suspicious. But I'm waiting for something over 
 this 'phone wire." 
 
 " Why do you say it's like a hen-run ? " 
 
 " Because I've found their coop and they haven't 
 altogether flown it ! " 
 
 " They're here ? " demanded Wilsnach. 
 
 " I've explored their whole blessed warren. And it's 
 as complete a lay-out as you ever clapped eyes on 
 only I wish it were anywhere but in Palermo ! " 
 
 " You mean you've found their quarters ? " ques- 
 tioned Wilsnach, staring at him as he stopped to re- 
 light his cigar. 
 
 " I've found them and been through them. Every 
 blessed Wait a minute, there's something going over 
 the wire ! " 
 
 The two men suddenly froze into positions of sus- 
 pended movement. Kestner was holding his head a 
 little to one side, with the watch-case receiver pressed 
 close against his ear, a blank stare of concentration on 
 his face. He made the other man think of the hen- 
 hawk again, a poised and quiescent vigilance forever
 
 60 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 on the look-out. And to that other man there also 
 came a thought as to the wonders of electricity and the 
 strange ends which it might be made to serve. 
 
 " That's their pass-word," Kestner was saying, 
 " Che maestro avete? They always ask that question 
 first." 
 
 Wilsnach was not a man of imagination. In his call- 
 ing he contended, such things were a drawback. But 
 as he stood watching that other man with the tiny 
 receiver at his ear, the subordinate from the Paris 
 Office was oddly impressed by the silent drama of the 
 situation. He was conscious of a latent theatricality 
 in Kestner's position as he sat there so quietly breaking 
 through the reserve behind which their enemies had en- 
 trenched themselves. There, by means of a few deli- 
 cate instruments and a couple of slender threads of 
 copper, he was able to sit, like a god on Olympus, 
 unseen and unheard, yet all the while listening to the 
 petty talk and plans of the unsuspecting mortals 
 below him. 
 
 Then all thought on the matter suddenly ended, for 
 Kestner had leaned forward with a nervous jerk of the 
 body. 
 
 " That's Morello ! " he gasped, with his unseeing eyes 
 fixed on the blank wall before him. There was silence 
 for a while. Then Kestner spoke again. 
 
 " He's just said the Parmonia is due in Palermo har- 
 bour sometime to-morrow, and will sail again at mid- 
 night." He turned quickly to Wilsnach. " Where 
 does that steamer come from? " 
 
 " She's a Cunarder, sailing from Trieste and Fiume. 
 This is a port of call on her westbound trip."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 61 
 
 " But westbound to where? " 
 
 " To New York." 
 
 " New York ! " repeated Kestner, as he sat back, 
 deep in thought. The watch-case receiver was still 
 being held close against his ear. 
 
 " Just why should those people be interested in the 
 Pannonia? " he ruminated aloud. 
 
 "Anything on the wire now?" inquired Wilsnach. 
 Kestner shook his head. 
 
 Yet Wilsnach stood waiting, with the feeling that 
 there were vast issues in the air. He watched his col- 
 league light a fresh cigar and decided that Kestner, as 
 usual, was smoking too much. 
 
 " Could you give me a hint or two about that plant 
 of theirs ? " he finally ventured. 
 
 Kestner tossed the silk-covered wires back over his 
 shoulder. The movement reminded the other man of a 
 girl tossing aside her troublesome braids. 
 
 " It's about where I thought it would be, only with 
 a difference. They're using this woman, of course, 
 as their stick-up. The rear door of her place opens 
 on a garden planted with lemon trees. There's a 
 narrow passage running under the stone walk that 
 lies between those lemon trees. It leads from the cel- 
 lar of her house right through to the broken-down 
 villa backing it. They've taken the old wine-cellar 
 there and wired it and fitted it up for a work-shop. 
 They've even got a forced-draught ventilating sys- 
 tem, for it's all underground, you see, and shut off 
 with silence doors. And they've got a sweet collec- 
 tion of contraband stuff there ! " 
 
 "Such as?"
 
 62 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Well, such as three good-sized presses for print- 
 ing their counterfeit notes, a stock of the finest inks I 
 ever saw outside a government plant, etching tools, 
 and a complete collection of plate-steel and copper. 
 They've got dies for striking off silver coins, and a 
 lathe for rimming gold." 
 
 " Then everything's grist for their mill ! " 
 
 " But that's nothing compared to their stock of 
 paper! Wilsnach, those people have paper for bank- 
 notes of about every power in the world. They've 
 got an imitation water-lined Irish linen, five by eight, 
 with ragged edges, for Bank of England work. 
 They've got an equally good white water-lined paper 
 for their Banque de France stuff. They've got silk- 
 fibre stock for their German thousand-mark bills. 
 They've even got South American currency-paper 
 done up in cinnamon brown and slate blues. They've 
 also got the trick of process-hardening steel. I im- 
 agine that partly explains the clearness of their coun- 
 terfeit print-work. They don't print from the orig- 
 inal plate. That woman artist of theirs works out 
 their plate first, on soft steel and it must take her 
 many a week to do one of those plates ! They take 
 an impression from this, and process-harden it, doing 
 the Government trick, except that instead of print- 
 ing from a cylinder they pound it off on a bed- 
 press." 
 
 " God, what a find ! " gasped Wilsnach. 
 
 Kestner did not seem to share in his exultation. 
 
 " But, don't you see, the plant's not what we want ! 
 The plant's an incident. We could wire Rome and 
 have the Italian authorities close in on that plant, of
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 6S 
 
 course, at any time we wanted to show our hand. It's 
 here, and it can't get away." 
 
 " You mean it's the people we want ? " 
 
 " It's the people we've got to get. The authori- 
 ties can drop that junk into the Tyrrhenian, any day 
 they see fit. But the people who own the hands that 
 make those plates and prepare that paper can't be 
 allowed to wander about the world at their own sweet 
 will. And when we get one person we get the key- 
 stone of their little arch." 
 
 " You mean the woman, Lambert's daughter? " 
 
 " I mean the woman." 
 
 " Then how are you going to get her ? " 
 
 " I'm going to try a trick of her own. In other 
 words, I think I'll try uttering a forgery. But in- 
 stead of being on paper, it's going to be on this tele- 
 phone circuit. To-morrow I'll have a field-transmit- 
 ter to attach to this bridge I've put on her wire. 
 Then I'll watch my time, and at the right moment 
 have Maresi here call her up, give the pass-word, and 
 speak to her." 
 
 "Why Maresi?" 
 
 " I'm afraid of my own voice. He can tell her the 
 latest word is for her to get aboard the Pcmnonia, 
 some time before midnight. A cab will call for her, 
 say at eleven, take her to the Marina or to the foot 
 of Via Principe Belmonte, and there a boatman will 
 be waiting to row her out to the steamer. Then I'll 
 cut the wire, so there can be no more calls." 
 
 " It's a fine scheme," admitted Wilsnach, " but I 
 don't think any woman would start across the Atlan- 
 tic at a few words over a telephone."
 
 C THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 " But some such trip is in the air, or they wouldn't 
 fee interested in the Pannonia." 
 
 " Even though she acted on the message, there'd be 
 some one in that circle of hers to interfere." 
 
 " Then, for a few hours, it would be our duty to see 
 that she was not interfered with." 
 
 " But you and I and Maresi can't fight all Sicily. 
 That woman is being watched, you may be sure. 
 She's not going to move far without the rest of the 
 gang knowing it. And if it's a suspicious move, they 
 uron't be slow about stepping in." 
 
 " Then we must be there to help them out." 
 
 ** But that gang has got money, and with money, 
 m this hanged country, they can have half the brigan- 
 laggio of the island at their heels. It's a combination 
 TKC can't stand up against." 
 
 " Then we've got to think out a plan of beating 
 them from under cover." 
 
 " But this doesn't take any account of Lambert 
 Mmself," demurred Wilsnach. 
 
 " We don't know where Lambert is. But this much 
 ire do know: his daughter is essential to his ends. 
 Whatever his personal feelings may be towards her, 
 lie at least needs her in his work. And wherever she 
 goes, he'll tail along if you give him time." 
 
 " Then how about the other man, Morello ? " 
 
 " Morello's in the same boat with Lambert. He'll 
 follow the woman. And he'll be in New York, for 
 that olive-oil importing business needs him there. I 
 found twelve of his gallon tins in the wine-cellar. 
 They've been packing them with counterfeit paper, 
 filling them up with sand and cork-dust to make the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 65 
 
 right weight, and then soldering the tops on. It's as 
 neat a scheme as I've stumbled on for some time 
 and the Treasury Department's got to get busy on 
 that Morello brand of oil ! " 
 
 " And would this mean that you'd be on the Pan* 
 nonia yourself ? " 
 
 " I'd have to slip aboard at the last moment." 
 
 Wilsnach was on his feet, pacing perplexedly up 
 and down the barren little room. 
 
 " You land your woman in New York, of course, 
 but what do you get out of it ? " 
 
 " First I get the woman." 
 
 " But what do you mean by getting her? " inter- 
 rupted the other. " And what will you do with her 
 when you've got her? " 
 
 " Heaven only knows," finally admitted the man 
 with the helmet of wire across the top of his head. 
 
 " I'll confess the woman is more interesting 
 than " 
 
 " Wait ! " cried Kestner. His voice was sharp and 
 quick. " There's some one on the wire. That's the 
 pass-word ! They're going to talk again." 
 
 Once more silence reigned in the barren little room, 
 Wilsnach sat watching the other man's face. There 
 seemed something grotesque in the pose of the for- 
 ward-stooping body, in the inclined head, in the va- 
 cant stare of the eyes that encompassed nothing of 
 their surroundings. 
 
 But Wilsnach knew by the fine moisture lending a 
 scattering of high-lights to the intent face before him, 
 that things of moment were trickling in along that 
 tiny rivulet of silk-covered copper.
 
 66 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 The silence prolonged itself interminably. Wils- 
 nach became restive, shifting his position and still 
 waiting. But neither spoke. 
 
 Kestner sat back in his chair, with a sigh. Then 
 consciousness of his immediate surroundings returned 
 to him. He looked tired but contented. 
 
 " Maresi won't need to send that message for us," 
 he said very quietly. " Lambert's on the Pannonia! " 
 
 Wilsnach stood staring down at him, slowly digest- 
 ing this unlooked-for information. 
 
 " Lambert on the Pannonia? " he intoned, with 
 voluptuous delay in the delivery of each pregnant 
 word. 
 
 " And his daughter is to join him there, as late as 
 possible to-morrow night, before the boat sails." 
 
 " You're you're sure of this ? " 
 
 " Positive ! And the gentleman known as Antonio 
 Morello is to follow on a later steamer. He will go 
 steerage. And like most immigrants, he will take 
 his own bedding. But sewn up in his mattress he is 
 to carry in seven of Maura Lambert's note plates." 
 
 Wilsnach sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. 
 Then he sighed devoutly as he stared at the wire hel- 
 met. 
 
 " Thank the Lord, Kestner, that you ever learned 
 the tricks of the wire-tapper ! This cuts right into the 
 core of things! This plays right into our hands! 
 And this means I can be back in Paris by Friday ! " 
 
 " But in the meantime," suggested Kestner, taking 
 the helmet from his head, " I'd like you to relieve me 
 here while I get six hours' sleep. If anything goes
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 67 
 
 over the wire, jot it down. And keep an ear open for 
 
 that dictograph." 
 
 " But what's there left for us to do ? " 
 
 " Several things ! One of them is to rig up my 
 
 field-transmitter. And among other things, I've got 
 
 to be shaved to the blood again. You see, I still have 
 
 that appointment with Maura Lambert to-morrow 
 
 at eight." 
 
 " But what's the use of that, now? You've got the 
 
 bunch where you want them, and inside of three weeks 
 
 you'll have 'em behind bars ! " 
 
 " Still, I think I'll keep that appointment." 
 
 " But it's only facing danger when there's no need 
 
 for it ! " 
 
 " Well, I imagine it*s worth it," was Kestner's 
 
 somewhat enigmatic reply.
 
 IV 
 
 AT eight o'clock the following evening the dowdy 
 old lady in black, the innocent-eyed grandchild, and 
 the uniformed nurse duly made their appearance at 
 the door of the Palermo miniature-painter. Here 
 they were duly admitted, and, as on the day before, 
 disposed themselves in their various places. 
 
 Outwardly, the studio showed no signs of change. 
 Yet on this occasion some newer and undefined spirit 
 of tension intruded itself on that incongruous circle. 
 The old lady with the ear-trumpet, it is true, appar- 
 ently made herself quite comfortable in the arm-chair. 
 But before doing so she moved this chair back against 
 the farthest wall of the room. 
 
 She betrayed no active interest in the scene before 
 her, it is equally true, yet at no time did she permit 
 the eyes behind the amber glasses to close in slumber. 
 
 The somewhat mystified nurse no longer found rel- 
 ish in the pages of her Sudermann. The artist bend- 
 ing over the drawing-desk no longer struggled to talk 
 in broken German with her youthful sitter. She 
 worked on her oval of ivory with perfunctory and 
 spasmodic haste, interrupted by brief spaces of inac- 
 tion. During these interims of idleness she sat star- 
 ing thoughtfully at the sloping desk-top in front of 
 her. 
 
 The silence weighed heavily on the child in the 
 
 stiff-backed chair. She moved restlessly, from time 
 
 68
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 69 
 
 to time. Then her eyelids drooped, her head nodded 
 sleepily forward, and she recovered her equilibrium 
 with a start. 
 
 The woman behind the drawing-desk watched the 
 small blonde head as it nodded again. Then she 
 suddenly rose to her feet, turning to the nurse as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " This child is tired," she said in the best German 
 at her command. 
 
 " Yes," admitted the woman in the nurse's uniform. 
 
 " You will be so good as to take her back to the 
 hotel. The pose is useless now." 
 
 " You do not need her ? " 
 
 " The picture can be finished without a sitter." 
 
 And as though to close all argument, the miniature- 
 painter crossed the room to the door and opened it. 
 The nurse tied the child's hat-ribbons under her chin, 
 
 " I shall not need you again," Maura Lambert was 
 repeating, with the ghost of a smile. " Only I shoukl 
 like to speak with the grandmother for a few minutes," 
 
 " But the grandmother is quite deaf," protested the 
 slightly puzzled German woman. 
 
 " Notwithstanding that," was the other woman's 
 reply in English, " we shall get on very nicely." 
 
 Kestner, at that first message of dismissal, had risea 
 to his feet. His instincts warned him of something 
 electric in the air, of something impending. His in- 
 itial impulse was to intercept the departing couple. 
 But on second thoughts he let them pass out through 
 the opened door without speaking. 
 
 The calm-eyed young woman closed the door 
 and crossed slowly to the drawing-desk.
 
 TO THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Perhaps you would like to see my work as far as 
 it has gone," she inquired, without raising her voice, 
 " to assure yourself that it is authentic, that my vo- 
 cation is not unlawful." 
 
 Kestner, in a mechanical continuation of his role, 
 raised the ear-trumpet to the edge of his wig. 
 
 " That is quite unnecessary," said the woman at 
 the drawing-desk, with a movement that seemed one 
 of mingled contempt and impatience. " You heard 
 perfectly well what I said ! " 
 
 And still Kestner remained silent, knowing only too 
 well that his voice would irretrievably betray him. 
 He merely watched the woman as she crossed to the 
 wide-topped table on which the telephone stood. 
 There she sat down, facing him. 
 
 " The make-up is admirable, monsieur" she went 
 on in a coerced evenness of tone. " But work such as 
 mine demands unusual acuteness of eyesight." She 
 leaned forward on the table. " I am Maura Lambert. 
 And you are Lewis Kestner. I had the pleasure of 
 recognising you when you first came into the room. 
 So please be seated, Mr. Kestner." 
 
 The moment was not a happy one for Lewis Kest- 
 ner. He found himself, in the first place, confronted 
 by the ignominy of being beaten at his own game. 
 He also faced the humiliation of the actor who has 
 failed in sustaining a role. And he nursed the for- 
 lorn realisation, as he stared at her through the futile 
 amber-coloured glasses, that he was both cutting a 
 very sorry figure and that nothing was now to be 
 gained by trying to face the thing out. 
 
 " But was it a pleasure, Miss Lambert? " he i-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 71 
 
 quired of her, with an effort toward coolness, as he 
 seated himself in the arm-chair. 
 
 " Only in so far as all duties accomplished can be 
 called a pleasure," was her acidulated response. 
 
 " Then you have done what was expected of you? " 
 demanded the Secret Agent, parrying for his opening. 
 
 " Only partly, Mr. Kestner," was her reply, " for 
 the most painful part of it has yet to come." 
 
 He was perversely conscious of the fact that he 
 wished to talk to her, to hear her voice, to await some 
 accidental sounding of a note that would not be im- 
 personal, to break through the mists which were mak- 
 ing her personality such an elusive one. 
 
 " And that part is ? " he prompted. 
 
 " That I cannot tell you." She was silent for a 
 moment or two, staring down at the table in front of 
 her. " I helped you once, and gained nothing by it. 
 This time I must think of myself." 
 
 An inapposite impression of her bodily fineness, of 
 a wayward delicacy of line and colouring, crept over 
 him, even in that moment of tension. 
 
 " But are you thinking of yourself ? " he demanded. 
 
 Only once before, he remembered, had this personal 
 note been struck between them and that for not more 
 than a breath or two. Once only had there been any- 
 thing more than a hand-grope through the vague 
 draperies of reserve shutting her off from his world. 
 And it astonished Kestner to find himself confronting 
 her with emotions which, however mixed, were still 
 actual and disturbing. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " she countered. 
 
 He knew she was a woman of spirit. He could see
 
 72 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 that by the quickened colour, by the full under-lip of 
 a mouth that was warm but not yielding, by the im- 
 mediate and open challenge of the translucent eye. 
 But he decided, now that the chance he had been 
 waiting for had come, to tell her what he felt it his 
 duty to tell her. 
 
 " You can't go on with this work," he said, quite 
 simply. 
 
 She looked at him with wonder in her quiet stare. 
 
 " I'm compelled to go on with this work," she re- 
 torted, speaking as quietly as he had spoken. 
 
 " How can you? " he inquired. He felt that he 
 must be very foolish-looking, in the transparencies of 
 his outlandish make-up. He was conscious of being 
 at a disadvantage, of having suffered a loss of dig- 
 nity, of standing a sorry figure for the utterance of 
 the things he most wanted to say. 
 
 " How can you ? " he repeated. 
 
 Her face suddenly grew quite white ; she sat ar- 
 rested in a pose where some new thought had struck 
 her. Then she reached down and opened one of the 
 drawers at her side. 
 
 Kestner could not see what she held in her hand. 
 He arrived at his own conclusions. But he did not 
 change his position. 
 
 " I could shoot you! " she said, with the same even 
 calmness with which she had spoken before. 
 
 He noticed that her right hand moved forward. 
 But he did not change his position. He merely de- 
 cided that he knew his woman. 
 
 " On the contrary, you are altogether afraid to," 
 was his tranquil-noted rejoinder.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 7$ 
 
 They faced each other, with glances locked, for sev- 
 eral seconds of embattled silence. 
 
 " It would simplify matters," she said. She was 
 speaking more to herself than to him. 
 
 " Again on the contrary, it would sadly complicate 
 them," was Kestner's reply. 
 
 " Why ? " she asked. But that dangerous look of 
 appraisal, of hesitation between two possible ends, was 
 still in her eyes. 
 
 " Because you're fighting something bigger than I 
 am," he told her. " Because in two minutes another 
 would take my place, and another his place, and still 
 another, and then still another, if need be." 
 
 There was something nettling in the half-wearied 
 indifferency of her smile. He knew that he was not 
 making an impressive stand against her. And it did 
 not add to his peace of mind to remember that Wils- 
 nach at the other end of his dictograph wires was an 
 auditor of every spoken word. 
 
 " That's a very pretty play-actor speech, mon- 
 sieur" the woman at the table was saying. " But 
 your trade is as full of tricks and deceits as mine. 
 That, at least, you have already proved to me." 
 
 " Then I'll prove something else," said Kestner. 
 
 "What?" she demanded. 
 
 " Lift that receiver at your elbow, and ask if you 
 are watched watched at this moment. Speak just 
 those three words into it: * Am I watched? ' 
 
 She sat studying his face intently, her mind still 
 occupied with some inward debate. Then with her 
 left hand she lifted the transmitter closer to where she 
 sat. With the same hand she took the receiver from
 
 74. THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 its hook. Her right hand, he noticed, still held the 
 unseen thing which had been lifted from the table 
 drawer. 
 
 " Am I watched? " she said into the transmitter, 
 with the clear and reedy voice which had first reminded 
 Kestner of a clarionet. 
 
 He could not hear what answer came back to her 
 over the wire. But he knew that Wilsnach was there 
 with the field-transmitter in front of him and he 
 knew that Wilsnach would not fail him. 
 
 She did not raise her eyes to her enemy as she slowly 
 hung up the receiver. But that enemy knew, by the 
 look of troubled thought clouding her brow, that the 
 expected message had come in to her. 
 
 When she spoke, she did so with a slow impersonal- 
 ity which gave an added barb to her words. 
 
 " The situation," she quietly announced, " is not 
 without its novelty. For I am compelled to acknowl- 
 edge that you too are being watched ! "
 
 KESTNER, in his work, had always opposed the in- 
 trusion of the personal equation. When he had erred, 
 as all men must, it had mostly been through the emo- 
 tions. Yet here he had made the mistake, as Wils- 
 nach had anticipated, of confounding a case by giv- 
 ing rein to a personal impulse. 
 
 There are times, however, when the ultimate truths 
 of instinct and feeling are saner than facts. And 
 Kestner, as he looked at the violet-blue eyes facing 
 him, saw nothing to deplore and little to regret. He 
 only wished he was well out of that dowdy black silk 
 monstrosity which encompassed him with the gloom of 
 a shroud. 
 
 " So I am being watched? " he said, striving to make 
 his tone a casual one. " And who or what happens 
 to be watching me? " 
 
 " To demonstrate that would only mean to bring 
 danger still closer to you," she replied, puzzled by his 
 sustained air of fortitude. 
 
 " It may not be so important as you imagine," he 
 suggested. " The important fact is that you and I 
 are here together, face to face, and able to talk this 
 thing out." 
 
 ".What thing? " she parried. 
 
 " Please don't compel me to preach," said Kestner, 
 wondering at the spirit of humility with which the at- 
 tainment of his own ends was crowning him. 
 
 75
 
 76 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " To preach about what ? " she still inquired. He 
 realised that she still shrank back from those frontiers 
 of intimacy which he seemed bound to cross. 
 
 " About this life you're leading," he said. " About 
 what it will lead to, and what it will do to you." 
 
 " Is painting on ivory so fatal? " she asked. But 
 her smile was almost pitiful. 
 
 " It's crime that's fatal," cried Kestner. " You 
 can't succeed, neither you nor your father nor Mo- 
 rello. You're getting protection of a kind at the 
 present moment. But it's a poor kind, and it can't 
 last ! You're facing the wrong way. You'll only go 
 down, and still farther down, and at every step you'll 
 have meaner and dirtier work to do. You'll go down 
 until you're nothing but a slum-worker leading the 
 life of a street-cat. You'll shut yourself off from 
 every decent influence that can come into a woman's 
 life. And even though you should slip through the 
 hands of the law and you can't do that month 
 by month and year by year you'll fall lower and 
 lower, lying and cheating and flimflamming and bunco- 
 steering and scurrying from one warren to an- 
 other." 
 
 " Wait," she said, white to the lips. But Kestner 
 did not choose to wait. 
 
 " You won't come in contact with one man you can 
 respect or trust. But crooked as they are, the time 
 will come when you'll have to turn to them for pro- 
 tection. And if they give you that, they'll expect 
 their price for it. And they'll get their price, in the 
 end. Oh, believe me, I've seen the woman adventurer. 
 I've followed their careers, by the hundred not
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL ffi 
 
 through novels, but through life. They all lead one 
 way, and that way is down ! " 
 
 The woman sitting opposite him did not speak for 
 several moments. Her face was very white. Kest- 
 ner could see the blue vein ing in the temple under the 
 heavily massed chestnut hair. When she spoke she 
 spoke very quietly. 
 
 " All this is very eloquent," she said, " and, I'm 
 afraid, very obvious. But it is quite beside the mark. 
 There are things you don't understand. But the fact 
 remains that I am already with these people. And I 
 intend to stay there until the end ! " 
 
 " But what end? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 " It will not be the end you expect," was her tran- 
 quil-toned reply. 
 
 " I know your position, and I know what it leads 
 to." 
 
 " Yet hopeless as that position appears, I may en- 
 joy advantages unknown to my enemies." 
 
 " I am not your enemy. I have no desire to be." 
 
 " In that," she answered, " I cannot believe you." 
 
 " But I have nothing to gain in all this." 
 
 " That is the one thing I doubt," she replied, after 
 a slight pause. 
 
 " How can I prove it? " 
 
 She pondered a moment. 
 
 " By going quietly through that door, returning to 
 your hotel, and taking the night boat for Naples, and 
 from Naples returning to Paris." 
 
 Kestner did not even smile. 
 
 " It will be for your own good," she warned him, 
 *' for your own safety."
 
 78 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " That is a feature of the situation on which I am 
 not permitted to figure," he said. 
 
 She glanced at the leather-bound travelling clock on 
 the table in front of her. 
 
 " It is more dangerous, every moment you stay," 
 she said, and he felt sure her uneasiness was not a pre- 
 tence. He crossed to the table and stood in front of 
 her. 
 
 " Do you know," he said, quite close to her, " I 
 don't believe you're as brave as you'd have me believe, 
 or as hard as they've tried to make you ! You're not 
 that sort ! I can't believe it ! ' 
 
 She was about to answer him, with her eyes still 
 fixed on his, when the faintest shadow of a change 
 crept over her face. The lips framing themselves to 
 speak remained silent. Her gaze did not actually 
 wander from his face, yet he knew that into her line of 
 vision some outer and newer element had entered. 
 
 He had no time to determine what this was. But 
 at the same moment that it flashed home to his wonder- 
 ing mind that a door behind had opened and some one 
 had stealthily entered the room, he heard her voice, 
 a little thin and shrill with fear. 
 
 " Tony don't snoot! " 
 
 He saw her hand dart out to the corner of the table. 
 The movement was so quick that it left him no time 
 to determine its significance. But the next instant the 
 room was in utter darkness. 
 
 " Don't shoot," he heard her pleading, almost in a 
 frenzy. " Not yet not yet ! " 
 
 Kestner swung his body about the corner of the 
 table, stooping low as he did so. He brushed the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 79 
 
 woman's skirts, and crouched there. He could hear 
 her breathing, quick and tense, as she waited. Yet 
 even at that moment he was conscious of the fact that 
 he did not want her to know he was hiding there, that 
 he was using her as a shield. 
 
 It was then that he heard Morello's voice out of the 
 darkness, quite close to him. 
 
 " No ! " proclaimed the Neapolitan, with a catch of 
 the breath that was almost a grunt of contempt. " I 
 will not shoot ! But I will cut his heart out ! " 
 
 Kestner edged forward to the table again, padding 
 quickly and lightly about its surface. He had started 
 to grope through the foolish and faded black draperies 
 for his own automatic, when he remembered the other 
 revolver which the woman had taken from the drawer. 
 He felt a little easier in mind when he held it in his 
 hand. 
 
 As he backed away again he could hear Morello 
 cross the room. He listened intently, for he had no 
 love for naked steel. The next moment he heard a key 
 turned in a lock, and then the sound of the key with- 
 drawn. 
 
 " What are you doing? " asked the woman's voice 
 through the blackness. Kestner knew she was still 
 standing close behind the table. 
 
 " Turn on the lights," panted Morello. 
 
 Kestner dropped on his hands and knees and wormed 
 his way over to where he remembered the wires ran 
 from the table to the floor. He caught and twisted 
 them together, using the revolver-barrel for a lever. 
 He twisted them until they snapped under the strain. 
 He knew then that the light-circuit was broken.
 
 80 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Turn on the lights ! " cried Morello, this time in 
 a command. 
 
 " When you promise to do what I say," contended 
 the woman at the table. 
 
 An oath escaped the Neapolitan. 
 
 " Do you want that man to escape? " 
 
 Kestner, as he crouched low, awaiting his chance, 
 wondered if she did or not. He knew he still carried 
 a key for that carefully locked door. He also knew 
 that it would have to be used silently. So he crouched 
 there, still waiting. 
 
 " Oh, I'll get you ! " he heard that Americanised 
 Neapolitan voice announce, with still another oath. 
 The Secret Agent felt, from the sound of that voice, 
 that his opponent had retreated to the farther wall, so 
 as to command a full view of the place. 
 
 The next moment a white bulb of light exploded on 
 the darkness, wavered about the wall, and pencilled 
 for one interrogative moment towards the locked door. 
 
 Kestner knew that Morello had turned on a pocket 
 flash-light. As quick as the thought came home to 
 him, and before the light could steady itself, he aimed 
 directly into the heart of the bulb and fired. 
 
 There was a gasp from the woman, a cry from the 
 man. But the light went out. And at the same mo- 
 ment that he pulled the trigger Kestner leapt to one 
 side. He ran with cat-like quickness, for he knew 
 what was coming. 
 
 He was almost at the locked door before the first 
 shots of that quick volley rang through the room. 
 And he knew the shots were being fired at the quarter 
 in which the flash of his own gun had shown itself.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 81 
 
 He was at the door, and his key was in the lock, be- 
 fore the reverberations from that volley had died 
 down. He had the door open and had sidled out be- 
 fore he heard Morello's repeated command for light, 
 and the woman's distracted cry that she could not 
 turn them on. 
 
 Kestner, listening to their contending voices, closed 
 the door and locked it. He decided, on second 
 thoughts, to leave the key where it stood. Then he 
 groped his way through the velvety blackness to the 
 street door. As he expected, he found it locked. But 
 for this, too, he still carried his pass-key. 
 
 He opened the door quickly but cautiously, dread- 
 ing what the sound of those shots might at any mo- 
 ment bring about him. It had never been an inviting 
 neighbourhood: and it was no longer an inviting 
 household. 
 
 He held his automatic in his right hand as he 
 slipped through the partly opened door and faced the 
 narrow street. He saw that street lying peacefully 
 before him, bathed in its white Sicilian moonlight. 
 He could see the serrated shadow-edge of the house- 
 fronts dividing the roadway, one half in moonlight, 
 one half in unbroken darkness. 
 
 It was as he squinted down this tranquil moonlit 
 vista, feeling sure that Wilsnach would be coming on 
 the run at any moment, that the gloom opposite him 
 was stabbed by a jet of flame. 
 
 Kestner, at the same moment, stumbled back with a 
 sense of shock. He awakened, the next second, first 
 to a stinging sensation along the top of the head, and 
 next to the fact that he had dropped back into a half-
 
 82 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 crouching and half-sitting posture on the stone door- 
 step. He threw up one hand, involuntarily, to find 
 that his iron-grey wig had been whisked from its place 
 on the top of his head. He did not wait to decipher 
 this seeming miracle, for another stab of flame flashed 
 from the gloom, and then another and another, from 
 different points along the shadowy line of houses. 
 
 By this time Kestner had awakened to what it all 
 meant, for still again he felt a quick sting of pain 
 across the ridge of his shoulder. And his blood 
 was up. 
 
 It was then that he brought his automatic into play. 
 He watched for his light-flash, and shot abstemiously, 
 remembering that his ammunition was limited and his 
 period of defence problematical. 
 
 He was firing with the second revolver when Wils- 
 nach came dodging and scurrying and fighting his way 
 to the door. He kept calling out, as he came nearer, 
 for the other man to get back out of the light. 
 
 Kestner did not get back out of the light, however, 
 until he had seized the panting Wilsnach and swung 
 him in through the half-opened door. Then the door 
 was slammed shut and a key turned in the lock. The 
 darkness was Cimmerian. But Wilsnach could feel 
 Kestner catching and tugging at his coat-sleeve. 
 
 " Quick ! " cried the Secret Agent. " They're on 
 both sides of us here ! " 
 
 " But are you hurt ? " demanded Wilsnach. 
 
 " I've got* a scratch or two," was the other's hur- 
 ried answer. " But we'll be getting a heap worse if 
 we're not out of here in three minutes ! " He was 
 dragging Wilsnach back deeper into the velvety dark-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 83 
 
 ness. "D'you hear them? They'll have that door 
 down in a jiffy! " 
 
 " But we can't hide in this hole ! " panted Wilsnach. 
 
 Kestner was now stumbling and groping his way 
 through the blackness. 
 
 " Come on ! " he commanded. 
 
 " But where? " demurred Wilsnach. 
 
 " We've still got the wine-cellar. There's a chance 
 there, if we're quick enough." 
 
 The next minute they were running down a flight 
 of stone steps, fumbling with a door-lock, and grop- 
 ing and passing their way along a mouldy passage be- 
 tween unbroken walls. 
 
 " Hurry," urged Kestner. " And keep one hand 
 against me, through this crowded press-room." For 
 he was groping with both hands now, deviously, 
 through a larger chamber that smelled of benzine and 
 inks and acids, then fumbling and struggling with an- 
 other door-knob, and climbing still another flight of 
 stone steps. 
 
 " Stoop low ! " panted Kestner, as he bent a little 
 unsteadily to unlatch a small grated window no big- 
 ger than a kennel-front. He swayed from side to 
 side as he did so, like a man uncertain of his footing. 
 He was attempting to scramble up through the open- 
 ing, but seemed without strength to make it. Wils- 
 nach got a shoulder under him and pushed him up. 
 
 When Wilsnach followed he found Kestner still on 
 the flagstone outside, lying flat and gulping down 
 quick lungsful of fresh air, as though the last of his 
 strength had gone. Wilsnach had to help the other 
 man to his feet.
 
 84s THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 "It's all right," he whispered. "There's the 
 strada just beyond this wall! " 
 
 Wilsnach, with an arm about his colleague, scur- 
 ried unsteadily along the deep shadows of the house- 
 fronts, rounding a corner and striking further east- 
 ward. 
 
 " And there's a carrozza! " panted Kestner, with 
 his hand pressed to his side. 
 
 Wilsnach, the next moment, was hailing the driver. 
 Night-hawks, the world over, can never afford to be 
 too inquisitive. So the swarthy little Sicilian made 
 no comment as the all but helpless Kestner was lifted 
 bodily into the open carriage. 
 
 "Where to?" asked Wilsnach, jumping in beside 
 him, with one glance back to make sure they were not 
 being followed. 
 
 " Tell him to get us down to the Via Francesco 
 Crispi, quick ! " was the determined but weak-toned 
 answer. 
 
 Wilsnach repeated the order. Then, as he sat back 
 on the worn seat-cushions, he stared down at his hand, 
 rubbing his fingers slowly together and stooping over 
 them in the white moonlight. 
 
 He slipped one hand back over Kestner's left shoul- 
 der. 
 
 " There's blood on your coat," he suddenly an- 
 nounced. The other man languidly lifted a hand and 
 felt his wet shoulder. 
 
 " I got a crack on the collar-bone," he explained, 
 with a wan attempt at a laugh. 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 Again Kestner raised a languid hand and felt gin-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 85 
 
 gerly along the top of his bare head, where the hair 
 was matted and wet and still warm to the touch. 
 
 " And what feels like a bullet-scrape along my bump 
 of veneration," gently added the Secret Agent. 
 
 " Then we must get to a hospital ! " cried out the 
 suddenly perturbed Wilsnach. 
 
 " Not on your life," was Kestner's answer as they 
 went rattling down through the narrow streets. 
 
 " Then where in the name of God are we going? " 
 Wilsnach suddenly demanded. 
 
 " We're going to the water-front, where we can find 
 a boatman ! " 
 
 " A boatman ? " echoed Wilsnach. 
 
 " A boatman to get us out to the Pawnonia" was 
 Kestner's thin-timbered but resolute response. " For 
 we're going to America, old man, and we're going on 
 the same boat with the Lamberts ! "
 
 PART HI 
 THE QUARTERS IN MANHATTAN
 
 IT was late the next afternoon, as the Pannonia 
 ploughed her way steadily westward over a smooth 
 sea, that Wilsnach paced the white-boarded deck deep 
 in thought. From below came the sound of guitars 
 and mandolins, mingled with the chant of voices. On 
 the sun-steeped hatch-coverings amidships Monte- 
 negrin mothers suckled their babies, top-booted men 
 in sheep-skins played cards on the tar-stained canvas, 
 children romped and chattered, while nearby a music- 
 drunk band of Hungarians from Fiume danced their 
 native Czardas. 
 
 Wilsnach, as he stopped and stared down over the 
 rail at this blithe-spirited throng, found small reason 
 for sharing in their merriment. A frown of trouble 
 clouded his brow, and his step was heavy and listless 
 as he turned back, and for the tenth time paused ir- 
 resolutely before Kestner's cabin door. 
 
 Then he took a deep breath, knocked determinedly 
 on the white-leaded panel, and stepped into the narrow 
 stateroom. 
 
 He stood staring anxiously down at Kestner as the 
 latter sat up in his berth, rubbing his eyes with his 
 one free hand. For Kestner's left arm was in a sling, 
 and the shoulder above it was ridged high with much 
 bandaging. A narrow helmet of pink sticking-plaster 
 
 along the top of his head stood up startlingly like a 
 
 89
 
 90 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 cock's comb. And the Secret Agent's face, Wilsnach 
 noticed, was without its usual touch of colour. 
 
 " You've had a great sleep," began the dolorous- 
 eyed Wilsnach, glancing down at his watch. 
 
 " I needed it," was Kestner's reply. " And that 
 bull-headed ship's doctor made me take a bromide." 
 
 " How are you feeling? " Wilsnach was plainly 
 evading some sterner issue which he found it hard to 
 approach. 
 
 " Much better but like the day after a big 
 game ! " 
 
 " That's good ! " temporised the other. 
 
 " But where are we? " Kestner suddenly asked. 
 
 " Eleven hours out from Palermo." 
 
 Kestner settled back more comfortably on his pil- 
 low. 
 
 " And when do we get to Gib ? " 
 
 " We don't stop at Gibraltar westward-bound," was 
 Wilsnach's listless answer. 
 
 " You're sure? " 
 
 " Positive ! " 
 
 Kestner emitted a sigh of relief. 
 
 " That makes it all the easier for us. That means 
 our troubles are pretty well over." 
 
 Wilsnach moved uneasily about the cabin. The 
 he turned and met the mildly inquiring glance of his 
 chief. 
 
 " Our troubles are not over," he solemnly amended. 
 
 Kestner sat up with a jerk that made him wince. 
 Then, as though already apprehending the ill-news 
 which had not yet been enunciated, he made an effort 
 to pull himself together.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 91 
 
 " What is it? " he quietly inquired. 
 
 " The Lamberts are not on this boat," was Wils- 
 nach's answer. 
 
 Kestner made no movement and no word escaped his 
 lips. He was inured to those disappointments which 
 obtain in a calling where the unexpected must so often 
 be accepted. But this, Wilsnach knew and had known 
 all morning, was not an easy pill to swallow. It 
 spelt confusion to all their plans, if not the end of 
 all their hopes. It meant another escape and another 
 slow and toilsome gathering up of ghostly clues. And 
 Wilsnach knew, as Kestner sat deep in troubled 
 thought, that it was taking no little effort of the will 
 to readjust consciousness to the newer situation. 
 
 " But you saw them come aboard? " the Secret 
 Agent finally asked. 
 
 " They came an hour after we did, at least Lam- 
 bert landed and came back with a woman who wore a 
 veil. That woman must have been Maura Lambert. 
 In fact, I'm sure it was Maura Lambert, although, of 
 course, I couldn't get a clear look at her face. Lam- 
 bert went to his stateroom, and I watched his door 
 until four o'clock in the morning. I was all in then, 
 falling asleep without knowing it. I knew there was 
 no use trying to stir you out, so I paid an English 
 steward to keep guard until morning, on both doors, 
 the old man's and the girl's." 
 
 " I'd like to see that steward," interrupted Kestner. 
 
 " It's no use," explained Wilsnach ; " he's merely a 
 blockhead, and was ordered below before I could get 
 back. The stateroom doors were locked, but both the 
 girl and the old man were gone."
 
 "But when? And how?" 
 
 " There were boats going back and forth all the 
 time they could have slipped down the accommoda- 
 tion-ladder at any moment before daybreak. No, it 
 wasn't that steward. Some one else must have given 
 the tip. You know these Sicilians they all have a 
 wireless system of their own, a crook of the arm or 
 the shift of an eye can always mean something we 
 can't understand. And they got the tip wherever 
 it came from ! " 
 
 " So we are not to sail together," meditated Kest- 
 ner. 
 
 " And we can't go back," was Wilsnach's dolorous 
 amendment. 
 
 Kestner sat up again, deep in thought. Through 
 the intricacies of that thought Wilsnach was incapa- 
 ble of following him, for the man from the Paris Of- 
 fice had always been content to travel behind his trail- 
 blazing leader. 
 
 " We don't want to go back ! " Kestner announced 
 with sudden energy. " We can't go back any more 
 than Lambert can. He can't stay in Palermo, for he 
 knows he's been dug out of his warren there. Paris 
 is impossible. England is out of the question. He 
 was headed for America, equipped for an American 
 campaign. And to America he will go. Only, he'll 
 go by a quicker route than this. This southern route 
 will take us eleven days from Gibraltar to New York. 
 Before we're two days out in the Atlantic Lambert can 
 get through Paris and land at Dover, scoot across to 
 Fishguard, and catch the Lusitania for the other 
 side."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 93 
 
 " Provided that is their plan," agreed Wilsnach. 
 
 " That will give them nearly a week's start of us 
 again ! " 
 
 Kestner countered Wilsnach's haggard eye with the 
 ghost of a grin. " And what's a week, Wilsnach, with 
 men like us ? " 
 
 He was reminding himself of the consolatory axiom 
 that the Law never forgets and he was on the side 
 of the Law. It was equally self-evident that offenders 
 against that Law could not and did not forever con- 
 ceal themselves, even with a whole continent to wan- 
 der about in. No matter how well under cover they 
 might place themselves, there were times when they 
 had to emerge into the open, as whales come up to 
 breathe. 
 
 " If we could only be sure they were headed that 
 way ! " suggested the still lugubrious Wilsnach. 
 
 " Well, we'll do what we can to make sure," con- 
 tended the unshaken Kestner as he felt tenderly along 
 the bandaging over his collar-bone. " And since we're 
 not exactly clairvoyants, we'll work that wireless until 
 its aerials wear out ! "
 
 n 
 
 KESTNER, no longer wearing his pink cock's comb 
 and his arm-sling, stared over the ship's rail as his 
 liner, having slipped through Quarantine a few min- 
 utes before sunset, crept from the Upper Bay into the 
 narrower reaches of the North River. He stared dis- 
 consolately at the city of his birth, depressed by that 
 thin misery which so often returns to the traveller 
 who remembers that he has become a man without a 
 country. 
 
 " So that's New York ! " sighed Wilsnach, close be- 
 side him at the ship's rail. 
 
 Kestner continued to look at the precipitous sky- 
 line of the city shouldering up into the misty evening 
 light, the incomparable outline of man's effort and as- 
 piration. Yet he looked at it only as a hunter stares 
 into an unbroken woodland. 
 
 Somewhere in that undecipherable warren of steel 
 and stone lurked the fugitives whom it was his duty to 
 find. Somewhere amid that tangle and welter of life, 
 he remembered, were Lambert and Lambert's daugh- 
 ter. And the whole aim and object of Kestner's ex- 
 istence, once that liner had docked, was to seek out 
 this perilous pair and protect that undreaming city 
 from their attacks. 
 
 " And we've lost a week ! " persisted the still melan- 
 choly-minded Wilsnach, whose thoughts had obviously 
 
 followed the same line as Kestner's. 
 
 94
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 95 
 
 The other man took out a cigar and smiled. 
 
