Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/104

 himself. It left Kestner inwardly disturbed. Yet, stirred as he was, he betrayed no emotion as he pondered 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.

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 indignation 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 He saw that he had been superseded.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