Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/130

 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 unapprehended. Yet he had laid his plans carefully, and s 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.