 " But we've got a whole skin on our bodies again," 
 he cheerily corrected. " And the subtler satisfaction 
 of knowing that our sagest deductions have practically 
 been verified ! " . 
 
 As he smoked at the ship's rail, lazily watching the 
 broken skyline in front of him, already stippled like 
 a snake's back with its innumerable lights, the Pan- 
 nonia's wireless operator hurried to his side. 
 
 This alert-minded youth and Kestner had already 
 transacted much confidential business together, so no 
 word was spoken as he thrust the loose sheets into the 
 Secret Agent's hand. 
 
 Then the operator stood at the other man's side, 
 staring for a moment at the unparalleled panorama 
 of the evening city. 
 
 " When did these come ? " asked Kestner as he cas- 
 ually unfolded the slightly crumpled sheets. He did 
 so without haste and with no anxiety as to the mes- 
 sage which they might carry. 
 
 Yet he saw, to his surprise, that they were in the 
 secret code of the Department. It took him several 
 moments to translate the first message into intelligi- 
 bility. Then he stood with an odd catch of the 
 breath, staring down at the fluttering yellow sheet. 
 For the message read: 
 
 " Local agents are completing Lambert case. Don't 
 complicate, but catch Mauretania with Wilsnach to-night 
 for Fishguard and report promptly at Paris Office for in- 
 struction on Stillwell pearl smuggling case." 
 
 The message bore the signature of the Service head
 
 96 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 himself. It left Kestner inwardly disturbed. Yet, 
 stirred as he was, he betrayed no emotion as he pon- 
 dered the second enigmatic row of words. This second 
 message was equally explicit. He noticed, even before 
 fully deciphering its meaning, that it was signed by 
 the Secretary of the Department himself. Then he 
 went back and translated the code. 
 
 " Department taken over Lambert case and round up 
 of trio assured. Act promptly on Byrne's wired instruc- 
 tions and consult mail already despatched Paris Office." 
 
 Kestner stared down at the message for several 
 seconds. His first vague feeling of frustration had 
 already given way to a quick sense of revolt, of indig- 
 nation at official tyranny. He felt like a player 
 ordered off the field at the first innings and ordered 
 off because of his own unforgiveable error. He was 
 alive to the reproof in those two messages. He saw 
 that he had been superseded. He had crossed the 
 Atlantic on a wild goose chase. He had travelled five 
 thousand miles only to be sent back by a few curt 
 words flashed over a wire and tossed across the Bay 
 to his incoming steamer. 
 
 It was the end of the game. Maura Lambert and 
 her activities were no longer a thing of moment to him. 
 She and her fellow conspirators had passed on to 
 other hands. The most alluring case on which he had 
 ever worked had been snatched from him. And the 
 most alluring woman he had ever had occasion to 
 shadow had suddenly been carried out of his world. 
 And this meant that she too had come to the end of
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 97 
 
 her game. He had hoped to figure in that end. But 
 it had been ordered otherwise. 
 
 Kestner handed the fluttering sheets over to the 
 patiently-waiting Wilsnach. 
 
 " We're out of it," he announced, though it took 
 an effort to speak as lightly as he wished. 
 
 " Out of what? " asked Wilsnach. 
 
 " Read them ! " was all Kestner said. 
 
 Wilsnach frowned over the two despatches for sev- 
 eral seconds. Then he too looked disconsolately up, 
 and stared at the broken skyline of the evening city 
 and the crowded waterways and the ever shuttling 
 ferries and harbour-tugs. 
 
 " Why, this means we've got to get aboard the 
 Mauretania to-night ! " Kestner heard his companion 
 exclaim. " This is Wednesday, and she'll sail an hour 
 after midnight. We can't even get to a hotel." 
 
 Kestner quietly lighted a cigar and leaned on the 
 ship's rail. 
 
 " It's all in the game ! " he said as he folded up the 
 messages. 
 
 " But what are we to do? " asked Wilsnach. 
 
 " The only thing there is to do," was Kestner's 
 answer. " First make sure of a stateroom on that 
 steamer and then buy some clothes. Of course we 
 might do the Avenue and the Drive in a taxi, with 
 dinner at Delmonico's, say, for the sake of old times." 
 
 " It'll seem like a funeral ! " scoffed Wilsnach. 
 
 " Well, it is one ! " acknowledged Kestner.
 
 Ill 
 
 IT was the theatre hour, the hour when the city 
 flutters with solemn excitement like a bird fluttering 
 in its bath. In that valley of light known as Broad- 
 way motor-cars and taxi-cabs hummed and throbbed 
 and circled up to brightly-lighted foyers and were off 
 again, like hungry trout in search of dusk's most 
 glittering flies. Electric sky-signs flashed and shim- 
 mered in every colour of the rainbow, street crowds 
 moved and gathered and moved again, lines of traffic 
 pulsed intermittently along the side-streets, and over 
 all hung that vague and misty aura of light which 
 could crown even canyons of concrete with a wayward 
 sense of beauty. 
 
 Kestner leaned forward in his taxi seat, drinking it 
 in with hungrily unhappy eyes. They had already 
 explored Fifth Avenue to the lonelier reaches of the 
 upper city, and had swung sadly down through the 
 wooded silences of Central Park, and had wandered by 
 way of Seventy-second Street over to Riverside Drive, 
 and had stopped to stare pensively up at Grant's 
 Tomb, and had swung down Broadway again, bewil- 
 dered by the changes which had crept over a city 
 altering with every altering season. And now, made 
 doubly melancholy by the hilarity which beleaguered 
 them from every side, they were making their way 
 back to Fifth Avenue and their belated dinner at 
 
 Delmonico's. 
 
 98
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 99 
 
 Kestner stared out at the hurrying stream of faces, 
 eager and yet unelated. He continued to peer out 
 as the taxi-cab came to a standstill before the im- 
 perious arm of a traffic-squad officer. He watched the 
 cross-section of suspended traffic which the same im- 
 perious arm sent shuttling across their right-of-way, 
 like waters loosened from an opened sluice-gate. 
 
 Then, in a passing car, he caught one fleeting 
 glimpse of a woman's face. Her beauty may have 
 seemed no more pictorial than that of a hundred faces 
 he had already passed. Yet there was a sudden trip 
 and skip of the pulse as he stared out at that transi- 
 tory picture made by the soft pallor of an oval face 
 framed against the gloom of a cab-hood. 
 
 " What's up ? " demanded Wilsnach as their taxi 
 started forward with a jerk. 
 
 Kestner, who had risen, did not answer him. He 
 was already struggling with the cab-door and calling 
 aloud to his driver. Then he saw it was useless. An 
 intervening tumult of traffic was sweeping them on, 
 like a chip on a stream. The oval face and the un- 
 known carriage were already lost in the crowd. 
 
 " What's the matter? " repeated Wilsnach, as Kest- 
 ner dropped back in his seat. 
 
 For several seconds the Secret Agent's face was 
 blank with preoccupation as they swung from Long- 
 acre Square into Forty-fourth Street, and went purr- 
 ing on towards the quieter areas of Fifth Avenue. 
 
 " Among other things," said Kestner, with the ghost 
 of a sigh, " I just remembered that I'm as hungry as a 
 hound-pup, and here's Delmonico's ! " 
 
 This acknowledgment of hunger was confirmed by
 
 100 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 the meal that ensued. Kestner's sense of depression 
 seemed to have forsaken him. He became more com- 
 municative, more interested in the people about him. 
 Yet twice he deserted the table on the excuse of a 
 telephone-call, and twice Wilsnach was left to listen 
 idly to the music and stare at the multi-coloured rai- 
 ment of the white-shouldered women and ponder over 
 Kestner's prolonged absence. 
 
 Wilsnach knew by the other's air of abstraction as 
 he resumed his seat that something out of the ordinary 
 was in the air. And knowing his man, he was content 
 to wait. But time slipped by, and still Kestner sat 
 in a brown study. 
 
 " I suppose we ought to be getting aboard that 
 steamer," suggested Wilsnach after a listless glance 
 at his watch. 
 
 Kestner stared across the rose-shaded table at him. 
 The music of the distant orchestra was pleasing to the 
 ear ; the coffee had been irreproachable ; and Kestner's 
 fresh cigar was precisely his idea of what a cigar 
 should be. 
 
 "Why?" he asked with half-humorous indolence. 
 The lazy tone of that question made Wilsnach look up. 
 For the latter had long since learned that when his 
 friend was most somnolent of eye he was most alert 
 of mind. 
 
 " Because by daylight we've got to be out on the 
 rolling deep." 
 
 " Wilsnach, that's where you're wrong," quietly an- 
 nounced the other man. 
 
 " In what way? " inquired Wilsnach, feeling, for all
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 101 
 
 the other's quietness, the approach of something 
 epochal. 
 
 " It is quite true that within an hour we shall go 
 aboard the Mauretania. But morning will not see us 
 on the rolling deep ! " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because, once aboard that liner, we shall quietly 
 disembark from her other side by way, I mean, of 
 one of the lighters in the slip." 
 
 " Go on," prompted Wilsnach. Life had always 
 been too full of surprises to let a small bouleversement 
 like this bewilder him. 
 
 " We shall then with equal quietness proceed to a 
 hotel. And in the morning, instead of watching the 
 waves and betting on the day's run, I fancy we shall 
 both be rather busy." 
 
 "At what?" 
 
 " At the task which has been engaging us for some 
 time, Wilsnach, that of rounding up this Lambert 
 gang." 
 
 The agent from the Paris Office sat absorbing this 
 ultimatum. 
 
 " And what changed the Chief's mind ? " he finally 
 inquired. 
 
 " The Chief has not changed his mind. It merely 
 happens that I have changed mine." 
 
 "What made you?" 
 
 " Remembering certain things, two of which stand 
 out conspicuously from the others. The first is that 
 this gang I speak of can lay claim to the most expert 
 forger that ever handled a pen."
 
 102 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " That's the woman ! " 
 
 " Precisely. And the second is that when Lambert 
 took possession of my personal effects in that Paris 
 studio, he got, among other things, my Department 
 pocket cipher-code." 
 
 " Which would do him precious little good ! " 
 
 " On the contrary, it was of sufficient value to 
 enable him to hurry on to Washington with the girl, 
 pick up what he could of the Department procedure, 
 and then have the girl forge two signatures to 
 despatches addressed to the incoming steamer Pan- 
 nonia. That's the situation. Those messages were 
 made to bear every evidence of being official. The one 
 feature missing was the fact that they were sent from 
 a district office and not from the Department's own 
 operator." 
 
 " You mean they faked those two wires ? " This 
 time Wilsnach could not dissemble his astonishment. 
 
 " I do. And it strikes me as being about as bold 
 a bit of work to head off pursuit as I ever encountered. 
 I take off my hat to Lambert ! " 
 
 " But are you sure, dead sure ? " 
 
 Kestner smiled. 
 
 " I've been talking to both Cuddeback and the Chief 
 himself, on long distance. No such messages ever 
 came out of the Department." 
 
 " Then what are we to do ? " 
 
 " We're to keep after Lambert and his gang until 
 we get them and get them right. We're to keep on 
 that trail until we run the last man down." 
 
 Wilsnach's perplexity did not disappear. 
 
 " But it's not even a trail," he protested. " We
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 103 
 
 know they're in America. But America happens to 
 be quite a sized continent." 
 
 Kestner smoked on for a meditative minute or two. 
 
 " It's a small world, Wilsnach, when you're trying 
 to hide in it. Do you recall that Paris case of Elise 
 Van Damme how the girl's head was found in a 
 doorway, wrapped in paper, without a single clue, 
 except an old brass key? Our friend Hamard visited 
 eight thousand houses, eight thousand, mind you, and 
 tested over fifty thousand door-locks, before he got 
 on the trail. But in the end he found his man and 
 unravelled that mystery." 
 
 " But we haven't even the brass key," demurred 
 Wilsnach. 
 
 " We have something better," amended his com- 
 panion. " We have the knowledge that Maura Lam- 
 bert is in this city at this present moment." 
 
 " What makes you say that? " 
 
 " Because we passed her in an automobile, in Long- 
 acre Square, not three hours ago ! " 
 
 " How do you know that? " 
 
 " I know it because I saw her." 
 
 Wilsnach sat staring at the other man. He even 
 yentured a slightly satiric smile. 
 
 " You should have every reason to remember her," 
 he had the temerity to remark. 
 
 " What's more important, Wilsnach, we should have 
 every reason for finding her again. And to-morrow 
 we take up the trail." 
 
 " But why wait until to-morrow ? " 
 
 Kestner leaned forward across the table. 
 
 " Don't you realise that we're being watched, from
 
 104 THE HAND OF PERU, 
 
 some quarter or other, ever since we landed from that 
 steamer? We've been shadowed. And don't you sup- 
 pose we'll be shadowed until we go aboard the Maure- 
 tania to-night? That's why we're going to turn 
 Lambert's trick on his own gang and go over the side 
 into a lighter when they imagine we're safe in our 
 cabin. This is a stage of the game, Wilsnach, when 
 we've got to make good, as they say on this side of the 
 water." 
 
 " I'm ready," said Wilsnach, not without relish, as 
 he sat thinking the situation over. 
 
 " Then here's where we start," announced the list- 
 less-eyed Secret Agent as he rose from the table and 
 glanced casually about. But Wilsnach, as he followed 
 him into the open, knew that listless glance was only a 
 mask behind which a quick brain was already at work.
 
 IV 
 
 IT was seven days later that Wilsnach patiently 
 awaited Kestner's visit to that comparatively obscure 
 uptown hotel in which the Agent from the Paris Office 
 had installed himself as a cattle-buyer from the Argen- 
 tine. 
 
 Wilsnach's mood was as dispirited as the weather, 
 for a heavy rain was falling. It was falling without 
 interruption, leaving the upper streets of the city as 
 desolate as a glacial moraine. And the cattle-buyer 
 from the Argentine, quite apart from the weather, 
 found little in which to exult. His week had been a 
 busy enough one. But it had resulted in little beyond 
 a renewed acquaintance with the city of his youth. 
 Official quarters had been unofficially sounded, unsav- 
 oury friends of the underworld had been duly interro- 
 gated, an unbroken line of espionage had been quietly 
 established, and every likely corner of Greater New 
 York had been invaded and inspected. He had twice 
 encountered Kestner, first as a black-bearded Latin- 
 American in the coffee-business, and later as a munici- 
 pal water-inspector, but on neither occasion did his 
 fellow-worker have anything definite to tell him. Wils- 
 nach had not happened on the faintest echo as to 
 where Lambert and his confederates were hidden away. 
 And again the Agent from the Paris Office felt that 
 
 Kestner had made the mistake of his life in keeping 
 
 105
 
 106 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 the chase a personal one, in ever letting his quarry 
 slip in past the Port authorities. 
 
 So Wilsnach showed little enthusiasm as he turned 
 to greet his colleague, an hour late, and on this occa- 
 sion a spare-looking figure in clericals and horn-bow 
 spectacles. He remembered that the taxi-cab trail 
 had proved a blind one, that two days as a gas com- 
 pany employe had brought in nothing, and that each 
 different drag-net at each cast had come up empty. 
 So Wilsnach stood a little resentful of the fixed 
 optimism of the gentleman in clericals as the latter 
 struck a match, lighted the inevitable cigar, and for 
 the second time peered out along the empty hallway. 
 
 His back was still to Wilsnach, for he was turning 
 the key in the lock when he spoke. 
 
 " Well, I've found 'em ! " was his quiet announce- 
 ment. 
 
 At those four words the gloom suddenly went out 
 of the day. Life took on a purpose and the face of 
 the visitor from the Argentine took on a less morose 
 expression. 
 
 " Where ? " was his quick query. 
 
 Kestner inspected the room, closed a window, and 
 then came and sat close beside the other man. When 
 he spoke, he spoke very quietly. 
 
 " Like monarchs, in a brownstone mansion on Fifty- 
 first Street, just off the Avenue." 
 
 Wilsnach took a deep breath. " Posing as what ? " 
 he inquired. 
 
 " Not posing at all ! Just sedately living there, the 
 same as other people live on Fifty-first Street. They 
 must have leased it furnished, for the season."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 107 
 
 ** I should call that nerve." 
 
 " And also good judgment. It's a fine example of 
 what you might term the privacy of conspicuity. 
 Who'd ever think of digging out a gang of refugee 
 counterfeiters from a rather fashionable private man- 
 sion with a two-figured address and a brownstone 
 front?" 
 
 " Then what made you dig them out ? " 
 
 " It began with Inky Davis and skipped to the 
 young lady we knew as Cherry Dreiser. In West 
 Forty-seventh Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, 
 is a very chic little millinery shop. It is run by a very 
 chic little woman who calls herself Mdlle. Baby. At 
 different times of the day some very fashionable-look- 
 ing women go to that shop. They go, in fact, in 
 rather surprising numbers. Wilsnach, can you guess 
 why?" 
 
 " It's a stall, as they say over here ? " 
 
 " Exactly. Those plumes and Paris hats are 
 merely a fence behind which one of the busiest of 
 women's poolrooms is being run. They have wire 
 connection with a distributing bureau that gives track- 
 returns by 'phone. They also have a very comfort- 
 able room where tea and cigarettes can be served. 
 Here ladies with too much time and money can escape 
 the ewtwi of life by plunging on the ponies. And one 
 of the heaviest plungers, at the present time, happens 
 to be our young friend, Miss Sadie Wimpel, alias 
 Cherry Dreiser." 
 
 A look of comprehension crept into Wilsnach's eyes. 
 
 " How did you spot her ? " he inquired. 
 
 " I tailed her from the Grand Union Hotel, where
 
 108 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 she met her old friend, Inky Davis the wire-tapper. 
 I shadowed her twice to Mdlle. Baby's. Then I got a 
 girl planted inside, and found Sadie was a regular 
 visitor. She lays her bets with considerable judgment. 
 Sometimes she wins, and sometimes she loses. But 
 she doesn't worry over losing. She doesn't need to. 
 For every bill she pays out in that poolroom is one of 
 Maura Lambert's counterfeits! " 
 
 " But this doesn't sound like Lambert's procedure." 
 
 " It isn't his procedure as a rule. But I suppose 
 he's got to pay running expenses until he effects his 
 coup. So he jumped at the quickest and safest way 
 of uttering his bad paper. Sadie is his layer out. 
 She unloads big denominations, breaks them and gets 
 good money in return. Those counterfeits will fool 
 every one until they get in expert hands at the banks, 
 and even there they may pass muster for a while. 
 And in the meantime, Sadie will move on." 
 
 " But how about Lambert himself? " 
 
 " We may as well remember, Wilsnach, there's no 
 such man as Lambert. Names never count for very 
 much in the criminal world. Our man's at present 
 known as Hardman, a slight variation of his old alias 
 of Hartman. I've been watching Hardman for a day 
 and a half, every move he makes in the open. He's 
 posing as a Southerner, a horse breeder from Virginia 
 with a frock-coat and a wide-brimmed black hat 
 you know the get-up! Three hours ago Morello met 
 him in a downtown hotel. An hour later our Italian 
 friend bought a ticket for Washington, and I'm having 
 him tailed to see just what his business might be in
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 109 
 
 that city. He's out of our reach for to-night. But 
 there are other things we've got to take care of." 
 
 "To-night?" 
 
 " Yes ; to-night for Hardman is ready to launch 
 one of the biggest tricks ever turned by a crook. I 
 almost respect that man ; he's Napoleonic in some ways. 
 While Sadie Wimpel's been unloading on that uptown 
 women's poolroom Hardman's been manoeuvring with 
 Doc Kilvert's downtown establishment. And this is 
 how he did it: Kilvert spotted that benevolent-eyed 
 old Southerner in the frock-coat and sized him up as 
 something ready and waiting for a killing. Hardman 
 even looked good enough for a variation of the old 
 green goods game, and Kilvert got busy. Hardman 
 did some investigating on his own hook, played coy 
 with Kilvert, and then fell for the plan. Can you beat 
 that for one of life's little ironies? a tin-horn con- 
 man like Kilvert trying to sell a handful of phoney 
 money to America's most accomplished counterfeiter 
 doing business on a Sub-Treasury basis ! " 
 
 "But did he fall for it?" 
 
 " To-day, when the time for delivery came, Hard- 
 man turned on Kilvert and nailed him down. He 
 turned the trick so well that he took that piker's 
 breath away. Then he took Kilvert up to his room 
 and talked real business with him." 
 
 " You mean you think he did." 
 
 " I know he did part through Redney Sissons, 
 part through our dictograph, and part through a 
 bell-boy stool I'd planted there. But here's the point 
 of the whole thing: As soon as Kilvert spotted that
 
 110 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 counterfeit paper of Hardman's, he agreed that big 
 things could be done with it. Hardman supplied him 
 with samples and sent him over to Pip Tarbeau's with 
 them. Tarbeau's called the Poolroom King of this 
 country. I don't know everything that took place 
 between Tarbeau and Kilvert, after that Poolroom 
 King had sent out for a microscope and a second green- 
 goods expert. But that paper made him ready to 
 deal with Hardman, who claims the money is coming 
 to him in job lots from Sicily, through a lemon-im- 
 porter named Bastedo. And that deal means that 
 to-night Tarbeau is going to take over exactly one half 
 million dollars in Hardman bank-notes! " 
 
 " I don't get the point," admitted Wilsnach, after 
 a moment of thought. 
 
 " It's this, Wilsnach ; one hundred thousand of that 
 half million is going to be placed in this city ; another 
 hundred thousand goes to Chicago; another hundred 
 thousand to New Orleans ; still another hundred thou- 
 sand to San Francisco ; and the remaining hundred 
 thousand is to be split between Charleston and Denver. 
 That money's going to be held by Tarbeau's operators 
 until a release date. Then it's going to be let loose 
 through the paying-tellers of those different pool- 
 rooms. In other words, Wilsnach, a half million dol- 
 lars in bad money is going to be suddenly exploded on 
 the country. They can get it out the same as Sadie 
 Wimpel has been getting hers out. It will pass muster 
 with those poolroom patrons. It will spread like a 
 sort of scarlet-fever into commercial circles. Then the 
 coup will be repeated, and the second half million will 
 make it an epidemic. By the time some bank expert
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 111 
 
 has spotted the stuff and the general warning goes 
 out, the whole currency of the country will be infected 
 with that bad paper, and nine people out of ten won't 
 even know whether it's bad or good ! " 
 
 Wilsnach's eyes rested on Kestner as the figure in 
 clericals took out a second cigar, lighted it, and then 
 looked at his watch. 
 
 " My God, what a coup! " finally gasped the man 
 from the Paris Office. 
 
 " You see what it means we've got to jump in and 
 stop that half million from getting out. They've got 
 their own tailers. I made sure of that yesterday, 
 when I called a messenger and gave him a sealed en- 
 velope to deliver, for a decoy. That messenger was 
 waylaid and my message was opened and read. That 
 shows you we've got to do some side-stepping. We've 
 got to get that counterfeit paper; and we've got to 
 get Hardman or Lambert, or whatever you want to 
 call him. Then we've got to get Maura Lambert and 
 gather in the Wimpel woman, and be ready and wait- 
 ing for Morello when he dodges back from Washing- 
 ton!" 
 
 " But what's the plan? " 
 
 " It's this : Lambert will leave that Fifty-first 
 Street house to-night at nine o'clock sharp. He'll 
 carry the money in a black club bag, and he'll be 
 alone. He'll take a taxi-cab to Dirlam's Casino on 
 upper Broadway, just north of One Hundred and 
 First Street. And you will be driving that taxi-cab." 
 
 "Will I?" inquired Wilsnach. 
 
 " That'll be all fixed, for unless we get him on the 
 wing we can't land him without police help and this
 
 112 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 is our case." Kestner crossed quickly to the window 
 and glanced out. " Look at that rain. You'll be 
 rubber-coated up to the ears and he doesn't dream of 
 your chauffeur days in that old Poirret picture-smug- 
 gling case. You'll drive him up to Dirlam's to meet 
 Tarbeau and Kilvert in a private room there. He 
 may tell you to strike up Broadway and stick to the 
 white lights. But you've got to go by way of Central 
 Park, and then swing in to the drinking-fountain be- 
 tween the north end of the Mall and the West Seventy- 
 second Street entrance. We'll cover that route in a 
 taxi, as soon as we get out of here, to make sure of 
 our lay-out. But to-night, once you get Lambert as 
 far as that fountain, you've got to stall there. Make 
 it engine-trouble, or anything you like. But hold him 
 there until I get my chance to get into that taxicab. 
 Here's a gun and a pair of handcuffs. It's ten to one 
 you won't need to use either of them, but we've got to 
 guard against a tailer coming up and interfering. 
 These two extra pair of cuffs I'll keep for myself, for 
 later in the evening." 
 
 Wilsnach watched him as he slipped the pair of 
 polished double rings back in his pocket. 
 
 " Remember," repeated Kestner, " that I'll attend to 
 Lambert. All you've got to do is to hold any one 
 off from interfering, and get under way again, once I'm 
 sure of my man." 
 
 " Under way for where ? " 
 
 " Down the West Drive of the Park to Columbus 
 Circle, dropping me and the club bag as soon as I can 
 pick up another taxi. There'll be a federal tailer with 
 the Department pass-word waiting at the Maine Monu-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 113 
 
 ment there. Then get Lambert down to the Forty- 
 seventh Street police station as quick as you can. 
 The Lieutenant there is fixed; he'll hold him on a 
 Sullivan Law charge until he's needed." 
 
 " Then where will you be ? " 
 
 " I'll be back investigating that Fifty-first Street 
 house, gathering in the girl, and getting hold of all the 
 plates and paper I can find there." 
 
 " How about Sadie Wimpel? " 
 
 " Sadie still believes in clairvoyants and is to have 
 a reading at nine to-night with a Madame Musetta, 
 who, oddly enough, also gives sucker-tips for Inky 
 Davis and his gang. At nine-thirty a federal agent 
 will interrupt that reading and tell Sadie something 
 more definite about her future. In the meantime, 
 you've got to get back to that Lambert house with your 
 taxi. You're waiting for a fare there. But lie low, 
 and keep tab on anybody who enters the house. If I 
 don't appear in thirty minutes' time, get inside as soon 
 as you can. But give me at least thirty minutes." 
 
 Wilsnach crossed the room and then confronted 
 Kestner again. 
 
 " But isn't all this taking chances ? " he protested. 
 " Why couldn't we sail up to the Fifty-first Street 
 house with a few plain clothes men, break down the 
 door, and gather up our people ? " 
 
 " In the first place, "we wouldn't be doing the gather- 
 ing. That would fall to the City police. And I'm 
 not aching to hand over a case I've already travelled 
 five thousand miles for. To be candid, this case has 
 grown into rather a personal matter with me." 
 
 " But while we're landing Lambert why couldn't the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 police look after the woman and pass her over to the 
 federal officers later on? " 
 
 " Because I want to get that woman myself," was 
 Kestner's answer. 
 
 " Why ? " Wilsnach pointedly inquired. 
 
 " As I've already said, for personal reasons," was 
 Kestner's retort as he looked at his watch again and 
 got up from his chair. 
 
 " Don't you think that in things like this the per- 
 sonal equation sometimes comes rather expensive? " 
 Wilsnach asked, watching the other man as he took 
 the receiver down from the wall-phone beside him. 
 
 Kestner, with the receiver at his ear, did not turn 
 about to face Wilsnach as he answered him. 
 
 " The personal equation is the only thing that makes 
 work like this worth while," was his quiet-toned retort.
 
 AT precisely nine o'clock a tall and benignant look- 
 ing figure, made more stately by the loose folds of a 
 black raincoat, stepped from a door in Fifty-first 
 Street, not a hundred yards from Fifth Avenue, and 
 peered carefully eastward and then as carefully west- 
 ward. On his head he wore a broad-brimmed black 
 hat and in his right hand he carried a black club bag. 
 
 He stepped quickly down to the street, where a taxi- 
 cab stood waiting. He crossed to the curb, stooping 
 against the heavy slant of rain that swept down from 
 the east. The taxi-driver, huddled back out of the 
 drip from his cab-hood, nodded a head half -buried in a 
 water-proof helmet, blithely said " Yep " to a second 
 question from the new-comer, and speeded up his 
 engine. 
 
 The man with the club bag again looked up and 
 down the street, directed the driver to hurry him to 
 Dirlam's Casino by way of Fifty-ninth Street and 
 Broadway, and then stepped into the cab and slammed 
 the door after him. 
 
 It was an inclement night for an excursion in even a 
 closed carriage. The cross-street stood as empty as a 
 drained flume-way, the pooled asphalt throwing up 
 scattered reflections of the lonely city lamps. The 
 floor of Fifth Avenue, washed as clean as a ballroom 
 
 and shimmering like a mirror, undulated mistily north- 
 
 115
 
 116 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 ward. It was a canyon of silence along which the 
 only sound was the periodic clatter of non-skid chains 
 and the throb of an occasional motor-engine. New 
 York stood like a city suddenly depopulated by some 
 vast cataclysm. 
 
 The benignant looking Southerner in the black rain- 
 coat pounded sharply on the cab-front when his driver, 
 apparently forgetful of instructions, jolted over the 
 Fifty-ninth Street car-tracks and swerved to the right 
 through the Park entrance beside the Sherman Statue. 
 
 " I said by way of Broadway," he peremptorily 
 called out. 
 
 But the speeding car kept on its way, the driver ap- 
 parently oblivious of the fact that he was being ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 His angry fare flung open the cab door, thrust one. 
 foot out on the running board, and for a second time 
 shouted for his driver to swing about. 
 
 But still the car continued on its way. 
 
 The benignant looking Southerner thereupon 
 reached about with one long arm and pounded on the 
 body of that insensate driver. There was nothing for 
 that driver to do but slow down, stare stupidly about 
 and demand what was wrong. But the car still crept 
 slowly northward. 
 
 " Where are you goin', anyway ? " demanded the 
 driver, making note of the fact that they had already 
 reached the lower end of the Mall. 
 
 " You know where I am going and you know the way 
 I told you to go," proclaimed the man in the black 
 rain-coat. 
 
 " What fell's the use of circlin' the Island to get to
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 117 
 
 Dirlam's ? " he expostulated. " I'm takin' you the 
 shortest way up, ain't I ? ' 
 
 " Get out of this Park," shouted back his fare with 
 an unreasonable show of anger. But the car was still 
 crawling forward. 
 
 " Then I'll cut out through the Seventy-second 
 Street gate," announced the man on the driving-seat 
 as he speeded up again. He had the inward satisfac- 
 tion of hearing the taxi-door slam shut. He took a 
 turn at high speed to the west, tried to correct what 
 appeared a mistake, turned again, skidded, and came 
 up with a bump against the stone base of a large drink- 
 ing-fountain. 
 
 The cab-door opened again as the driver emerged 
 from under his water-proof apron. He found himself 
 assailed by an oath of anger which seemed quite out of 
 keeping with that benignant looking figure in black. 
 
 "What is it this time?" 
 
 " Engine's gone dead," was the gloomy response. 
 He walked to the front of the car and began to crank. 
 
 Then he stood up, with a gesture of helplessness, 
 staring about as though looking for some quarter 
 from which help might miraculously come. But they 
 seemed alone in a world of driving rain. 
 
 Then the driver stepped about to the side of the car, 
 placing one hand against the partly opened door, for 
 he saw that his fare had taken up the black bag and 
 was about to step out. 
 
 " You know anything about engines ? " he demanded, 
 blocking the other's way. He made a pretence of 
 doing this unconsciously. But the other man had 
 grown suddenly suspicious.
 
 118 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Look here," said the man in the car, twisting 
 angrily about so that he faced the driver through the 
 cab-door, *' if you try any " 
 
 That was as far as the tall Southerner got. For 
 out of the dripping shrubbery a third figure had 
 emerged, had stepped up to the running board, and 
 had opened the opposite door of the cab. And the 
 next moment a crooked arm was thrown tightly about 
 Hardman's neck and the cab was thumping and rock- 
 ing with the tumult of the sudden struggle. 
 
 The driver did not even wait to determine the out- 
 come of that encounter. He ran to the front of his 
 car, cranked his engine, and climbed into his seat. He 
 could still feel the cab rock and jolt with the fury of 
 the struggle going on inside. From that narrow little 
 arena he could hear short gasps and grunts which 
 warned him that the fight was not as one-sided as it 
 had promised to be. And by the light of a nearby 
 Park lamp Wilshach could see slowly approaching 
 them the great waterproofed figure of a policeman. 
 He knew that this officer's curiosity had been aroused. 
 So he dropped his revolver back in his pocket and 
 speeded up his engine, knowing the racing machinery 
 would serve as a muffler to the more dangerous sounds 
 from within the cab. 
 
 Then Wilsnach's heart came up in his throat, for 
 above the other noises rang out the quick report of a 
 pistol-shot. At the same time a bullet tore its way 
 out through the roof of the cab-hood. Then came a 
 moment of more frenzied agitation and threshing 
 about, and then comparative silence. 
 
 Wilsnach, pedalling his accelerator, still let his
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 119 
 
 motor flutter, uncertain as to how to act. He dare 
 not swing about to investigate, for the approaching 
 officer was already within forty feet of him, and he 
 felt the possible need of that officer if things had al- 
 ready gone against them. 
 
 Then the next moment his ear caught the rattle of 
 the dropped door-glass. At the same time that the 
 huge-bodied officer in the dripping raincoat drew up 
 on the other side of the fountain Kestner's head ap- 
 peared through the open window. Between his lips he 
 held a freshly lighted cigar which served to explain 
 the small cloud of smoke drifting thinly out from under 
 the cab-hood. 
 
 " Driver, what the devil's the matter with that 
 engine of yours ? " promptly demanded the man with 
 the cigar. 
 
 " She's all right now she was only back firm' 
 that time," cheerily announced Wilsnach as he let in 
 his clutch and got under way. 
 
 The waterproofed officer stood watching them. He 
 stood there immobile, without speaking, the car-lamps 
 refracting from his wet oil-skins in a hundred scatter- 
 ing high-lights. He stood there, ominous, colossal, 
 heavily impassive, as the taxicab made its turn and 
 swung so close to him that he could have reached out 
 and touched its hood. 
 
 Wilsnach held his breath, wondering if he was to be 
 stopped or not, knowing better than to turn and look 
 back. Then he breathed again, for they had already 
 taken the turn to the west and no word had been 
 spoken. 
 
 It was Kestner's voice that came to him, calm, and
 
 120 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 reassuring, through the open cab-door as they swung 
 down into the West Drive. 
 
 " I had to knock him out with the butt of his gun. 
 Slow down a little until I go through his pockets." 
 
 Wilsnach crawled forward until Kestner suddenly 
 commanded him to stop. 
 
 " There's an empty taxi. I'll catch that, and cut 
 across to the Avenue." He was out on the running- 
 board by this time, with the black bag in his hand, 
 hailing the passing taxicab. Then he turned back to 
 Wilsnach. " Your man's still down and out in there. 
 Pick up that federal tailer at the Circle and get to the 
 Forty-seventh Street station as fast as you can. 
 Then make for the Lambert house. We're behind 
 time, and this is just the beginning of our night's 
 work!"
 
 VI 
 
 IT was twelve minutes later that Kestner stepped 
 from his taxi-cab in front of the Union Club, paid his 
 driver, and effected a careful scrutiny of Fifty-first 
 Street before passing in through the ponderous doors 
 of the Club itself. 
 
 His visit within those doors, however, was a brief 
 one. Having made reasonably sure that he was not 
 shadowed, he crossed Fifth Avenue and made his way 
 westward along Fifty-first Street, facing the steady 
 downpour which still deluged the city. 
 
 Then he went quietly up a wide flight of brownstone 
 house-steps, as quietly inserting in the door lock one 
 of the keys which he had taken from Lambert's pocket. 
 
 He opened the door without appreciable sound, 
 sidling quickly in and as quickly closing the heavy 
 door behind him. 
 
 Then he stood motionless in the unlighted entrance 
 hall, with every sense alert, silently appraising the 
 situation which lay before him. 
 
 He knew that he was on delicate ground, with a 
 delicate task ahead of him. And he did not care to 
 make a mis-step. 
 
 He stood there with ears strained, peering through 
 the unbroken gloom. At one moment he thought he 
 heard a sound somewhere in the undecipherable depths 
 
 of the house. But he could not be sure of this. Yet 
 
 121
 
 122 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 he waited again, remembering that time was a matter 
 of importance to him. And as he stood there he was 
 oppressed by the consciousness that his method was 
 as odious as his mission. But he knew that now there 
 could be neither hesitation nor compromise. He was 
 in the fight, and it had to be fought out. 
 
 His first task, once he felt the way was clear, was to 
 get rid of his dripping raincoat and watersoaked hat. 
 These he took off. Then groping about for the club 
 bag which he had carried in with him, he moved silently 
 forward, feeling his way as he went. The rubbers 
 which he wore on his feet, he knew, would make his 
 advance a noiseless one. 
 
 He found a door to the left, standing partly open, 
 and groped his way through it, disturbed by the fact 
 that he was leaving a trail of water-drops after him 
 as he moved. Even in this inner room he did not risk 
 a light. But when his groping fingers came in contact 
 with what proved to be a bevel-fronted cabinet on 
 heavily carved legs, he pushed hat, coat, and club bag 
 well in under this piece of furniture. Then he turned 
 about and made his way deeper into the house. 
 
 So far, he felt, luck had been with him. And luck 
 was no insignificant feature in work such as his, where 
 a turn of the hand brought a contingency that had not 
 been counted on or a peril that had been unappre- 
 hended. Yet he had laid his plans carefully, and so 
 far nothing had gone amiss. 
 
 He drew up, suddenly, subconsciously warned of a 
 condition that was not normal, vaguely disconcerted 
 by something which for a moment he could not define. 
 
 Then the truth of the matter came home to him.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 He could feel a faint current of cooler air blowing 
 against his face. And as he crept on, from somewhere 
 in front of him, he could hear the steady patter of 
 falling raindrops. 
 
 That meant, he felt, that a door or window was 
 open at the back of the house. And it was a conclu- 
 sion which did not add to his sense of comfort. But he 
 could not afford to leave it unexplained. 
 
 He groped his way on, veering through an open door 
 and threading his way about furniture, until he had 
 traversed the full length of the house. And in front 
 of him, as he had feared, he found an open window and 
 the rain blowing against a gently-flapping curtain- 
 end. 
 
 He studiously explored the sash of this window. A 
 little tingle of apprehension went through him as he 
 did so, for his inquisitively caressing fingers told him 
 how a segment, large enough to admit a man's hand, 
 had been cut out of an inner window pane corner. It 
 had obviously been scratched with a diamond chip, 
 tapped sharply until the crack followed the line of the 
 scratch, and then lifted away with a suction-cap. A 
 hand had been reached in and unlocked the window. 
 And it was ten to one that the owner of that hand was 
 still in the house where Kestner stood. It was the 
 practised work of the practised house-breaker and 
 porch-climber, and Kestner knew just what to expect 
 from such gentry. 
 
 His first move was to lift his revolver from its none 
 too convenient hip-pocket and drop it into the right- 
 hand pocket of his coat. Then he stood listening 
 again, straining his eyes through the darkness, dis-
 
 THE HAND OF PERU, 
 
 turbed by the thought that plans so carefully laid 
 could be so gratuitously disrupted by a factor on 
 which he had failed to count. 
 
 He moved towards the front of the house again, 
 following the wall as he went, with his right hand close 
 to his side, ready for action. He paused when he 
 reached the hall, pondering what his next step should 
 be. 
 
 Then he crouched back, with every muscle tense, for 
 there came to his ear the sudden and distinct sound of a 
 key being fitted into the door that opened from the 
 street. 
 
 He had no time to turn and find a hiding place. 
 The door had already opened and a figure was stepping 
 in. Then the door was heard to close again, shutting 
 out the sound of the beating rain. 
 
 As Kestner stood with his back to the wall and his 
 revolver in his hand, he could detect a newer small 
 odour, the odour of rainsoaked garments on a warm 
 body. He knew that the man was standing there, not 
 five paces from him, listening as intently as he him- 
 self was listening. He could hear the faint drip of 
 the water from the wet coat. He could even catch the 
 sound of the other's breathing. The next moment, 
 too, he could hear the subdued movement of feet as 
 that newcomer advanced deeper into the house. He 
 could hear a sleeve-button as it tapped against the 
 newel-post at the foot of the stairway, while a hand 
 groped through the darkness for the banister. 
 
 Kestner could have reached out and touched the 
 hesitating figure as it stood there. But he crouched 
 back, ready for the worst, hoping against hope that
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 125; 
 
 the light would not be switched on. The next sound 
 that came to him was a sigh, and then the faint stir 
 and rustle of cloth. Kestner knew the man was taking 
 off his wet overcoat and hanging it across the banister- 
 rail. On it, he knew, that the man was next balancing 
 his rainsoaked hat. Then the steps went slowly and 
 stealthily up the stairway. 
 
 Kestner waited until they took the turn at the head 
 of the stairs. Then he reached over and examined the 
 wet hat, gauging its dimensions with his distended 
 fingers, sniffing at it as a hound might. Then he felt 
 quickly through the dripping raincoat, attempting to 
 verify the disquieting suspicion that the newcomer was 
 indeed Morello. But the overcoat held nothing to 
 confirm this fear. 
 
 Kestner no longer hesitated. He felt his way about 
 the newel-post, creeping up the stairs as quietly as 
 the man who had preceded him. Looking up, at the 
 first turn, he was able to make out a faint glimmer of 
 light falling across the well of the stairway on the 
 floor stiU one flight above him. So he crept on, his 
 rubber-soled feet deadening the sound of his steps. 
 
 He drew up, suddenly, as his head reached the level 
 of this second floor, for blocked out against the oblong 
 of light in a partly opened door he could see the figure 
 of the newcomer. And it took no second glance to tell 
 him that it was indeed Morello Morello who by that 
 hour should have been well on his way to Washington. 
 
 Something suspended and guarded in the pose of 
 that figure told Kestner that within the lighted room 
 was a third person, and that the movements of this 
 third person were being watched by Morello. And
 
 126 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Kestner felt reasonably sure that this third person 
 could be no one but Maura Lambert. 
 
 He had scarcely time to digest this discovery before 
 he became aware of the fact that Morello himself had 
 suddenly and noiselessly sidled in through the partly 
 opened door. Kestner waited, breathless, for some 
 cry of alarm at that sudden invasion, or for at least 
 the quick give and take of angry voices. But no sound 
 came to him. 
 
 He waited for a moment or two and then the sus- 
 pense became more than he cared to endure. He crept 
 up the rest of the stairway and circled about to the 
 partly opened door. Then he stooped forward and 
 peered into the room. 
 
 In front of a dressing-table surmounted by a three- 
 panelled mirror he could plainly see Maura Lambert. 
 She was seated there in the full light of the two electric- 
 globes on either side of her mirror. She wore a loose- 
 sleeved dressing-gown of rose-coloured silk, open at the 
 throat. Her hair was down, and in her right hand she 
 held a silver-backed brush. She was not, at the mo- 
 ment, making use of this brush. She was leaning for- 
 ward a little, staring absently into the middle panel of 
 her looking-glass. 
 
 Kestner could see both the clear-cut profile and the 
 reflected image of her in the mirror. He could see the 
 ivory whiteness of the rounded throat, the shimmer of 
 the heavy cascade of loosened hair, the soft line of one 
 relaxed arm, almost white against the rose-colour of 
 her gown. And more than ever before a wayward im- 
 pression of her sheer physical beauty swept over him. 
 
 It was the first time he had ever seen her in a moment
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 of impassivity, quite off her guard, with that touch of 
 wistfulness which comes to humanity when alone with 
 its own thoughts. He could detect a look of vague 
 trouble about the idly staring eyes, a sense of want 
 about the slightly parted lips, a listlessness about the 
 droop of the forward-bent body hooded by its cascade 
 of dull chestnut. 
 
