Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/140

 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 sound.

The rat-browed victor dropped on one knee beside him. A second later he had possession of the revolver. With an equally quick movement or two he had taken what money there was in the unconscious man's