Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/33

 "Does that mean," asked the chief as he watched Kestner restore the photograph to the desk-top, "that we're not to count on you in this case?"

Kestner stared for a meditative moment or two at the Washington Monument. Then he turned back to the man at the desk.

"I'm not the man for this case. But I know the people it belongs to. And I can at least start those people right."

"What people?" asked the chief.

"Wilsnach here, for one."

"And the other?"

"Is a young woman named Sadie Wimpel."

"Why this young woman?"

"Because she knows Keudell the same as a keeper knows a diamond-back!"

The heavy-shouldered man behind the desk was already on his feet.

"Then supposing we talk to the Secretary of the Navy for five or ten minutes," he suggested. "And then we'll see if we can't get in to the President himself for a few minutes."

The other two men had already risen.

"The first thing we ought to do," explained Kestner, "is to round up Sadie Wimpel."