 But Kestner gave little thought to this. For he had 
 made the further discovery that Morello himself stood 
 in that room, within six feet of the door. And the man 
 peering through this door realised why Morello's ad- 
 vent had as yet remained undiscovered by the girl in 
 front of the mirror. A few steps inside the door stood 
 a panel-screen of rose and gold, and behind this screen 
 Morello still crouched. 
 
 There seemed something intent and animal-like in his 
 pose, and at the same time something childlike and 
 ludicrous. Kestner could not analyse this mixed im- 
 pression. He had scarcely time to make note of it, 
 for at that moment he heard a sudden gasp from the 
 woman in front of the mirror, and he knew she must 
 have discovered she was being watched.
 
 THE rose-clad woman in front of the dressing-table 
 lid not scream out. She did not even swing about in 
 lier fragile-looking chair of cream and gold. She sat, 
 leaning a little forward, staring past her own image in 
 the mirror. 
 
 Her face had lost the last of its colour. Her arms, 
 Xestner could now see, were stippled with a faint mot- 
 tling of colour. The droop of the torso was eloquent 
 af suddenly diverted attention. It was plain that she 
 i*ad caught sight of the head about the screen-top. 
 Then her prepossession seemed to return to her, for 
 ahe suddenly rose from her chair and faced the other 
 aide of the room. 
 
 It was at the same moment that Morello, nettled by 
 the discovery of his spying attitude, stepped into the 
 open. The two strangely divergent figures stood con- 
 fronting each other for several seconds of unbroken 
 silence. Then the woman spoke. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " she demanded, her 
 voice clear and reed-like but a little tense with its angry 
 hallenge. 
 
 u I came back 1 " Morello spoke quietly, almost 
 faunbly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 ** I came back," he repeated, " -for yaw! " 
 
 He held out his two hands as he spoke, with a gesture 
 128
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 129 
 
 that was characteristically Latin, as exotic as the 
 intonation of the English which he spoke almost with- 
 out accent. But Kestner noticed that the outstretched 
 hands were shaking a little. 
 
 " Tony," demanded the woman again, more sharply 
 this time, " what does this mean ? " 
 
 He took a step nearer to her before he spoke again* 
 Kestner could detect a growing tenseness in that 
 strange and swarthy figure. He could see an animal- 
 like radiance in the seal-brown eyes. Malignancy was 
 not the note of that passionate figure. It seemed more 
 one of tragic misery. 
 
 " I can not wait I can not ! " Morello half -whis- 
 pered, closing the fingers of his outstretched hands and 
 then drawing his arms quickly back until the closed 
 fists smote on his breast. It was an eloquent gesture ; 
 unconsciously it made the watching Kestner think of a 
 grand-opera hero : its one redemption was its sincerity. 
 
 " You were to meet Fonaro in Washington," the 
 woman said with a sharp note of reproof. 
 
 " No, that was useless. I have been shadowed. I 
 was followed. I saw it was no good. So I turned 
 back." 
 
 She stood studying him. 
 
 " Then you were followed here," she cried. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "That was impossible," he replied, with his eyes 
 always fixed on her face. 
 
 " Nothing is impossible, with things as they are ! " 
 she quickly warned him. 
 
 " It is impossible," he repeated. 
 
 " And you knew I was alone ? "
 
 130 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Yes," he admitted, with the imploring hands again 
 thrust out towards her. " I knew, and I came." 
 
 She was breathing more quickly by this time and a 
 touch of colour had come to either cheek. 
 
 " Then you must go ! " was her summary command. 
 
 The Neapolitan stood with his head bowed. " I can 
 not," he said with almost a moan. 
 
 Maura Lambert took a step nearer him and was 
 about to speak when the telephone-bell on the dressing- 
 table shrilled out a sudden alarm. She crossed to the 
 table and took up the receiver, cupping the bell with 
 her hand. She sat listening, poured a quick torrent of 
 French into the 'phone and then sat listening again, 
 interrupting with an intent monosyllable or two. 
 Then she hung up the receiver and swung about on 
 Morello. 
 
 " Listen," she said sharply. " There's been trouble. 
 Father was shadowed and held up in Central Park. 
 They struck him and took everything. He pretended 
 to be unconscious until the chance came, then he 
 slipped out of the cab and got away in the Park. 
 He's just sent word to Cherry and Fontana! " 
 
 She pressed her hands against her side with a gesture 
 of despair, oblivious for the moment of Morello and 
 his presence. " It's the same thing over again the 
 same thing over ! " 
 
 " It will always be the same thing over, now," 
 Morello reminded her. 
 
 " We can't stay here," she said, still oblivious of 
 him, still unconscious of the luminous seal-brown eyes 
 watching her. 
 
 " You will have to come with me," he said.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 131 
 
 " With you ? " she demanded, staring at him witK 
 slowly awakening eyes. " And where will I go with 
 you?" 
 
 " I do not care so long as you come," was his 
 passionate declaration. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you there was to be no more of this ? " 
 she demanded, fixing him with a gaze as cold as glacial 
 ice. But he seemed conscious of only one compulsion, 
 swept by only one emotion. 
 
 " / love you! " he suddenly cried out, the words seem- 
 ing to erupt from a volcano that could not be con- 
 trolled. 
 
 It startled Kestner a little to see that the tears were 
 streaming down the Neapolitan's face, that his body 
 was shaking with the passion that swept it. 
 
 Yet the girl turned studiously about and placed the 
 silver-backed hair-brush on her dressing table. Then 
 she stepped quietly over to where he stood, facing him 
 fearlessly, with a brow still slightly wrinkled in 
 thought. She opened her lips to speak. But Morello 
 drowned her first words in his suddenly repeated cry 
 of ** / love you! " He lifted his two hands quaveringly, 
 one on each side of her uncovered arms. They came 
 together and touched the bare flesh. Then with a sob 
 he seized her. 
 
 His arms went about her slender body, crushing it 
 and drawing it in against his own. He held her, 
 writhing and twisting, until there seemed something 
 antediluvial and barbaric in their struggles, in the 
 woman's cloud of tangled and tossing hair, in her 
 gasping cry that was shut off by Morello's mouth 
 closing over her own.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Then Kestner could stand it no longer. He felt 
 that his moment had come, and he made ready for it. 
 
 Yet he did not spring into the room. Every tense 
 chord suddenly relaxed, for quick as thought the scene 
 had taken on a new and quite unexpected aspect. The 
 door just beyond the screen of rose and gold had 
 quickly opened and a third figure had suddenly crossed 
 the room. It at once reminded Kestner of the opened 
 back window belowstairs, for in one hand this figure 
 held a burglar's billy. One glance at that roughly 
 clad interloper, with his narrow and rat-like brow, his 
 weak and vicious mouth, told only too plainly what was 
 coming. 
 
 There was a cat-like quickness in his movement as 
 he struck at Morello. Well directed as that blow was, 
 the Neapolitan did not go down. He staggered, threw 
 his arms up, and swung about. He was groping for 
 his revolver when the second blow came. Then the 
 man with the billy, comprehending the movement, 
 clinched, and fought with the fury of a wharf-rat. 
 The screen of rose and gold went down in the struggle ; 
 a chair was overturned. Instinctively Morello gave way 
 before that shower of blows. The two had fought 
 their way to the doorway before Kestner realised the 
 necessity of slipping back into the darkness. Then 
 came another blow, at the base of the skull, and 
 Morello went down like a stockyard steer, without a 
 aound. 
 
 The rat-browed victor dropped on one knee beside 
 1dm. A second later he had possession of the revolver. 
 With an equally quick movement or two he had taken 
 money there was in the unconscious man's
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 pockets. Then he turned the vanquished man over 8 
 pushing him towards the head of the stairs. One final 
 shove, as the inert figure balanced there, sent Morell* 
 rolling down the wide stairway-. A moment later th* 
 conqueror had darted back into the room. 
 
 " Git into that corner 1 " Kestner could hear him 
 cry out. The cry brought Kestner back to the door- 
 way, with his own revolver in his hand. 
 
 " Git back there, quick ! " barked the housebreaker, 
 accentuating the command with an oath. Then ls 
 stood, squint-eyed in front of her, staring at the 
 white column of her throat, at the torn front of her 
 dressing-gown, at the quick rise and fall of her bosonv 
 
 " No wonder th' guinney fell f'r yuh," he said witfc 
 a contemplative bark of a laugh. 
 
 " What do you want? " she asked, pure terror in her 
 voice by this time. 
 
 " Wat do I want ? " repeated the man with the re- 
 volver. " First t'ing I want some o' the money that's 
 rottin' round this house. Then I want " He broke 
 off with a raucous and mirthless cackle of a laugh. 
 
 " There's no money here." 
 
 " No money? " he mocked. " Not a cent t' play th" 
 ponies wit', day after day, I s'pose? Honey-bird, I 
 got me tip straight, an' I'm goin' to git me haul." 
 
 She struggled to achieve an appearance of calmness. 
 But her hand was shaking as she looked at the watch 
 hanging by its slender gold chain from her neck. 
 " Unless you get that haul in five minutes there will be 
 other people in this house ! " 
 
 The man's response to that threat was both quick 
 and decisive.
 
 134 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Gi' me that timepiece ! " 
 
 She hesitated, with her eyes meeting his. He swung 
 out a hand, caught the watch, and with a quick jerk 
 broke the chain from her neck. 
 
 " Now the junk out o' them drawers ! " he com- 
 manded. 
 
 She turned to the dressing-table, the man with the 
 revolver stepping after her. He stood directly behind 
 her, with his head thrust forward like the head of a 
 fighting-cock, following every move she made. 
 
 Kestner could wait no longer. He had suffered too 
 much through the interference of others ; and time, he 
 knew, was terribly precious. 
 
 His rubbers made his footsteps noiseless as he glided 
 into the room. When he sprang for the man with the 
 revolver it was with a down-sweep of two outstretched 
 arms. 
 
 That impact, from a quarter so unexpected, not only 
 sent the man staggering forward, but struck the poised 
 right arm with the revolver sharply floorward, the 
 sudden finger pressure on the trigger exploding one 
 chamber as they fell. But Ke*stner's grip on the other 
 man was well placed and that other man's arms were 
 pinioned close to his side as the two of them went down. 
 
 The woman swung about with a sound, half-gasp 
 and half-scream, at the struggle so close to her. That 
 struggle was still going on as she suddenly ran for- 
 ward, stooped down, and wrenched the firearm from 
 the clutch of the overtaxed burglar. Then she backed 
 away, conscious that she was mistress of the situation. 
 
 Kestner heard her sharp call of command to him. 
 But he ignored it, for his fighting blood was up and his
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 135 
 
 rat-browed adversary had betrayed a desire to close 
 his teeth on Kestner's thumb. 
 
 The woman repeated the command, more sharply, 
 but still the fight went on. When it was over and 
 Kestner stooped, panting, with one knee on the other 
 man's chest, that other man showed a sadly battered 
 face and a much subdued spirit. On the whole, Kest- 
 ner grimly remembered, it had been an evening of un- 
 commonly active pugilism. 
 
 " Stand up," Maura Lambert was commanding 
 him as he stopped to wipe the sweat from his eyes. 
 Her face disturbed him. Never before had he seen it 
 wear a look so steely. There was something ominous 
 in her very calmness. 
 
 " Stand up ! " she repeated with the revolver cover- 
 ing him. 
 
 Kestner slowly and reluctantly rose to his feet. As 
 the other man made an effort to raise himself the 
 woman stepped back quickly. " Don't move," she 
 called out to this other man, her voice now breaking 
 shrill with tension, " or I'll kill yowl " Then she 
 turned back to Kestner. 
 
 " You have a revolver," she said. " Where is it ? " 
 
 Kestner did not answer her, for at that moment still 
 another figure stepped into the room. It was the fig- 
 ure of a young woman in a sodden-plumed hat and 
 a dripping cravenette coat. And it took only a glance 
 at that pert young face to see that the newcomer was 
 Sadie Wimpel. 
 
 " Hully gee," was her slightly breathless cry as her 
 gaze swept the room, " this sure looks like somethin' 
 doin' here too ! "
 
 136 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Cherry, take that man's revolver," commanded 
 Maura Lambert, " and then get what this other man 
 has taken ! " 
 
 " Sure," answered the girl. She stepped over to 
 Kestner and proceeded to " frisk " him. The other 
 woman commanded the burglar to get to his feet. 
 
 " Pipe the cop ! " exclaimed Cherry as she lifted the 
 two pairs of polished metal handcuffs from Kestner's 
 pocket. Then she glanced disdainfully at the rat- 
 browed burglar whom the other woman had backed up 
 beside Kestner. " An' who's th' high-brow ? " she non- 
 chalantly inquired as she went on with her search. 
 
 Then she stopped, listening. She ran across the 
 room and out into- the hall, leaning over the banister 
 for a moment or two. Her jocularity had departed 
 when she returned to the room. 
 
 " Lady, we've gotta beat it when the goin's good ! 
 That's the Governer's signal ! " 
 
 " Are you sure ? " asked the other woman. 
 
 "Sure? Ain't he just gathered up Tony an' the 
 bag full o' paper an' this guy's overcoat? An' ain't 
 he sendin' me up here to give you th' tip before th' line 
 closes in on us ? " 
 
 " Then what can we do with this man ? " asked the 
 woman with the revolver. Her eyes met Kestner's; 
 then she looked away. 
 
 " Keep 'em covered an' I'll fix that," announced the 
 girl as she ran over to where Kestner stood, caught 
 him by the coat-sleeve and quickly snapped a pair of 
 his own handcuffs over his wrists. She did the same 
 with the smaller man beside him. Only, before she 
 snapped the last cuff on that soiled and skinny wrist,
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 1 1*7 
 
 die suddenly linked his free hand through Kestner*s 
 locked arms. This left the incongruous pair linked 
 together, arm in arm. Then the girl ran to the stair- 
 head for a second time. 
 
 " F'r th' love o' Mike, get a move on ! " she called 
 impatiently back. . . . And when Wilsnach arrived, 
 twelve minutes later, he found Kestner sitting on the 
 bedroom window-sill, morosely chewing on an un- 
 lighted cigar and linked to an even more morose-look- 
 ing burglar with a brow like a rat ! And Wilsnach 
 knew that for the third time they had failed.
 
 PART IV 
 THE QUARTERS OFF THE AVENUE
 
 KESTNEB waited until the chamber-maid had fin- 
 ished putting his newly acquired room to rights. He 
 waited still another moment or two until he heard 
 the click of her pass-key in a room farther down the 
 hall. Then he locked the door with its safety-latch, 
 opened his suit-case and from it lifted out a coil of 
 insulated wire, a dry-cell little bigger than a cigarette 
 case, and a telephonic helmet made up of a band of 
 spring-steel with two small watch-case receivers at- 
 tached to its ends. Then he went to the window, 
 opened it, and from an awning hook on the outside un- 
 wound the loose ends of two insulated wires. 
 
 These he drew in over the sill, shutting the window 
 down on them and carefully connecting them with the 
 ends of wire which he had taken from his suit-case. 
 Having drawn down the window-blinds, he switched 
 on the electric lights, swung an arm chair about, so 
 that his back would be to the electrolier, and placed 
 on the table beside him a pile of morning papers and 
 a copy of the " Isle of Penguins." 
 
 He next adjusted the helmet to his head, fitting the 
 microphones over his ears. He seated himself in his 
 chair, with one knee crooked leisurely over the leather- 
 covered arm. Thereupon he took out a cigar, lighted 
 
 it, and lay back in his chair calmly and contentedly 
 
 141
 
 142 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 perusing one of the morning papers which he had 
 picked up from the table beside him. 
 
 Kestner had not read more than a quarter of a col- 
 umn before he let the paper drop in his lap, and sat 
 listening, with his head a little on one side. Thinly 
 but distinctly, along the thread of silk-covered copper 
 which connected the receiver at his ear with the dicto- 
 phone transmitter concealed behind the window-cur- 
 tains in the room below, came the sound of a piano. 
 Kestner, as he continued to listen, recognised the air. 
 It was Rubinstein's Barcarole, and it was being ex- 
 tremely well played. 
 
 The piano-music continued, stopped, and began 
 again. Then still again it stopped. Kestner, as he 
 dropped his paper, caught the distinct and unmistak- 
 able sound of a door being closed. 
 
 Then came the sound of voices, thin but clear, over 
 that connecting thread of copper. And with the 
 opening words, Kestner knew it was Cherry Dreiser 
 alias Sadie Wimpel alias Fuggy Mason who was speak- 
 ing. 
 
 " How's that for stealin' a base ? " demanded the 
 pert and slightly nasal voice of the shover for the 
 Lambert counterfeiters. Her inquiry was followed 
 by a chuckle of satisfaction. 
 
 " Are you sure you weren't noticed ? " It was 
 Maura Lambert's voice that sounded next, deeper and 
 fuller-noted than the other woman's. 
 
 " Dead sure ! I beat it up to the seventh floor ; 
 then I walked down three. An' when I meets a floor- 
 skirt on the stairs I brush by with a Chilcoot stare 
 that leaves her frozen to the marble ! "
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 143 
 
 " But why have you kept us waiting and worrying 
 so long? " asked the more solemn voice. 
 
 "Ain't a girl like me gotta look out for herself? 
 Ain't I hep to what's goin' to happen to this gang? " 
 
 " Nothing can happen to this gang, Sadie, so long 
 as we stick together ! " was the answer. 
 
 " Can't it ? With that sleepy-eyed slooth f r'm 
 over the water doggin' us ev'ry step we take! Oh, I 
 see the Gov'nor's finish, an' I see it close! Why, I 
 can't slide into a pt>ol-room an' lay a bet without 
 havin' some one lookin' over me shoulder an' countin' 
 me change ! An' this shadow business is sure givin' 
 me the Willies ! Doggone it, I want somethin' I can 
 freeze onto, this time. I've always been fooled. 
 That Count dub I married in Monte Carlo turned out 
 to be a bank-sneak. That Hinkle man I loved like 
 a father was nothing but a mail-pouch thief lookin' 
 for a capper. That American photographer who 
 wanted me to hit the state-fair circuits with him had 
 cooked up a panel-game so's I could go through a 
 haytosser's clothes while he took his photograph in a 
 cow-boy rig-out! They was grafters, dearie, ev'ry 
 last one o' them, an' I was hungerin' for a Harlem flat 
 and the simple life ! " 
 
 " Then what do you intend to do? " asked the 
 deeper voice, none too sympathetically. 
 
 " Why, I inten' to cotton to that bunch o' rhino an' 
 make hay while the sun shines! D'ye get me? I've 
 got a cherub-faced old guy from Saginaw, who's made 
 a million out o' Michigan lumber an' never learnt how 
 to spend it. I'm- going to kindergarten him into the 
 trick o' movin' through the white lights ! I'm goin'
 
 144 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 to mason-jar this sucked orange stuff an* freeze onto 
 that old guy. I'm sick o' bein' a dip an' capper and 
 livin' like a street cat ! " 
 
 " And then what? " 
 
 " I'm thinkin' some of starrin', if things come my 
 way. An' that old geezer is certainly crazy about 
 me. He's got dropsy, an' a face like a Dutch cheese, 
 but he's just famishin' for a female who'll be half-way 
 decent to him an' tote him aroun' to the Broadway 
 shows an' help him with his pinochle on rainy nights ! 
 A girl's always got a better chance with an old guy 
 like that. They kind o' git grateful. So I'm goin* 
 to kick in when the kickin's easy ! " 
 
 " Cherry, you can't do a thing like this ! I couldn't 
 believe it of you ! " 
 
 The other girl laughed. 
 
 " Wait until you see me steam down the White Lane 
 dolled up like a Longacre Squab ! That'll be better'n 
 gettin' chased off the map by a bunch o' federal flat- 
 ties, I guess. Why, I gotta do it, to save me neck! 
 I've been sufferin' from chronic cold feet ever since 
 this gink Kestner landed on us ! I ain't got the nerve 
 to break a plugged nickel for a postage-stamp with- 
 out gettin' a chill wonderin' who's goin' to spring on 
 me with the wrist irons ! An' once they get your fin- 
 ger-prints down at headquarters, what chanct has a 
 girl got? You can slide across the pond, an' black- 
 snake round the Loov an' take in early mass at the 
 Madeleine. But I can't get away with that foreign 
 stuff. First place, I git balled up on the languidge. 
 Then I get so homesick I could fall on the neck of 
 ev'ry Cook's tourist that buys American white-wear
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 145 
 
 at the Gallerie Lafayette ! An' I'm canned for Monte 
 Carlo, after that badger coup with old Novikoff ! " 
 
 " Then what do you intend to do ? " 
 
 "Me? Why, I'm goin' to sour on this crime stuff 
 an' reform. Do what I've been tellin' you have a 
 nice old Uncle Updyke an' an electric runabout an' 
 start studyin' for the stage. No, dearie, this ain't no 
 repentance act I'm puttin' over. But I've got the 
 winter to think of. An' I'm tired o' being chased 
 across the map by ev'ry low-brow slooth who owns a 
 nickel lodge-pin. I wanta rest. I'm dead sick o* 
 needle-pumpers an' hop-nuts an' crooks an' dips and 
 con guys. An' I'm dead sick o' the Gov'nor an' his 
 d/iy-dream about makin* eighty million o' counterfeit 
 an' gettin' away with it! It can't be done, dearie. 
 It can't! An' take a little tip from Sadie, an' beat 
 it while the goin's good ! " 
 
 " And what could I gain by that ? " was the quiet- 
 toned and half-indignant inquiry of the other woman. 
 
 " You'd get over havin' heart-failure ev'ry time 
 you hear a bell ring! Hully gee, woman, don't you 
 know that shovin' the queer is a felony in this country 
 an' good for fifteen years with hard labour? D'you 
 expect me to keep me beauty an' have a thing like 
 that to brood over? It's too wearin'! An' if I was 
 in your place, with your lookst, I'd sure tie a tin can 
 to that nutty parent o' yours ! I'd get a smooth 
 talker an' go into suburban real estate or open a swell 
 little bucket-shop down in the Wall Street distric' ! " 
 
 " Cherry, you're talking nonsense, and you know 
 it ! " reproved the fuller-toned voice. 
 
 " No, I ain't. An' I mean it. It don't take me a
 
 146 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 year to crack wise to a fightin' chance. You're a 
 boob to stick to a nut who hasn't a show in the runnin'. 
 He's in bad, an' you know it. An' that guinney Mo- 
 rello's as bughouse as the Gov'nor hisself. He'll 
 hang the Indian sign on you. An' when them dagoes 
 git to makin' love, I want somethin' to back up against 
 so I won't git a knife in the back for stallin' him off 
 when his zooin' bug gits workin' overtime ! They ain't 
 safe, dearie! An' he's so stuck on you he'd file his 
 way into Sing Sing if they sent you up ! " 
 
 " Cherry, you're not telling me the truth about that 
 lumberman from Saginaw ! " 
 
 " So help me Mike, dearie, I got that old pineland 
 fossil so he'll eat out o' my hand! An' I breeze into 
 that house o' his just off the upper Avenoo an' tell the 
 butler I want covers laid for four an' holler for a 
 Clover Club quick before I pass away! Why, all I 
 gotta do is dust the cigar ashes off that ol' guy's 
 vest-front an' feed the gold-fish ! " 
 
 " And what is this going to lead to? " was the other 
 woman's question. " What do you expect to get out 
 of it? " 
 
 " I expec' to git took care of," was the deliberate 
 answer, " an' I expec' to eat regular an' to be able 
 to hold my head up when I walk into a Winter Garden 
 first night and show them lobster-palace broads what 
 a year in Paris can do for a girl who keeps her eyes 
 open ! " 
 
 " And you intend to blackmail that ridiculous old 
 man, the same as you blackmailed Novikoff and " 
 
 " Have a heart, woman, have a heart ! " broke in 
 the other voice. " I've never so much as lifted a
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 147 
 
 baroque-pearl out o' that old guy's stud-set ! I ain't 
 even pinched a coffee spoon. I've got a bigger scheme 
 than that, an' a neater one, an' I'm goin' to land it, 
 or I'm all to the Camembert as a Lambert gang cap- 
 per!" 
 
 " You mean that when you make your haul it will 
 be a big one? " 
 
 " Nix on the rough stuff, lady ! I ain't goin' to 
 loot no Fift' Avenoo home an' I ain't goin' to have a 
 van back up to the curb an' crack that ol' geezer's 
 faith in me. Not on your life. I'm goin' to make this 
 a home run or nothin' ! I ain't goin' to crab a nickel 
 from him. I'm goin' to make that ol' man marry me, 
 an' I'm goin' to make him do it of his own free will! "
 
 II 
 
 THERE was silence for a few moments before the 
 deeper-toned voice of Maura Lambert spoke again. 
 
 " You are going to make this man marry you? " she 
 repeated with a note of incredulity. 
 
 " Sure," was Cherry's airy reply. " Is that any 
 worse than bein' a shover for a run-down gang that 
 dasen't stick a head out o' the shell without havin' a 
 federal slooth starin' it in the eye? " 
 
 " I fancy that federal sleuth will be out of the serv- 
 ice before we are much older," was Maura Lambert's 
 reply. 
 
 " Well, I can't live on promises. I've got my 
 chance with Uncle Updyke, an' I'm goin' to take it. 
 An' he's no piker. Why, the first thing he does is to 
 stow a bond-safe in under the stairs as big as a movin' 
 van. I ain't the rubberin' kind, but I would like to 
 know how much junk he's got in that strong-box o* 
 his. An' that ol' guy's got a Japanese valet who can 
 talk in seven different languidges ! An' me still wres- 
 tlin' with stage-English an' goin' to the mat with the 
 broad A's ! " 
 
 " Sadie, why should a Mackinaw lumberman have a 
 valet who can speak seven different languages ? " de- 
 manded Maura Lambert. 
 
 " Dearie, don't worry about Uncle Updyke. I'm 
 
 the down an' outer in this deal ; an* that's why I got 
 
 148
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 149 
 
 you on the wire this mornin'. You gotta help me out. 
 You gotta dope me out some phoney paper from me 
 Mother-Superior! I know you hate doin' that pen 
 work, but I gotta have somethin' to clinch me past. 
 You gotta forge me a couple o' family charts to 
 steer by ! " 
 
 A moment's silence ensued in that strange conversa- 
 tion. Then Maura Lambert spoke again. 
 " Sadie, where did you meet this man? " 
 " Jus' a minute," reprimanded the other woman. 
 " I wantta put you gerry to my name, from now on. 
 Nix on the Sadie an' the Puggy an' the Wimpel. I've 
 canned that low-brow monacker. After this I'm Fran- 
 cine Florette. Get so you won't be gun-shy to that. 
 An' remember I'm a movie actress temp'ry laid off 
 with water on the knee. An' I've got the knee to show 
 for it. Francine Florette, remember, educated at 
 Ann Arbor an' from an ol' southern family that lost 
 everythin' in the Galveston flood. As for that Uncle 
 Updyke of mine, I met him through Madam De Mar- 
 tinette. She's that astrologist off Herald Square, 
 the fleshy dame who gets fifteen a crack at the crystal, 
 an' fifty for a full readin'. I grubstaked her to tip 
 the old boy off, so things would fall easier for me! 
 An' now he thinks the stars got together an' kind of 
 wished me on him an' calls it Kismet an' spiels about 
 me bein' the reincarnation of his first rag buried out 
 in Kickapoo. How's that for finesse? I guess poor 
 ol' Uncle Updyke's been stung by so many female 
 grafters makin' a straight head-dive for his dough, 
 he's got to dreamin' I'm an angel from above, jus' 
 because I never once squeal for a rake-off ! "
 
 150 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " And still I don't see what you expect out of all 
 this ? " was the somewhat scornful conclusion of the 
 other woman. 
 
 " As I said before, I'm goin' to make that ol' guy 
 marry me. Then I'll have him nailed for life ! If he 
 has the nerve to renig on the splice, I'll cinch him in 
 the only way that's left. I'll clean him out, the first 
 chanct that comes. I'll shovel up ev'ry sou and ev'ry 
 piece of jool'ry I can get in a Gladstone bag an' 
 beat it!" 
 
 " And what good will that do you ? " 
 
 " It'll do me as much good as bein' shover for a 
 note-printer who's goin' to be cornered before he can 
 cry quits ! " 
 
 There was a pause before either spoke again. 
 
 " I almost think you're right," finally admitted 
 Maura Lambert. " I'm beginning to believe he will be 
 cornered, in the end. I feel that we're cornered now, 
 that nothing is safe any more. I always have the im- 
 pression of being watched. I know I was shadowed 
 to the door of this hotel this morning. And I know it 
 will never be safe for me here ! " 
 
 " Then what're you goin' to do about it ? " was the 
 unsympathetic inquiry. 
 
 " You came here to ask for help. But there's one 
 thing in which I've got to ask you for help." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " Wait a minute." 
 
 Kestner, through the silence that ensued, could not 
 catch the sound of any movement, though he felt sure 
 that one of them must have risen and crossed the room.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 151 
 
 " What's the dope? " the voice of Francine Florette 
 finally inquired. 
 
 " I want you to take care of these," the other 
 woman explained. " It's not safe for me to keep 
 them any longer. And you would never be suspected 
 of having them ! " 
 
 " But once more, lady, what's the dope ? " 
 
 " It's the eight plates that we must keep, whatever 
 happens. They've been taken off the blocks and 
 wrapped in strips of one of my silk underskirts. That 
 is so they can't mar or scratch. Then I've sewn them 
 up in this piece of chamois. That makes them into 
 a small parcel." 
 
 The other girl whistled. 
 
 " You're not goin' to hand that hardware over to 
 me? " she demanded. 
 
 " I've got to hand it to somebody, until things clear 
 up!" 
 
 " But what can I do with it? " 
 
 " Simply keep it where it's safe until I come for it, 
 or send for it." 
 
 " But s'posin' that ol' guy got gerry to me bein' 
 mixed up with a bunch o' paper-pushers? It'd queer 
 me for life. He thinks I'm only ten months out of a 
 private school ! " 
 
 " It won't be the plates that will enlighten him ! " 
 
 " But s'posin' they shadow me? " 
 
 " Nobody saw you come here, and nobody need see 
 you go away. It's not the first time you've taken 
 care of them. And they are more important than 
 your Saginaw millionaire."
 
 15* THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Not to me ! " amended the other. 
 
 " They may be, when you find your millionaire 
 out ! " was Maura Lambert's none too sympathetic 
 reply. 
 
 " Aw, don't knock me only life-buoy ! " There was 
 a moment of silence. " An' if I wet-nurse those plate*, 
 do I get that phoney paper about me family-tree? " 
 
 " How soon do you want it ? " 
 
 " The sooner, the better, dearie ! " 
 
 " Then when you hand these plates back to me in 
 three days' time, I'll do what I can for you about the 
 family papers ! " 
 
 " An' I want a couple of mash-notes jus' to show 
 the old geezer he ain't the only pebble ! An' I'll stow 
 that hardware where a truffle-hound couldn't nose it 
 out!" 
 
 There was still another period of silence. 
 
 " They'll go in your muff, you see," said the other 
 more carefully modulated voice, " and no one will be 
 any the wiser ! " 
 
 " Sure," was the abstracted reply. Then came a 
 vague movement or two about the room, and the same 
 voice speaking again. " There's me house number, 
 an' me phone, if anything turns up. But be sure to 
 ask for Francine, dearie, Francine Florette."
 
 Ill 
 
 KESTNER did not wait for more. He did not even 
 tke time to stow away his dry-cell and his dictophone 
 wires. He merely dropped them beside the back wall 
 of the room, pushed an arm chair over the litter to 
 hide it from the casual eye, and made a dive for his hat 
 and coat. 
 
 He was through the door and down the corridor 
 before the elevator boy who had stopped at his floor 
 could slam shut the iron grill and continue his down- 
 ward flight. 
 
 By the time Kestner had reached the street, he had 
 quite recovered his breath and composure, assured of 
 the fact that the woman he wanted had not preceded 
 him. So he lighted a cigar and stood back in the shel- 
 ter of the carriage starter's box. His wait was not a 
 long one. 
 
 His first impression, as he watched Sadie Wimpel 
 alias Francine Florette step to her waiting taxicab 
 door, was that the lady in question seemed very debo- 
 nair as to manner and very resplendent as to attire. 
 His next impression, as she turned to give a word of 
 direction to her driver, was that she was a valuable 
 woman for the work she had elected to follow, a woman 
 of quick wit and pert manners, touched with both au- 
 dacity and the love of adventure, as unconscious of any 
 complicating moral-code as were the birds of the air, 
 
 153
 
 154. THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 as light of heart, indeed, as a city sparrow, as ready 
 to snatch at a chance as a terrier is to snatch at a 
 chicken-bone. She was, he decided, in every way a 
 contradiction of what Maura Lambert stood for and 
 seemed to embody. 
 
 Kestner waited until the taxi was under way. Then 
 he swung himself up on the running-board, caught the 
 handle of the door, opened it, and stepped inside. 
 It was all done so quickly that the driver of the taxi 
 himself was quite ignorant of that intrusion as the 
 car gathered speed and took the turn at the next cor- 
 ner. 
 
 Sadie Wimpel, as Kestner sank down in the seat be- 
 side her, did not scream. She made no movement to 
 escape. She did not change colour, since the rouge 
 on her cheeks was too thick to admit of its being a 
 barometer of her emotions. She merely sank back in 
 her seat, staring at the intruder with half petulant 
 and half interrogative eyes. 
 
 " Hully gee ! " she finally and fretfully remarked. 
 She took a deeper breath as they sped on. " You 
 gumshoe guys sure give me the Willies ! " 
 
 " That's all right, Francine ! " was Kestner's un- 
 concerned retort. He himself leaned forward and 
 glanced out through the taxi window to make sure of 
 their position. 
 
 The girl beside him was silent for a minute or two. 
 
 " Is this a pinch ? " she demanded. 
 
 " Not unless you insist on turning it into one ! " 
 Kestner told her. 
 
 " Then what's the string? " 
 
 " Eight bank-note plates ! "
 
 THE HAND 'OF PERIL 155 
 
 She stared at him with widened eyes. 
 
 " What's the man ravin' about ? " she asked of the 
 circumambient taxi-hood. 
 
 " Eight Lambert counterfeit plates sewn up in a 
 chamois," explained Kestner. 
 
 " Not in my vanity -bag ! " averred Sadie. 
 
 " But in this taxi," insisted Kestner. 
 
 " Search me ! " protested Sadie. 
 
 " That's what I'll have to do," intimated Kestner. 
 He slipped a hand into the muff lying on her knees, 
 and found it empty. 
 
 " Say, Mister Slooth, haven't you got your numbers 
 mixed? " asked the pitying Sadie. 
 
 " It's no use, Sadie. I know. And this is only 
 wasting time and words. I want those eight plates ! " 
 
 " Then you're goin' to do some slick stage-con- 
 jurin' ! " 
 
 " All right, but I'll get them ! " 
 
 " I know a plate when I see it, an' I ain't handled 
 one since meal-time ! " 
 
 " Sadie, we're wasting time. I know what I'm 
 after, and I know that you've got it. Do I get it 
 now, or do we have to go to Bowling Green and see 
 Captain Henry and waste a nice morning in the fed- 
 eral offices ? " 
 
 " But I tell you I ain't got any plates ! " 
 
 " And you didn't leave Maura Lambert's hotel-room 
 ten minutes ago? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 " Rave away," said the resigned Sadie. But she 
 stirred a little uneasily. 
 
 '* Sadie, I don't want to spoil your chances about 
 brushing cigar-ashes off anybody's vest-front, but un-
 
 156 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 less I get those plates, I'm going to stick to you until 
 the cows come home ! " 
 
 Sadie turned and looked at him. Then she sat for 
 a moment in silent thought. 
 
 " Oh, hell ! " she finally said. She stooped forward 
 with a sigh of resignation. " Just gaze out of that 
 window for a moment." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because those plates are stowed away in mj 
 stockin' ! " was her grimly indifferent reply. The 
 taxi-cab had slowed down and was drawing close in be- 
 side the curb. 
 
 Kestner turned perfunctorily away. He heard tht 
 rustle of silken drapery and the sound of a deeper 
 breath from the stooping figure so close to his side. 
 
 " All right," said the young woman so close to him. 
 The taxi-cab by this time had come to a stop. 
 
 Kestner turned about to her. She had swung half 
 round in her seat, and her forward-thrust face was 
 quite close to his. Something about the expression 
 on that face made him glance quickly down. Her 
 right hand, he saw, was held up close to him. But 
 instead of holding the package of plates between her 
 fingers, she held a black-metalled automatic revolver. 
 It was a short and ugly-looking firearm, suggestive of 
 both a Boston bull-terrier in its squat proportions, 
 and, oddly enough, of the girl who held it. Its lines 
 seemed to repeat the lines of that pert and impertinent 
 profile, and one seemed as unexpectedly menacing as 
 the other. 
 
 " Now, Mister Slooth," said the determined rouged 
 lips, " you make one move an' I'll pump your floatin'
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 17. 
 
 ribs so full o' lead you'll look like a range-target! 
 One move an', by Gawd, I mean it ! " 
 
 She groped for the taxi door as she spoke, half ris- 
 ing from her seat and backing slowly away as the door 
 swung open. 
 
 Kestner stared into that crafty and audacious 
 joung face as the girl lifted the revolver so that the 
 round black " O " of its barrel-end gaped insolently 
 and impudently up into his own face. He watched 
 her as she stepped to the running-board of the cab, 
 and from there drew still further back to the curb of 
 the sidewalk. 
 
 " Not a move ! " she warned him, as she slammed 
 shut the cab door behind her. 
 
 She had crossed the sidewalk and was half way up 
 the brownstone steps before he came to a decision. 
 The ignominy of utter inaction, under the circum- 
 stances, was more than he could endure. He decided 
 to take the risk. And taking it, he knew it would have 
 to be taken with a rush, 
 
 He was half up out of his seat before she saw him. 
 She turned fully around, at that, raising her right 
 arm a little as she turned. 
 
 The next moment, Kestner dropped low in the seat, 
 hugging the worn upholstery, for instinctively he knew 
 what was coming. The sharp bark of the revolver 
 mingled with the sudden crash of glass. She had de- 
 liberately shot out the window of the cab door. 
 
 Kestner heard the driver's shout of terror, and felt 
 the sudden pulse of the accelerated engine as the 
 clutch was let in and the cab started forward. The 
 man inside called for the driver to stop, but several
 
 158 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 precious moments slipped by before the order could 
 be understood. And before Kestner could fling him- 
 self from the seat, the girl who had fired from the 
 brownstone steps had slipped inside the house and the 
 door had closed behind her. 
 
 A blue-coat who had heard the shot came on the run 
 from the cross-street to the east. Kestner met him 
 as he came up. 
 
 " There's a woman there in One-twenty-seven we've 
 got to get," cried out the Secret Agent. 
 
 " Who fired that gun ? " demanded the officer. 
 
 " Blow for help," was Kestner's frantic command. 
 
 "Who're you?" 
 
 " Rap for help ! And get a cordon round this 
 block. I'm a federal officer and I've got to get that 
 woman ! " 
 
 "What woman?" 
 
 The officer was already tattooing on the curb-stone 
 with his night-stick. The bounding staff of seasoned 
 ash filled the valley of the street with an odd ringing 
 call that carried even better than a human voice could. 
 Kestner remembered that it was a long time since he 
 had heard the sound of a night-stick drumming the 
 pavement. 
 
 " What's up ? " again asked the still stooping of- 
 ficer, as a second blue-coated figure rounded the cor- 
 ner and approached them on the double quick. 
 
 " It's a counterfeiter," was Kestner's answer, as he 
 made for the steps. " And one with the goods on ! "
 
 IV 
 
 ON the second floor of that house which bore the 
 number of One-hundred-and-twenty-seven, a lank and 
 slatternly young girl was bent over a porcelain bath- 
 tub, scrubbing therefrom the residuary tide-marks of 
 many communal ablutions. Her head was bent low 
 over her work and she saw nothing of the resplendent 
 and somewhat short-winded figure that darted sud- 
 denly up the stairs and contemplated her from the 
 open bath-room door. 
 
 " Sis," demanded this figure, " d'you believe in 
 fairies ? " 
 
 The scrub-girl dropped her scrub-rag and raised a 
 dishevelled head. 
 
 " No, m'm ! " she answered, quite without emotion. 
 
 " Then it's time to ! " was the prompt retort. " I'm 
 your fairy, sis, an' to prove it I'm going to hand you 
 over about a hundred dollars worth o' Fift' Avenoo 
 wearin' apparel ! " 
 
 Even while she spoke, the resplendent apparition 
 began tugging and unbuttoning and unsheathing. 
 
 " What d'ye mean, m'm.? " asked the vacant-eyed 
 girl with the scrub-rag. 
 
 " I mean I'm going to swop with you. Gi'me them 
 shoes an' that gingham skirt an' shirt-waist, quick. 
 Peel 'em off, quick, or I might change me mind ! This 
 is your lucky day! An' here's five bones, sis, to seal 
 the bargain ! " 
 
 Sadie, breathless and writhing, slipped from her 
 159
 
 160 THE HAND OF PERIL 1 
 
 shimmering cocoon. Then she pounced on the still- 
 hesitating house-maid, peeled her as a cook peels an 
 onion, and struggled into the more ample folds of that 
 borrowed raiment, kicking her own finery toward the 
 staring-eyed denuded one as she dressed. 
 
 " They're all yours, dearie, gloves, a Gimbel hat an' 
 all ! Save 'em for Sunday an' you'll sure make a hit ! " 
 
 She continued to talk as she caught up the unclean 
 scrub-rag and mopped her face with it. " An' .don't 
 try chasm' me or worryin' me with questions 1 I've 
 got a husband who's gone bughouse with payin' me 
 bills an' says I've gotta dress simple ! " 
 
 Sadie slammed and locked shut the bath-room door 
 on that still astounded young house-maid who did not 
 altogether seem ready to believe in fairies. Then she 
 turned and ran for the next stairway. As she did 
 so, she heard the street door below give way with a 
 crash. That sound served to lend wings to her flight. 
 
 Not once did she stop on her way to the roof. 
 There she tarried only long enough to restore the 
 transom to its place. Then she ran nimbly across 
 the flat tin of the house-top, dropped to the next roof, 
 crossed that, and ran on until she came to a clothes- 
 line dangling with a row of freshly washed clothes. 
 At the far end of this line was a door opening upon a 
 stairway. At the top of this stairway lay an empty 
 laundry bag. Quick as thought the hurrying girl 
 caught it up. Then she listened for a second or two, 
 peering down into the house before her. Then 
 quickly but quietly, pausing at each stair-head as she 
 took up her flight, she made her way down through 
 that silent and many-odoured house.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 161 
 
 She reached the basement without discovery or in- 
 terruption. There, on a row of hooks beside the door, 
 she saw a widow's bonnet, a pair of oil-stained overalls 
 and a faded plaid shawl. The shawl she quickly 
 threw over her shoulders. The overalls she promptly 
 stuffed down into her laundry bag. Then she stopped 
 for a minute with a mouthful of hairpins, while she 
 twisted her hair tightly together, and pinned it flat 
 above her ears. Then she let herself out through the 
 door, stepped across the area, and mounted to the 
 sidewalk. 
 
 As she had expected, a blue-coated officer was 
 posted between her and the street-corner to the west. 
 To the east, half way down the block, stood an empty 
 taxi-cab and a scattering of curious onlookers. Here 
 and there she could see still more blue-coated figures. 
 She gaped at them for a moment, chewing vacantly 
 on an imaginary cud of gum. Then she turned about 
 and shambled westward, hitching at her skirt as she 
 went. She was looking straight up, squinting va- 
 cantly at the blue sky above her, as she approached 
 the idle officer. He stared at her for a moment, with- 
 out perceptible hostility, and went on swinging his 
 night-stick. Once she was past that swinging night- 
 stick, she took a deep breath. And, once she had 
 rounded the corner, she quickened her pace, crossed 
 the street, went north for a block, struck west again, 
 rounded still another corner, and slipped quietly into 
 the family entrance of a corner saloon, where, having 
 sought out the telephone, she expeditiously exhumed 
 a hidden pocketbook and sent across the city a hurried 
 call for assistance.
 
