Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/24

 "My fighting days are over," announced the man who had said good-by to the Service. Yet he looked with no unfriendly glance at the ponderous face in which was set the shrewdest pair of eyes he had ever stared into.

"Then make this your last fight," almost pleaded the official, who plainly was not greatly given to petitioning for favors.

"Try the younger men," Kestner smilingly suggested. "Give Wilsnach here a chance on the case."

The man from the Paris office shifted a little uneasily.

"Wilsnach was on the case for a week," explained the chief, "and yesterday he asked me to wire for you."

There was open reproof in Kestner's glance at his colleague of other days.

"Wilsnach knows I came to America for quite another purpose," he explained; "for the somewhat personal, though trifling, purpose of getting married."

"My dear fellow, by all means get married," began the man at the desk. "But—"

"But at once tear off on a beagle-chase around the world after some verminous criminal with a