Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/15

 learn. In fact there's no doubt of it. He's had her in hand for years. She's the free-hand worker for the gang. She can work on stone or steel or copper, and she can do the best imitation of lathe-work on a Treasury note you ever clapped eyes on. The old man taught her all that, the brush work, the photo-engraving process, the silk-thread trick, and the oil washes for ageing a note."

"Got any samples?" asked Kestner, revolving his cigar-end about his puckered lips as though life held no serious thoughts for him.

"The office has one or two. But look at those hands of hers! You could tell that girl was an adept by those fingers!"

"How about the face?"

"That's what puzzled me. She certainly doesn't look the part. But there were certain things we traced up. This man Lambert brought her to Florence years ago, when she was a mere child. He trained her for miniature painting there. Then he taught her etching and engraving. Then he started her working in oils, and for a couple of years she was forging old masters for him. Next, as far as we can learn, he turned his attention to free-hand script work. He got her copying museum records and manuscripts in the Uffizi., Then they migrated to Pisa for a year. It was there she must have done the ten-kroner Austrian note that the office has a sample of. She also got away with an uncommonly good Italian postage-stamp, for which Lambert had made a waterproof ink of his own. Then they bobbed up in Brussels next, and moved on to London, and a year later were back