 162 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Then, having retired to the one dingy chambre sepa- 
 ree which that dingy caravansary offered, and hav- 
 ing made sure a certain chamois-covered package was 
 still in place, she ordered a silver fizz and a package 
 of Turkish cigarettes. 
 
 " Gee," she confided to the shirt-sleeved Hibernian 
 who proceeded to supply her wants, " but I'm sure 
 gapin' at the gills for a smoke ! " 
 
 It was five minutes later that Kestner and a patrol- 
 man, giving up their house-search, returned to the 
 open street. There they met nothing to revive their 
 failing hopes of a round-up. 
 
 " Tim," said the patrolman to the officer still swing- 
 ing his night-stick, " you dead sure nobody got by you 
 here?" 
 
 " Divil a sowl," was Tim's answer. " Nothin' in 
 petticoats beyant a young slip of a gerrl wid a 
 laundry-bag ! " 
 
 " A what? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 " A kitchen-gerrl wid a twisted face and a mug full 
 av chewin' gum a kid widout a hat ! " 
 
 The patrolman, unconscious of Kestner's little groan 
 of disgust, turned contemplatively to the Secret Agent. 
 
 " I guess we'd better work to the east. If your 
 woman's in that block, the sooner we dig her out, the 
 better ! " 
 
 Kestner laughed but quite without mirth. 
 
 " The woman's gone," he called back, as he strode 
 toward the waiting taxi-cab. " She made her get- 
 away with that laundry-bag. And here's where I 
 have to begin all over again ! "
 
 To begin all over again was a predicament which 
 not infrequently occurred in Kestner's profession. It 
 involved, as a rule, work that was neither romantic 
 nor engaging. But he was compelled to accept it as 
 part of the game. And in the end, out of the hum- 
 drum greyness of the commonplace arose the pillaring 
 flame of the unexpected. 
 
 So it was with heightened spirits that Kestner 
 slipped into a street-corner drug-store and for the 
 third time in three hours called up his hotel and got 
 Wilsnach on the wire. 
 
 " What have you picked up ? " was Kestner's quick 
 but casual demand. 
 
 " Not a thing," was the answer over the wire. 
 
 "And nothing has happened?" 
 
 " Nothing but two solid hours of Chopin noc- 
 turnes," was the plaintively disgusted reply. " And 
 a neck-ache from wearing this helmet ! " 
 
 " And you can get nothing now? " 
 
 " Not a sound the lady, doubtless, having gone 
 to bed." 
 
 " And not a caller, or a phone-call to the room ? " 
 
 " Not one. I couldn't have missed it ! " 
 
 " Good ! I was afraid Sadie Wimpel might double 
 
 back with those plates. But Sadie knows her busi- 
 
 163
 
 164 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 ness. And that means I'll want your help at my end 
 of the line." 
 
 "What have you rounded up? " 
 
 " I've rounded up that Saginaw man's house ! " 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " It took over two hours of canvassing, first rent- 
 ing agencies and later the employment bureaus. I 
 knew he'd have to have a servant or two. They sent 
 him up a butler two days ago. And I'm shadowing 
 that butler at the present moment." 
 
 " Why the butler? " 
 
 " Because he began his new job by showing he's a 
 flat-looter looking for larger fields. He's just un- 
 loaded a bundle of silverware on a Sixth Avenue pawn- 
 shop, and I've got him across the street at Tierney's 
 drinking corn whiskey and cursing the Japanese." 
 
 " Then what do you want me to do? " Wilsnach in- 
 quired. 
 
 " Let the dictophone go for to-night and get Byrnes 
 on the wire. Have him hurry a city force man up to 
 Tierney's one he can trust. I want that butler 
 held down at headquarters until some time to-morrow. 
 But here's the important point: that man's got the 
 pass-key to the house. I want that key before he gets 
 out of Tierney's ! " 
 
 " All right ! Anything else? " 
 
 " In an hour's time I want you to be covering that 
 house. Make a note of the street and number. . . . 
 And if Sadie Wimpel is there, those Lambert plates 
 are there with her." 
 
 " Supposing she shows up, do I let her go in ? " 
 
 Kestner pondered this question for a minute or two.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 160 
 
 "Let her or anybody else go in. But don't let 
 anybody coming out get past you. Be sure of that. 
 Don't let any man or woman get away from that 
 house. And if anything suspicious shows up when I'm 
 inside, join me as soon as you can." 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " But hurry that Byrnes' man up here. I'm pretty 
 sure our butler is heeled. That gives us a chance to 
 frisk him. And he's just drunk enough to be ugly. 
 I want the pass-key without his knowing I'm get- 
 ting it." 
 
 " I'll explain that to Byrnes. And I'll be up at 
 that house in one hour." 
 
 " All right, Wilsnach. This may be a busy night 
 for both of us." 
 
 " Good ! " said Wilsnach as he hung up the re^ 
 ceiver, " for this piano-recital business has its draw- 
 backs 1 "
 
 VI 
 
 IT was less than an hour later when Kestner turned 
 casually in at the Indiana sandstone front of a cheaply 
 ornate house not far from Fifth Avenue, glanced up at 
 its heavily curtained windows, and slipped a pass-key 
 into the lock. Then he swung open the vestibule 
 door, a weighty combination of plate-glass faced by a 
 grill-work of wrought iron and backed by a panel 
 curtain of brocaded red silk. He did this calmly and 
 quietly, yet he breathed a little easier when once he 
 had found the entire front of the house was in dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Once inside, he came to a stop and took out his 
 pocket flash-light. Then he stood for a minute or 
 two, listening intently, with that abnormal nervous 
 perceptivity which is common to the hunted and fre- 
 quently acquired by the hunter. Once assured by 
 those over-sensitised aural nerves that he was momen- 
 tarily safe from interruptions, he proceeded to explore 
 his immediate surroundings. He did this cautiously, 
 probing with his narrow light-shaft into the gloom as 
 delicately as a cook's broom-straw probes a rising 
 cake. 
 
 Before him, he saw a wide hallway. The back of 
 this hallway was bisected by a proportionately broad 
 stairway, mounting some eighteen or twenty wide 
 
 steps to a landing. From this landing it branched 
 
 166
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 167 
 
 right and left to the floor above. At the back of the 
 landing stood a huge grandfather's clock, and on ped- 
 estals at either side of it were two suits of what looked 
 like fifteenth-century armour. The polished metal of 
 these two suits, as obviously factory-made as the 
 clock, threw back Kestner's interrogative flash in scat- 
 tered pencils of light. 
 
 Brief as that survey of the place was, it proved 
 sufficient to convey to the trespasser a conviction of 
 the general shoddiness of its grandeur. From the rug 
 on which he stood to the indirect-lighting alabaster- 
 basin, suspended on gilded links, it impressed Kestner 
 as being shoddy, as being meretricious in its splen- 
 dours. 
 
 He did not wait, however, to cogitate long over this 
 impression. He made his way straight to the stairs, 
 circled about to the right, and under a velour por- 
 tiere found a pair of doors, stained to look like ma- 
 hogany. These doors were locked. A minute or two 
 with his " spider," however, soon had them open. 
 And he was rewarded by the sight of the steel front 
 of the bond-safe he had expected there. 
 
 So without more ado, he pushed back the pine doors 
 flat against the wall, shut off his pocket flashlight, 
 and let the velour drapery fall into place behind him. 
 There, with his straining ear against the japanned 
 steel surface, he set to work on the safe combination. 
 
 He worked for a quarter of an hour, quite without 
 success. Then he changed his position, dropped on 
 his knee again, and once more took up the contest be- 
 tween a mechanism of obdurate steel wards and dials, 
 on the one hand, and a long-trained and supersensi-
 
 168 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 tised ear on the other. But a half hour had slipped 
 away before he had conquered the combination. 
 
 He sighed with relief as the plungers slid back, in 
 response to his pressure on the nickelled handle. He 
 rose to his feet, swung open the heavy door, and again 
 switched on his flash-light. Then he proceeded to 
 search the safe. 
 
 The contents of that carefully concealed vault were 
 eminently disappointing. There were a number of 
 guide-books and passports and railway-maps, reveal- 
 ing the innocent fact that the gentleman from Saginaw 
 was a surprisingly extensive and an apparently un- 
 wearied traveller. There was a canvas bag of French 
 gold, and a few hundred dollars in American yellow- 
 backs. Under these was a plate of etched steel, such 
 as might be used for an exceptionally large business 
 card. There were also a package or two of letters, 
 banded and sealed, and a larger package of unmounted 
 photographs, carefully tied together and as carefully 
 sealed where the yellow tape-ends had been knotted 
 together. 
 
 The one thing that caught and held Kestner's at- 
 tention was a despatch-box of metal covered with an 
 outer case of worn pig-skin. He drew this to the 
 front of the safe, turning it over and over and flash- 
 ing his light interrogatively about it. It was locked, 
 and his " spider " was too large to be of use. 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment. 
 Then he caught up the plate of etched steel, held the 
 box under his knee, and worked the edge of the plate 
 between the box and its lid. Then he pried with all 
 his force. That force was sufficient to make the lock-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 169 
 
 bar yield and let the lid fall back. A moment later he 
 was going through the contents. 
 
 The first thing on which his wavering pencil of light 
 fell was a methodic bundle of blue-prints, each print 
 folded to the size of a legal envelope, and each backed 
 by several pages of typewritten matter and enigmatic 
 rows of figures, interspersed with small designs, the 
 nature of which the man with the flashlight had no 
 time to determine. But what impressed him, even in 
 that cursory survey, was the care and neatness with 
 which each document had been prepared and filed away. 
 On the back of each, he also discovered, stood a me- 
 thodically penned descriptive-title, and he stooped 
 closer to decipher these titles. Then he stopped and 
 took a fuller breath, as though an unlooked-for shock 
 had imposed on him the necessity of some prompt men- 
 tal readjustment. For the documents into which he 
 had peered at haphazard were labelled as follows : 
 
 "Baker, Fort. Cal. (West Dept) RR.S. Sausalito T. 
 M. Weaver maps. 
 
 " Banks, Fort. Mass. Cal. (East Dept) Winthrop 
 Branch, Boston depend on Screven for code-wires and 
 data. 
 
 "Barrancas, Fort. Fla. (East. Dept) Tel. and P.O. 
 same ; 8m, Pensacola Leavett or Riley safe. 
 
 " Barry, Fort. Cal " 
 
 Kestner would have read more, for that list most 
 acutely appealed to his professional curiosity. But 
 the chance to delve deeper into the package, he saw, 
 was suddenly lost to him. His first instinctive move- 
 ment was to quench his flash-light. His next was to
 
 170 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 crowd close in under the velour hanging and stand 
 there holding his breath. There had come to him the 
 distinct sound of a door opening and closing again, 
 the fall of quick steps along the floor, the rustle of 
 drapery, and the tap of hurrying heels on the polished 
 hardwood treads of the stairway. A moment later he 
 heard the snap of a switch. He could tell, even from 
 his hiding-place, that the upper hall had been lighted. 
 
 Kestner waited a moment and then slipped quietly 
 out from under his covering. He crept forward to 
 the foot of the stairway, keeping close to the shadowy 
 wainscoting. Then he peered up the stairs, to where 
 the light shone strongest. 
 
 There, in front of the great old-fashioned grand- 
 father's clock, he saw Sadie Wimpel. She had swung 
 open the clock-door and had dropped on one knee be- 
 fore the large time-piece. Kestner could see her as she 
 reached carefully into the clock, with one hand, and 
 he knew that she had either just concealed something 
 in that untoward hiding-place or had just taken some- 
 thing from it. 
 
 Kestner watched her as she rose to her feet, dusted 
 her finger-tips by brushing them lightly together, and 
 then carefully closed the clock-door. Then she looked 
 quickly to the right and the left, to where the divided 
 stairway led to the floor above. Apparently satisfied 
 that she had been quite unobserved from that quarter, 
 she stepped forward and turned out the light at the 
 wall-switch on the landing. 
 
 Kestner stood listening as she made her way on up 
 the stairs and deeper into the house. He heard a door 
 open and close and the sound of steps and another
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 171 
 
 door being opened. Then came the sound of voices, 
 thin and faraway, from an inner room, the dim echo 
 of a girl's laugh, an answering more guttural laugh, 
 and then the soft thud of a closing door again. 
 
 Kestner tiptoed back to the safe, closed the steel 
 door, restored the imitation velour drapery to its 
 place, and started cautiously up the stairs. He 
 moved quietly but quickly, taking the turn to the 
 right as the girl had done. He did not come to a stop 
 until he had passed a portiere and found himself in 
 utter darkness, a little puzzled as to which way to pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 As he stood there in doubt, he heard the thin sound 
 of voices again. Then he made still another discov- 
 ery. For several seconds he had remained stationary, 
 puzzled by the faint aroma which filled the darkness 
 about him, assailing his memory with some ghostly 
 association which eluded explanation. Then, of a 
 sudden, it came home to him. That indeterminate re- 
 minder of the past arose from nothing more nor less 
 than a Russian cigarette. It was a fragrance that 
 took him at a bound back to Nevskii Prospekt and the 
 Mvika, to Contant's and Pivato's and to Mauritania 
 and Moscow and the coffee-houses of Kherson on those 
 hot August nights when certain Asiatic fortress-plans 
 had been lost and in the end found again. 
 
 Kestner knew that he was sniffing a cigarette which 
 had been bought and made in Russia. And the thin 
 and exotic odour of that tobacco suddenly stirred him 
 beyond reason, disturbed him more than he would have 
 been willing to acknowledge. 
 
 He stepped gropingly toward the door from which
 
 TO THE HAND OF PERU, 
 
 the sound of muffled voices still came. But he could 
 hear nothing clearly. So he crept still closer, until 
 his body was against the door-frame itself. He was 
 about to reach out a cautious hand and grasp the 
 door-knob when he became suddenly and tinglingly 
 aware that he was no longer standing in darkness. 
 The electrics had been switched on behind him. 
 
 That discovery brought him wheeling about as 
 though he had been shot. He found himself, even as 
 his hand went to his hip, standing face to face with a 
 straight-bodied and youthful-looking Japanese in a 
 service coat. This was the valet, Kestner surmised, 
 of whom Sadie Wimpel had spoken. And here, he 
 further surmised, was as pretty a kettle of fish as a 
 man could stumble into ! 
 
 "You wish to see?" the imperturbed voice in- 
 quired in excellent and most crisply enunciated Eng- 
 lish. He spoke very quietly, without surprise and 
 without apprehension, with a fortitude that seemed 
 reptilious in its casual intentness. 
 
 The two strangely divergent figures stood facing 
 each other, studying each other in silent appraisal. 
 Kestner stared at the immobile Oriental face; the 
 oblique aloe-like eyes stared back at the scrutinising 
 Secret Agent. Odd as those two figures were, they had 
 one thing in common. Each man bore the conscious- 
 ness of having achieved an area of authority ; each 
 man, in his own way, was plainly not unused to power. 
 So that combative stare lasted for several seconds, 
 and from it neither emerged in any way a victor. 
 But to the silence there had to be an end.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 178 
 
 " I wish to see your master," was Kestner's final re- 
 sponse. 
 
 " For what purpose ? " inquired the crisp and tac- 
 itly challenging voice. 
 
 " On confidential business," was Kestner's reply. 
 He was pondering just what pretext would appear the 
 most reasonable. 
 
 " But the nature, please, of that business ? " was the 
 uncompromising query. 
 
 "Are you a servant here?" demanded Kestner, in 
 his heaviest note of authority. 
 
 " The business, please? " repeated the Oriental, pro- 
 longing the ultimate sibilant into a strangely snake- 
 like warning hiss. 
 
 " A servant here, a butler, has been stealing from 
 this house. I have just arrested him." 
 
 The studious slant eyes did not move from Kest- 
 ner's face. 
 
 " You are, please, an officer? " 
 
 " Naturally and some time before morning I'd 
 like to see your master." 
 
 Again there was that silent, combative stare of ap- 
 praisal and counter-appraisal and then a chair was 
 pushed forward. 
 
 " Wait, please ! " 
 
 Kestner bowed and stepped over to the chair, but 
 he did not drop into it. He saw the slim-bodied serv- 
 ant cross to the door, tap the panel with his knuckles, 
 and step inside, closing the door after him. 
 
 Kestner was used to thinking quickly, but here was 
 a dilemma where an immediate decision seemed im-
 
 174 THE HAND OF PERIL . 
 
 possible. His first impulse was to follow that wise- 
 eyed young Jap through the door and have it out, 
 face to face with the Saginaw lumberman who smoked 
 Russian cigarettes. For Kestner's plans had mis- 
 carried. Appearances, he had to confess, were dole- 
 fully against him. Yet, nothing, his next thought was, 
 could be gained by waiting. 
 
 He stood up, looked about, and then sat down again. 
 For the portiere at the far end of the room had sud- 
 denly lifted. Through the doorway where this por- 
 tiere hung stepped a young woman. And that young 
 woman was Sadie Wimpel. 
 
 She carried a tray on which stood a small chafing- 
 dish and an electric coffee percolator. Several seconds 
 elapsed before she actually saw Kestner. Then she 
 came to a standstill, stooping forward a little with the 
 weight of the tray. Her eyes slowly widened and then 
 narrowed again, like camera lenses controlled by an 
 invisible bulb. 
 
 " For the love o' Mike ! " she said, very quietly and 
 very slowly. 
 
 Kestner himself did not move. He sat watching the 
 young woman as she placed the tray on the end of a 
 table, still staring back at him all the while. Then she 
 lifted a puzzled hand and milked the pink lobe of her 
 ear between a meditative thumb and forefinger. 
 
 " For the love o' Mike ! " she slowly and somewhat 
 lugubriously repeated. 
 
 Kestner decided to take the bull by the horns. The 
 situation was too full of menace for delay. 
 
 " Sadie," he said, as he took a step or two nearer 
 her, " this is one of the big moments of your life ! "
 
 THE HAND OF PERU, 175 
 
 " Yes, it looks it ! " was her mocking retort. " It 
 looks it, with me last chance queered ! " 
 
 " You never had a chance here," he told her. " And 
 it won't be long before you find that out." 
 
 " So you're gay-cattin' for me now ! " she derided. 
 Kestner, ignoring her scorn, stepped still nearer, for 
 the door had opened and the Japanese valet was step- 
 ping out through it. 
 
 " Whatever happens in there, forget we're enemies. 
 Give me five minutes with that man and you'll under- 
 stand. Wait, that's all I want you to do ! " 
 
 She did not answer him, for the valet was already 
 close to them. 
 
 " Come, please," he said with his crisp intonation 
 and his punctiliously polite forward bend of the body. 
 
 And Kestner, wary and watchful, for all his heavy- 
 lidded smile of indifference, crossed to the open door 
 and stepped into the other room.
 
 KESTNEE, as he stepped into that second room, found 
 himself confronting a figure which at first sight re- 
 minded him of a rubicund and weather-beaten old 
 robin. 
 
 This figure sat in a wing-chair, at the end of a 
 heavy oak table. Its ample paunch was covered by a 
 cherry-coloured dressing-gown of quilted silk. It had 
 a patriarchal polished dome, and a ruffled fringe of 
 greyish-blonde hair. It also had round and innocent- 
 looking amber-coloured eyes. A terrace of fleshy 
 dewlaps took the place of a chin, and added to the 
 blithe inanity, the cherubic other-worldliness, of the 
 figure's general expression. 
 
 The man in the wing-chair, at first sight, seemed 
 querulously invertebrate, a pathetic and foolish figure 
 without guile and without purpose in life. Kestner 
 could not help remembering how good a mask that 
 misleading air of vague imbecility must have proved 
 in the past. It was a pose, and nothing more. For 
 even as he sat there blinking up with his watery-look- 
 ing amber eyes, it was plain that he was not altogether 
 off his guard. The newcomer noticed that one hand 
 rested in the partly-opened table drawer, as though 
 arrested in that position in search for a paper. But 
 those unseen fingers, Kestner felt sure, held something 
 which in no way resembled paper. 
 
 " We meet again, m'sieu, after many years ! " said 
 176
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 17T 
 
 the Secret Agent, as he calmly surveyed the figure in 
 the cherry-coloured gown. It was not so antique a 
 figure as it made a pretence of being. 
 
 " You have the advantage of me, young man ! " 
 piped up the thin and querulous voice, reviving Kest- 
 ner's impression of the weather-beaten robin. 
 
 *' I know it ! " was the other's quiet-toned response. 
 
 " We've never met before," sharply contended the 
 thin-noted voice. 
 
 " On the contrary, Baron Piozzo, we " 
 
 " My name's Nittner, Updyke Nittner ! You're 
 mixing me with somebody else ! " 
 
 " Possibly with Gibraltar Breitmann, who was inter- 
 ested in the Algiceras map-robbery," was Kestner*s 
 gentle suggestion. 
 
 " My home's in Saginaw, Michigan ! " 
 
 "And your business is lumbering?" 
 
 " It is ! And what is yours in this house? " 
 
 Kestner noticed that Sadie Wimpel had followed him 
 into the room. 
 
 " I'll answer that when you tell me who this woman 
 is!" 
 
 " That woman's my niece." 
 
 " Are you ? " demanded Kestner, turning to the girl. 
 
 " Sure," was her solemn response. 
 
 The rotund and robin-like figure hopped out of its 
 wing-chair with a celerity that was startling, and a 
 change of colour that tended to add to its rubicund 
 appearance. Then he clapped his two hands sharply 
 together. 
 
 The Japanese servant appeared at once in the door- 
 way.
 
 178 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " Miyako ! Put on the lights. Then open the 
 front door for this gentleman ! And open it wide ! " 
 
 He was no longer a ludicrous and watery-eyed in- 
 vertebrate ; he was a quick-witted and hornet-like figure 
 hot with the fires of a vast indignation. He swung 
 about and faced the quietly smiling Kestner. 
 
 " Have you anything more to say ? " 
 
 " Just one thing," said Kestner, addressing himself 
 to the girl at the end of the oak table. " And that is, 
 my dear, to warn you that you've hitched your wagon 
 to a star that never came out of the Saginaw valley ! 
 Your uncle is Wallaby Sam, who eleven years ago came 
 out of an Australian penal colony and as Gustav Korff 
 stole war-secrets for certain German military attaches. 
 Three years later, a Baron Piozzo was arrested at 
 Boden, a Swedish fortification on the Russian frontier, 
 for selling military maps to Petrograd agents. That 
 Baron was your uncle here ! Two years later he was 
 rounded up in Budapest, at the same game, only this 
 time he was operating with a woman he had especially 
 trained for that work. And if you stay with him 
 you'll do more than brush the cigar-ashes off his vest- 
 front and feed the gold-fish, because he wants you for 
 one thing, and only one thing. Inside of two months 
 he'll have you gay-catting for him, the same as he had 
 that Polish countess who didn't happen to be born in 
 Saginaw, Michigan ! " 
 
 Kestner, as he paused for breath, fell back a step or 
 two, until he stood in the open door. " And I guess 
 that's about all ! " 
 
 The hornet-like figure was no longer looking at him. 
 The man in the cherry-coloured gown had turned
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 179 
 
 toward the girl, and over that cherubic and chinless 
 face a brick-red colour, apoplectic in intensity, had 
 slowly spread. He became suddenly significant and 
 impressive in his rage. 
 
 " This is your doing ! " he cried out as he advanced 
 on the wide-eyed girl, who fell back before him, step by 
 step. But it was more bewilderment than fear that 
 caused this retreat. 
 
 " Mine ? What t' hell have I done ? " was her bel- 
 ligerent demand. 
 
 The robin-like figure was now all but majestic in its 
 rage. 
 
 "Done?" Words seemed beyond him. 
 
 " Yes, what have I done, you double-faced old 
 cut-up?" 
 
 " What have you done? You've " 
 
 He suddenly stopped, for from the front of the 
 house came a cry that sounded strangely like a cry of 
 warning, or a cry for help. Kestner, at the same 
 moment that he surmised Wilsnach had got through 
 the front door and encountered the Jap, saw the 
 cherry-clad figure wheel suddenly about and run for 
 the door at the far end of the room. He himself 
 dodged out through the doorway in which he stood and 
 ran for the head of the stairs. 
 
 On the landing below him he saw Wilsnach and the 
 Japanese valet writhing together, face down on the 
 hardwood boards. Kestner could not decipher the 
 nature of the valet's hold on his colleague. It seemed, 
 at that first fleeting glance, a hold inextricably compli- 
 cated and yet absurdly powerful. 
 
 Even before Kestner realised the need for inter-
 
 180 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 ference, even before he could descend his wing of the 
 stairway, he saw the figure in the cherry-coloured 
 dressing-gown catapult down the wing that led from 
 the opposite side of the wide hallway. He knew then 
 that it was no longer a time for hesitation. Throwing 
 off his coat, he took the stairs at a bound. 
 
 They seemed to come together, those four contending 
 figures, as though drawn to one spot by a magnet. 
 They came together on that landing like kernels thrown 
 into a hopper, like contending acids poured into a 
 test-tube. 
 
 Kestner was conscious only of the fact that he and 
 the startlingly robust figure with the cherubic face had 
 come together, had locked arms and legs and were 
 engaged in an Adamitic struggle for supremacy. He 
 knew, in a vague way, that the other struggling couple 
 were involved with them, that a third hand was clawing 
 at his face and hair, that a power which he found it 
 hard to resist was straining itself to force him back and 
 roll him down the wide stairway to the floor below. He 
 scarcely knew, as he fought for anchorage, that he had 
 caught at the clock-base. There was no mental regis- 
 tration of the fact that a rustling figure had slipped 
 down to the landing, switched out the light, and groped 
 her way onward down through the darkness to the 
 street. He had a vague memory of the huge clock 
 coming over, and bringing with it the two suits of fac- 
 tory-made armour. There was the crash of glass, the 
 release of weights and springs, the tumult of contend- 
 ing plates of steel, an intermingling clangour of brass 
 and chains and splintering wood and shouting throats 
 as the great clock and the suits of rattling steel and
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 181 
 
 the four bewilderingly involved human beings went 
 rolling and cascading down that wide stairway to the 
 hall floor below. 
 
 Then came gasps and calls and spasmodic move- 
 ments, a thick grunt or two of satisfaction, a final stir 
 amid the shattered glass and clock entrails, and then 
 nothing but the sound of quickly taken breaths. 
 
 " Wilsnach ! " called Kestner, with his knees planted 
 firmly on a rotund and heaving chest. But still for 
 several seconds there was silence. 
 
 " It's all right ! " finally answered Wilsnach, a little 
 thickly. " I've got him ! Dam' 'im, he's taken the 
 count ! " 
 
 " Can you switch on the lights there? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 There was the sound of crunching glass, a clang of 
 metal being struck by a shoe, and the next moment the 
 newel-post lights flashed up. 
 
 " Where's Sadie ? " asked Kestner, staring a little 
 dazedly about the ruins, and realising for the first time, 
 that he was cut and scratched and streaked with blood. 
 
 " I heard her get past us on the stairs ! " acknowl- 
 edged Wilsnach. 
 
 Kestner did not hear him. 
 
 " Call up headquarters," he said. 
 
 *' But what's the game? " demanded the bewildered 
 Wilsnach. 
 
 Kestner laughed as he wiped the blood from his face. 
 
 " Oh, we were trailing a rabbit and rounded up a 
 hyena ! " was his answer. " That's all ! "
 
 VII 
 
 IT was three days later that Kestner talked with the 
 Department at Washington. 
 
 " That was good work rounding up Wallaby Sam," 
 said the chief's voice over the wire. " But what we 
 want is that Lambert woman." 
 
 " It will take time," announced Kestner. 
 
 " I don't care what it takes," said the voice on the 
 thread of steel that brought the ear of Manhattan 
 leaning close to the lips of Washington. " We've got 
 to gather her in. Casey reports another Indian Head 
 ten from your district ! " 
 
 " That Indian Head ten never came from the Lam- 
 bert gang," protested Kestner. " I talked it over with 
 Casey and put Wilsnach on the case. It's the work of 
 a Williamsburg Italian named Carlesi, cheap photo- 
 engraving with brush-work colouring and hand shad- 
 ing. And Wilsnach ought to have Carlesi rounded up 
 before midnight." 
 
 " But you know what it means to us, having this 
 woman and her old man running loose ! " 
 
 " They're still loose, of course, but they'd never do 
 cheap work like Carlesi's. You can always be sure of 
 that. If they break bad paper, they break it big ! " 
 
 " Precisely ! And that's why we've got to get them 
 and get them quick. That First Colonial Hundred 
 
 was one of the neatest counterfeits that ever went 
 
 182
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 18S 
 
 under the glass. And three banks had O.K'd it before 
 it was turned in ! " 
 
 " I'll do my best," answered Kestner, " but you'll 
 have to let me do it my own way." 
 
 " It's your case," assented the Chief's voice. 
 
 It was at the same moment that Kestner meditatively 
 hung up the receiver that a knock sounded on his door. 
 He crossed the room and peered into his fan-light pro- 
 j ecting-mirror with its minute camera obscura attach- 
 ment (an invention of his own) and saw that his caller 
 was nothing more than a messenger-boy in uniform. 
 Before he could turn the key and open the door, how- 
 ever, the knock was repeated. 
 
 Kestner eyed that boy keenly as he stepped inside. 
 The occupant of the room even yawned and stretched 
 himself, with an air of indifference, but made his 
 scrutiny still more searching. For the sealed envelope 
 which he stared down at bore Kestner's own name, to 
 say nothing of this new address of his which he had 
 supposed unknown to the rest of the world. 
 
 He signed for the message, opened it, and motioned 
 for the boy to sit down. At the same moment Kestner 
 backed against the door and quietly turned the key 
 in the lock. For one quick glance had already carried 
 back to consciousness the startling fact that the sheet 
 of paper which he held was signed by Maura Lambert 
 herself. 
 
 The message which he found himself reading was 
 both explicit and brief. " Could I see you at once? " 
 it read. " I ask only because it is most urgent and 
 most important. Maura Lambert." 
 
 After studying this message for a second time Kest-
 
 184 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 ner stood submitting the bearer of it to still another 
 of his apparently impersonal and abstracted scrutinies. 
 Yet in that brief second or two the Secret Service man 
 had taken in every detail of that youth's uniform and 
 appearance, from the celluloid number-plate on his cap 
 to the worn-down heels of his shoes. 
 
 His final decision was in no way a contradiction of 
 his first impression. That A.D.T. boy was authentic 
 enough. But somewhere behind that message, he felt, 
 there was still some trickery, some hidden trap which 
 it was his business to fathom. 
 
 "Where did this note come from? " was Kestner's 
 casual inquiry. 
 
 " Fr'm th' Alambo," was the equally casual reply. 
 
 " What's that? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 " Squab-dump ! " was the laconic answer. 
 
 Then seeing he was not understood, the uniformed 
 jouth added : " It's one o j them burlap-lined apart- 
 ment-hotels wit' all th' onyx in th' office an' all the 
 Tenderloin in th' uppers ! " 
 
 " You mean it's not the right place for a young 
 woman ? " 
 
 " Gee ; it's full o' th'm ! An' I guess it's as good 's 
 any other theatrical dump along th' Way." 
 
 "Where is it?" 
 
 " Jus' above Longacre Square." 
 
 " And where did you get this note ? " 
 
 " From a woman in number seventeen." 
 
 "What did she look like?" 
 
 The youth appraised his interrogator, looking him 
 up and down with listless yet uncannily sagacious eyes.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 185 
 
 " She was a peach," he finally asserted. " But, say, 
 she wasn't th' cheap kind ! " 
 
 " Then the other kind there are cheap? " 
 
 " They's all got a sprinklin' o' broads, them second- 
 raters, 'nd I guess th' Alambo ain't no Martha 
 Washington." 
 
 " What did that woman look like ? " repeated Kest- 
 ner. 
 
 The youth struggled through a description which 
 Kestner was able to organise into a sufficiently con- 
 vincing picture of Maura Lambert. But the mystery 
 of the situation only increased. There was a touch of 
 novelty in having the enemy one had pursued half way 
 round the world suddenly turning about and soliciting 
 an interview. And it was equally disturbing to the 
 established order of things to find Maura Lambert in 
 an environment as unsavoury as the Alambo promised 
 to be, for Lambert, whatever his activities, had always 
 sheltered his youthful " scratcher " behind at least a 
 fa9ade of respectability. 
 
 " Was that woman alone when she gave you this 
 note? " pursued Kestner. 
 
 " Sure," was the answer. 
 
 " Did she tell you to bring back an answer? " 
 
 " Yep ! An' give me a bone extra f 'r bein' quick ! " 
 
 Kestner pondered the situation for a moment or two. 
 
 " How soon will you be back at the Alambo ? " 
 
 The youth took off his cap and examined a second 
 message stowed away there. 
 
 " 'S soon as I beat it down to th' McAlpin an' back," 
 was his answer.
 
 186 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " That means inside an hour ? " asked Kestner, as 
 he sat down and began writing on a sheet of paper. 
 
 " Yep," answered the boy. 
 
 Kestner's written reply was as brief as the message 
 that prompted it. He merely said: 
 
 " I'll be glad to see you and since you say it's urgent, 
 the sooner the better." 
 
 He sealed the note, quietly crossed the room to the 
 locked door, turned the key, and stepped out into the 
 hall. He seemed relieved to find that hallway quite 
 empty. 
 
 " Wait here for me," he called back to the boy. 
 
 The wait, to the listless-eyed youth, was not a long 
 one. But in that brief space of time a message had 
 gone down for a taxi-cab and a federal plain-clothes 
 man had received instructions to shadow an A.D.T. 
 messenger to the Hotel McAlpin and from the Mc- 
 Alpin back to the Alambo. But that boy was to be in 
 no way interfered with. 
 
 Kestner handed his message to the waiting youth, 
 and with it a dollar bill. 
 
 " Now are you sure that second message is for the 
 McAlpin? " he inquired. 
 
 For answer, the youth produced the message itself. 
 It was a violet-coloured envelope, redolent of patchouli, 
 and inscribed with a handwriting that was almost 
 childish in its formlessness. 
 
 One glance at it was enough, and the next moment 
 Kestner was pushing the boy half-humorously towards 
 the open door. Once that door was closed again, how- 
 ever, Kestner's diffidence had disappeared. In two 
 minutes he had made himself ready for the street, and
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 187 
 
 in another two minutes he was in a taxicab speeding 
 across the city in the direction of the Alambo. 
 
 It was a case, he felt, where nothing was to be lost 
 by taking the initiative. He had long since learned, 
 in his warfare against the criminal, that there was 
 always an advantage in the unexpected. Instead of 
 quietly waiting for Maura Lambert to come to him, 
 whatever that visit might signify, he was going to her. 
 And in work such as his, he reassured himself, it was 
 worth something, now and then, to trump an enemy's 
 ace.
 
 VIII 
 
 IT was exactly twelve minutes later that Kestner's 
 knock sounded on the door of Suite Seventeen in that 
 rookery of migratory birds known as the Alambo. 
 
 He knew the type well enough, for in Paris and 
 Budapest and Monte Carlo and Trouville his work 
 had only too often taken him into such quarters. He 
 was familiar enough with each sordid detail, the en- 
 trance of gilt and marble and plush, the belittered 
 breakfast-trays at bedroom doors, the kimonoed 
 figures that visited from floor to floor and calmly ar- 
 ranged hydrogenated hair in elevator-mirrors, the 
 overflow of cocktail glasses and beer bottles ungar- 
 nered by slatternly chamber-maids, the mingled odours 
 of musty carpets and house-pets and Turkish ciga- 
 rettes. 
 
 It puzzled Kestner not a little, as he repeated his 
 knock and stood prepared for any emergency, to find 
 adequate excuse for Maura Lambert's presence in such 
 a place. She was not of the breed common to such 
 a rookery. He reminded himself that there must be 
 some exceptional reason for her retreat to an environ- 
 ment so exceptional. Then all thought on the mat- 
 ter ended, for he heard a light step cross the room, 
 and a moment later found himself staring into the 
 somewhat startled eyes of Maura Lambert herself. 
 
 It was plain that she was not expecting him. He 
 188
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 could see that he had taken her unawares, for over 
 one arm she carried a low-necked gown of white chiffon 
 cloth embellished with dotted net and lace and rib- 
 bon-flowers. This she must have been about to pack 
 away in a travelling-bag, for one stood open in a 
 shabby Morris-chair on the far side of the room. He 
 noticed, too, that she was dressed for the street, and 
 it did not surprise him to catch sight of her hat and 
 gloves standing close beside the travelling-bag. Then 
 he looked once more back at her face. 
 
 On the brow beneath the heavily massed chestnut 
 hair was a small frown of wonder. The dark-lashed 
 violet-blue eyes were wide with a vague incredulity. 
 There was, too, a touch of timorousness in her pose, 
 but she made no move to withdraw. 
 
 " You wanted to see me," was Kestner's casual re- 
 minder, as he advanced a trifle, that the door might 
 not be swung between him and the one woman he de- 
 sired to see. Even as she looked at him her self- 
 possession seemed to return to her. 
 
 " I asked if I might come to see you," she amended, 
 with her wide-irised eyes still fixed on his face. 
 
 " But you said it was urgent," argued her visitor. 
 
 " It is urgent," she admitted. 
 
 Kestner could not help noticing the deepened 
 shadows about the heavily-lashed eyes, the sense of 
 nervous strain about the softly-curving lips. The 
 oval face, with its accentuated note of tragedy, re- 
 minded him of some pictorial figure which at first he 
 could not place. It was several minutes before his 
 mind reached the goal towards which it had been 
 groping. He knew, then, that her shadowy face was
 
 190 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 in some way suggestive of Sargent's painting of 
 the prophet " Hosea." 
 
 " Then shall I come in ? " he quietly inquired. 
 
 " Yes," she said with an abstraction which implied 
 her mind was occupied by other and more troubling 
 things. 
 
 Kestner, as he stepped into the room, swept the 
 place with one of his quick and comprehensive glances. 
 Through a door opening into a small bedroom he 
 caught sight of a partly packed trunk. On the bed 
 beside it was a disordered tumble of clothing, the 
 litter of wrapping paper about it implying that much 
 of that apparel was newly bought. These quickly 
 comprehended details gave to the place a spirit of 
 transiency. They made it plain to the newcomer that 
 he had interrupted Maura Lambert in some sudden 
 movement towards flight. And again, as he stared 
 into her face, his earlier suspicions as to the possi- 
 bility of a trap returned to him. 
 
 Yet he was very much at his ease, face to face with 
 this old-time enemy of his, and in no way afraid of 
 her. The one thought that troubled him was the con- 
 tingency that she might not be alone, that behind one 
 of those menacing doors might be a confederate, that 
 close at hand was some coarser-fibred colleague who 
 was using her for his own ends. But the persistent 
 voice of some feeling which he could not quite de- 
 cipher kept telling him that this was not the case. 
 He wanted to believe in her. 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " she said, quietly motioning 
 him towards a chair. 
 
 " Thank you," he answered, as formally as though
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 191 
 
 his call had been a social one. Yet he wondered just 
 why she should have this power of restraining ani 
 intimidating him. In work such as his there was lit- 
 tle room for the finer issues of life, and he had long 
 since learned not to be overcourteous to an enemy. 
 
 The sudden consciousness that he was treating her 
 with a consideration which she as his quarry had done 
 nothing to merit made him more watchful of eye and 
 more wary of movement. He resented the higher 
 plane to which she still had the power of coercing him, 
 even while he prayed that she would not confound his 
 inward belief in her. 
 
 Before seating himself, however, he moved his chair 
 back until it stood against the wall of the room. This 
 was an announcement, he knew, of his latent distrust in 
 her and her motives. Yet the movement seemed lost 
 on her, though Kestner reminded himself that in the 
 past she had proved herself a capable enough actress- 
 He even wondered, as he gazed about those small and 
 dingy chambers, how often the antique games of 
 blackmail had been played between their faded walls. 
 He also pondered the fact that she would be an espe- 
 cially valuable woman at such work, with her incongru- 
 ous air of purity and other-worldliness, her undeniable 
 beauty, her almost boy-like unconcern of sex. 
 
 Yet the next movement, as he looked back at the 
 intent face with its inapposite flower-like appeal, he 
 resented the very thought of her as a pawn in any- 
 thing so sordid as the panel-game. It was unbeliev- 
 able. He had seen too many of those ladies of drag- 
 gled plumes and their meretricious assumptions of 
 grandeur. About them all had been the betraying
 
 198 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Saint, the inconsequential word or move that marked 
 them as demimondaine, the over-acted gentility that 
 proved as obvious, in the end, as the paper roses of 
 stagedom. 
 
 "You should not have come here," she said, after 
 several moments of thought. 
 
 " Why not ? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 " Because it is dangerous," was her answer. 
 
 "For whom?" 
 
 There was a touch of cynicism in his smile, but she 
 chose to disregard it. Her brow did not lose its 
 \ook of troubled thought. 
 
 " For you," she answered. 
 
 * But not for you ? " he inquired. 
 
 * For both of us," she amended. He won a thin 
 asad wintry pleasure from the thought that they were 
 bracketed together, if only by peril. 
 
 " Then why did you send for me ? " was his next 
 question. 
 
 There was a shadow of reproof in her eyes at the 
 obliquity of that inquiry. 
 
 " I did not send for you," she reminded him. " I 
 asked to come to you." 
 
 "For what reason?" 
 
 Her eyes were again studying his face. He was 
 struck by both their fearlessness and their lack of 
 guile. That strange life of hers, he felt, must have 
 beaten down those flimsier reticences and privacies of 
 sex behind which youth, as a rule, sat with its illu- 
 sions. 
 
 w I wanted to see if we could possibly come to 
 terms," she finally announced.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 198 
 
 It took an effort for Kestner to retain his pose of 
 impersonality. 
 
 " What terms ? " he quietly inquired. 
 
 " That is what we must decide on," she said in the 
 same tone of solemn candour. 
 
 "Why?" demanded her visitor, still fencing for 
 time. 
 
 " Because I can't go on like this," she replied, with 
 a listlessly tragic movement of the hands ; " nothing 
 can go on like this ! " 
 
 " I know it," was Kestner's quiet retort. 
 
 She did not resent any note of triumph that ma^ 
 have been in his voice. Her brow still wore its look 
 of troubled thought. 
 
 " It isn't you that I'm afraid of," she announced, 
 the abstraction of her tone taking all sting from the 
 statement. 
 
 " Then what is it ? " he asked, lamenting the fact 
 that he could not see her face. 
 
 " It's myself," she answered after a moment's hesi- 
 tation. " I can't go on with this. I've got to get 
 away from it all ! " The violet-blue eyes were once 
 more courageously meeting Kestner's unparticipating 
 stare. " You remember what you told me in 
 Palermo? How father and I could never keep on at 
 this sort of work, how it must go from bad to worse, 
 and always lead to one end, and only one end? Well, 
 that is the way it is leading. I always tried to tell 
 myself that money would be a protection. To do 
 what we were doing seemed terrible only when it im- 
 plied poverty and terror and flight from one corner 
 to another. We always had money enough to keep
 
 194. THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 up appearances. And when we worked together we 
 always felt safe. But we were safe only because we 
 kept together." 
 
 " And you're not keeping together? " Kestner in- 
 quired. 
 
 " We can't," was her almost tragic answer. 
 
 " Are you willing to tell me why ? " 
 
 " I'm compelled to tell you why." 
 
 " What is it? " he asked. 
 
 When she spoke, after a pause, she unconsciously 
 lowered her voice. " It's Morello ! " 
 
 Kestner could see that she had not easily made that 
 confession. 
 
 " But why should you be afraid of one of your own 
 circle?" 
 
 " I think you know why I am afraid of him," she 
 answered. Kestner could also see that it was now 
 costing her an effort to speak calmly. " He was al- 
 ways an animal. But now he is half mad, and worse 
 than an animal ! " 
 
 " Has he anything to do with your being here? " 
 Kestner demanded. 
 
 " He has everything to do with my being here. I 
 came here to escape him. I chose this place because 
 I knew he would come to a place like this last. He 
 knows how I hate such things ! " 
 
 Kestner was watching her narrowly. He decided 
 that she was one of two things: either the most ac- 
 complished of actresses, or a woman who was indeed 
 nearing, in some way, the end of her rope. But the 
 years had indurated his sympathies, and he warned 
 himself to go slowly.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 195 
 
 " What does your father say about it ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 There was a momentary look of revolt in the brood- 
 ing violet-blue eyes. 
 
 " That is the hopeless part of it all," she acknowl- 
 edged. " He is willing that I should go with Morello. 
 Something has made him change. He doesn't seem 
 willing to help me any more ! " 
 
 " But without you he is helpless ? " 
 
 " Without me, as things are, he cannot go on with 
 the work he has been doing," she admitted. 
 
 "Why?" asked Kestner. 
 
 She did not answer him at once. Instead, she rose 
 to her feet, crossed the room to her open travelling- 
 bag, and from its depths took out a parcel wrapped in 
 a strip of green baize. This parcel was small, and 
 oblong in shape, but as she walked back to the chair 
 with it, it impressed Kestner as being of considerable 
 weight. 
 
 " Because here," she said, as she sat down and held 
 the baize-covered bundle on her knees, " I have all 
 the plates with which his new counterfeits were to 
 be printed ! "
 
 IX 
 
 KESTNER sat staring at her as she slowly undid that 
 innocent-looking oblong parcel covered with its green 
 baize wrapper. His pulse quickened a little as he 
 caught the glint of polished metal. There were eight 
 plates, he could see, each padded by an oblong of red 
 blotting-paper trimmed to the size of the plate it- 
 self. 
 
 Maura Lambert looked up and saw the Secret 
 Agent's eyes studying the sheets of metal that lay in 
 her lap. 
 
 " It's only natural for you not to believe me any 
 more. I can't even ask you to accept my word. But 
 these," she went on, as she touched the plates with 
 her finger-tips, " you can recognise at a glance. I 
 want you to take them. That will show you I am 
 being sincere ! " 
 
 She was holding them out to him, but he did not 
 reach for them. Yet the irony of the situation did 
 not escape him. Here he sat face to face with the 
 cleverest counterfeiter in all Europe, the woman he 
 had pursued half way round the world, and she of 
 her own free will was handing over to him the fateful 
 pieces of engraved metal which had once stood the 
 end and object of all that pursuit. Life, he told him- 
 self, did not resolve itself into theatricalities like 
 this ! Somewhere at the core of all that carefully 
 carpentered structure was the canker of untruth. 
 
 196
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 19T 
 
 And it was his duty to break down her arch of de- 
 ception while there was still time. 
 
 " You must believe me ! " she cried out, startled by 
 the look of doubt that had swept over his face. 
 
 "Why?" he demanded. 
 
 " Because I am asking you to help me ! " she said 
 with a forlornness of tone which touched him 
 even against his will. 
 
 " But how can I do that? " 
 
 " By letting things stand as they are," was her 
 quick retort. " By dropping this persecution, of roe 
 and my father and giving me the chance of going bock 
 to Europe ! " 
 
 Kestner was watching her closely. 
 
 " Who told you to ask for this ? " he demanded. 
 
 " I am asking it for myself," was her reply. " And 
 in asking it I can give you the promise there will be 
 no need for further action on your part." 
 
 " By that you mean no more counterfeiting? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " But can you answer for your father, and for 
 Morello, when you venture that promise ? " 
 
 " No, I can't answer for them," she acknowledge^ 
 as she looked down at the plates on her knee. Then 
 she turned back to Kestner again. " But, don't you 
 see, without these to print from they will be helpless. 
 They can't carry out what they have planned, without 
 plates. And without me they can never make more ! ** 
 
 That, at least, seemed reasonable enough. 
 
 " Then what must I do ? " inquired the Secret 
 Agent. 
 
 " Let me get away from all this," was her answer.
 
 198 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 He knew that any such cry for quarter, from that 
 proud spirit, was not easy of utterance. 
 
 " But it's not in my hands," he protested. " I'm 
 only one small cog in the wheels of a huge machine 
 they call the law." 
 
 " But what does that machine gain by grinding us 
 down, now? What good can it do you, or your gov- 
 ernment, or the whole world, if you keep me from 
 going back to the decent life I want to live ? " 
 
 " My personal feelings have nothing to do with the 
 matter. Do you imagine everything that has hap- 
 pened during the last few weeks has been merely a 
 personal matter with me? That I haven't been driven 
 into doing things that were odious to me? That I 
 haven't always wanted to save you from what was 
 ahead of you? " 
 
 " You can do that," she interrupted. " All I want 
 is the chance to get away, to save myself from worse 
 things than you can face me with! And you won't 
 even believe me ! " 
 
 Kestner sat for several moments without speaking. 
 
 " You must rather despise me," he ventured, as his 
 meditative eyes met hers. 
 
 " Not so much as I despise myself ! " was her 
 slightly embittered answer. " And I don't blame 
 you for anything. I think I understand, now. 
 Sometimes I've been almost glad that you were doing 
 what you were. I got a sort of relief from the 
 thought that you were following us, every move we 
 made. I've felt safer, lately, remembering you were 
 somewhere near, even if it was to undo everything mj
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 199 
 
 father had been working for. But when I saj that, 
 too, you can't believe me, can you? " 
 
 " I wish I could," Kestner admitted. He found 
 himself speaking with an earnestness of which on 
 second thought he felt slightly ashamed. He was 
 still torturing his soul with the query as to how much 
 of all she said was genuine and how much was trickery. 
 He could indulge in none of the exultation of a com- 
 batant who finds his adversary in an extremity. Her 
 predicament, if such it were, brought him no sense of 
 personal triumph. Yet as he glanced about that 
 dingy and disordered room and then back at the 
 pale oval of her face he felt reassured of the fact that 
 she was ill-suited to the setting in which he had found 
 her. She still impressed him as being intrinsically too 
 fine of fibre for the life of the social free-booter. But 
 he could not forget the fact that she was Paul Lam- 
 bert's daughter and the agent through whom that 
 master-criminal had planned to debauch a nation's 
 currency. 
 
 They sat there, facing each other in one of those 
 pregnant silences which sometimes come when wide 
 issues are at stake. Kestner remembered that she was 
 beleaguering him with none of the artifices of sex. 
 There was something almost judicial in her impassiv- 
 ity, as though her case had been put and her last word 
 had been said. And in that very abnegation of ap- 
 peal, he felt, she was circuitously assailing his will and 
 breaking down his resolution. 
 
 She must have caught from his eyes some vague 
 look of capitulation, for she raised her head, as though
 
 200 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 to speak to him. But she did not open her lips, and 
 no word passed between them. 
 
 For at that moment the silence was broken by an- 
 other and a quite unexpected sound. It came in the 
 form of a sudden knock on the door, a peremptory and 
 authoritative knock which caused Kestner's figure to 
 stiffen in its chair, and the next moment brought him, 
 alert and tingling, to his feet. 
 
 He did not look at the door, for he was watching 
 the woman before whom he stood, wondering if this 
 marked the consummation of her undeciphered plan, 
 speculating as to what his next step should be. Then 
 he suddenly remembered the messenger boy and his 
 undelivered message. Kestner was able to breathe 
 more freely. It left him with still a shadow of hope 
 as to her integrity. 
 
 He could see her as she sat there, with her gaze 
 fixed on the locked door. She had made no movement, 
 and she had not changed colour. But as the knock 
 was repeated, more peremptorily than before, her 
 whole face altered. There seemed to be a narrowing 
 of vision, a hardening of the lines about the sensitive 
 mouth, a masking of the spirit which a moment earlier 
 had stood before him, like an open book. She was 
 running truer to type, he felt, in that newer pose. 
 It was a nearer approach to what he had expected of 
 her. 
 
 " Who is that ? " he demanded in a whisper. 
 
 The woman sitting in the chair did not answer him. 
 But she made a quick and terrified motion for silence. 
 Then she rose to her feet, glancing wide-eyed about 
 the room.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL' 201 
 
 " Who is that ? " again demanded Kestner as he 
 lifted his revolver from its pocket. 
 
 Still she did not answer him. But a look of mute 
 protest leaped into her eyes as she saw his fire-arm. 
 
 " Wait," she implored in a whisper. She gave him 
 the impression of being afraid to speak. But her 
 eyes seemed to appeal to him for help, touched with 
 the pathos of an animal to whom the power of speech 
 has not been given. And for a moment, in the teeth 
 of the odds that were against her, he believed in her. 
 
 " Wait," she whispered again as she pointed to- 
 wards the door of the dingy little bedroom behind 
 him. He understood her gesture. But for a mo- 
 ment he hesitated, staring down into her face. It 
 was quite colourless, by this time, and oddly twisted, 
 as a child's face is sometimes contorted with pain. 
 But her hand was still stretched half-imploringly to- 
 wards that dingy room in the rear. 
 
 Then, as the knock was repeated, he stepped si- 
 lently back through that second door, with his hat in 
 one hand and his revolver in another. Then he 
 quietly closed the door and secured it by the heavy 
 brass bolt which he found on the inside. At the same 
 moment he heard the rustle of her skirts and the sound 
 of a key being turned in the lock. He had no time 
 to deliberate on the fact that she had locked him in 
 the room where he stood, for in the next breath he 
 could hear the sound of her voice, addressed to the 
 impatient knocker at the outer door. 
 
 " Just a moment," she called out with a slightly ris- 
 ing inflection which gave a note of casualness to her 
 cry. And Kestner, crouching behind that inner door,
 
 could easily picture how desperately she was re-mar- 
 shalling the scattered lines of her composure. He 
 could hear her as she crossed the room again. He 
 could even catch the sound of the key as it was turned 
 in the distant lock. 
 
 He knew the door had been opened, but no sound 
 reached his ears. He heard the thud of the door as 
 it was swung shut again. But still no sound of 
 voices came to the listener in the inner room. 
 
 That listener suddenly caught his breath, clasped 
 his hat on his head, and swung about. For a moment 
 the suspicion flashed through him that Maura Lam- 
 bert had cleverly given him the slip. His fingers were 
 already lifted to the brass draw-bolt when the silence 
 was broken by the sound of a laugh, an open-throated 
 and deep-chested laugh of mockery that was not pleas- 
 ant to hear. Then a voice spoke. 
 
 " You are not glad that I have come ! " 
 
 And Kestner, as he listened there, knew that the 
 voice was the voice of Morello.
 
 IT was by no means a feeling of fear that surged 
 through the man imprisoned in that squalid inner 
 room of the Alambo, as he heard the voice of his old- 
 time enemy. It was more an incongruous feeling of 
 deliverance, of relief at the thought that Maura Lam- 
 bert had not as yet betrayed him. Then he stood 
 again listening, for the sound of voices was once more 
 coming from the outer room. 
 
 " How dare you come here ? " he could hear the 
 woman demand. 
 
 He could hear Morello's repeated laugh of mockery, 
 and then the sound of the Neapolitan's voice. It was 
 a voice to which little of its native colouring still 
 clung, for as Kestner had so often remarked, many 
 years in America had robbed his speech of its idiom, 
 and his vocation as a criminal had further imposed 
 on him the necessity of denationalisation. 
 
 " I can come anywhere now," was Morello's care- 
 less answer. There was an audacity in that declara- 
 tion which seemed new to the man: it was not without 
 its effect on the woman confronting him. 
 
 " But what right have you to come here ? " she 
 repeated in a voice which quavered a little, in spite 
 of herself. 
 
 From some apartment nearby the strident notes 
 203
 
 204 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 of a piano struck up, as a vaudeville team settled down 
 to determined rehearsals of an undetermined rag- 
 time hit. Over and over the syncopated music was 
 repeated, providing a raucous and ceaseless accom- 
 paniment for the dialogue taking place in Number 
 Seventeen. That tumult of sound compelled Kest- 
 ner to place his ear flat against the panel of the in- 
 tervening door, that none of the talk might escape 
 him in the general din. 
 
 " What right have you to keep me out? " he could 
 hear Morello demand. And again there was the sound 
 of the full-throated laugh, but this time it was quite 
 without mirth. 
 
 " You have been drinking ! " proclaimed the ac- 
 cusatory voice of the woman. 
 
 " Have I? " was the heavy retort of her tormentor. 
 It was plain that he had stepped closer to her. " And 
 what if I have? When I want a thing, I get it." 
 
 " Tony ! " cried the reed-like voice of the other, in 
 sharp command. 
 
 " Bah ! " cried back the scoffing voice. " Do not 
 talk to me as though I were a child. The time for 
 that is over ! " 
 
 " And the time for this sort of nonsense is over," 
 countered the woman. She had backed away from him, 
 apparently, and was standing quite close to the bed- 
 room door. Kestner, in the brief lapse of silence that 
 followed, could catch the sound of her breathing. 
 Then the neighbouring piano struck up a louder tu- 
 mult and he could hear only Morello's voice again. 
 
 " Do you think you can get away from me ? " the 
 Neapolitan was saying. " No, signorita, it is too late
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 205 
 
 in the game for that! You are one of us, and you 
 will stay one of us always ! " 
 
 " You have nothing to do with what I am, or what 
 I intend to be," was Maura Lambert's defiant retort. 
 
 " No, that is already settled. You cannot get away 
 from that, any more than you can get away from me. 
 You came here, thinking I would not find you. And 
 the next morning I am here. And on still the next 
 morning I will be here ! " 
 
 Kestner found himself unable to combat the sense 
 of uneasiness which rose like a chilling tide through 
 his indignant body. Here was a force that was ele- 
 mental in its primitiveness, that could not be com- 
 bated by the ordinary movements of life. And be- 
 cause of that very primitiveness it would always prove 
 doubly perilous. It seemed to reduce everything to 
 the plane of the brute. It was as disconcerting as 
 the discovery of a tigress patrolling a city street. 
 It was a padded Hunger which could be checkmated 
 only by a force as feral as its own. 
 
 " My father would kill you for this ! " he could 
 hear the frightened girl cry out. And the next mo- 
 ment he could hear Morello's laugh of careless dis- 
 dain. 
 
 " He would kill me, would he ? And two days 
 ago he sent me to you, and said just what I have said 
 to-day!" 
 
 " That is a lie ! " Maura Lambert called out. 
 " You know what happened to Ferrone, two winters 
 ago in Capri! He talked that way, and he went to 
 Corfu with a bullet in his arm! And when Shoen- 
 bein insisted on insulting me, as you are doing, my
 
 206 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 father followed him to Abbazzia and he was in the 
 hospital at Fiume for over three weeks ! " 
 
 " Yes," mocked Morello, " he watched over you 
 then, because you were of use to him. He watched 
 over you the same as a circus manager watches over 
 an animal in a cage! Oh, yes, he took good care of 
 you the same care that a track-racer takes of his 
 horse! He took care of you because he had use for 
 you. He kept others away so that you could serve 
 him and his ends. He put you in a cage, and fed you 
 and kept you warm. He taught you the tricks he 
 needed. He decked you out in fine feathers and let 
 you idle about in soft places but he did that be- 
 cause it paid him to do it! And it paid him to see 
 that you were always alone, and he kept you always 
 alone!" 
 
 " That's not true ! You know it's not true ! He 
 kept my life clean, he kept it decent, no matter what 
 it cost, because he was my father and he cared for 
 me!" 
 
 " How much has he cared? " demanded Morello. 
 " The same as a crook cares for his capper ! The 
 same as a rabbit-hunter cares for his ferret ! And 
 when he thinks you cannot be of use to! him, he will 
 drop you, the same as he would drop an old shoe ! " 
 
 Kestner had to strain his ear to catch the girl's 
 answer above the din of the piano-pounding in the 
 nearby apartment. 
 
 " That is my father you are speaking of," he could 
 hear the quavering voice reply, and it rose in pitch 
 as the phrase was repeated, " my father do you 
 hear!"
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 207 
 
 Still again the sound of Morello's heavy laughter 
 filled the outer room. 
 
 " So he's your father," he scoffed. " Then I call 
 him a fine kind of a father! Ha, a fine father, wasn't 
 he, to take all those years to train you as a forger! 
 A fine father to take a young girl and show her the 
 secrets of counterfeiting, and keep her at it, until she 
 was the best steel-engraver in the business ! He was a 
 kind man, was he not, to take you out of a convent, 
 when he found you were clever with a pen and brush, 
 and put you to copying postage-stamps and Austrian 
 bank-notes and let you think it was for museum ex- 
 hibitions! That was a fine trick, was it not? Ha, 
 and he was a fine father when he tried to match you 
 off with that check-forger named Carlesi, that smooth- 
 tongued cut-throat who had swindled his way from 
 Messina to Berlin and back before you had stopped 
 playing with your dolls ! Ah, I see you remember 
 Carlesi!" 
 
 " I don't want to hear any more of this ! " cried 
 the girl. " I can't listen to " 
 
 " But you must hear more of this," contended the 
 other, losing himself more and more in that fiery tor- 
 rent of words as he went on. " And you are going 
 to hear it now. I, myself, Antonio Morello, have 
 something to say about that. Carlesi you remember, 
 yes, and you will never forget him. This man you 
 call your father said you should marry him you, 
 a girl of eighteen and Carlesi already hunted out of 
 Berne and Vienna and Budapest by the police! Do 
 you know 'why he planned that marriage? I will tell 
 you why. He saw he was losing his hold over you,
 
 208 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 and he was afraid. He needed you in his work. He 
 had spent years in making you what you were. But 
 he saw you were beginning to be restless, that your 
 heart was not at rest, that you might break away 
 from him! And he wanted to tie you down, for his 
 own use. He wanted to chain you to where he had 
 placed you, the same as a dog is tied to its kennel. 
 And Carlesi was to be the chain to hold you 
 there ! " 
 
 " That is not true ! " half moaned the girl. 
 
 " Ha, so it is not true ? And it is not true, that 
 night in Perugia, in the villa where by chance you 
 found the first printing-press? That night when 
 Carlesi tried to come through the window, after you 
 had quarrelled with him in the garden. That was 
 your father's villa, on that night, and Carlesi could 
 never have come to that window without your father's 
 consent. No, this fine father of yours knew what 
 Carlesi was going to do. That was part of the plan. 
 But you shot Carlesi as he pushed his way in through 
 the window. Ah, you remember that too ! You shot 
 him, through the curtains, and he fell back into the 
 garden. That was something which this man Lam- 
 bert had not looked for. It changed his plans. But 
 it did not end them. He was too clever for that ! " 
 
 " I will not listen," cried the desperate girl. " I 
 will not listen to this ! " 
 
 " You must listen. For it is time you heard these 
 things. You killed Carlesi. And he fell into the gar- 
 den, and your father took care of the body. He cov- 
 ered up the crime and promised that no one should 
 know. It took much money. That was explained to
 
 THE HAND OF PEREC 209 
 
 you, and that was why, the next day, you forged the 
 signatures to the Paris Electric certificates which had 
 been stolen a month before. Lambert knew, then, 
 that he had you under his thumb. You had killed a 
 man, and no one must know. It was the secret be- 
 tween you and your father. It was the chain that 
 held you down. And Carlesi dead was worth even 
 more to him than Carlesi alive ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't don't ! " half sobbed the girl. " Don't 
 go on with this ! " 
 
 But Morello was not to be stopped. 
 
 " You killed Carlesi. You leaned out of the win- 
 dow and saw your father carry the body away. You 
 saw it, with your own eyes. But you did not see 
 everything. You did not see where he was taken. 
 You did not see that he was still alive, and that in 
 three weeks' time he was given four thousand lira on 
 condition that he go to America and never be seen 
 back in Italy ! " 
 
 " What do you mean by that? " gasped the breath- 
 less girl. 
 
 " I mean what I have said. You did not kill Car- 
 lesi. It was this fine father of yours who lied to 
 you, who made you think you had murdered a man ! " 
 
 " This can't be true it can't ! " 
 
 " I can prove it is true. I can bring this man 
 Carlesi to you, and then you will know. He will point 
 out the bullet-wound, with his own finger. Then you 
 will understand who the liar is ! " 
 
 The girl's voice was so quiet that the listening 
 Kestner could scarcely catch her next words as she 
 spoke.
 
 210 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " My father would never lie to me like that ! He 
 would never do that ! " 
 
 It was then that Morello exploded his final dev- 
 astating truth at her. 
 
 " Your father ! " he cried. " He is no more your 
 father than I am! " 

 
 XI 
 
 KESTNER, as he stood there leaning against the 
 faded panel of that locked door which separated him 
 from those passionately contending voices, retained 
 little memory of where he was. He had forgotten the 
 Alambo and its unsavoury warrens, he had forgotten 
 the dingy gaiety of the crimson-papered bedroom be- 
 hind him, he had forgotten the fusillade of ragtime 
 piano-music, melancholy in its constant reiterations, 
 which assailed his ears. He no longer remembered 
 just why he was there. He was unconscious even of 
 the ignominy of his position, of his eavesdropper's 
 attitude behind a closed door, where he crouched with 
 twitching nerves along his body and beads of sweat 
 on his forehead. 
 
 All he heard and comprehended were those words of 
 Morello's the words which seemed to solve at one 
 stroke the enigma of Maura Lambert's life. They 
 flashed light into the deepest corner of a mystery 
 which from the first he had been unable to explain or 
 explore. They brought to him a sudden yet unde- 
 cipherable sense of elation. They not only carried 
 with them a readjustment of the entire case, but also 
 the consciousness that his interest in the career of 
 this girl, who had been driven into crime under com- 
 pulsion, was more than a professional interest. And 
 
 211
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 he did not lament the discovery. It left him with 
 something to live for, something to work for. 
 
 But Kestner could give no further thought to the 
 matter, for the girl on the other side of the door was 
 already speaking again. The timbre of her voice had 
 altered. It seemed touched with fear, and at the 
 same time with exaltation. It carried, even above the 
 trivial noises of that sordid rookery of sordid lives, 
 the note of a soul which found itself confronted by 
 issues wider than it could understand. 
 
 "That can't be true!" she half-sobbed. "It 
 can't!" 
 
 " You do not believe ? No ! That is natural," 
 Morello cried back at her. " They have made all 
 your life a lie. But when I show you Carlesi, face to 
 face, will you believe ? " 
 
 " I can't believe it ! " Yet for all that protest her 
 voice carried a note of tremulous rhapsody which even 
 Kestner could detect. And Morello, glorying in the 
 discovery that he was upsetting her world about her, 
 that he was leaving her nothing stable, nothing on 
 which to rely, let the tide of his grim purpose carry 
 him along. 
 
 " You will come with me, and then you will know. 
 I do not ask you to believe. You will see, with your 
 own eyes. And then you will know. You will know 
 what I know, that Paul Lambert is not your father, 
 that he robbed your father in Civitavecchia when he 
 went there dying of Roman fever. Lambert had been 
 sent there from Paris, to steal maps of the fort. But 
 instead of stealing the maps, he stole you. He saw 
 you were a clever child and that he could make use of
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 213 
 
 you. He took you to a convent in Switzerland. 
 You will remember that. And when he took you out 
 of that convent he began training you for his work. 
 Already he was a forger, yes, a good forger. He 
 forged the papers in which you always believed, the 
 papers about yourself. Then you know what he did. 
 You know how he " 
 
 Kestner, straining to catch every word, heard 
 Morello's voice trail off into sudden silence. In that 
 silence, for a second or two, he could hear nothing but 
 the stridently muffled notes of the distant piano and 
 the far-away rattle and clank of an elevator door- 
 grill as it slid shut on its runway. Then he caught 
 the unmistakable sound of a woman's gasp of terror 
 and surprise. 
 
 Immediately following that strange gasp came an- 
 other sound, the sound of a newer and deeper voice 
 sounding in the room just beyond the locked door. 
 
 " You welcher ! " boomed out that sterner and 
 harsher voice. And the cry was repeated, slowly and 
 deliberately, but in a tone even more passionate. 
 " You dirty welcher ! " 
 
 Kestner could see nothing of what had taken place 
 or was then taking place. But as he heard that voice 
 he knew it was Lambert himself speaking, Lambert 
 who must have stepped quietly into the room while 
 the Neapolitan was pouring out his volcanic utter- 
 ances to the bewildered woman in front of him. And 
 the sudden realisation of what Lambert's intrusion 
 meant at such a moment brought a tingle of nerves 
 needling up and down the backbone of the intently 
 listening Kestner.
 
 214 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 He waited there, motionless and breathless, as that 
 silence of only a few seconds prolonged itself into 
 something which to his straining nerves seemed almost 
 interminable. 
 
 Then, above the din of the Alambo's many activi- 
 ties, came still another sound. It was not loud. It 
 was a sound not unlike that of one board being 
 dropped flat on another, or of two books being slapped 
 together to rid them of dust. 
 
 It was a sound that might have been accepted as the 
 distant explosion of gases in the exhaust of a back- 
 firing automobile, or, to the uninitiated ear, as the 
 quick slam of a door. But to Kestner it meant some- 
 thing quite different. It was a sound which he had 
 heard on more than one occasion, and always with 
 a feeling of nettling nerve-ends. 
 
 Almost before the meaning of that sound had fully 
 registered itself on his startled consciousness there 
 was a second and less determinate sound. The floor 
 under Kestner's feet quivered a little with the con- 
 cussion of some sudden weight imposed upon it. 
 
 But the Secret Agent no longer stood there inac- 
 tive. That tell-tale thud brought his hand up to the 
 brass draw-bolt. Even when this was released, how- 
 ever, he found the door still locked. He could not dis- 
 tinctly remember whether he cried out or not. But 
 he at least knew that he was struggling and straining 
 ineffectually against a locked door, and losing valu- 
 able time. 
 
 Then he wheeled about and ran back into the cen- 
 tre of the room. There he caught up a slattern- 
 cushioned arm-chair, letting the cushions fall about
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 him as he raised it high above his head. Then, swing- 
 ing back to the locked door, he brought the chair- 
 legs with a shattering crash against the faded panels. 
 That quick blow splintered the edge of the door, break- 
 ing away the mortised lock and leaving it free to 
 swing outward into the next room. 
 
 Kestner, dropping the chair, stepped into that next 
 room. 
 
 On the floor, half-way between the bedroom and the 
 opened door leading to the hall, lay Morello. He lay 
 on his back, with either arm thrown out at right angles 
 to his body, in the form of a cross. 
 
 Kestner stooped over him. There was a small blue 
 hole in the man's forehead, just above the nose-bridge 
 where the black-haired eye-brows met, and from the 
 back of the head the skull had been blown entirely 
 away. And in the meantime the rhapsodic rag-time 
 Saturnalia of sound went on in its, nearby room un- 
 interrupted. 
 
 Kestner stepped to the hall door and shut and 
 locked it. Then he picked up the revolver which Lam- 
 bert must have thrown back into the room as he fled. 
 The Secret Agent's fingers were a little unsteady as 
 from force of habit he examined this revolver and 
 found the cartridge of one chamber empty. But he 
 dropped the fire-arm, without emotion, close beside 
 Morello's outstretched right hand. Then he peered 
 quickly and inquiringly about the room. 
 
 The package of plates was no longer there. On the 
 floor was the piece of green baize in which they had 
 been wrapped, but the delicately chased oblongs of 
 metal were gone. Gone too was the travelling-bag
 
 and the hat and gloves which had stood beside it. 
 
 And with them, Kestner suddenly realised, Maura 
 Lambert had once more slipped away from him. 
 
 He was not so troubled by the thought that Lam- 
 bert also had made his escape. A getaway such as 
 that was only the fortune of war, a reverse to be 
 atoned for by other movements on other days. 
 
 But the memory of what had so recently taken place 
 in that dingy-walled room, and the thought that now 
 of all times he could be of help to the girl so sorely 
 in need of that help, carried him across the room and 
 down the many-odoured hall to the elevator. 
 
 The car rose to his floor, in response to his frantic 
 pushes on the bell-button. A second later he was 
 shooting down towards the office. 
 
 " Did a tall man and a girl with a leather bag go 
 down here a moment ago ? " Kestner asked the close- 
 cropped negro-boy operating the car. That youth's 
 heavily impersonal face lightened into sudden interest 
 as he felt a coin pressed into his hand. 
 
 " Yas, sah, dat young woman wen' down about two 
 minutes ago ! But th' tall gen'elmun, I see him go 
 down by th' sta'ahs, sah, on de up trip w'en de woman 
 rung f 'r me, sah ! " 
 
 " Was he hurrying? " 
 
 " Yas, sah he was trabbelin', all right ! " 
 
 Kestner stepped from the elevator-car to the office- 
 desk. A pale-eyed clerk, with a head as bare as a 
 billiard-ball, was leisurely re-addressing a heterogene- 
 ous pile of mail-matter. 
 
 Beside this mail-matter Kestner placed a card on 
 which he had scribbled his name and address.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL' 217 
 
 " I think you had better call a policeman," he said 
 to the pale-eyed clerk, still bent over his letters. " A 
 man has just been murdered in Number Seventeen!" 
 
 The shining bald dome moved upward with incredi- 
 ble rapidity. 
 
 " A man's been what? " he vacuously demanded. 
 
 " If you want me later ring me up," cried back 
 Kestner as he made for the door of the Alambo. 
 
 Outside that door his quick eye fell on Wilsnach 
 himself. His colleague of the Service was holding 
 by the arm a small and vigorously protesting mes- 
 senger-boy. 
 
 " There's th' guy I want ! " was that youth's tri- 
 umphant cry as Kestner made a spring for them. 
 
 " What's wrong here ? " barked out the Secret 
 Agent. 
 
 " This gink's tryin' to butt into my business. He 
 comes up on th' run an' grabs me after I hand over 
 that message o' yours ! " 
 
 *' Where did you hand it ? " 
 
 " W'y, to th' dame herself as she hops into a taxi 
 an' beats it for Broadway without even waitin' to sign 
 for it!" 
 
 Kestner wheeled about and stared eastward. There 
 was no taxi in sight. 
 
 " Was she alone ? " was his next quick query. 
 
 "Yep!" 
 
 " Not with a tall man of about fifty? " 
 
 " Oh, that ol' guy grabbed th' first taxi an' got 
 away as though he was answerin' a three-alarm call. 
 That was b'fore th s dame wit* th' bag come out o' the 
 hotel!"
 
 218 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " We're too late ! " gasped Kestner. 
 
 He suddenly turned about and caught Wilsnach 
 by the coat sleeve. 
 
 " You got that man Carlesi? " he demanded. And 
 his heart went down as he read the answer on Wils- 
 nach's somewhat bewildered face, even before his lips 
 spoke the words. 
 
 " I thought I had him cornered, but he gave me the 
 slip!" 
 
 Kestner's hand dropped. 
 
 " O God, what a mess for one morning ! " he 
 breathed aloud. 
 
 Wilsnach stepped back a little and stared at his 
 superior. It was not often that Kestner lapsed into 
 emotionalism over trivialities. 
 
 " But this man Carlesi is only small potatoes," 
 argued Wilsnach. " He's nothing but " 
 
 " Never mind what he is," cut in Kestner, " we've 
 got to get that man if it takes us round the world ! "
 
 PART V 
 THE QUARTERS ON THE RIVER
 
 KESTNER sat in a brown study. It was three full 
 hours since the murder of Antonio Morello in the 
 Alambo. Not a word had as yet come in to him, and 
 here was a situation, he knew, where time was precious. 
 
 On the rosewood table in front of Kestner lay what 
 was left of his third cigar. About his feet was a scat- 
 tering 1 of ashes, the residuary evidence of an hour's 
 Vesuvian mental ferment. Confronting him on the 
 polished table-top, not unlike huge pawns on an aban- 
 doned chessboard, stood three telephone transmitters. 
 Two of them were Kestner's recently installed private 
 wires. The third was the switch-board connection of 
 the hotel itself. 
 
 Kestner sat between those transmitters, momen- 
 tarily undecided as to what the next move should be. 
 He sat where those wires converged, waiting, like a 
 spider at the centre of its web. Yet for all the in- 
 tricate network of espionage that had been so fever- 
 ishly and yet so dexterously thrown out across the 
 City, no slightest word of value had trickled in to him. 
 He was still hesitating between the house-connection 
 and his second private wire when the brisk tinkle of 
 a bell brought an end to his indecision. 
 
 He caught up the receiver on his left and found 
 JVilsnach on the wire. 
 
 " We've got something," announced Wilsnach. 
 
 "Can I talk?" 
 
 221
 
 222 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 "Talk away!" 
 
 " We haven't a trace of the woman yet," began 
 Wilsnach. 
 
 " What woman ? " angrily demanded Kestner. He 
 always hated the other man when he spoke of Maura 
 Lambert as a Bertillon exhibit, and there were times 
 when he half-suspected Wilsnach's knowledge of that 
 feeling. 
 
 " The scratcher for that Lambert gang," was the 
 none too placatory response over the wire. But time 
 was too precious for personal issues. 
 
 " We can find that woman best by first finding Car- 
 lesi. I've already told you that." 
 
 " But she's the king-pin of those counterfeiters. 
 She's the one we've got to get ! " 
 
 " And she's the one we'll get the easiest when the 
 time comes ! " 
 
 " Well, Carlesi shouldn't be hard. Romano has 
 just phoned me that one of his men has spotted Car- 
 lesi." 
 
 "Spotted him?" 
 
 " Yes, and tailed him to a shooting-gallery." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Down on the East River water-front." 
 
 " And he's there now ? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 " As far as I know," was the answer. " He'll be 
 easy to find. A middle-aged Dago, stoop-shouldered, 
 with granulated eye-lids." 
 
 "But why a shooting-gallery?" 
 
 " That they can't say until some one gets inside. 
 And they waited for word from you." 
 
 " Good ! "
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 223 
 
 " There's only one thing more, Romano says. What 
 looks like a bundle of bond paper was delivered there 
 a few, minutes after Carlesi went in." 
 
 " That's important. Now describe that shooting- 
 gallery to me, and tell me just where it is." 
 
 Kestner listened intently as Wilsnach told what he 
 knew of the place. Then the Secret Agent glanced 
 down at his watch. 
 
 " I think I can be inside that gallery in an hour's 
 time. Meanwhile, you have Romano run down the 
 Lambert taxi number. Put Schmidt on it too, if 
 nothing turns up in an hour. I've phoned Hendry 
 to have all trains and ferries covered, and the City 
 staff people are watching the bridges and motor- 
 routes. We can't afford to let that man Lambert get 
 off the Island." 
 
 " You mean if he gets going, now, he'll never 
 stop?" 
 
 " Murder in the first degree can make a man travel 
 a long way, Wilsnach. And we've done enough trav- 
 elling on this case." 
 
 " And you'll cover Carlesi and the gallery alone ? " 
 
 " I'll attend to Carlesi. But post a man to tail 
 him, in case he tries to move on before I get there. 
 Get a man who'd know Lambert if he saw him." 
 
 "Lambert?" 
 
 " Yes ; either Lambert or Maura Lambert are going 
 to get in touch with Carlesi as soon as they safely can. 
 Perhaps Lambert's already seen him. It's ten to one 
 the girl will try to. And that's why I'm going to 
 cover Carlesi." 
 
 " All right I understand."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " And in case of doubt, report to Hendry by wire." 
 
 " Of course," answered Wilsnach. 
 
 " And as soon as you're free, yourself, get around to 
 that shooting-gallery. I may need you." 
 
 " I'll be there," said the ever-dependable Wilsnach, 
 as he hung up the receiver.
 
 n 
 
 IT WAS exactly one hour later that Kestner stopped 
 his taxi-cab on a side-street sloping down to the East 
 River water-front. He was apparelled in a suit of 
 rusty brown, purchased from a Seventh Avenue second- 
 hand man, a pair of square-toed tan shoes that had 
 both seen better days and been made for larger feet, 
 and a weather-stained felt hat with an oily sweat- 
 band and a sagging brim. 
 
 He slackened his pace a little as he turned the cor- 
 ner, leisurely rolling a Durham cigarette and as leis- 
 urely returning the cotton pouch to his coat-pocket. 
 He stared indolently and irresolutely about him, as he 
 stood opposite the shooting-gallery window. Then 
 he shuffled by, hesitated, and finally swung back in his 
 tracks. But- during every moment of that apparent 
 aimlessness he was carefully inspecting his ground. 
 
 As he shuffled into the gallery itself he found it 
 comparatively deserted, steeped in the lull of its mid- 
 afternoon quietness. Yet he stood puffing his ciga- 
 rette, lethargically watching two youths in sailor 
 blouses as they shot at a glass ball dancing at the 
 summit of a fountain spray. They were shooting 
 desultorily, and with comments of ribald disgust. So 
 Kestner sank into one of the four red-armed chairs 
 
 ranged in front of the street-window. From that 
 
 225
 
 226 THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 point of vantage he stared casually and dreamily about 
 him. 
 
 He found himself confronted by a long and rather 
 low-ceilinged room, filled with the drifting fumes of 
 gun-oil and tobacco and smokeless cartridges. Across 
 the front of this room ran a counter, with a hinge-top 
 at one end, and at the other an orderly row of waiting 
 fire-arms. 
 
 Behind this counter stood an anaemic and sallow- 
 faced youth of about twenty, languidly passing the 
 blade of a broken-handled razor along the face of an 
 oil-covered hone. About that youth Kestner could 
 find little that was worthy of attention. But he let 
 no movement of the sallow-faced boy escape him. 
 
 Beyond the counter-top were the targets, white- 
 painted discs of metal, a row of clay pipes illuminated 
 by unseen electric-bulbs, and a further row of diminu- 
 tive white ducks which travelled on an endless chain 
 across a dusky and well-devised background, a cease- 
 less, hurrying procession ceaselessly inviting the skill 
 of the most casual visitor. A more remote target 
 stood at the end of a galvanised iron tube, and along 
 one side of this narrow tube ran a hemp rope connect- 
 ing with a whitening brush on a pivot. 
 
 It was not until the two sea-faring youths put down 
 their rifles, relighted their stogies, and wandered on 
 to other diversions, that Kestner languidly rose from 
 his chair and advanced to the gun-counter. As he 
 did so the sallow-faced youth pulled the hemp rope 
 and rewhitened the tunnel target, switched on the 
 lights which illuminated his crowded parliament of 
 targets, and went on with his honing.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 227 
 
 Kestner threw down a quarter and picked up a rifle. 
 As he took deliberate aim at one of the moving white 
 ducks he noticed that a door in the side-wall to the 
 left had opened and another man had stepped into the 
 room. And Kestner's interest in that gallery immedi- 
 ately increased. 
 
 He fired and saw a duck go down. Then he turned 
 and glanced sleepily at the newcomer. It would have 
 taken a keen eye to discern any interest or any altera- 
 tion in that look. The change was there, however, 
 for at a glance the man in the rusty brown clothes had 
 realised that the intruder was not Carlesi. 
 
 Yet this intruder was not without his points of in- 
 terest. He appeared to be a rotund and square-shoul- 
 dered and small-eyed man of about forty-five, with a 
 skin so oddly weather-reddened that its colour seemed 
 to have been deepened with brick-dust. His wide- 
 brimmed Stetson hat was stained with sweat, and from 
 one corner of the full-blooded thick lips drooped a 
 green Havana cheroot. 
 
 Kestner, as he tried for another duck and sent it 
 over, conceded there was both audacity and authority 
 in that figure with the brick-dust skin and the alert 
 little eyes. And Kestner, as he aimed for a bull's-eye 
 and missed by a bare inch, wondered just what that pic- 
 turesque newcomer's business could be, and just what 
 connection he could have with Carlesi and a bundle of 
 bond-paper. 
 
 But curiosity did not deter Kestner from his target 
 practice. He remembered, as he tried again for the 
 nearest bull's-eye and rang the bell, his long months of 
 rifle and revolver work, his early pistol-drill as a police
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " rookie," his idle weeks and weeks of shooting at the 
 Monte Carlo pigeons. He had always been proud of 
 his gun-work. But his aim would have been more as- 
 sured, he knew, if the number of his cigars had been 
 more limited. 
 
 He was able to go down the row of clay pipes, 
 however, snapping pipe after pipe off at the stem, each 
 in its turn. Then, having leaned over the counter in 
 utter idleness for a minute or two, he tried out the 
 tube target. His third shot rang the bell. So did 
 his fifth, his eighth, his ninth and his tenth. Then 
 he put down his gun, felt through his pockets, and 
 stared about with a heavy-eyed dismay. 
 
 " Hell ! " he mumbled, " there ain't even a dime for 
 another go ! " 
 
 He was conscious of the fact that the stranger in the 
 sweat-stained Stetson had crossed over to the counter 
 and was standing close beside him. He could hear 
 the click of a coin as it was snapped down on the 
 board. 
 
 " Jigg er > hand the gen'leman a gun. It's worth a 
 nickel or two to see real shootin' ! " 
 
 Kestner laughed with lazy unconcern, took the rifle, 
 and tried for his eleventh target. 
 
 "Missed!" ejaculated the stranger as the bullet 
 left its tell-tale stain a half-inch above the bull's-eye. 
 
 " 5 S what booze does," complained Kestner as he 
 sighted again. Out of the next six shots, however, 
 four of them were bull's-eyes. It was by that time, 
 too, that Kestner had decided on his role. 
 
 " You're a slick shot," solemnly admitted the 
 stranger.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 229 
 
 <? Ge me some day without a hang-over," was the 
 other's heavily boastful reply. 
 
 " Say, son, where'd you learn to shoot that way? " 
 
 " Down in the Panhandle Country," was the 
 promptly mendacious reply. 
 
 " Learnt ridin', too, I s'pose? " 
 
 " Anything on hoofs," acknowledged the other, as 
 he made a fumble at rolling a cigarette. 
 
 " You out o' work ? " casually inquired the stranger. 
 
 "Yep!" 
 
 "What's your trade?" 
 
 Kestner felt that his new friend was not long in get- 
 ting down to cases. 
 
 " Tried brakin' on the C. and G. T., but the work 
 was too heavy. Before that I was a plumber. But 
 I got in bad, out yonder." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Out West." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Scabbin'." 
 
 " I guess you've done strike-breakin' then? " 
 
 " Sure. A man's got to live." 
 
 " And you ain't gun-shy of a little excitement ? " 
 
 Kestner laughed. 
 
 " I can eat it " Then he yawned, openly and audi- 
 bly. " But what I could eat now's about ten hours' 
 sleep." 
 
 The stranger at his side grew suddenly thoughtful. 
 
 " I'm roundin' up a bunch o' strike-breakers my- 
 self," he explained. The lowering of his voice became 
 confidential, fraternal. " I'm lookin' for a couple o' 
 hundred good men ; and you're the style I'm after."
 
 230 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Kestner viewed him with a carelessly cynical eye. 
 
 " What're you payin'? " 
 
 " Three dollars a day, and everything found. That 
 includes transportation from New York." 
 
 "In gold?" 
 
 The query elicited a guarded look of appraisal 
 from the stranger in the Stetson hat. The figure in 
 rusty brown, apparently, was not as unsophisticated 
 as he looked. 
 
 " Gold, sure," was the final response. 
 
 " And where's the transportation to ? " 
 
 The stranger waved an ambiguously comprehensive 
 arm. 
 
 " Down South." 
 
 " But how far down? " Kestner backed disdain- 
 fully away. " Get this, my friend, first crack : No 
 Mexican stuff for mine ! " 
 
 " Oh, we'll call this the other side of the Canal." 
 
 "But what's the game?" 
 
 " Protectin' nitrate mines." 
 
 "Go on!" 
 
 "Ain't that enough?" 
 
 " Not for me." Kestner leaned sleepily against the 
 shooting-gallery counter. The other man stood study- 
 ing him. 
 
 " Look here, son, I'm roundin' up a bunch o 9 long- 
 horns who can take a chance, and do what they're 
 told, and keep their mugs shut. That's worth three 
 dollars a day. And if they can shoot it's worth two 
 dollars extra." 
 
 " That sounds like Banana belt revolution work." 
 
 " No, son, it's just Banana belt politics. And once
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 231 
 
 we carry the election in that republic there's a three 
 hundred dollar bonus waitin' for ev'ry man who's made 
 good. And I'm a poor guesser if you'd be a quitter in 
 a game like that." 
 
 " Oh, I'm glad enough to get out o' this burg. But 
 I'm bust. What're you givin' me down? " 
 
 " Twenty bones." 
 
 " And no questions asked? " 
 
 " All you've got to do is step down to the office and 
 sign up." 
 
 Kestner viewed the other man with a sudden show 
 of suspicion. But that mention of an office interested 
 him. 
 
 " There's no street-parade about this thing, is 
 there?" 
 
 " Son, what're you scared of? " was the stranger's 
 gentle inquiry. 
 
 " I'm scared o' nothin'. But a couple o' flatties've 
 got my number and they're goin' to pound me off the 
 island. All I want is a corner to crawl into till I can 
 sleep this head o' mine off." 
 
 " Then just step this way," said the man with the 
 Stetson hat, as he glanced casually about and crossed 
 to the sidewall door and opened it. He waited until 
 the sleepy-eyed man at his heels had passed through 
 that door. Then he swung it shut. 
 
 " And here's your twenty to cinch the thing," he 
 added as he produced a capacious roll of bills and 
 peeled off two yellowbacks. 
 
 Kestner took the two bills, folded them up, and 
 started to tuck them carefully into his vest pocket. 
 Then, as he listlessly followed the other man down the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 narrow steps into the next room, he drew out those 
 yellowbacks for a second inspection. 
 
 " I thought you paid in gold," he suddenly de- 
 murred. 
 
 " That's as good as gold, ain't it? " 
 
 Kestner, at the moment, did not answer, for he was 
 staring down at the two ten-dollar notes, re-inspect- 
 ing them with the trained eye of the expert. 
 
 " Ain't that as good as gold? " demanded the other 
 man. 
 
 " Sure," was Kestner's easy answer, for the first 
 glance had warned him that those two yellowbacks 
 were counterfeits. And the second glance had con- 
 vinced him of the fact that they had been printed 
 from Lambert plates, with Lambert inks, and on Lam- 
 bert paper. 
 
 Kestner found himself in a basement-room which 
 bore evidence of at one time being used as a plumber's 
 shop. In the front corner stood an overturned enamel 
 bath-tub and a couple of hand-bowls of the same ma- 
 terial. Behind these lay a pile of gas-piping, and in 
 the heavily grated window below the street-level Kest- 
 ner could make out a dusty array of pipe-wrenches 
 and faucets, a gasoline pump torch, and a broken 
 heat-coil. Next to this window was a grated door 
 which opened on a steep flight of steps leading to the 
 sidewalk level. In the middle of the room stood a 
 huge flat-topped desk on which was a telephone trans- 
 mitter, a city directory, and a green-shaded electric- 
 light. 
 
 But it was none of these things that held Kestner's 
 attention. His quick glance had already taken in the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 1 233 
 
 fact that two doors opened through a wooden partition 
 across the back of the room. And from behind one 
 of these doors came the sound of machinery, the 
 rhythmic clatter and thump of what could be only a 
 bed press in operation. 
 
 " Got a printin' plant back there? " he somnolently 
 inquired as he sniffed the betraying smell of benzine. 
 
 " Sure," said the other man, pulling open one of the 
 desk drawers and flinging a form-pad on the battered 
 table-top. His next movement was one of impatience. 
 " You sign here," he said as a stubby forefinger 
 touched the bottom of the pad. 
 
 " I do a little printin' myself," amiably persisted 
 the new recruit. He sat stiffly down at the desk and 
 took up a pen. Then he leaned close over the form, 
 possessed of a sudden desire to conceal his face. For 
 on the floor, at one end of the desk where he sat, stood 
 a gallon can a can from which the top had been 
 cut away. Yet the insignia and the lettering on this 
 can testified to the fact that it must recently have 
 held olive oil. And oil, Kestner knew, could have 
 .been poured readily enough from the unsealed spout 
 in a corner of the severed top. What startled him, 
 however, was the discovery that the can bore the same 
 stamp as those which had been stored full of sand and 
 counterfeit paper in the Lambert printing-plant at 
 Palermo. 
 
 Kestner, as he leaned in sleepy dejection over the 
 printed form and scrawlingly attached a signature to 
 its bottom, was not as absentminded as his appearance 
 implied. He could see that the shooting-gallery 
 abovestairs was merely a trap to gather in adventur-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 ous roustabouts and beach-combers and strike-break- 
 ers. These worthies were apparently being drafted 
 for some dubious expedition into Latin- American poli- 
 tics. What that expedition was did not greatly in- 
 terest the man who had so recently sworn allegiance to 
 the cause. What held his attention was the fact that 
 this movement was being financed by spurious Lambert 
 money, that he himself carried two of those counter- 
 feit yellowbacks in his pocket, and that the murderer 
 of Morello had in some way associated himself with 
 the brick-skinned man in front of him. 
 
 Kestner still leaned sleepily over the desk-top. He 
 was demanding of himself what deal Lambert in his 
 desperation could have made with this adventurer from 
 the Tropics. 
 
 " Gi' me a dollar a day extra," he languidly sug- 
 gested, " and I'll do your printin' for you." 
 
 " You're a day too late," announced the other. 
 " And you said you wanted to sleep off that head." 
 
 " I sure do. I never got a wink las " 
 
 He stopped speaking, for the telephone bell beside 
 him shrilled out its sudden summons. The man in 
 the Stetson hat very promptly lifted the transmitter 
 away from the desk-top and took down the receiver. 
 
 " Yes," he answered over the wire. " Sure. . . . 
 This is Burke. . . . Sure. . . . An Italian named 
 Carlesi . . . ever since morning. . . . Yes. . . . Car- 
 lesi. . . . Search me. . . . All right. . . . Any old 
 time. . . . Sure. . . . Sure ! " 
 
 Kestner, still sitting at the desk, rubbed a heavy 
 forehead.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " I thought you were goin' to let me get where it 
 was quiet for a couple of hours," he complained. 
 
 The man in the Stetson hat had taken the topmost 
 sheet from the pad, folded it up, and placed it in his 
 wallet. He stood for a moment or two without speak- 
 ing, his alert little eyes studying the other man's 
 stooping shoulders. The silhouette of that somnolent 
 figure seemed to reassure him. 
 
 " All right," he said as he crossed the room and 
 unlocked the door that led into what seemed to be a 
 narrow passageway to the left of the printing-room. 
 " You can have my whole private office." 
 
 " Me for the hay ! " announced Kestner. He got 
 up slowly, yawned, and stepped towards the open 
 door. 
 
 " It ain't exactly hay, son," amended his new-found 
 host, " but I've put in a night or two myself on that 
 bit of counter along the wall." 
 
 " It looks good to me," responded Kestner as he 
 sleepily unlaced his square-toed shoes and slipped them 
 off. Then he made a show of clambering heavily up 
 on the counter-top. He yawned again as he covered 
 his legs with a worn and paint-stained square of tar- 
 paulin. 
 
 " Sleep tight," he heard the stranger call back to 
 him as he closed the door and the man on the coun- 
 ter suddenly lifted his head, for he felt sure of a touch 
 of mockery in that apparently blithe-noted farewell. 
 
 Then a sensation not altogether conducive to quiet 
 repose sped through Kestner's body. He had dis- 
 tinctly heard the sound of a key being turned in the
 
 236 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 lock and then withdrawn. That meant he had Been 
 made a prisoner. And the Secret Agent was further 
 conscious of the somewhat disconcerting fact that in 
 taking his departure the man in the Stetson hat had 
 also carried away with him a pair of square-toed shoes 
 which obviously were of no immediate use to a sleeper.
 
 in 
 
 KESTNER lay stretched out along his counter-top, 
 carefully considering his predicament. Steadily, from 
 the next room, came the consoling clank and pound of 
 the bed press. Occasionally from the shooting-gal- 
 lery in the adjoining building crept the thin and muf- 
 fled bark of the target-rifles. Now and then, too, he 
 could hear the faint drone of a steamer whistle some- 
 where out on the East River. But beyond this nar- 
 row cantata of noises no enlightening sounds came to 
 him. 
 
 He waited a few minutes, to make sure he was not 
 being watched. Then he slipped quietly from the 
 counter-top, walked noiselessly to the door, and cau- 
 tiously turned the knob. That door, as he already 
 knew, was locked. 
 
 He wheeled slowly about, studying the narrow 
 chamber in, which he found himself a prisoner. High 
 up in the brick wall at the rear was a two-foot window, 
 guarded with bar-iron sunk in the masonry. A few 
 feet beyond this opening he could see a white-washed 
 plane of unbroken brick, but nothing else. 
 
 Between him and the printing-room stood a wooden 
 partition of unpainted matched pine. Here and there 
 along cracks in the boards he could make out the glim- 
 mer of light, presumably from an electric bulb swung 
 
 237
 
 238 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 above the busy hand press. But no crevice was broad 
 enough to permit him a glimpse of that room which he 
 so wished to inspect. 
 
 The front of his narrow prison was shut off from 
 the outer office by a partition of pine no heavier than 
 that which ran along the side. And Kestner, when he 
 realised that it would require no great effort to force 
 a way through a barrier so flimsy, felt less disturbed 
 in spirit. The worthy in the Stetson hat, he con- 
 cluded, had merely taken an ordinary precaution to 
 keep a new and untried recruit under surveillance. 
 He had not imprisoned an acknowledged enemy. He 
 had merely impounded an unstable adventurer who 
 could later be made to serve certain desired ends. 
 
 Kestner returned to his study of the little chamber. 
 Except for the counter and the tarpaulin he found it 
 as bare as a cell. The one thing that worried him 
 now was the loss of his shoes. But a source of even 
 greater perplexity was the fact that he could see noth- 
 ing of the printing-room next to him. And to in- 
 vestigate that printing-room was his first business in 
 life. 
 
 He explored the partition wall, foot by foot. Then 
 he took out his pocket-knife, squatted down at the in- 
 ner end of the counter, and found two boards where 
 the tongue and groove of the matched pine did not 
 come close together. 
 
 He cut away the wood along this narrow fissure, 
 timing each knife stroke to synchronise with the clank 
 of the press. Each sliver and shaving of pine was 
 brushed carefully up and hidden beneath the counter- 
 end. And a ten-inch shift of the counter, he saw
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 239 
 
 when he had finished, could easily hide all signs of 
 work. 
 
 But that work resulted in a quarter-inch crevice 
 which commanded a reasonably clear view of the next 
 room. And Kestner, leaning forward, could see the 
 shock-headed dome of a middle-aged man at work 
 above the hand press, picked out by the light from an 
 unshaded electric bulb. On shelves beyond the press 
 stood a litter of grey camp-blankets and waterproofs 
 and wooden boxes that looked suspiciously like cases 
 of ammunition. One corner of the room was piled 
 high with larger boxes. A couple of these had been 
 broken open, apparently for inspection. From the un- 
 sealed end of one protruded the stock of an army car- 
 bine. 
 
 Exceptional and significant as this merchandise ap- 
 peared, it did not interest Kestner so much as did the 
 man at work beside the press. He watched that man 
 as he carefully re-inked his rollers and continued to 
 feed in his sheets of cinnamon-brown bond paper, some 
 eight or nine inches square. He watched the stooping- 
 shouldered and swarthy-skinned worker as he held one 
 of these squares up to the light, examined it with his 
 squinting and red-rimmed eyes, and then proceeded to 
 adjust a platen-shaft which seemed to be giving him 
 trouble. 
 
 As the printer returned to his task of running his 
 cinnamon-brown squares through the press Kestner 
 awoke to a realisation of just what was taking place 
 behind the closed door of that cellar work-room. 
 Those sheets of tinted bond, the Secret Agent decided, 
 could be used for just one purpose. He had surmised
 
 240 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 it even before he caught sight of the oddly prepared 
 shade of ink and the figures and letters so freshly im- 
 pressed on the sheets themselves. 
 
 In that humble little cellar-room was being created 
 the currency of an impending Republic. From eight 
 photo-engraved plates, in one block, the man at the 
 press was busily printing forty-peso " shin-plasters." 
 And those forty-peso notes, Kestner suddenly remem- 
 bered, were an integral part of the cause to which he 
 himself had so recently sworn allegiance. 
 
 He was reminded of the imminence of this cause by 
 the sudden thump of a closed door, the sound of steps, 
 and then the murmur of hurried voices from the room 
 to the front. The Secret Agent crept back to the 
 transverse partition that shut off his narrow cell and 
 pressed an ear flat against the pine boards. In that 
 position he was able to make out the clear-cut tones 
 of the man who had first spoken to him in the shooting- 
 gallery above. 
 
 " But I've got business of my own to wind up here," 
 he was complaining. " I've got to gather up another 
 couple o' dozen men. Then I've got to get sixty cases 
 o' wind-mill equipment aboard, and a lighter loaded 
 with those phony gasoline engines o' mine." 
 
 " But I tell you, Burke, I've got to get away from 
 here ! " 
 
 At the first sound of that voice, so guardedly low- 
 ered in tone, Kestner knew it was Lambert speaking. 
 
 ** And I've got to get away from here too." It was 
 Burke's voice speaking this time. " And I've got a 
 few palms to grease before I can get clearance." 
 
 " But when we made our deal you agreed to get me
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 241 
 
 away, and get me away without any waiting," retorted 
 the impatient voice of Lambert. Kestner, behind his 
 thin screen of matched pine, remembered that he was 
 within twenty feet of the man who had murdered Mo- 
 rello. 
 
 " Then the thing for you to (do," said the heavier 
 voice of the man called Burke, " is to get down to 
 Tompkinsville and slip aboard the Laminian. You'll 
 be all right there for a couple o' days. Then I'll push 
 things through and get off by Friday noon." 
 
 " But I've got that paper to gather up. And it 
 amounts to over three millions. We'll need that, no 
 matter which side of the Equator we're on ! " 
 
 There was a change, Kestner realised, in the voice 
 of Lambert. It seemed the voice of a nervous and 
 harried man uncertain of the future. It had lost its 
 oldtime placid sense of power, its full-throated reso- 
 nance. It seemed now to hold something not unlike 
 a touch of pleading, an undertone of plaintiveness. 
 
 "Well, why not do your gatherin' to-day?" de- 
 manded Burke. 
 
 " But I can't do it. That stuff is consigned to a 
 man named Morello." 
 
 " Then what's the matter with an order from Mo- 
 rello?" 
 
 " I can't get one." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 There was a moment of silence. 
 
 " Morello's where he can't be reached." 
 
 " Then why not work the wharf people ? " 
 
 " I took the risk and went to the Brooklyn pier. 
 They telephoned somewhere to verify my statement.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Then they told me the shipment would have to be held. 
 And I can't keep dodging around this town in day- 
 light." 
 
 " I imagined that," was the other's laconic retort. 
 
 " If we get that stuff, I've got to get it myself." 
 
 " Well, that wouldn't be so much of a stunt. There's 
 no time-lock on it." 
 
 " It's held and guarded in a bonded warehouse." 
 
 " S'posin' it is. I've got a couple o' river junkies 
 who can get into anything along the waterfront." 
 
 " But I must handle those cans myself. We must 
 have the right ones. We don't want seven hundred 
 gallons of olive oil mixed up with that shipment of 
 paper." 
 
 " Which means you'll have to get into that ware- 
 house." 
 
 " Then tell me how. For God's sake, tell me how ! " 
 
 ** How? Why, I'll get you two or three men who 
 can slip in under with a muffled kicker and cut out one 
 of those six-inch floor-planks." 
 
 " But there'll be a watchman there at the street end 
 of the pier perhaps two of them." 
 
 Kestner could hear the easy laugh of the man called 
 Burke. 
 
 " Whitey McKensic'll fix that for you. He's got a 
 trick o' cuttin' out a pier-plank and asphalt over-lay 
 with a brace and bit, goin' through eight inches of 
 oak without makin' more noise than eatin' through a 
 cheese just gets up between a couple o' stringers 
 and runs a row o' holes across a plank. Then he runs 
 another row close together, about three feet from the 
 first row. Then he chisels that block free, lets it drop
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 243 
 
 out, and crawls up through the hole. He drops what 
 he wants into his boat, slips down with the tide, and 
 unloads at a Bath Beach fence." 
 
 " But all that takes time," complained the restless- 
 souled Lambert. 
 
 " I've seen Whitey take a half-inch ship auger, bore 
 up through a pier floor, tap an eighty-gallon brandy- 
 cask, and drain it off and get away in half an hour's 
 time." 
 
 " Then the sooner I get through the floor the bet- 
 ter. How about to-night at eleven ? " 
 
 There was a moment or two of silence. 
 
 '* Tide's against us.'* 
 
 "Then twelve?" 
 
 " Too early. About four in the mornin' would be 
 the best." 
 
 Then came still another silence. 
 
 " Hold on a minute ! Why couldn't you wait until 
 about half-past nine to-night, go to their watchman 
 with an order from the office, and get inside and stay 
 there until Whitey gives a signal ? " 
 
 " Where would I get the order? " Lambert, it was 
 plain, was not his usual inventive and expeditious self. 
 The other man even laughed a little. 
 
 " Ain't you a scratcher ? Couldn't you work a lit- 
 tle Jim the Penman stunt on that wharf bunch ? " 
 
 " If you can get me a letter-head." 
 
 " Sure I can." 
 
 " That would give me time to sort out the paper 
 and get it baled together ready for handling." 
 
 "There's just one thing," objected the man called 
 Burke.
 
 244 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " What's that? " demanded Lambert. 
 
 His question remained unanswered, for at that mo- 
 ment a door opened and a youthful and nasal-noted 
 voice, apparently that of Jigger, was heard to call out 
 from the head of the stair-way : " Yes, ma'am, he's 
 here all right."
 
 IV 
 
 THE tableau which must have succeeded that unex- 
 pected speech was lost to Kestner. He was conscious 
 only of the sudden silence, prolonging itself until it 
 became epochal. And that silence, to the listener, was 
 doubly hard to bear, for he had no means of determin- 
 ing its cause and no way of relieving its tension. 
 
 Then, almost with relief, came the sound of a 
 woman's voice, tense, reed-like, touched with both de- 
 fiance and determination. And the moment he heard 
 that voice, Kestner knew it was Maura Lambert 
 speaking. 
 
 " Where is Carlesi? " 
 
 It was not merely a question. It was a declaration, 
 an exaction, a challenge. It came as an ultimatum 
 that was not to be ignored. It was apparently di- 
 rected at Lambert, who required several moments' 
 time before he could remarshal his forces against it. 
 Kestner was further conscious of the fact that the man 
 in the next room had not resumed his work at the press. 
 He could hear the snap of the switch as the light was 
 turned out, and he knew that Carlesi himself was be- 
 coming an interested spectator of that encounter. 
 But Kestner had not time to dwell on these discov- 
 eries. 
 
 " What are you doing here? " 
 
 It was Lambert's voice that spoke. In that voice 
 245
 
 246 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 was an effort at the authoritative, the autocratic. It 
 was not without the note of scorn; but as a counter- 
 challenge it lacked confidence. 
 
 " You know what I am doing here," was the woman's 
 calm retort. There was an answering and unequivo- 
 cal derisiveness in her voice as she spoke. Kestner 
 could even catch Lambert's movement of impa- 
 tience. 
 
 " Let me talk to this girl for a few minutes," he said 
 to the man called Burke. 
 
 " Sure," was Burke's airily indifferent reply. He 
 evidently stopped and turned back as he crossed the 
 room. " I've got to get that letter-head anyway. 
 How long'll you be here? " 
 
 " It will not be long." 
 
 There was a barb to the words as Lambert shot them 
 out. 
 
 " It may be longer than you imagine," said the quiet- 
 voiced young woman. Burke must have stopped to 
 study her. He laughed quietly, for no reason that 
 Kestner could fathom. 
 
 " Then there's a door-key in the desk-drawer," the 
 adventurer called back as he opened the street-door. 
 " But don't you two high-spirited aristocrats get 
 messin' up my office, or you'll be sorry you came." 
 
 Kestner could hear the sound of the door as it 
 closed. Then came a period of silence, pregnant, dis- 
 turbing, ominous. 
 
 " Now what do you want ? " Lambert was heard to 
 ask. There was quietness in his tone by this time, 
 but there was also menace. 
 
 " I want Carlesi."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 247 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " My business is with Carlesi," was her uncompro- 
 mising retort. 
 
 " And also with me" 
 
 " It will never again be with you." Her voice 
 shook with a tremolo of restrained passion. 
 
 " Don't be too sure of that." 
 
 " I'm sure now of only one thing." 
 
 " Are you? " he mocked. 
 
 " That's of your life-time of lying and cheating and 
 cowardice, of your utter baseness." 
 
 " And you're through with all that? " he taunted. 
 
 " I'm through with all that," she passionately main- 
 tained. 
 
 " Don't be too sure of yourself," he suddenly cried 
 out to her. " You're in the mess as deep as I am. 
 You're marked, and you know it. And you can't get 
 away from this town any easier than I can." 
 
 There was almost a note of weariness in her reply. 
 " I have got away from you." 
 
 " No, you haven't. And you're not going to. 
 You've tried that before, and it never worked. It 
 never will work." 
 
 It was words like these, Kestner suddenly remem- 
 bered, that Morello himself had used to the girl. 
 
 " This time I think it will. ... I came here to see 
 Carlesi." 
 
 Lambert forced a laugh. It was not a mirthful 
 one. 
 
 " Then you've started a little late. Carlesi's been 
 dead for just seven years." 
 
 "Why should you lie to me now?" she asked,
 
 24,8 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 and her quietness seemed more disturbing than any 
 outburst could be. 
 
 Kestner, as he tried to picture them aligned there, 
 combative face to face, felt that Lambert was not his 
 old self, that his contention as to Carlesi was foolish, 
 that some newborn timorousness of soul had robbed 
 him of his old astuteness just as it had denuded him of 
 his old dignity. 
 
 " I know Carlesi is in this building," was the girl's 
 deliberate announcement. 
 
 " And what makes you think that ? " 
 
 " I don't think it, I know it." 
 
 Then came still another interim of silence. Lam- 
 bert was plainly not sure of his ground. 
 
 " And what do you intend to do ? " 
 
 " I intend to see him." 
 
 " Then you're on the wrong trail." 
 
 '* Can I never look for the truth from you ? " 
 
 " Carlesi's on a freighter on a freighter called 
 the Laminian, anchored down the Bay on a tramp 
 carrying contraband of war, that's going to take him 
 and you and me to South America." 
 
 " You know that neither you nor Carlesi can ever 
 leave New York." 
 
 "Can't we? And who'll stop us?" That chal- 
 lenge was mouthed largely, but there was something 
 deeper than concern in the strident voice. 
 
 " I don't need to tell you that." 
 
 Again Lambert emitted his scoffing laugh. 
 
 " Not your cigar-eating moucliard this time, my 
 dear!" 
 
 There was a brief intermission of silence as Lam-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 249 
 
 bert obviously drew closer to the woman he was ad- 
 dressing. " Listen to me, my girl," and his voice was 
 lower and more rasping as he went on. " You can't 
 change your spots or jump your gang over-night. 
 I'm not going to haggle about the past. But we're 
 both cornered here, and we've both got a chance for 
 a get-away. Wait listen to me. We can get down 
 to Colon or perhaps Port Limon, and strike up to 
 San Jose. Then we can work Rio and Pernambuco 
 and Buenos Ayres until things straighten out. In- 
 side of two years, we can slip back to Europe, and by 
 that time you can have enough to go where you like, 
 and stay where you like." 
 
 " Enough what? " 
 
 There was something akin to pity in her voice as 
 she put that question to him. It accentuated, to the 
 listening Kestner, the essential difference in their na- 
 tures, the one accepting without protest or revolt a 
 condition of life which must always stand odious to 
 the other. 
 
 " Enough hard cash," was Lambert's reply. 
 " Enough to keep you going the way it kept you going 
 in the past, that gave you the best in the land, no mat- 
 ter how I had to scheme and plot for it." 
 
 " I am not thinking of the past. I cannot think of 
 it. What I'm thinking of is the future. And my 
 problems are not the kind hard cash, as you call it, 
 can solve." 
 
 " Ha, you'll sing another tune when the hard cash 
 isn't where you want it." 
 
 " I shall thank God for the chance," was her devout 
 rejoinder.
 
 250 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " And after that what'll you do? " 
 
 " I shall live my own life, in my own way." 
 
 " How'll you live? And where'll you live? " 
 
 " That must be my own concern. . . . And I came 
 to see Carlesi." 
 
 " Well, find him ! " challenged the other, swept away 
 by his anger. 
 
 Kestner suddenly held his breath, for he could hear 
 the woman as she quickly crossed the room and tried 
 the very door behind which he crouched. Then she 
 went to the door of the printing-room. It too was 
 locked. But she was not to be deterred by trivial ob- 
 stacles or side-issues. 
 
 " What is behind those doors? " she demanded. 
 
 *' Nothing," was Lambert's retort. 
 
 " Then why are they locked ? " 
 
 Her opponent did not answer for a moment or two. 
 
 " Why ask me? Ask the man who owns them." 
 
 " Will you open those doors ? " 
 
 There was a finality in that demand, a finality which 
 seemed to compel her adversary to a still newer course 
 of equivocation. 
 
 " How am I to open them ? " he craftily inquired. 
 
 " Then I shall find some one who can." 
 
 Lambert must have intercepted her on the way to 
 the street door. 
 
 " Would you be fool enough to bring a cop in 
 here? " he cried out, and he was panting a little, either 
 from the exertion of holding her or from the shock at 
 the thought of her madness. 
 
 (t Don't dare to touch me," she said to him, and
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 1 251 
 
 again the coerced and icy quietness of her voice was 
 ominous. 
 
 " Then for the love o' God be reasonable," he cried, 
 plainly conscious that the avenue of his escape was a 
 narrowing one. 
 
 " Then take me to Carlesi." 
 
 " I tell you I can't do it," he protested, surrender- 
 ing to some final compulsion of fear. There was, how- 
 ever, a subtler note in his voice as he spoke again. 
 " But if you've got to have him, I'll get him for you." 
 
 " I intend to see him." 
 
 " Then stay here a minute." 
 
 Kestner waited, without breathing, wondering what 
 it could mean. He waited for the sound of Lambert's 
 approaching steps. But instead of approaching, 
 they receded; they crossed the floor, and mounted the 
 stairs, and passed out through the quickly opened 
 door. 
 
 Then the white light of truth smote on the Secret 
 Agent with a suddenness which caused him to gasp, as 
 a banqueter gasps at a flashlight taken over his shoul- 
 der. The unexpected had happened, had come about 
 in its unexpected way. Lambert had gone. 
 
 Kestner crouched there, waiting interminably, tor- 
 tured by the thought that he was unable to act. He 
 could merely listen with straining ears behind his 
 locked door, debating within himself whether it would 
 be better or not to push through that flimsy barrier 
 and confront Carlesi and Maura Lambert while they 
 stood within the same walls. For Lambert, he had in- 
 stinctively felt, would never return to that room.
 
 JUST why Kestner hesitated was not quite clear to 
 himself. To break through a pine door, he knew, was 
 easy enough, but it was not so easy to face the pre- 
 dicament of appearing ridiculous in Maura Lambert's 
 eyes. His intrusion now could never be a dignified 
 one. Among other things he was sadly in need of his 
 shoes and few men can hope to be impressive without 
 their footwear. He was also a little ashamed of his 
 rusty brown apparel. But he was more ashamed of the 
 thought that around him would necessarily hang the 
 odium of the eavesdropper, of the spy and lurker be- 
 hind closed doors. He dreaded to face the woman in 
 the next room. He would seem doubly ignoble before 
 her now, swept as she was by her expiatory passion of 
 renunciation. She was in some way above him, ex- 
 alted by an emotion which he could not share with her. 
 She was facing the light, for the first time in her life, 
 and in that hour of illumination he himself would cut 
 but a sorry figure. For a moment or two the Secret 
 Agent almost hated his calling. 
 
 But all thought on the matter was ended by an 
 abrupt movement from the next room. Kestner had 
 no means of determining just what had prompted 
 Carlesi's action. There was nothing to show that any 
 sign or word had been passed in to the Italian in the 
 printing-room. But some message, Kestner felt, must 
 
 252
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 253 
 
 have been given and received, to bring about so new 
 a course of action. There was the sound of a light 
 switch being snapped on, the grate of a key turning 
 in a lock, and the door of the printing-room was sud- 
 denly thrown open. 
 
 This was followed by a silence of several seconds, 
 and then from the startled girl came a cry, low in 
 note, yet shot through with a timbre which caused a 
 small thrill to speed through Kestner's crouching 
 body. 
 
 "Carlesi!" 
 
 She repeated the word more quietly, as though it 
 were balm to her breast, as though she were hugging 
 to her soul some truth which could never be taken 
 away from her. 
 
 Kestner could see nothing. He no longer had any 
 definite idea as to their positions. But he knew they 
 were talking in Italian now, volubly, excitedly, fever- 
 ishly. She was assailing him with anxious questions 
 and demands. His answers, at times, seemed equivo- 
 cal and circuitous. He kept hedging and contradict- 
 ing himself, but by sheer force of will she was finally 
 wringing the truth from him, forcing from his reluctant 
 lips a confirmation of what Morello had already told 
 her. 
 
 It was only brokenly that Kestner could follow the 
 hurrying interplay of their talk. But he gathered 
 that Carlesi had opened his shirt-front and was show- 
 ing the girl a bullet scar there, the scar which she her- 
 self had made. 
 
 Then Kestner became instinctively aware of the fact 
 that Carlesi's manner had changed. What caused
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 that change the eavesdropper had no way of telling. 
 But it was transparent enough that Carlesi was pro- 
 testing that he was an old man, that he was broken 
 in health, that his bullet wound had left him with a 
 weak lung. He began to whimper for money, pro- 
 testing that the girl had plenty and that all he needed 
 was enough to get out of the country, to where it was 
 warm and his cough could be cured. 
 
 The listener behind the closed door could hear the 
 girl promising him her help, protesting she would give 
 him what she could. The tones of her voice struck 
 Kestner as being strangely impetuous and exalted, as 
 though the consciousness of some great deliverance 
 had lifted her high above the things of everyday life. 
 Yet something about the answering voice of Carlesi 
 touched the listener with disquiet. It brought that 
 listener's ear closer against the wooden partition, in a 
 panic to catch every sound that might pass between 
 the couple so completely hidden from his view. 
 
 Yet what took place he could not altogether de- 
 cipher. He only knew there was the sound of a sud- 
 den gasp from the girl, followed by an oddly choked 
 little cry, as though a hand had been pressed over her 
 mouth at the very moment she was about to call out. 
 Then came a sharp concussion of the partition-boards 
 and the equally sharp sounds of two bodies struggling 
 together. 
 
 Kestner no longer hesitated. He stepped quickly 
 back from the locked door and, throwing himself for- 
 ward, shouldered against it with all his weight. That 
 impact burst it open as readily as though it had been 
 made of cardboard.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 255 
 
 He was in time to see Carlesi grappling and twist- 
 ing and catching at the girl's body and he blindlj 
 recalled that there had been too much of this primal 
 and animal-like contention, of this underworld assault 
 of body against body. One gross arm, he saw, was 
 about the girl's head, and a blackened and ink-stained 
 hand clamped over her mouth. And she was being 
 forced back against the metal of the bed press, calmly, 
 vindictively, while Carlesi plainly deliberated as to the 
 best manner of making her a prisoner. 
 
 The sight of that uneven struggle, of a body so 
 contaminated confronting one so incongruously frag- 
 ile, angered Kestner beyond all reason. It sent a 
 blind surge of rage through his veins, seeming to ex- 
 plode like a bomb in the very core of his brain. He 
 had no recollection of catching up the type-bar whick 
 he afterwards found in his hand. He faintly remem- 
 bered the dull sound of the impact as that bar de- 
 scended on the forward-bent head with its mat of un- 
 kempt and crow-black hair. He saw the Italian go 
 down like a clouted rabbit. He saw the girl lean back 
 against the press-wheel, and then stagger a little to 
 one side, as this wheel half-turned with her weight. 
 The pallor of her face made the ink stains about her 
 mouth almost ludicrous. She did not seem to recog- 
 nise him. She was panting and weak, and it was 
 several seconds before she could compel her gaze t 
 seek out the huddled figure on the paper-littered 
 floor. 
 
 " You've killed him ! " she gasped in a little more 
 than a whisper. Then she looked at Kestner long and 
 steadily, without moving.
 
 956 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " It's you, this time ! " she moaned, as she stared 
 ielplessly about her. 
 
 Kestner laughed, hysterically, foolishly. It seemed 
 fife again, that plunge into action after such aeons of 
 silence and waiting. 
 
 " Killed him ? " he cried as he stooped forward and 
 slapped about the inert hip of the stunned man. " I 
 ought to have killed him," he added as he drew Car- 
 lesi's revolver from its hidden pocket. 
 
 "Is he dead?" she quavered. Her hand was 
 groping blindly about until it rested on one of the 
 carbine-cases. 
 
 " He's no more dead than he was when Lambert said 
 jou'd shot him. And we know how dead that was ! " 
 
 Kestner had already dropped to his knees and was 
 busily engaged in unlacing the unconscious Italian's 
 shoes. But his glance wandered to the white-faced 
 woman, and still again there swept over him the in- 
 effaceable conviction of her bodily beauty, the sense 
 of that inapposite fineness of fibre which unfitted her 
 for such scenes as this, just as it had unfitted her for 
 the ways of the underworld into which she had been 
 thrust. 
 
 " But what does it all mean ? " she asked as she 
 stared at Kestner's stooping figure. 
 
 " It means that Lambert tipped this man off to act 
 just as he's acted. And it means, now, we both know 
 who Lambert is and what he is." 
 
 She had dropped into a wooden chair on the far 
 side of the hand-press and was mopping her stained 
 .mouth with a foolishly small handkerchief. She 
 stared at him a little vacantly as he quickly pulled on
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 257 
 
 the Italian's shoes and fell to lacing them up. The 
 feverish haste of his movements seemed to puzzle her. 
 
 "What are you going to do? " she finally asked. 
 
 " I'm going to get ready for Lambert," was his an- 
 swer. 
 
 " But he'll never come back." 
 
 " Then I'll go for him." Kestner was on his feet 
 by this time, dodging across the room. He found re- 
 lief in quick movement, for he was not so calm as he 
 pretended to be. 
 
 " But where can you go ? " 
 
 " It won't be far," said Kestner as he dodged out to 
 the telephone and caught up the receiver. Carlesi, 
 he saw, had moved one hairy arm a little. There was 
 no time to be lost. 
 
 He dodged back to the printing-room door and 
 stood there with his hand on the knob. The girl saw 
 that he was waiting for her to step to the outer room. 
 
 It was not until he had closed and locked the print- 
 ing-room door that she turned slowly about and faced 
 him. He could see that she was steeling herself to a 
 final composure which was not easy to achieve. 
 
 " What must I do ? " she asked him. 
 
 Kestner, who had been disconsolately studying his 
 ill-fitting shoes, looked even more disconsolately up 
 into her face. He stared at the shadowy violet-blue 
 eyes, at the misty rose of the unhappy mouth that 
 seemed made for happiness, and his own misery in- 
 creased. Then he took a deep breath. 
 
 " I am a federal officer," he began, wondering why; 
 it was so hard for him to say what was necessary to 
 say.
 
 S58 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " I know it," she said. She was no longer looking 
 at him. 
 
 " And I have certain duties to perform." 
 
 A silence fell between them. He found it hard to 
 go on. 
 
 " You mean you can't let me go ? " she finally sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " No," he replied, " I can't let you go." 
 
 " Once," she said, " you told me I could count on 
 your help." 
 
 " How can enemies help each other? " 
 
 She looked up quickly. 
 
 " We can never be enemies now." 
 
 " And still there is nothing I can do." 
 
 " There is only one thing." 
 
 " What? " he asked, staring at the pale oval of her 
 face. 
 
 " You must let me go." 
 
 "But where?" 
 
 * ; Anywhere. Anywhere away from here ! " 
 
 " But that would only mean going out into danger." 
 
 She smiled a little wanly. 
 
 " I shall have to learn to face that danger." 
 
 " But you can't fight a thing like this out alone. 
 You'll need help." 
 
 " I shall have to learn to fight it out alone. And 
 I'm not afraid any more." 
 
 A great desolation was eating at his heart, the deso- 
 lation of a man who must face failure both before and 
 behind him. 
 
 " But how could I ever find you ? " 
 
 That query arrested her as she moved to adjust the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 259 
 
 veil about her hat-brim. He had tried in vain to keep 
 his voice from shaking as he spoke. 
 
 " You said once that the world was small," she be- 
 gan, in little more than a whisper. Then she stopped, 
 hesitating. He realised, at that moment, how they 
 were proceeding by indirection only, how vast were 
 the reservations which dare not be forgotten, how di- 
 vergent were the lives confronting each other across 
 a narrow desk-top in that water-front cellar. But the 
 desolation in his heart seemed more than he could en- 
 dure. 
 
 " We may meet again," she was saying. " Some 
 time when I can meet you without without shame." 
 
 She was at the bottom of the steep little flight of 
 steps that led to the street and liberty. One hand 
 was on the rusty iron railing. He could have reached 
 out and taken it. But he made no effort to stop her. 
 
 " We shall meet again ! " he cried out with sudden 
 conviction, catching at that hope as the drowning catch 
 at a life-belt. 
 
 " Good-bye," she said very quietly. For one mo- 
 ment she looked into his eyes, and then she turned 
 away. Her face, he remembered, was quite colourless. 
 It wore more an air of relinquishment than of triumph. 
 There were no tears in the dark lashed eyes as they 
 gazed down into his, for she was already on the first 
 step leading to the street. But they seemed crowned 
 with a shadowy wistfulness that impressed him as 
 more poignant than tears. And he cherished the 
 thought, foolishly, that in that last vision of her, he 
 was compelled to look up to her, and not down at her.
 
 260 THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 Wilsnach, dropping from his overdriven taxi-cab 
 ten minutes later, beheld a dejectedly shabby figure in 
 a soiled felt hat and a rusty brown suit staring ab- 
 sently out over the East River, grey with the light of 
 the late afternoon. 
 
 Twice Wilsnach was compelled to accost this figure 
 before eliciting any response. 
 
 " Wilsnach, there's a counterfeiter named Carlesi 
 locked in down there," Kestner finally explained. 
 "You'd better place him under arrest, for after to- 
 night I'm quitting the service! " 
 
 "You mean you've got Lambert?" gasped Wils- 
 nach. 
 
 " No," was Kestner's quiet response. " I said 
 after to-night. And I'm going to get him, before 
 morning! "
 
 VI 
 
 KESTNER knew it was not yet morning. He also 
 knew that he had not as yet captured Lambert. 
 
 There were still other things which he knew, and 
 one of them was the need for silence. He was only to 
 keenly alive to the danger, in that strange place, off 
 the slightest sound. There might be peril in the 
 minutest audible movement. 
 
 Yet sound seemed the one thing for which his over- 
 tensioned nerves were clamoring. And the one relief 
 which his aching muscles demanded was movement, 
 free and abandoned movement. Yet he dare not so 
 much as lift his rib-cage and enjoy the luxury of a. 
 good sigh. 
 
 That misery of mind and body would have been 
 less acute had there been some glimmer of light, how- 
 ever microscopic. The unbroken darkness had be- 
 come inquisitional. It kept imparting to him the 
 impression of being disembodied, of floating ghost- 
 like between heaven and earth, of crouching poised 
 at the lonely centre of some lonely etheric waste. He 
 felt lonesome. And he wished he could sm'oke. 
 
 The darkness that encompassed Kestner was like 
 a covering of muffling black velvet. It was a blanket- 
 ing opaqueness that seemed to shut off the very air 
 from his lungs. It seemed something more than a 
 
 mere negation of light, something tractile and en- 
 
 261
 
 268 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 folding, a deepening inky tide which threatened to 
 solidify and embalm him, struggling for breath, in 
 its Nubian depths. It had merged into something 
 tangible and threatening, something active and assail- 
 ing, seeming to cannonade the harried sentries of his 
 nervous system with its thunderous volleys of imma- 
 terialities. 
 
 The silence too was more than oppressive. It had 
 become enervating, exhausting. It lay about him no 
 longer a silence of rhythms, of periodic climaxes and 
 relapses. It was now a dull monotone, a Dead Sea 
 of uninterrupted hush, a cessation of movement and 
 life so complete that it seemed universal, something 
 incredibly diffused and prolonged, a culmination of 
 stillness that assaulted the nerves even as the con- 
 tinued top-most note of a steam calliope might. 
 
 Yet somewhere under the arched iron roof of that 
 huge wharf-shed, cathedral-like in its trick of echoing 
 and re-echoing with the slightest movement, waited 
 the enemy he had followed so far and hunted so long. 
 Somewhere within the walls of that water-front ware- 
 house, perhaps not ten spaces from him, waited the 
 leader and the last active member of the Lambert 
 gang. 
 
 Just where that enemy waited Kestner could not 
 tell. And in that absence of knowledge lay the core 
 of the Secret Agent's mental unrest, his strain of 
 suspense. They were there, together, in that mid- 
 night building. That was all he could be sure of. 
 They were pitted in that abysmal blackness, as men 
 pit game-cocks to fight out their fight to a finish. 
 
 Fate had indeed pitted them there, but Fate had
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 263 
 
 not ordained that they should fight. For something 
 had made Lambert suspicious. He had grown as si- 
 lent as a hunted animal assured of the adequacy of its 
 shelter. He had converted that interminable night 
 into a duel of silences. He had suddenly lapsed into 
 utter stillness, and for a stillness so heroically main- 
 tained, Kestner knew, there must indeed be an ample 
 reason. It was an unending Waterloo of waiting, 
 and it had not been engineered without cause. 
 
 Once, as Kestner thought this over, the chill of the 
 night air brought a tickle to his nostrils, and he had 
 to put a finger over his upper lip, pressing it tight 
 against his teeth, to stop the sneeze which threatened 
 to shake his body and fling an explosion of sound 
 across the darkness. 
 
 This brought a fresh terror to Kestner's already 
 harassed mind. A mere cough could be his undoing; 
 one uncontrolled spasm of the body could crown his 
 night's work with ignominious defeat. One telltale 
 sound would verify Lambert's suspicions. And Lam- 
 bert must have nursed these suspicions. For it was 
 plain that something had happened. Something had 
 occurred to disturb his enemy's peace of mind, to 
 shake his confidence, to put a stop to his raid on the 
 olive-oil tins in which the counterfeit paper from 
 the Palermo plant was so cunningly sealed. 
 
 Lambert, his pursuer acknowledged, might be even 
 closer to him than he imagined. The counterfeiter 
 might be within a dozen feet of him. He might be 
 even closer. Kestner might reach out a hand and 
 suddenly find his waiting enemy within touch. Noth- 
 ing could be certain, in that engulfing darkness. All
 
 264 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Kestner knew was that the other man was there, be- 
 tween the same imprisoning walls as himself, waiting, 
 watching, motionless, confronting him with a stoic 
 campaign of inactivity, an ordeal of suspended ac- 
 tion. 
 
 That suspension of action was even harder on 
 Kestner than on his enemy, for Lambert was inured 
 to the periodic quiescence of the fugitive. He had 
 always faced danger, as an outlaw, and under the 
 strain and stress of undefined pursuers had acquired 
 fortitude. As a criminal he had always been sur- 
 rounded by some vague and unknown menace, never 
 knowing from what quarter the arm of the law might 
 suddenly reach. And he had adjusted himself to these 
 indeterminate apprehensions* He bad grown rec- 
 onciled to the tedium of prolonged concealment. 
 
 But with Kestner it was different. AJS an officer 
 of constituted authority he had been taught to move 
 promptly and to act decisively. He had always been 
 the aggressor, the pursuer. His nerves were the 
 nerves of the beagle. He had always run with the 
 hounds. He had never been schooled in this rabbit- 
 like trick of skulking motionless in protective shadows. 
 He hated the dark. And it was beginning to tell on 
 him. 
 
 He wondered how much longer it would have to 
 last. The quietness seemed to manacle him, limb by 
 limb. He had never dreamed that silence could be- 
 come such a torture. He knew that sound would 
 spell peril, and yet he prayed for sound in some form 
 or another. He knew that somewhere in the neigh- 
 bourhood, lonely as it was along that South Brooklyn
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 265 
 
 waterfront, there must be companionable little noises, 
 the whisper of the tide running between the piles un- 
 der the wharf, far-off ferry-engines churning from 
 the Battery to Staten Island, steel shovels clanging 
 deep in the stoke-holes of rusty freighters lying at 
 their slips. Across that distant cobweb of steel 
 known as Brooklyn Bridge, he remembered electric 
 trains were roaring and surface cars were clattering. 
 Above that huddled island of unrest, beyond the 
 bridge again, where even midnight could not fix the 
 seal of silence, must swarm a multitudinous crown of 
 noises, like bees above a hive. But none of these came 
 to that locked and shuttered wharf -shed along a lonely 
 and sleep-wrapped waterfront where Lambert and the 
 man who sought him were prisoners. 
 
 Kestner fell to wondering how many hours they 
 had been shut in there together, and how much longer 
 the darkness would last. He had no means of judg- 
 ing the time. He dramatized the coming of morn- 
 ing, picturing to himself the first faint inkling of the 
 first faint glimmer of grey. He could imagine the 
 anxiety with which that vague glimmer would be 
 watched, the tensity with which he and his enemy would 
 peer at each other through the slowly lifting trans- 
 lucent veil, the breathlessness with which the first ac- 
 tual light would be welcomed, the suddenness with 
 which the inevitable encounter would then begin. 
 
 That encounter, he knew, was bound to take place. 
 Eambert, after that night, could never get away. 
 Lambert, indeed, could have no immediate wish to get 
 away. That counterfeiter, without scratcher or 
 breaker or colleague left, would never think of fleeing
 
 266 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 from New York and leaving behind him those three 
 millions in bank-notes, still sealed in their oil-tins so 
 artfully weighted with sand and cork-dust. And 
 those oil-tins could not be opened and moved with- 
 out Kestner's knowledge. 
 
 No, Lambert was there, breathing the same heavy 
 odour of baled Morocco leather and spices and tropi- 
 cal fruits shot through with the homelier ammoniacal 
 smell from the planking where countless draught- 
 horses had stood. He was there on the lonely fringe 
 of the great city from which he had fled ; and he was 
 there, waiting, watching, knowing that the time for 
 finalities could not long be delayed. 
 
 But the wait seemed an endless one. 
 
 Kestner found relief in studiously rehearsing in his 
 own mind each step that had led up to the present 
 situation. He recalled Lambert's flight from the 
 room in the shooting-gallery building, the talk with 
 Burke the gun-runner, the latter's promise to get him 
 and his three million in counterfeit aboard the 
 Laminian and in three days off for South America. 
 
 He remembered Burke's suggestion as to Whitey 
 McKensic, the water-front junkie and river-pirate 
 ready for anything from " milking " coffee-bags in 
 transit on their lighters to stealing coal from the 
 Canarsie barges. This same Whitey was to pick up 
 two or three of his wharf-rat friends. He was given 
 money to hire a boat and also to purchase an inch 
 auger of the best tempered steel. Then when the 
 tide was right Whitey was to slip in under the Saltus 
 Pier, with his motor muffled and his lights quenched. 
 Then he was to take his auger and with that comparar
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 267 
 
 tively noiseless tool he was to cut out a square of the 
 flooring big enough to admit a man's body. Through 
 that hole they were to carry off Lambert and his 
 illicit paper, leaving him aboard the Lammian before 
 daylight crept over the lower Bay. 
 
 But Romano and his three federal confederates 
 had been tipped off as to Whitey's intentions. They 
 were to shadow that gang of wharf-rats and at the 
 right moment intercept them and hold them, await- 
 ing Kestner's instructions. And Romano could be 
 depended on. 
 
 Romano had to be depended on, for just before the 
 ponderous doors of the Saltus wharf-shed had swung 
 shut for the night a " gay-cat " acting for Lambert 
 had appeared with the forged order from the Saltus 
 offices in Bowling Green. There had been a dispute 
 between this gay-cat and the thick-headed watchman, 
 ending in an angry visit to the telephone in the little 
 pier-office. The watchman had triumphed and the 
 gay-cat had promptly taken his departure. Yet the 
 manoeuvre had proved successful, for in the mean- 
 time Lambert himself had slipped quietly into the 
 wharf-shed and secreted himself in its shadowy re- 
 cesses. 
 
 Three minutes later a trucking team had thundered 
 in over the worn planking. From the truck itself a 
 piano-crate duly labelled and consigned for for- 
 eign parts had been promptly dumped beside a 
 pile of lemon-crates from Sicily. There had been 
 some words between the watchman and the truck- 
 driver, the former announcing his intention of not 
 waiting all night before locking up. So the team
 
 268 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 had turned about and thundered out again, and the 
 great doors had swung shut. 
 
 But during that tumult of sound a strange thing 
 had taken place. In the darkness of the wharf-shed 
 the cover of that piano-crate had apparently taken 
 on life, had quietly and silently opened, as though it 
 were a huge bivalve. And from that mouth-like ori- 
 fice, inch by inch and with infinite precaution, 
 a human figure had sidled out. Then, having cau- 
 tiously replaced the cover, this figure had slipped back 
 into the deeper shadows between the pungent tiers 
 of crated lemons. 
 
 It had had its discomforts, that hurried journey in 
 a cramped piano-crate, for all its eighteen inches of 
 excelsior padding. But Kestner had not given that 
 feature of the plan much thought. For he had been 
 satisfied with the knowledge that he and Lambert were 
 to be locked together in that silent warehouse, and 
 could remain there without interruption.
 
 VH 
 
 KESTKEB- still waited. But he moved a little, to 
 relieve the ache in his knees. As before, he did so 
 with the utmost care and deliberation, straightening 
 his legs almost imperceptibly, inch by studious inch, 
 moving his stockinged feet out experimentally, ten- 
 tatively, interrogatively, so there might be no betray- 
 ing creak of the knee-joint. His shoes he had long 
 since removed. And in the heavy planking under him, 
 luckily, there was little chance of a floor squeak. 
 
 He moved slowly and softly, yet it was laborious 
 enough to bring a sweat to his straining body. Then 
 he sat tailor-wise, leaning slightly forward, listening 
 again. 
 
 Out of the infinite stillness a small trouble had in- 
 sinuated itself on his consciousness. At first he 
 thought it was the sound of his own laboured inhala- 
 tions. Then he attributed it to the blood-pressure in 
 his head. Yet the next second he was leaning fur- 
 ther forward and listening more intently. 
 
 On his over-sensitized aural nerves that small trou- 
 ble still impressed itself. He could neither explain 
 nor define it. Then a running and ramifying thrill 
 of apprehension swept through his stiffened body. 
 He rolled slowly and cautiously over on one hip, and 
 as slowly lowered his torso until the side of his head 
 was flat against the planking on which he had been 
 
 269
 
 270 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 sitting. He lay there for a second or two, with his 
 ear pressed flat against the heavy boards. Then he 
 raised his head, listened, and snaked his body slowly 
 forward, stopping again to press an ear against the 
 planking before continuing that silent and erratic 
 advance. 
 
 He was nosing about one particular plank, by this 
 time, like a French hound in quest of its underground 
 truffles, moving back and forth and listening and 
 again and again quietly cupping his ear against the 
 rough wood. 
 
 He could now hear the sound quite distinctly, a 
 continuous muffled rasp, as faint as the slide of a 
 blacksnake over dead leaves. He kept passing the 
 tips of his fingers delicately along the surface of the 
 plank over which he leaned, questioningly, as though 
 the oak were inscribed with the raised lettering of 
 an alphabet for the blind and he were intent on spell- 
 ing out some answer to the enigma. 
 
 He was rewarded by the sudden small sounds of 
 splintering wood, no louder than the crack of a 
 strained match-stalk. Moving forward a few inches, 
 he again fell to fingering the floor-surface. For the 
 second time an involuntary thrill sped through his 
 body. His hand had fallen on the revolving sharp 
 steel-point of an auger boring up through the wharf- 
 floor. 
 
 He knew then, in a flash, that his plans had gone 
 astray, that Whitey McKensic and his men had in 
 some manner evaded Romano, that they were there with 
 their boat, and that in less than half an hour's time 
 they would have a passage-way cut up through the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 271 
 
 floor-planking and would be in touch with Lam- 
 bert. 
 
 Kestner thought quickly. He was not afraid of 
 those newcomers. He could, in a way, handle them 
 one by one as they came up through the floor. But 
 that could not be done silently. That would betray 
 his position. It would give an advantage to his 
 enemy. And Kestner's one fear now was that Lam- 
 bert might get away, that something might intervene 
 between him and the fugitive and his capture. And 
 it was too late to waste energy on interlopers, and 
 too late to be sidetracked from his one end in life. 
 
 Kestner's first move was as odd as it was prompt. 
 He drew out his revolver, feeling with his left hand 
 along the plank-face for that ever-turning point of 
 steel. When he had found it he caught his fire-arm 
 by the barrel and the grip, holding it horizontally and 
 pressing heavily down on the point where the auger 
 was emerging from the pierced wood. He held the 
 hardened metal of the stock firmly against the cutting 
 edge of that revolving auger, knowing that a few 
 turns would blunt the edge beyond repair. But he 
 made sure of his job; he wanted that bit so that it 
 could never again eat its way through four inches of 
 oak. 
 
 Then he sat back, trying to place his position in 
 the wharf-shed. He guardedly felt the seams of the 
 floor, reviewed each movement he had made during his 
 last advance, and concluded he had progressed some 
 twenty or thirty feet towards the water-front end of 
 the pier. At the other end, he knew, stood the small 
 office-room with the telephone. And Kestner felt that
 
 272 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 his best chance lay in getting to that telephone and 
 calling for help. 
 
 But it would have to be a soundless journey, and 
 a laborious one. It would have its dangers, yet they 
 would have to be faced. There was a grave mis-step 
 to be corrected. And the sooner that call went out, 
 Kestner knew, the safer he would be. 
 
 He started on his journey, patiently, laboriously, 
 grimly. He kept reminding himself that above all 
 things no sound must be made. He knew that at any 
 moment he might come into sudden collision with the 
 watching and waiting Lambert. He could not forget 
 that any unexpected contact with a bale of mer- 
 chandise or a pine box end or an unconsidered scrap of 
 paper or twig of wood might betray his presence. 
 A mere bone-creak might spoil his plan. A garment 
 rustle might announce his whereabouts. 
 
 Kestner went forward, inch by inch, in the strained 
 attitude of a runner awaiting the starter's pistol- 
 crack. . 
 
 His feet had become tentacles, groping and ques- 
 tioning for noiseless contact. His outstretched fin- 
 gers were converted into vibrating antennae, poised 
 and extended for the transmission of the slightest mes- 
 sage of warning. He moved slowly through the en- 
 gulfing blackness, seeming to push it aside as though 
 it were something material and muffling. A snow- 
 flake fell no more softly than did those stockinged 
 feet. Each foot-fall seemed an experiment of vital 
 importance, each forward shift of the body became 
 an adventure fraught with the direst peril. Yet he 
 continued to advance, step by caressing step, veering
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 273 
 
 his course about an occasional obstacle, sounding for 
 his channel, shying away from each danger-spot as 
 a careful pilot shies away from a shoal-buoy. 
 
 When he came to the empty piano-crate he felt 
 like a swimmer who had reached an island of deliver- 
 ance. That gave him something on which to base a 
 new reckoning of his position. It brought him as- 
 surance, as the voice of an old friend might, and 
 permitted him to breathe more freely. So far all had 
 been well. And every foot that he covered meant a 
 further guarantee of safety. 
 
 He began his journey again, astonished by the ap- 
 parent length of the pier, wondering how wrong he 
 might also be in his reckoning of time, arguing with 
 himself that an hour or two of mental agony might 
 easily prolong itself into what seemed a whole night. 
 He had heard of such cases. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, it was little past midnight, and 
 in his torturing anxiety he had translated minutes 
 into hours, just as during that stealthy advance to- 
 wards the pier-end he had accepted his travels as 
 something which should have carried him into mid- 
 ocean, as something which seemed to have no begin- 
 ning and no end. But he kept on, doggedly, de- 
 terminedly, unceasingly. 
 
 He kept on until his extended fingers came in con- 
 tact with the sheet-iron covering of a side-wall. He 
 felt noiselessly along this wall until he had groped his 
 way to what seemed the door he wanted. Then came 
 the hardest part of his night's work. For that door 
 was locked, he found, as he let his fingers caress the 
 huge knob and turn it with incalculable slowness so
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 that no click of the latch might betray his movements. 
 And to open it meant much delicate work with the 
 " spider " and the five " skeletons " which he always 
 carried, the same as he carried his watch and his 
 cigar-case. 
 
 That new task would have to be noiseless, and to 
 render it so meant much nursing of naked metal, un- 
 counted cautious movements of the fingers, slow and 
 tentative pryings and turnings of delicately insinuated 
 steel flanges, careful withdrawals and stowing away 
 of unneeded metallic objects which must never be al- 
 lowed to clink together. 
 
 But he conquered the lock, in time. Then, with 
 equally studious precaution, he slowly slipped inside 
 and closed the door after him. Then the explora- 
 tions began anew. 
 
 He found himself in a small fire-proofed chamber, 
 as bald as a tomb and quite as dark. He could even 
 touch the metal roof, and set in its centre found one 
 electric-light bulb. But this he could not use, much 
 as he wanted to. For the emptiness of that little 
 iron-clad room was a puzzle to him. Then he real- 
 ised that it must have been equipped as a strong box, 
 a treasure vault, for holding valuables in transit. 
 
 But he had little time to give it thought. His task 
 was still to reach the telephone. He remembered 
 that he had lost time, when time might be precious. 
 He stood studying the matter out. Then he con- 
 cluded the pier-office must be somewhere close beside 
 this treasure-room. So he emerged again into the 
 more open space of the high-arched pier-shed, listen- 
 ing and staring through the blackness to make sure
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 275 
 
 the light was not coming to put an end to all his 
 plan. 
 
 But the velvety blackness was still unbroken, and 
 again he had to exercise the greatest care as he groped 
 on along the wall, feeling and padding about for 
 the office door. 
 
 He came to that door, at last, and let a finger light 
 as thistle-down caress and explore the knob. Then 
 he permitted his entire hand slowly to encompass it, 
 slowly turn it, and with steady but guarded pressure 
 determine whether or not it was locked. 
 
 To his joy he found it was not. 
 
 He swung the door inward, inch by inch. He was 
 breathing only with the upper area of his lungs as 
 he waited, to make sure there would be no squeak or 
 whine of rusty hinges. It was with equal precaution 
 and slowness that he closed the door again. Then 
 he felt his way inward, circling about until he came 
 to the edge of the desk, and exploring it with question- 
 ing fingers. 
 
 He found the cloth-covered telephone wires and 
 traced them up to the transmitter stand. With the 
 most scrupulous care he took up that transmitter and 
 lifted it to the floor. Then he silenced the call-bell with 
 his pocket handkerchief, tying it about the clapper to 
 make all sound impossible. Then he stood in thought, 
 for a moment or two, before groping his way back to 
 the office wall. There his busy fingers again took up 
 their exploration work, as he circled the room and 
 stopped meditatively when he came to an overcoat 
 hanging on a hook beside a paper-littered cabinet-top. 
 It was a heavy overcoat, apparently of pilot-cloth,
 
 376 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 and it was lined with rabbit-skin sadly worn at the 
 edges, and rent in the seams. 
 
 Kestner possessed himself of that overcoat. Then 
 he lowered himself to the floor, sinking first on one 
 knee and then on the other, slowly, so there should 
 be no shadow of a concussion-sound or bone-creak. 
 Then he leaned forward, with his finger-tips on the 
 floor-boards, letting his body descend inch by inch 
 until his face was close to the wharf-planks and his 
 outstretched hands were within touch of the trans- 
 mitter-stand. 
 
 He first lifted this stand until it was directly in 
 front of him, close to his face. Then he slowly drew 
 the heavy pilot-cloth coat up over his body until it 
 covered both the transmitter and his head. He 
 draped it cautiously about him, as a camera-man cov- 
 ers his instrument, making sure no vent was left. 
 Then he slowly lifted the receiver from its hook, placed 
 it to his ear, and with his lips almost touching the 
 diaphragm of the transmitter whispered his number 
 to Central. From that little tented corner of black- 
 ness he was able to call for Wilsnach and help. For 
 Central had heard and given him his connection. 
 
 " Wilsnach ! " he whispered into the tiny cave of 
 metal against his lip. 
 
 There came a faltering and somewhat puzzled 
 " Hello ? " in response to his whisper. 
 
 " Wilsnach, do you hear me? " 
 
 " Hello ! " repeated the answering voice. 
 
 " Don't you hear me ? " 
 
 "No! Speak up!" 
 
 " This is Kestner," continued the whisper from un-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 277 
 
 der the muffling pilot-cloth coat. At last the man at 
 the far end of the line appeared to comprehend the 
 situation. 
 
 "Kestner, is it you? Yes yes go on!" 
 
 " I want help, and I want it quick ! " 
 
 As never before there flashed home to the whispering 
 man the miracle of the telephone, the renewed mystery 
 of a human voice being projected along its tenuous 
 nervous system of countless wires. He suddenly re- 
 awakened to the magic of thus bringing a far-distant 
 voice winging along its rivulet of metal, of guarding 
 and conserving and directing that voice through all 
 the beleaguering uproars of a great city and leading 
 it safely home to his own waiting ear. 
 
 " Where are you? " 
 
 " On the Saltus Pier in South Brooklyn. I can't 
 talk. I'm shut in here with Lambert. His friends 
 are cutting their way into the other end of the pier." 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 "Get here quick!" 
 
 That was all Kestner needed to say. The ever de- 
 pendable Wilsnach, he knew, would be away from that 
 telephone before the musty-smelling pilot-cloth coat 
 could be thrown aside from his own head.
 
 VIII 
 
 KESTNER, as he emerged from that unsighted pier- 
 office into the cavernous gloom of the equally un- 
 lighted warehouse, knew there was no time to be wasted. 
 He felt the need for prompt action. Yet he was 
 still undecided as to what line this action should fol- 
 low and as to what form it could take. 
 
 There was one danger-zone, however, of which he 
 could be sure. That was the spot where Whitey Mc- 
 Kensic had attempted to bore his way up through the 
 wharf-planking. Whitey might possess resources un- 
 known to Kestner, and the sooner that spot was in- 
 vestigated the better. Daylight, Kestner felt con- 
 vinced, could not be far off. 
 
 He allowed no impatience of mind, however, to 
 interfere with his earlier demand for caution. He 
 groped his blind way back along the warehouse as 
 stealthily and as silently as he had first advanced from 
 its depths. Once more his outstretched fingers became 
 antennae. Still again his fastidiously exploring stock- 
 inged feet became tentacles, feeling ahead of the ever- 
 shrinking body that followed them. 
 
 Then his advance came to a stop. 
 
 Suddenly one of the tentacles drew back, as natural 
 in its reaction as the recoil of an insect's feeler, for 
 it had come in contact with something unexpected, 
 
 something unexplained. Kestner, chilling a little 
 
 278
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 279 
 
 through his moist body at the discovery, slowly low- 
 ered himself and explored the unknown object. 
 
 There, directly in his path, he found a pair of 
 shoes. He examined them thoughtfully, uppers and 
 sole, as a blind man might. And he knew they were 
 not his own. Close beside them, a moment later, he 
 found a discarded coat. He felt it over, carefully, 
 slipping a silent finger into its pockets, burying his 
 nose in its folds, and sniffing at it as a hound might. 
 Even before he held it up and made sure of its di- 
 mensions, of its length of body and width of shoulder, 
 he knew the coat belonged to Lambert. 
 
 He knew then that his enemy was still there ; and it 
 was fair to assume he was not asleep. That enemy, 
 in fact, was as prepared for emergency as was his 
 pursuer. He stood as ready for silent retreat or ad- 
 vance as did Kestner himself. 
 
 The man with the antennag-like fingers stood erect, 
 peering about the blackness that engulfed him. He 
 seemed to sniff danger in the air, as an animal up- 
 wind sniffs pursuit. Instinctively he reached down to 
 make sure that his revolver was in place. Then he 
 buttoned his coat, and once more stooping forward 
 like a track-runner, moved guardedly on. He began 
 to breathe more freely, digesting his discovery, ad- 
 justing himself to the newer condition of things. But 
 he kept warning himself to be cautious, to feel his way 
 carefully, to let no betraying sound announce the secret 
 of his advance. 
 
 Then all thought stopped, with the quickness of a 
 lightning flash. His next movement was unvolitioned 
 and spasmodic. It was a movement of sharp recoil.
 
 280 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Had his outstretched fingers suddenly touched a red- 
 hot plate of metal he could not have moved more 
 quickly. 
 
 But it was nothing like a plate of metal, that some- 
 thing which he had touched. It was a human hand, 
 like his own. His groping fingers had momentarily 
 become involved with another set of fingers, out- 
 stretched like his own. Those distended antennae 
 had locked together loathsomely, as the feelers of 
 submarine monsters might, had clutched and had sud- 
 denly withdrawn, each cluster telegraphing to the 
 brain behind them the imminence of danger, the need 
 for action. 
 
 That action, on Kestner's part, became one of un- 
 couth acrobatics. It sent him leaping and side-step- 
 ping backwards, in a series of jerks as quick and unco- 
 ordinated as the leaps of a beheaded pullet. Then he 
 stood for a second, silent, poised and motionless, 
 bayoneted with a tingle of horripilated nerves. 
 
 He seemed to know what was coming. He saw the 
 quick stab of flame at the same moment that the high- 
 roofed building reverberated with the thunder of the 
 revolver-shot. Lambert was using his gun. He was 
 forcing the issue by suddenly raking the silence about 
 him. And he was keeping on the move as he fired, 
 charging from side to side, craftily changing his posi- 
 tion after each flash. 
 
 Kestner crouched there, watching those flashes, all 
 but deafened by the echoing tumult after so many 
 hours of silence. He wanted Lambert, and he wanted 
 him at any cost. That was the one vague over-tone 
 to all consciousness. Yet his first definite thought
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 281 
 
 was as to the absurdity of standing there passive. 
 The second lucid impression to enter his mind was 
 a self-warning about seeking shelter. Quarters were 
 too close for firing such as that, with bullets rico- 
 chetting and whistling about him and the smell of 
 powder-smoke stinging in his nostrils. It was a 
 fusillade from a running and' ever-shifting adversary, 
 from now one point and now another, taking on the 
 menace of a general attack. It seemed more like 
 the assault of a small army. 
 
 Yet Kestner was still untouched by any thought of 
 personal fear. What he felt was more relief at sud- 
 den sound and movement. It still puzzled him a little 
 that this sound could be so tumultuous and the move- 
 ment so frenzied. He even wondered, for a moment, 
 if he were not being confronted by more than one 
 enemy, if Lambert's confederates had not indeed j oined 
 him in that running attack. 
 
 Then a greater wonder possessed him, for he found 
 himself wheeling half about and groping in the air 
 with his hands, like a skater struggling to recover his 
 balance. He felt a sting of pain somewhere below 
 the waist. He could not tell where, beyond the fact 
 that the sting had merged into a feeling not unlike 
 a burn and was on the left side. Then with a sense 
 of shock, he realised what it meant. 
 
 Kestner knew that he was shot. 
 
 What surprised him was the discovery that a wound 
 could be received and yet cause so little pain. He 
 remembered, however, that loss of blood often enough 
 implied loss of consciousness. And he could not af- 
 ford to take chances. Yes, he was bleeding, some-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 where along the hip-bone. He could feel it. His 
 trouser-leg was wet and warm. It might be more se- 
 rious than he imagined. And he had to be sure of his 
 case. Whatever happened, Lambert was not to get 
 away. So quietly and deliberately Kestner reached 
 down for his revolver. 
 
 He began to fire, falling back and dodging from 
 quarter to quarter as he shot. That feverish move- 
 ment exhilarated him. He found a vast relief in ac- 
 tion merely as action. To be able to do something 
 was now a deliverance. And he knew that the end of 
 the drama could not be far away. 
 
 Yet he shot deliberately, always aiming low, with 
 nothing to guide him but that ever-shifting ruby flame- 
 jet arrowing for the moment out of the blackness. 
 Then, as he strained forward, he heard the sound he 
 had been hoping for, the telltale snap of a trigger on 
 an empty cartridge-chamber. 
 
 He ran forward at the sound, knowing what that im- 
 plied. It meant that his enemy's ammunition was 
 exhausted. It meant that his moment for closing in 
 on that enemy had arrived. 
 
 He heard the click of metal against metal, close be- 
 fore him in the darkness, but he did not take time to 
 reason out its meaning. He raised his automatic and 
 fired again, still aiming low, calculating the source and 
 central point of that one guiding sound. 
 
 Then he stopped short, dropping his hand to his 
 side, for a quick gasp of pain had come to his ears, 
 followed by a low and half-moaning cry of " Oh, my 
 God! " Then came the sound of a body falling and 
 threshing for a moment against the flooring. 
 
 Then the silence was unbroken.
 
 IX 
 
 KESTNER. knew what the sound of that falling body 
 meant. He groped his way forward in a sudden panic 
 of apprehension. He ran back and forth in the open 
 spaces, searching for the spot where that other man 
 must surely have gone down. 
 
 Then he stopped short and crouched back, listening, 
 warned by some whispering sixth sense, remembering 
 that Lambert had long since proved himself a. master 
 of trickery. He stood there, pondering if that fall 
 might not be the pretence of a wily enemy to gain 
 time enough to reload a revolver, or at least drag 
 himself silently off to more sheltered quarters. But 
 he could be sure of nothing. 
 
 Kestner decided it was too late to take chances. 
 That echoing tumult would only too quickly bring out- 
 side interference. And he wanted nothing to come 
 between him and his quarry. Lambert belonged to 
 him. He was there to make his capture, and he did 
 not intend to be cheated out of his prisoner. 
 
 Then he stopped short, astounded by his own stupid- 
 ity, his own absence of resource. Here he was grop- 
 ing about in utter darkness from sheer force of habit, 
 when he had matches in his own pocket. There was 
 no longer need for secrecy. What he wanted now 
 was light. What he had to have was light. 
 
 He felt in his pocket for a match, made sure of the 
 283
 
 284 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 dipped end, and struck it. Just what happened after 
 that Kestner never quite knew. 
 
 He remembered seeing the sudden spurt of the flame. 
 Then he was conscious of shock, as though that flame 
 had been struck in the midst of an explosive gas and 
 he had stood facing the resultant detonation. 
 
 That shock carried him backward, flinging the re- 
 volver from his hand, jolting the very breath out of 
 his body. He was sprawling and scrambling and 
 threshing about the wharf -floor before he fully realised 
 the meaning of that onslaught. Lambert, after all, 
 had tricked him. 
 
 His: enemy had feinted and snatched at a pretence 
 of being shot. Under cover of that feint he had 
 gathered himself together and waited for the first 
 sign of Kestner's position. Then he had leaped for 
 him out of the darkness. He had closed in on him, 
 with the antediluvian fury of a cave-man cornered in 
 his cave. He had resolved to make that ultimate 
 struggle a struggle of fang and nail and fist. And 
 now they were on the wharf-floor, locked together in 
 the darkness, with quick gasps and grunts from each 
 straining and contending body. 
 
 Lambert was the bulkier man of the two, Kestner re- 
 membered, and in some ways much the stronger man. 
 But Kestner had the advantage of youth. And there 
 were certain things the lighter-bodied man had learned 
 in his earliest days in the Service. He had long since 
 mastered the rudimentary jiu-jitsu tricks of a voca- 
 tion where, in contests, manual force was invariably 
 the final arbiter. His police-rooky training had also 
 included something more than morning pistol-practice
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 286 
 
 and " strong-arm " artifices and first aid to the in- 
 jured. It had taught him the use of the " arm-twist " 
 and the " hip-throw," of the " neck-hold " for break- 
 ing a rear attack clutch, of the " leg-lock " for pinning 
 down a prisoner so that a captor's hands could be 
 free. He had also mastered that most efficacious ex- 
 pedient of thumb-pressure on the nose, that torturing 
 pressure, on the thin and membranous bones, which 
 could so promptly break a waist-hold, not only 
 by engendering a pain that soon became unendurable 
 but also by compressing an air-passage that was essen- 
 tial to life. 
 
 That was the trick which Kestner thought of as he 
 felt Lambert's bear-like pressure about his constricted 
 waist. That was the trick on which he hung his hopes, 
 remembering that his hip-wound, however slight, might 
 still leave him weak from loss of blood. It was not 
 time, he inwardly repeated, for half-measures. 
 
 He even lost ground a little as he shifted his right 
 arm, but this did not cause him to lose hope. Once 
 his hand was free, even as the struggle along the 
 rough boards continued, he fought to gain that lean 
 and bony face. He clutched it savagely, as' a collie's 
 jaw clamps on a chicken bone. He felt for the nose, 
 placed his thumb, locked his fingers, and applied the 
 pressure. 
 
 He knew as he did so, that it was then merely a 
 matter of time. Lambert fought with fresh fire, 
 knowing that clutch had to be broken, and broken soon. 
 But Kestner hung on like a leech. The great body 
 under him lurched and tossed and heaved. Together 
 they rolled over and over. Then they went bodily
 
 286 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 against a wall of high-piled lemon-crates. That tot- 
 tering pillar of uneven units swayed outward, im- 
 parted its unsteadiness to other columns, and then 
 came tumbling down in an ever-increasing avalanche 
 of bales, half-burying the two figures under their 
 weight, adding to the clamour and noise and confusion 
 at the core of which those two madly threshing bodies 
 still contended. 
 
 Not once did Kestner loosen his clutch. Not once 
 did he give up. Not once did he relieve that cruel 
 pressure. He knew that this movement was final, that 
 with it he must lose or win, for all time. And he had 
 suffered certain indignities, in the past, which did not 
 leave him over-tender of heart. It was a fight to a 
 finish; and this was the finish.
 
 KESTNEB was not sure of his man until he felt the 
 stiffened body relax and the arms fall away. Then 
 he rolled over, heavily, uncouthly, so that he stood 
 straddling the other figure, one knee on each side of 
 the heaving lungs, but with a hand held close on the 
 sinewy throat. 
 
 " I've got you ! " he gasped, a little drunkenly. 
 
 He still held the great throat with one hand while 
 the other explored the shaking body, every pocket and 
 garment, to see that nothing was there which ought 
 not to be there. He remembered, to his sorrow, that 
 he had come without a pair of hand-cuffs. And from 
 now on he would take no risks. He had learned his 
 lesson, with this gang; henceforth he would act as an 
 official, and not as an individual. And the Law was 
 relentless. 
 
 " It's taken a long time, itambert," he mumbled 
 foolishly through the darkness. " A long time but 
 now I've got you! " 
 
 He sat back, trying to think connectedly, his body 
 burning with its innumerable cuts and bruises. His 
 hip was still bleeding a little. But he knew it was only 
 a flesh wound. He could also feel the slow trickle of 
 blood down one side of his stiffened face. What trou- 
 bled him most was his thirst. He would have given 
 
 287
 
 288 THE HAND OF PERIL' 
 
 up anything but Lambert for a glass of ice-water. 
 And he crouched still closer over his captive. 
 
 " You're mine," he repeated. The thumb of his 
 left hand, which had been bitten deep by the other's 
 teeth, throbbed and smarted with pain. His lip was 
 torn. His breath was still coming in gasps. The 
 ache of utter weariness was in all his limbs. But the 
 ordeal was over, and he sat there dully and foolishly 
 happy. 
 
 Then he tightened his hold on Lambert and lifted 
 him to a sitting posture. He was able to stagger to 
 his feet with that inert enemy, always making sure 
 of his hold. That enemy's arm, as Kestner swayed 
 with him there for a moment or two, was swung back 
 and twisted oddly behind the other's waist. Small- 
 bodied policemen may occasionally be observed lead- 
 ing huge drunkards stationward by much the same 
 method. 
 
 Kestner knew the need for caution, for making as- 
 surance doubly sure. He half-led and half-dragged 
 his captive along the dark length of the wharf, feeling 
 his way as he went. When he came to the little iron- 
 clad storage-room, he opened the door and thrust 
 Lambert inside. 
 
 " And that's the end," he murmured to himself. He 
 relocked the door with his skeleton-key. This took 
 him some time, for he was a little dizzy and his hands 
 were numb and his fingers shaking. But the triumph 
 faded out of his heart, for his thoughts at that inap- 
 posite moment went back to Maura Lambert. 
 
 He remembered that he was very thirsty. Then he 
 felt through his pockets for a cigar. He found noth-
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 289 
 
 ing more than some powdered tobacco leaves. He 
 thought next of the telephone. But he decided to re- 
 cover his lost revolver first, and also his shoes, for 
 his feet were bruised and sore. Yet he relished least 
 of all the thought of being there without a gun. 
 
 He groped weakly about, trying to strike matches on 
 his moist trouser-leg. When he came to an open crate 
 of olive-oil tins he sat down. He concluded it would 
 be best to rest there for a moment or two, for he felt 
 light-headed, impressed with the idea that the oak- 
 flooring under him was gently but perceptibly oscil- 
 lating, heaving back and forth with wave-like regular- 
 ity. He laughed a little as he leaned forward and 
 turned one of the olive-oil tins over and over in his 
 hands. Then he was dimly conscious of the doors at 
 the wharf-end being swung open, of hurrying figures 
 with lanterns, of the lightening greyness of the world 
 beyond the wide maw of the door, of the call of voices 
 through the cavernous gloom of the wharf-shed itself. 
 
 He leaned back against the crate, wishing he had a 
 drink of water. But he did not forget that Lambert 
 was safely locked in the little iron-clad storage-room 
 next to the pier-office. 
 
 " Are you all right now ? " Wilsnach was asking as 
 he handed a pocket-flask back to a second stooping 
 figure beside him. 
 
 " I'm all right," was Kestner's slowly articulated 
 answer, after blinking for a moment or two up into 
 the face of the ever-dependable Wilsnach. He stared 
 about him for another moment or two. Then he re- 
 membered.
 
 290 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 " I've got Lambert," he quietly announced. 
 
 He turned himself about, so that he faced the end 
 of the pier, where the lights were clustering round the 
 locked door of the storage-room. Some one, he 
 finally comprehended, was pounding on that door with 
 a piece of timber. Kestner started dizzily but de- 
 terminedly to his feet. 
 
 " Get that man away," was his jealous command. 
 " I don't want any interference with my prisoner." 
 
 " You've got him in there? " demanded the incred- 
 ulous Wilsnach. 
 
 " I've got him there," said Kestner as he leaned for- 
 ward and began to pull on the pair of shoes which 
 Wilsnach had dropped beside him. 
 
 Wilsnach, however, did not wait for his colleague. 
 He pulled a pair of nippers from his pocket as he ran. 
 And he ran straight for the storage-room. He pushed 
 through the group with the lanterns as the door gave 
 way. Kestner could see the flicker of his flash-light 
 inside the small chamber. That invasion and that in- 
 terrogative shaft of light angered him. This was a 
 personal matter. And here was a case and a prisoner 
 that was entirely his own. 
 
 He scrambled to his feet, stiff and sore. Yet he 
 was running by the time he reached the pier-end and 
 the lanterns that moved in and out through the small 
 storage-room door, like the fire-flies in and out of a 
 cave-mouth. He fell against those silent figures, push- 
 ing them promptly aside. When he reached the nar- 
 row doorway itself he found Wilsnach blocking his ad- 
 vance. The nippers were still in his hand. He
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 291 
 
 looked at them foolishly, as though he dreaded meet- 
 ing Kestner's eye. 
 
 Wilsnach's face seemed heavy and colourless in the 
 uncertain light. Yet there was something solemn and 
 authoritative about it as he clutched at the door- 
 post. He even refused to move aside as Kestner 
 pushed peevishly against him. 
 
 " I want that man," proclaimed the Secret Agent. 
 
 Wilsnach looked at him almost pityingly. He 
 looked at him for a long time. 
 
 " You can't have him," he said at last. 
 
 " What ? " It was more a bark than a definitely 
 articulated interrogation. 
 
 Wilsnach put the hand-cuffs in his pocket and 
 caught his friend by the arm, just below the elbow. 
 
 " He's gone! " he quietly announced. 
 
 "Gone?" echoed the other, now tugging to free 
 himself. 
 
 " You can't go in, old man ! " contended Wilsnach. 
 " It's no use ! " 
 
 " But Lambert's in there ! " 
 
 " He's there ! But you can't get him ! " 
 
 " I've got to get him ! " 
 
 The look of pity went out of Wilsnach's face. He 
 seemed to lose patience at the other man's unlocked for 
 heaviness of mind. But he began to push Kestner 
 back from the doorway, step by step. 
 
 " What good 's he to you," was his almost angry 
 demand, " when he's dead? " 
 
 It was Kestner's turn to stare a long time at his 
 comrade of the Paris Office. Carefully every detail
 
 392 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 and condition of that small iron-clad storage-room 
 was reviewed in Kestner's incredulous mind. 
 
 " He can't be," he protested. " He couldn't do 
 it!" 
 
 "He has done it!" 
 
 " But there was no way." 
 
 " There was a light-bulb in the roof. He unscrewed 
 that bulb and broke it." 
 
 " Cut his throat with it," amplified a watchman in a 
 bottle-green overcoat, as he pushed out through the 
 narrow door. His face had taken on a tinge of the 
 same colouring as his raiment, and he laughed fool- 
 ishly as he pushed back his faded cap. " Cut his 
 throat with it, clean as a whistle ! " 
 
 Kestner leaned heavily against the side-wall cov- 
 ered with sheet-iron. 
 
 " Then we've lost him ! " he slowly acknowledged.
 
 KESTNER crossed to his hotel window and looked 
 out. It was spring, and spring in Rome. Yet his 
 heart was heavy. 
 
 The City of the Seven Hills lay before him, bathed 
 in a golden mist. Beyond the soft tones of grey and 
 yellow he could see the dark squares of ilex and cy- 
 press and orange, where old gardens stood amid close- 
 huddled roofs and walls. Off towards Monte 
 Gianicala, where the shadowy valleys were already 
 touched with their purple mists, a stately row of stone- 
 pines reminded Kestner that he was indeed back in the 
 city of his youth. 
 
 But he had no eye for its beauty. He crossed to 
 the writing-table where his mail of the past month 
 awaited him. He sat down before that pile of duly 
 assorted letters and telegrams, regarded them for a 
 meditative moment or two, and then began his task of 
 going through them. He did so slowly and method- 
 ically. But his heart sank when he came to the end. 
 He was still without a clue. 
 
 It had been the same thing over and over again, 
 for months, the same wandering from place to place, 
 the same fruitless search, the same patiently put ques- 
 tions. And the answer had always been the same. 
 Maura Lambert had escaped him. 
 
 A recurring sense of desolation crept over Kestner 
 295
 
 2% THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 as he unfolded his pocket-atlas of Europe and traced 
 his course from city to city. He had journeyed half 
 way around the world in search of a woman, and he 
 seemed no nearer her than seven long months ago 
 when, after the death of Lambert, he had taken up the 
 trail. 
 
 He had first gone over New York, every nook and 
 cranny. He had questioned and cross-questioned 
 every person who had been in touch with Lambert and 
 his little band. He had canvassed taxicab drivers 
 and ticket sellers and station guards. He had inter- 
 viewed pier officials and booking offices. He had 
 studied hotel registers and Pullman reservation lists. 
 He had sent out wires to every city worth soliciting, 
 calling on friends, both official and unofficial, for any 
 hint that might fall into their hands. 
 
 The first inkling of hope had come in a night-let- 
 ter from Cody of the American Customs at Montreal. 
 A woman answering the description had been seen 
 alighting from a New York sleeper at Windsor Sta- 
 tion. A " news-butcher '* had pointed her out to an 
 idle porter as being " some queen." She wore a heavy 
 veil, and she was travelling alone. The porter had 
 helped her with her bags, two of them. But she had 
 no other luggage. That was as much as either Cody 
 or Chamberlain, the Chief of the Canadian Pacific 
 Criminal Investigation Department, had been able to 
 find out. But the wire was enough to take Kestner to 
 Canada by the next train. 
 
 There the hunt began over again. The porter in 
 time was found. But he had no knowledge of what 
 hotel the " queen " in question had gone to. He had
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 297 
 
 merely helped her to a cab. Then followed a round 
 of the cab-drivers. On the third day a chauffeur was 
 found who vaguely remembered such a woman. He 
 had driven her to an English pension known as Beaver 
 Hall Chambers, on Beaver Hall Hill. 
 
 It did not take Kestner long to authenticate this. 
 But the 1 lady, who called herself Miss Farr, had left 
 Beaver Hall Chambers weeks before. She had paid 
 a full week's rent, yet she had stayed only three days. 
 The one hint worth while was that given by a chamber 
 maid, who remembered the lady telephoning about 
 painting on ivory. 
 
 Kestner promptly looked up every miniature painter 
 in the city. He eventually unearthed the artist to 
 whom Miss Farr had applied for work. She had 
 painted for a week in this Philips Square studio, and 
 had proved herself clever enough. But she had met a 
 Devonshire woman, an invalid, on her way to Banff, 
 and had caught at the chance of going West, as a 
 companion. So Kestner went on to Banff. 
 
 She had been in Banff for weeks. There was no 
 doubt of that. The little mountain town was full of 
 impressions of her. She and the eccentric-minded 
 English patient had lived much in the open air, had 
 ridden and fished and golfed and had once motored 
 down to Calgary. She had also been seen sketching 
 at Devil's Lake, and a local hotel had even bought a 
 couple of her water-colours. 
 
 By this time Kestner knew the trail was genuine. 
 
 He followed that trail up to Victoria. There 
 Maura Lambert and her patient had parted company, 
 the invalid being joined by her son and going on to
 
 298 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 Japan, the companion for some unknown reason strik- 
 ing eastward again as far as Winnipeg. From 
 Winnipeg she had gone to Chicago. There, Kestner 
 found, she had engaged to accompany two girl stu- 
 dents to Paris, sailing from Boston on a ten day 
 steamer. Then Paris, for causes that could not be 
 ascertained, had become suddenly undesirable to her. 
 She had moved on to Munich. And at Munich the 
 trail ended. 
 
 Kestner sat absently contemplating his atlas. 
 Then he stared as^absently out over the roofs and gar- 
 dens and hills of Rome. Then he suddenly wheeled 
 about in his chair, his trained ear advising him that 
 some one was opening the door of his hotel room. 
 
 The next moment his heart was in his mouth, for he 
 saw a young woman step quickly inside and as quickly 
 close the door behind her. For one brief second he 
 thought it was Maura Lambert herself. But that fool- 
 ish flutter of hope did not survive his quick stare of 
 inquiry. 
 
 He found himself confronted by a figure more pertly 
 audacious, more casually intimate, than that of Lam- 
 bert's one-time etcher on steel. 
 
 They regarded each other for a silent moment or 
 two. Then the girl spoke. 
 
 " Some time since we met ! " she tentatively chirped. 
 
 Kestner studied her. It was Sadie Wimpel resplen- 
 dent in vernal raiment, raiment plainly from the rue 
 de la Paix. 
 
 " Yes, it's some time," he agreed, not without a 
 touch of bitterness, remembering the past. 
 
 "You've quit the Service," she continued.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 299 
 
 " And how did you know that ? " Kestner inquired. 
 
 She laughed as she tucked her veil up about her 
 modish little hat. 
 
 " Hully gee, there's things we've gotta know ! " 
 
 " So I surmise ! " 
 
 " An' I was wise to you droppin' out, or I wouldn't 
 be here ! " 
 
 " Then why are you here? " demanded Kestner. 
 
 Sadie Wimpel stepped to the middle of the room. 
 She eyed him as she advanced, as though some dregs 
 of her former fear of him still troubled her mind. 
 Her face had grown quite sober, touched with a de- 
 termination which Kestner had never before seen on 
 it. 
 
 " I'm lookin' for a life line ! " she calmly announced. 
 
 Kestner motioned her into a chair. 
 
 " In trouble ? " he queried. 
 
 " Do I look it ? " she demanded, with an apprecia- 
 tive glance down her own shimmering fa9ade. 
 
 " Not altogether ! " he acknowledged with the ghost 
 of a smile. " But what's the line for ? " 
 
 " For some one you've gotta help ! " 
 
 "But who?" 
 
 Sadie, with a rustle of silk, condescended to seat 
 herself. 
 
 " You've been trailin* Maura Lambert f'r the last 
 six or seven mont's," she reminded him. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " promptly inquired Kest- 
 ner. But his pulse quickened at the mere mention of 
 the name. 
 
 " Oh, I'm hep to that, an' consid'r'ble more. But 
 before I switch to that I wantta put you wise to the
 
 300 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 fact I'm runnin' straight these days. I'm a Art Im- 
 porter now. Me an' Cambridge Charlie 've doubled 
 up. I'm a canvas runner between here an' London." 
 
 " And what's a canvas runner? " 
 
 Sadie studied her eyebrows in the mirror of her 
 vanity-bag. 
 
 " These Eyetalians don't allow an ol' master to be 
 taken out o' the country. We've got a Dago named 
 Muselli gatherin' up what he can. Then I've tied 
 down one o' the best copyists in Rome here, doin' 
 dooplicates of the gallery pictures. We take the 
 copy, scaled up or down to the size we order, an 5 
 frame it. But before we frame it we fit our ol' mas- 
 ter canvas under the gallery copy, an' about once a 
 month I skip over to London wit' the goods. Then we 
 fake a story about findin' a new Roobens, or a Raph- 
 ael Madonna bein' dug out o' some moth-eaten Eng- 
 lish collection. Then we re-ship to our New York 
 agent, payin' full duty, mind you, an' divvyin' on the 
 rake-off. Ain't that square enough? " 
 
 " Nothing could be more honest ! " 
 
 Sadie disregarded the ironic note in Kestner's re- 
 mark. 
 
 " It's a darned sight more genteel'n the sable 
 game I stuck to for more'n a month," she argued. 
 
 "The sable game?" 
 
 " Yep ! High-Collar Connors rigged me out wit' a 
 seven-hundred dollar set o' sables stole from a Mil- 
 waukee theatre-box. I'd blow into a high-class hotel, 
 register, an* leave me furs in the room. High-Col- 
 lar'd watch me leave the room, an' then slip in an' 
 pinch the furs. Then I'd make a big noise t' the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 301 
 
 office, an' they'd gener'ly compromise on a couple o' 
 hundred, to stop my squeal. But that kept you on 
 the move, an' lacked class. This picture runnin' busi- 
 ness is on a diPrent plane. An' it ain't so hard on 
 the noives." 
 
 " While keeping you intimately and actively in 
 touch with Art," suggested Kestner. 
 
 " An' kept me in touch wit' more'n Art," Sadie 
 stoutly maintained. " D'you happen to know jus' 
 who's been doin' our gallery copyin' for the last two 
 mont's? " 
 
 " I haven't the remotest idea." 
 
 " Of course you haven't or you wouldn't be sittin' 
 there givin' me the glassy eye," pursued the unper- 
 turbed Sadie. Then she moved her chair a little closer 
 to the table where Kestner sat before his atlas. 
 
 " It's the woman you've been fine-combin' that map 
 for," she announced. " It's Maura Lambert."
 
 II 
 
 SADEE Wimpel met Kestner's glance squarely, with- 
 out flinching. But in that glance she saw only weari- 
 ness and unbelief and the listless ennui of the man 
 whose last aim in life has led him into the valley of 
 defeat. He was too old a bird to be duped by a molly- 
 gow. 
 
 " Sadie," he solemnly and cynically inquired, 
 " what's the game ? " 
 
 " Ain't he the sour ol' cynic ? " Sadie demanded of 
 the circumambient. Then the pert young face grew 
 suddenly sober, and into the sagacious young eyes 
 came a look not unlike resentment. " There ain't no 
 game in this. All I say is Maura Lambert's right 
 here in Rome, an' I can lead you to her any minute 
 you wantta go." 
 
 Kestner pushed the atlas to one side and leaned 
 forward, studying the girl's face. Then his own face 
 grew solemn. 
 
 " Sadie, how am I to believe you ? " 
 
 She answered that question by asking another. 
 
 " How close d' you ever get to Maura after ol' 
 Lambert cashed in last year over in New York ? " 
 
 " That's a question I can't answer." 
 
 *' Then give me a stab at it. Just to show what 
 I'm jerry to! That girl slipped up to Montreal, an' 
 
 from Montreal she beat it on to Banff. Then she 
 
 302
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 303 
 
 went to the Coast, an' doubled back from Victoria. 
 Then she hit Chicago an' mosied on to Boston. Did 
 you trace along any o' that trail? " 
 
 " I did," acknowledged Kestner. The animosity 
 had gone out of his voice. 
 
 " Well, I'll give you some more along the same 
 line. From Bean-Town she sailed f'r Paris, an' from 
 Paris she went on to Munich, an' from Munich she am- 
 bled off to Prague, an' then swung round to Milan an' 
 then down to Rome. An' all that time she was tryin' 
 to do decent work, kindergartenin' some mutt of a 
 school-girl, or paintin' kid miniatures, or copyin' gal- 
 lery chromos, or teachin' drawin' to a bunch o' pension 
 dubs whose husbands started zooin' her first crack 
 out o' the box, and gettin' in bad jus' because she had 
 a pair o' lamps that'd make any man sit up an' take 
 notice. She had to do all that woik wit' women. 
 She had to." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I guess you oughtta know the answer to that," 
 retorted the girl. 
 
 "Why should I know ?" 
 
 " Hully gee! Because she's stuck on you! That's 
 why!" 
 
 " Don't say that ! " Kestner cried out, revolting 
 against the crudity of the underworld phrase, repelled 
 by the freeness with which a thing so sacred could be 
 tossed about. 
 
 " What's the good o' side-steppin' the truth ? 
 Didn't I see her fall for you that first time you bumped 
 together in our Paris studio? Didn't she keep the 
 Governor from croakin' you when he had you hipped?
 
 304 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 An' didn't you let her go when you thought you had 
 her wit' the goods? An' ain't she always mooned 
 round about you an* had blinders on for ev'rybody 
 else? She was stuck on you! An' that's as true as 
 Gawd made little green apples ! " 
 
 Kestner was on his feet by this time. There was a 
 light of resentment in the world-weary eyes, a look that 
 was almost defiance about the grim line of the mouth. 
 
 " I won't have you say a thing like that ! " he con- 
 tended. 
 
 " Oh, I've been tellin' her a few things myself this 
 past month. An' she was about as high an' mighty 
 as you're try in' to be now. But if she wants to make 
 a monkey of herself, that ain't my business. I've got 
 my own reason for handin' out this bunch o' talk, an' 
 I guess you'd better cool down an' listen to it," 
 
 Kestner swung about on her. 
 
 " If you've got an object in talking this way, I want 
 to know it, and know it quick." 
 
 There was a touch of perverseness in her languid 
 unconcern as she went on. 
 
 " Y' know, Maura Lambert was never cut out for 
 the brand o' work that I've been doin'. She's not my 
 kind. In the first place, she's too thin-skinned. In 
 the second place, she couldn't get away wit' a lie in a 
 month o' Sundays. She's about as green as grass. 
 Lambert kept her caged up like a white mouse. And 
 when he dropped out she was as alone as a she-lamb 
 that'd fallen off a sheep-train. She saw what she 
 wanted. She decided she was goin' t' go straight. But 
 that's easier t' say than do. She got in wrong, at the 
 start. An' when people know she can do the work
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 80S 
 
 she does, there'll always be some guy or other t' give 
 her a yank back to the ol' groove. They jus' won't 
 give her a chance." 
 
 " I know all that," quickly acknowledged her im- 
 patient companion. " What I want to find out is 
 where she is now at this moment ! " 
 
 " Hold your horses a minute ! I'm comin' to that. 
 Maura never was a mixer like me. An' she had more'n 
 lonesomeness to fight against when, I happened along. 
 A girl like that's gotta have money. She's gotta have 
 it to pertect herself. She's gotta go to good hotels, 
 an' keep to the better quarters, an' stick a buffer out 
 b'tween her an' the riff-raff. An' how's she goin' to 
 do that when she's gotta skimp an' save jus' to keep 
 things goin' ? And when she won't even push a bit o' 
 phoney paper when the cash runs low? " 
 
 " Of course she'd never do that," agreed Kestner. 
 The pert and sophisticated young face across the table 
 from him smiled for a moment. But her manner grew 
 serious as she hurried on with her talk. 
 
 " An' when she shook herself free that time in New 
 York she said she was goin' to keep within the law. 
 Y' know that as well as I do. Lambert was gone; 
 Morello was wiped out. The whole gang was done 
 for. It looked like the chance of a lifetime. An' I 
 guess it would 've been only something reached out 
 an' rattled the skeleton in the fam'ly closet. No; it 
 wasn't a skeleton ; it was a whole boneyard ! " 
 
 " Make that plainer," commanded Kestner. 
 
 " I mean that when Maura got to Paris this las* 
 time she was spotted by a guy called Watchel." 
 
 " Watchel ? " repeated Kestner. He could not, at
 
 306 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 the moment, place the name. But he was on his feet 
 by this time, confronting the calm-eyed girl. 
 
 " I guess you'd know Watchel by some name or 
 other, as soon as you lamped his mug. He's the big 
 yellow-haired guy who gathered in that Coast Defence 
 stuff for the Tokio people an' sold your Navy's col- 
 loiding process secret for big gun smokeless to the 
 Germans. Cambridge Charlie says this guy can get 
 a cool half million for the Flamenco an' Perico blue- 
 prints an' the Canal defence plans. But he's canned 
 for America. He can't even get in. An' he wants 
 somebody, Charlie says, who's able to. An' a woman 
 who's a good looker'd be worth a few thousand to him 
 for that job alone. An' with what she knows o' lan- 
 guages, an' that face o' hers, an' bein' able to copy any 
 paper that's needed, she'd soon be worth more to 'im 
 than any other woman in Europe." 
 
 " Do you mean to say this man has been hounding 
 Maura Lambert ? " was Kestner's curt demand. 
 
 " Watchel never hounds anybody. He's too smooth 
 for that. He jus' does the spider-act, runnin' out a 
 web an' waitin' his chance. An' when he thinks he's 
 got his fly he jus' kicks out one little thread after an- 
 other, until he's got her tied up like a blue-bottle. 
 An' that's the way he's goin' to tie up our friend 
 Maura." 
 
 " How do you know this ? " 
 
 " I made it my business to know 't. Even Cam- 
 bridge Charlie's wise to what's goin' on. They've got 
 a plant on foot." 
 
 "A plant?"
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 307 
 
 " Yes and they're goin' to spring it, an' spring 
 it soon. That's why I'm here." 
 
 Kestner leaned forward across the table. 
 
 " How soon? " 
 
 " Before ten o'clock to-night." 
 
 " What's the plant? " was his next demand. He 
 was no longer suspicious of her. It was not a time 
 for equivocating. The thought of action awoke some- 
 thing innate and long idle in his breast. 
 
 " Maura's hangin' out in the Piazza Barberini. 
 She's got two or three rooms there. A couple o' days 
 ago the Dago girl who takes care o' those rooms for 
 her lost the keys. They were pinched, an' by one o' 
 Watchel's men. Watchel wants to get her out o' 
 Rome. He knows he can't handle her here. So 
 they're goin' to work a plant on her." 
 
 " But what is it ? " was Kestner's impatient de- 
 mand. 
 
 " There's an Austrian agent named Ruhl, who's been 
 diggin' out Eyetalian army secrets. He's been re- 
 portin' to the Chief o' the General Staff o' the Eighth 
 Army Corps. That's stationed at Prague. They're 
 goin' to take his ol' code messages, an' stick in the 
 cipher key, an' copies o' the blue-prints an' maps an' 
 things he's gathered up. Then they're goin' to plant 
 'em in Maura's desk. It's ten to one they've got 'em 
 there already. To-night Watchel and two o' his 
 Eyetalian subs are goin' to make a bluff o' raidin' them 
 rooms, Watchel holdin' back until the two subs dig 
 out the papers. Then Watchel's goin' to step in an* 
 catch her on the bounce. He's goin' to pose as the
 
 308 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 little gawd fr'm the machine, an' buy 'em off until she 
 can get out o' Rome an' across to Corfu or Ragusa. 
 An' that means he's got her tied up for his own work. 
 An' it may mean he's got her for more'n that ! " 
 
 Kestner looked at his watch. The old listless air 
 had gone from him. He was once more on his feet. 
 
 " What else do you know ? " 
 
 "Ain't that enough?" 
 
 " God knows, it's enough ! " he gasped, as he strode 
 up and down. 
 
 " Then what're you goin' to do about it? " 
 
 " I'm going to get to those rooms before Watchel 
 gets there." 
 
 "And then what?" 
 
 " Then I'm going to hang the Indian sign on that 
 plant, as you'd put it ! " 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 Kestner stood deep in thought. When he spoke, he 
 did so with much deliberation. 
 
 " It may even be necessary for you to get some one 
 else to copy those old masters for you. I imagine 
 Maura Lambert isn't going to be many more days in 
 this city." 
 
 There was a smile on the pert young face. 
 
 " That may not be as easy as it listens." 
 
 " I'm used to things that are not easy," admitted 
 Kestner. " And there's just one thing I want you to 
 help me in." 
 
 "Fire ahead!" 
 
 " I want you to keep Maura Lambert away from 
 her rooms until eight o'clock to-night." 
 
 " That's easy ! " admitted Sadie, as she rose to her
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 309 
 
 feet. She paused for a moment as she stood powder- 
 ing her nose. " It may help some," she absently 
 added, " to know that this guy Watchel used to call 
 himself by the name of Wimpffen ! " 
 
 " Wimpffen ! " echoed Kestner, with quickly nar- 
 rowed eyes and a heavier droop to his meditative lips. 
 "So it's Wimpffen!" 
 
 Sadie Wimpel regarded Kestner over her shoulder 
 as she buttoned her glove. 
 
 " Cambridge Charlie's some hustler, when it comes 
 to a scrap," she suggested, not without a touch of 
 pride. 
 
 For one brief moment a smile played about Kest- 
 ner's lips. 
 
 " I think I'll make this my own particular scrap," 
 he announced ; and his tone as he spoke was not with- 
 out its own touch of pride. 
 
 " Then me for the tall timber," said Sadie as she 
 snapped shut her vanity-bag.
 
 Ill 
 
 KESTNER'S next hour was a frantically busy one. 
 [Almost his first move was to wire Wilsnach at the Paris 
 Office, using the familiar Service Code. " Send me 
 Wimpffen's record quick." This was followed by hur- 
 ried calls at certain Embassies and on certain Aides, 
 followed again by a brief talk with two civic officials 
 and a secret conference with the uniformed head of 
 the Intelligence Department. 
 
 By the time these were over and Kestner had proved 
 that he was not yet without friends and influence in 
 Europe, Wilsnach's cipher wire had arrived. And the 
 reading of that wire brought a more contented smile 
 to Kestner's face. 
 
 It was less than half an hour later that an invalid 
 American, much muffled up, made a circuit of the 
 Piazza. Barberini, looking for rooms. His knowledge 
 of Italian was excellent, and while he panted up stair- 
 ways and poked about passages he talked fluently 
 of his ailments and wheezily of his dislike for damo- 
 ness. 
 
 But this invalid American was not easy to suit, and 
 many rooms were explored and many passageways in- 
 vestigated before his loss of strength compelled him to 
 give up for the afternoon. 
 
 It was several hours later that a figure oddly re- 
 sembling this same invalid appeared on a loggia over- 
 
 310
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 311 
 
 looking a diminutive walled garden bathed in the soft 
 light of an Italian moon. Having reasonably as- 
 sured himself that he was unobserved, he betrayed an 
 agility unlocked for in one of his years as he climbed 
 over the heavy stone balustrade, swung himself to a 
 nearby jointed iron water-pipe, and climbed nimbly 
 down to a shuttered window. The shutters of this 
 window he forced open with a small instrument of 
 tempered steel taken from his pocket. Then he di- 
 rected his attention towards the double sashes them- 
 selves. These were built to swing outward on heavy 
 wrought-iron hinges and were clearly locked from the 
 inside. A few moments' work with the same piece of 
 tempered steel, however, had the sashes open, and the 
 house-breaker without more ado climbed quietly and 
 nimbly inside. 
 
 There he took out a flashlight and began a hurried 
 but none the less methodic exploration of the small 
 apartment. He noted the sleepy canary in a painted 
 Swiss cage, the number of bowls and vases about the 
 place, filled with spring flowers, Roman anemones and 
 narcissi and daffodils and Parma violets in profusion, 
 reminding him of the Piazza di Spagna steps and the 
 Flower Market in the Stranger's Quarter. 
 
 When he groped his way into a narrow closet and 
 found one wall hung with an orderly array of woman's 
 clothing, he gathered the folds of that subtly odor- 
 ous raiment in his arms, and acting on an impulse that 
 seemed uncoordinated and instinctive, buried his face 
 in them. For one brief moment he drank in a sub- 
 limated fragrance which seemed to leave him both light 
 of head and heavy of heart. Then he pulled him-
 
 312 THE HAND OF PERU, 
 
 self together and went on with his search, more guard- 
 edly than before, for the room seemed haunted with a 
 presence which he could no longer quite divorce 
 from it. 
 
 He deliberated for some time over a heavy teak- 
 wood desk which he found securely locked. He studied 
 this old-fashioned piece of furniture, back and front, 
 testing its panels and feeling about it for a possible 
 secret spring. Then he gave his attention to the lock. 
 He was reluctant to force that lock, easy as such an 
 act would make his work. He looked at his watch, 
 calculating his margin of safety as to time. Then he 
 sat down before the desk, balanced his flashlight on the 
 bronze base of a Roman lamp, and began to work at 
 the lock with a small steel instrument not unlike a but- 
 ton-hook. 
 
 Then he suddenly paused in the midst of his work. 
 With a movement equally abrupt he reached out for 
 his flashlight and snapped it off. Then he sat at the 
 desk, without moving. For distinctly there came to 
 him the sound of a key being turned in a lock and a 
 door being opened. And he knew it was the door of 
 the apartment into which he himself had broken. 
 
 He sat there, screened by the desk-top, waiting for 
 the intruder to show himself. 
 
 He heard the door close, and then the sound of a 
 quick step. The next moment a wall-switch snapped 
 and the room flowered into sudden light. And then 
 he saw that the intruder was Maura Lambert. 
 
 He sat without moving, studying her as she stood 
 there, with a japanned tin paint-box in her hand. 
 She was looking intently down at the envelope of an
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 313 
 
 unopened letter, quite unconscious of his presence. He 
 could see the same soft oval of the ivory-tinted face, 
 the same wealth of chestnut-brown hair under the 
 slightly tilted hat-brim, the same shadowy light about 
 the violet-blue eyes, the same misty rose of the slightly 
 puckered lips. And he knew, as he gazed at her with! 
 quickening pulse, not only that she was beautiful, that 
 she was desirable with a loveliness which left an ache 
 in his heart, but that his life had been empty because 
 it had been empty of her. 
 
 He still sat there as she crossed the room and placed 
 her paint-box on a table beside the bronze bowl heaped 
 with Parma violets. She stooped for a moment, to 
 bury her face in the flowers. When she raised her 
 head again, she stopped and half turned about, as 
 though some psychic current had carried to her the 
 warning of his presence there. 
 
 Her bewildered gaze fell on him as he leaned for- 
 ward with his elbows on the desk before him. That 
 gaze seemed to encompass him for several moments 
 before she became actually conscious of his presence. 
 She did not move or cry out. But she grew paler in 
 the side-light from the small electrolier above the table. 
 Then a slow flush mantled the ivory-like texture of her 
 skin, making the misty rose of the mouth less marked. 
 He could see the widened pupil of the eye darken and 
 invade the violet-blue iris. He could hear the quick 
 and quite involuntary intake of her breath. But 
 otherwise there was no movement from her. And the 
 silence prolonged itself, foolishly yet epochally, until 
 he suddenly realised the necessity for speech. 
 
 She put out one hand, as he rose to his feet, and
 
 314- THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 steadied herself by resting her finger-tips against the 
 edge of the table beside her. His own hand, he no- 
 ticed, was not as controlled as it ought to be. 
 
 " I'm sorry," he began, and the very inadequacy 
 of such a beginning brought him up short. He stood 
 there, groping vacantly for the right word, for some 
 reasonable phrase of explanation. 
 
 " I thought you were not to follow me ! " 
 
 She spoke quietly, but he could see that it was cost- 
 ing her an effort. And her wondering gaze was still 
 encompassing him, studying him with an impersonal 
 intentness which did not add to his peace of mind. 
 
 " There was nothing else for me to do," he finally 
 found the wit to exclaim. 
 
 She did not seem to understand him. There was 
 still something more than a mild reproof in her eyes 
 as she stared at him. She seemed mystified by the 
 fact that he could have gained admission to her rooms 
 without her knowledge. And when she spoke there 
 was a touch of bitterness in her voice. 
 
 " This is history repeating itself." 
 
 " That," replied Kestner, " is a habit history has ! " 
 
 Her eyes narrowed, almost in a wince, as though 
 his words carried a sting which had struck home. 
 
 " You should not have come here," she finally ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " I had to come." 
 
 "Why?" she demanded. 
 
 " Because you are in danger." 
 
 His words did not disturb her. She could even af- 
 ford to smile a little at their solemnity. 
 
 " I have been making it my life study to avoid
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL' 315 
 
 danger," she quietly explained. " There was too 
 much of that in the past." 
 
 " Precisely. And that past is reaching out a hand 
 to threaten you, when you least expect it." 
 
 She sank into a chair facing him. 
 
 " What have I done? " she asked him. 
 
 " It's nothing you've done. It's something you ma jr 
 be compelled to do." 
 
 " Compelled by whom? " was her quick inquiry. 
 
 " By Watchel," was his answer. She looked up, as 
 though the name had startled her. 
 
 "Who told you this?" 
 
 " Isn't it enough that I know ? Can't you ever learn 
 to trust me? " 
 
 " But you haven't told me what you know," she re- 
 plied, and the familiar tremolo of the full-noted con- 
 tralto voice stirred him until his own voice shook. 
 
 " There's only one thing I know," he suddenly found 
 himself saying as he sat facing her in the softened 
 light, oppressed by the futility of all further fencing 
 over trivialities. 
 
 " Only one thing? " she echoed with a timorous 
 movement of her white hand. He knew the time was 
 wrong, and the place was wrong, but he could not keep 
 back the words. 
 
 " The only thing I know is that I love you, that 
 I've loved you from the first day I saw you. I've 
 known that through every hour of the time I've had 
 to act as your enemy, and now that I've found you I 
 know it more than ever." 
 
 His voice was quite steady by this time, but the 
 colour had gone from his face until it was almost as
 
 816 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 pale as that of the ivory-browed woman before him. 
 She did not move as she sat there ; yet he could see the 
 quickened rise and fall of her bosom. 
 
 " You should not say these things," she said, strug- 
 gling to achieve a calm as complete as his own. 
 
 " But I've got to say them," he contended. " I've 
 followed you half way round the world to say them." 
 
 She had clasped together the hands that lay in her 
 lap and then unclasped them, with a small gesture of 
 hopelessness. Yet somewhere deep in the shadowy 
 eyes was a light which made them less rebellious, less 
 combative. 
 
 " But what good can it do ? " she cried out to him. 
 
 " I love you, and I want you," was his simple re- 
 joinder. 
 
 " You can't ! You can't ! " she said with a little 
 shudder of self-abasement. She was on her feet by 
 this time, staring down at him with almost frightened 
 eyes. 
 
 " Are you ashamed of me, of what I've been ? " he 
 asked as he stood confronting her. 
 
 " I am ashamed of myself, of all my life." 
 
 " But all your life's still before you," he contended. 
 " We've both got to begin over again." 
 
 " If I only could ! " she said with a half-mournful 
 little gasp. 
 
 Hope surged through him at the sound of those 
 words. He stepped quickly over to where she stood 
 between the bowl of Parma violets and an Etruscan 
 vase filled with anemones. She did not shrink away 
 from him. Bui the look in her eyes was almost one of 
 commiseration.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 317 
 
 " Oh, you should never have come here ! " she 
 mourned. 
 
 " Can't you give me a shred of hope? " he pleaded 
 as he caught her passive hand in his. Yet its posses- 
 sion brought him no sense of triumph. She stared 
 down at it as it lay limp and listless between his fingers, 
 as though in it lay epitomised all that was abhorrent 
 in her past life. She was moving her head slowly from 
 side to side. 
 
 " There's nothing to give now, not even hope ! " 
 
 Her mournful eyes were studying his face. It was 
 not their beauty that barbed his body with sudden ar- 
 rows of fire. It was the look of wordless pleading in 
 them, of pleading touched with vague pity and regret 
 for something which he could not comprehend. It 
 awoke in him the dormant energy which had made his 
 life what it was, the quick and instinctive revolt 
 against surrender, against quiescence and hesitation in 
 moments of crisis. 
 
 " Then I don't ask for hope," was his sudden cry. 
 " Can't you see that all I want is you you! " 
 
 She wavered mistily for a moment before his eyes. 
 Then his hungering arms went out and she seemed to 
 melt into them and he stood holding her sobbing body 
 against his own. He could feel each quick and capitu- 
 lating catch of the breath as he held her there without 
 resistance. And she seemed something flower-like and 
 precious, something to be always cherished and shel- 
 tered, as she lifted her face and looked into his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, it's no use," she said with a little child-like 
 wail. " I can't help it ! I love you ! I do ! I do ! " 
 
 He could feel the arms that had seemed so impas-
 
 318 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 sive suddenly lift themselves about his shoulder and 
 cling there. He could feel the warmth of her body 
 close against his own. He could see the misty red of 
 the mouth and the perfect line of the up-poised chin. 
 He was conscious only of an infinite want, as he leaned 
 closer to that mingled warmth and fragrance. His 
 lips met hers, and all thought of time and place and 
 the world slipped away from them.
 
 IV 
 
 ABRUPT as the crash of a stone through a conserva- 
 tory-pane came the break in the silence which had 
 enisled them. It came in the form of a knock on 
 the door, peremptory, impatient, authoritative. It 
 brought the world back about them, at a stroke. It 
 reminded Kestner of why he was there, of a mission 
 that had stood for the moment forgotten, of the dan- 
 ger that might still be ahead of them. 
 
 " Wait ! " he said in a whisper as he started for the 
 door. But before he could cross the room that door 
 swung open and a man stepped inside. 
 
 The first thing about this man that impressed Kest- 
 ner was his size. Yet an over-fastidiousness of ap- 
 parel seemed to lend to the great figure a touch of the 
 effeminate. He reminded the American of an Angle 
 viking in a silk-lined Inverness. He made a figure 
 that at first glance might pass unchallenged through 
 the grand monde of Rome, yet beneath the immaculate 
 raiment and the official-like posture of the shoulders 
 lay some inalienable trace of the charlatan. 
 
 Kestner saw at a glance that the man was Watchel, 
 at one time answering to the name of Wimpffen, and 
 at still another known as Keudell. He knew it by the 
 small sword-scars on the blonde cheek, by the deep- 
 set eyes under the yellow lashes, by the grim and 
 saturnine mouth with the touch of mockery about the 
 
 heavy lips. He recalled certain things from Wils- 
 
 319
 
 320 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 nach's wire, the murder of Eichendorff at Odessa, the 
 court-martial at Boden, the Provincial Court case at 
 Vienna over the Galician fortification betrayals, the 
 earlier rumour of a year once spent in the penal mines 
 of Siberia, the Livorno plot to smuggle the fruits of 
 a winter's espionage out of Italy by concealing cer- 
 tain papers in the coffin of a British Admiral who had 
 died at Pisa, There were other unsavoury details from 
 equally unsavoury quarters. And remembering them, 
 Kestner also remembered that knowledge was power. 
 Yet his enemy seemed in no way discomfited by the 
 American's calm stare of opposition. 
 
 " Herr Keudell, I believe? " 
 
 Kestner had the satisfaction of beholding the deep- 
 set eyes betray one brief second of disquiet. But it 
 was a second and no more. 
 
 " Herr Watchel," corrected the other. 
 
 Kestner bowed. 
 
 " It's some time, Herr Watchel, since we've had the 
 pleasure of meeting." 
 
 " It is," admitted Watchel. But the grim line of 
 his mouth did not relax. 
 
 "At that last meeting, you may remember, I had 
 occasion to inquire as to your particular business of 
 the moment. I must now repeat that inquiry." 
 
 Watchel's movement was one of brusque impatience. 
 
 " My business is my own," was his coldly enunciated 
 retort. 
 
 " In this room and the presence of this lady " 
 Watchel sniffed audibly afc Kestner's ceremonial bow 
 " I fear that all business must first be referred to 
 me."
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 321 
 
 " Why? " demanded Watchel. 
 
 " That I can explain when I recognise the necessity 
 for doing so." 
 
 Watchel made a sign to the white-faced woman who 
 stood so intently watching them. 
 
 " Get this man out of here," he commanded. 
 
 " That," was Kestner's easy retort, " may not be 
 as simple as it appears." 
 
 Watchel threw back the silk-lined cape of his In- 
 verness. Then he went to the door and opened it. 
 Having done that, he took out a time-piece of heavily 
 embossed gold. 
 
 " I will give you three minutes," he calmly an- 
 nounced. " Three minutes and no more ! " 
 
 " And then ? " suggested Kestner. The dull glow 
 that burned through his body forewarned him that all 
 his old fighting blood was again being stirred into 
 life. It was the voice of Maura Lambert that broke 
 the silence. 
 
 ** Please go ! " she timorously implored. The un- 
 locked for, note of anxiety in her voice made Kestner 
 swing sharply about on her. 
 
 " You want me to ? " he demanded, staring at her 
 colourless face. 
 
 " Yes," she answered. 
 
 She did not look at him. She was staring intently 
 at Watchel, as a child stares into an unlighted room 
 through which it must pass. 
 
 " Then you'll tell me why," insisted Kestner. He 
 was still further perplexed by her unconscious gesture 
 of despair, by the tragic light in her troubled eyes. 
 
 " Tell him ! " was Watchel's curt command.
 
 \ 
 322 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 She still stood at the far side of the room, but all 
 the while that she spoke she kept watching the huge 
 blonde figure facing Kestner. 
 
 " For two months I have been in this man's pay," 
 she slowly and distinctly said. 
 
 " In this man's pay ? " echoed Kestner. 
 
 "I was alone, and without money," she went de- 
 terminedly on in her flat and unhurried monotone. 
 " A dealer for whom I had copied eight gallery can- 
 vasses went away without paying me. I was in trouble 
 about a studio I had taken from an English artist in 
 the Via Cavour. I had to move to a cheap pension. 
 And even there the same trouble presented itself." 
 
 " Go on," prompted Kestner. 
 
 " Then this man came to me, when I was making a 
 copy of Raphael's Sybils in Santa Maria Delle Pace, 
 for a Pittsburgh banker who countermanded the order 
 when he found it wouldn't fit his dining-room. I 
 seemed to be at the end of my rope. Then this man 
 asked me to copy a signature for him. He said that 
 a copy would be worth five hundred lire to him. I did 
 it, in the end, and he paid me. Then he came again, 
 saying that a friend of his had to have credentials and 
 passports to take him through the Turkish lines to 
 Adrianople." 
 
 " Go on," again commanded Kestner as she came to 
 a stop. 
 
 " I put him off, day by day, until my money was 
 gone and I was helpless again. There seemed no 
 other way. Then I borrowed what money I could 
 from the piccolo who used to run errands for me. I 
 borrowed that money to cable to you at Washington.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 323 
 
 An answer came back saying you were no longer with 
 the Department." 
 
 " And I never even knew," cried Kestner, taking a 
 deep breath. 
 
 " I made copies of a passport," she went on, " and 
 was paid for it. Then I copied a signature on the 
 official paper of the Austrian Embassy, and was" paid 
 for that. Then this man came to me and said I would 
 have to go with him to Corfu, where I could work with 
 him on duplicates of the Toulon fortifications. I re- 
 fused to go. He tried to force me to go, but that 
 same day I met Sadie Wimpel in the Piazza di Spagna. 
 Through her I got a commission to make gallery 
 copies for an English dealer." 
 
 "Is that all?" demanded Kestner. His face was 
 now almost as colourless as the woman's. 
 
 " Yes," she said in the same flat monotone as be- 
 fore. 
 
 Kestner turned slowly about, confronting the man 
 who still stood with the time-piece in his hand. 
 
 " You can put away that watch," he announced 
 with a steely incisiveness. He did not speak loudly, 
 but from his eyes shone a white-heat of indignation 
 which could not be concealed. 
 
 " Why can I ? " asked Watchel, still making a pre- 
 tence of viewing him with bland and rounded eyes. 
 
 '* Because I'm going to thrash you within an inch, 
 of your life! " declared the American as he threw off 
 his coat and tossed it into a corner of the room.
 
 THE shoulders of Watchel's huge figure shook with 
 an effort at contemptuous laughter. But that laugh- 
 ter was as mirthless as the cackle of a guinea-hen. 
 Kestner did not even deign to observe it. He turned 
 sharply about to the watching woman. 
 
 " In the meantime I want you to take a botta direct 
 to the American Embassy. Ask for Schuyler there, 
 tell him I sent you, and wait until I come for you." 
 
 Watchel made a move of heavy impatience. The 
 change in his own face denoted his determination to 
 waste no more time over non-essentials. 
 
 " She can't do it. And you may as well know it 
 now." 
 
 " Why can't she do it? " 
 
 Watchel unbuttoned his Inverness and tossed it to 
 one side. 
 
 " Because at the bottom of that stairway, my young 
 friend, are two officers waiting to place her under ar- 
 rest, for selling Italian military secrets to the agent 
 of a foreign power." 
 
 It was Kestner's turn to laugh. 
 
 " Call them up ! " he commanded. 
 
 "I don't need to call them up," retorted Watchel, 
 visibly disturbed by his opponent's confident manner. 
 
 " You can't call them up," broke in Kestner. " And 
 I'll tell you the reason why. Those men are not there. 
 
 And they're not there because of my orders. Do you 
 
 324
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 325 
 
 understand that? And from this evening on, Herr 
 Watchel, alias Gustav Wimpffen, alias Adolph Keu- 
 dell, you're going to have something more than a lonely 
 girl to fight against ! " 
 
 Watchel, with an assumption of leisure, proceeded 
 to remove his immaculate gloves. 
 
 " And what must I fight against ? " he inquired with 
 a lift of the eyebrows. 
 
 " Against me! " barked out Kestner as he crossed 
 the room. Then he swung about to Maura Lambert 
 again. " Have you got a key for this desk? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. 
 
 "Where'dyou get it?" 
 
 " I had a duplicate made after losing the first one, 
 two days ago." 
 
 " And who got the first one ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " But I do. And this man Watchel does. Open 
 the desk, please." 
 
 Kestner strode to the door and closed it, standing 
 with his back to the heavy panels. The girl crossed 
 to the teakwood desk and with shaking fingers fitted a 
 key to the lock. Then she opened the lid. 
 
 Watchel took three steps forward, as though to fol- 
 low her. Suddenly he stopped and turned about, 
 facing Kestner. 
 
 " Do you know what this woman is ? " he contemptu- 
 ously demanded. 
 
 " Yes, I know what she is," cried back Kestner, and 
 his voice was shaking. Seven months of banked fires, 
 of repressed human passion, blazed out from him as 
 he spoke. " And I know what you are, Wimpffen,
 
 326 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 and before you're taken back to Odessa to answer for 
 the murder of Eichendorff a few others are going to 
 know it! You're the cur who's low enough to steal a 
 woman's keys and plant in her private desk a package 
 of papers you thought would leave her in your power ! 
 You're the cowardly hound who tried to drag an hon- 
 est woman into a life that was hateful to her, and you 
 tried to do it by stealing Alfred Ruhl's cipher-mes- 
 sages to the Chief of the General Staff at Prague and 
 hiding them in that desk and then having a couple of 
 Italian agents as currish as yourself hound her un- 
 til she was to swing in with your plans ! That was the 
 scheme, and when the time comes you're going to an- 
 swer for it! But you're going to answer for it to 
 me first! And you're going to do it before you get 
 out of this room ! " 
 
 The big blonde face was no longer unconcerned. 
 The debonair expression about the heavy lips had 
 vanished. The yellow-lashed lids had narrowed over 
 the eyes and the jaw was thrust forward, as though 
 the huge skull had been racked by the pressure of 
 some vast yet invisible force at the nape of the neck. 
 The colour of the face itself had also changed, the 
 blood beneath the cuticle seeming to curdle and stag- 
 nate and leave splashes of saffron against a yellow 
 background. And it was not a pleasant face to look 
 upon. 
 
 But Kestner dwelt on none of these things. What 
 suddenly but indeterminately disturbed him was the 
 discovery that Watchel's hands were shaking as he 
 fell back a step or two, with his eyes on the other man 
 as he did so.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 327 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to answer for it," Watchel said in 
 a voice that seemed to come from his throat without a 
 movement of the lips. " And I'm going to answer for 
 it in the right way ! " 
 
 Kestner's eyes had been fixed on the trembling hand 
 that pawed for a moment along the carefully pressed 
 lapel of the carefully tailored coat. He saw that 
 hand suddenly disappear beneath the lapel, and at the 
 same moment his own hand swung down to his hip. 
 He knew, even as he did so, that the movement was 
 useless, that his own automatic was in the side-pocket 
 of the coat which he had flung into a corner of the 
 room. 
 
 He saw the metal-flash of Watchel's revolver before 
 he could possibly reach that corner or that coat. He 
 was not a coward, but his heart stopped, for he knew 
 what the next moment had in store for him. 
 
 His next action was instinctive ; he had no time for 
 thought. He ducked low and darted forward, think- 
 ing to reach the shelter of the heavy teakwood 
 desk. 
 
 But the first shot came at the same moment that he 
 ducked. He could feel a small twitch at the elbow, as 
 though his coat-sleeve had been plucked by impa- 
 tient and invisible fingers. That first flying bullet, 
 he knew, had actually cut through the cloth of his 
 coat. 
 
 But he had reached the desk-end before the second 
 shot could be fired. His movement there was equally 
 unreasoned and instinctive as his first. He caught 
 the Roman lamp of heavy brass by the top. He was 
 possessed of a vague idea to smash down the shaking
 
 328 THE HAND OF PERIL, 
 
 hand still holding the revolver. But he could already 
 feel that the action was a foolish one, for the waiting 
 finger compressed on its trigger before that swinging 
 standard of brass could even reach the zenith of its 
 orbit. 
 
 Kestner was conscious of the quickly shifting barrel 
 being directed at his own body. And he knew that 
 the shot was to be fired, and fired at calamitously close 
 quarters, that the small black mouth of the weapon 
 was ordained to deliver its flame and lead. 
 
 Then the picture in some way became confused. Its 
 shiftings were too rapid to decipher. But at what 
 seemed the moment when the black barrel-end spoke 
 he heard Maura Lambert's cry, flat with fear. He 
 saw her hand dart out and clutch the glimmering steel 
 barrel. She caught at it foolishly, insanely, as though 
 a barrier so frail might hold back that tearing and 
 rending bullet which an inch of solid oak could scarcely 
 stop. 
 
 Her cry and the report of the revolver seemed al- 
 most simultaneous. Kestner saw her arm flung out- 
 ward and downward, sharply. That movement could 
 not have been more spasmodic had it been controlled 
 by the quick jerk of a wire. But he saw that his own 
 body had sustained no shock, and* he had sense enough 
 to remember there must be no time for a third 
 shot. 
 
 Kestner was on his tiptoes as he brought the Ro- 
 man lamp down on Watchel's upraised right arm, for 
 all the strength of his being was behind that blow. It 
 struck true. The fire-arm went clattering across the
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 329 
 
 room and the hand that had held it suddenly col- 
 lapsed. 
 
 A quick wonder seemed to fill Watchel's eyes as he 
 stared at his own arm, for from the elbow down it 
 hung helpless. But the wonder did not remain long 
 in the pale eyes, for Kestner's second blow crashed 
 down on thje huge head, held slightly to one side. Be- 
 fore Kestner could strike again the swaying figure 
 crumpled up on itself and sank to the floor, oddly 
 twisted and contorted, as apparently spineless as a 
 straw-stuffed effigy fallen from a fruit-tree. 
 
 Kestner stared for a moment at the tall standard 
 of the lamp, bent like a rod of lead. Then he stared 
 at the man on the floor. Then he suddenly dropped 
 the lamp, for at the sound of a little gasp he remem- 
 bered the fact of Maura Lambert's presence there. 
 
 She had sunk into a chair, and was bent forward 
 clasping her right hand in her left. The thumb and 
 fore-finger of the latter tightly enclosed the first 
 finger of the other hand. There was blood on her 
 skirt. 
 
 For a moment Kestner's breath caught in his throat. 
 Then he saw what, it all meant. That tightly held 
 forefinger was without its first joint. Watchel's sec- 
 ond bullet had torn away the entire bone and flesh of 
 the first phalanx. 
 
 The thought of that perfect hand being thus dis- 
 figured awakened a foolish rage in him. Then 
 through the first black moment of his anger shot a 
 newer thought. It was more than a disfigured hand. 
 It was a helpless one. Its power had been taken from
 
 330 THE HAND OF PERIL 
 
 it. Its meticulous adeptness with pen and brush 
 would be forever lost. All that Paul Lambert had 
 ever taught her belonged to another world. 
 
 Then a fury of activity seized him. He remembered 
 running to the next room and catching up a folded 
 towel and tearing it into strips. He remembered 
 hearing many steps and voices in the passageway out- 
 side and much pounding and knocking on the door. 
 He remembered telling her that they could get down 
 to a cab and be at the Ospedale Internationale in ten 
 minutes' time. He remembered the convulsive shaking 
 of her body as she surrendered her hand to his " first- 
 aid " bandaging, and his clumsy efforts to reassure 
 her that everything would be all right, and her re- 
 newed shudder as Watchel groaned aloud where he lay. 
 
 " Don't be frightened," Kestner said as h tied the 
 ends of the roughly-made bandage. 
 
 " I'm not frightened for myself," she quavered 
 as she stared down at the inert figure on the floor. 
 
 " Then don't worry about that ox," was the other's 
 quick cry of contempt. " Nothing but a rope will end 
 him!" 
 
 Kestner steadied her as she rose to her feet. A sob 
 caught in her throat as she leaned on his arm. 
 
 " Do you know what this means ? " she tremulously 
 asked. She was still staring apprehensively down at 
 Watchel's groaning figure. 
 
 " It means the end of this sort of thing," declared 
 Kestner. " It means you must come with me, and 
 there can be no going back ! " 
 
 She stared down at her roughly bandaged hand as 
 Kestner crossed the room and unlocked the door.
 
 THE HAND OF PERIL 331 
 
 " There can be no going back ! " she repeated. 
 
 And when a rotund Guardia di Pubblica flung open 
 the door he beheld a coatless man take the signora 
 ingtese in his arms and hold her there as she mur- 
 mured, " Oh, I love you! I do! I do! " 
 
 THE END
 
 FUU