Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/164

 I get those plates, I'm going to stick to you until the cows come home!"

Sadie turned and looked at him. Then she sat for a moment in silent thought.

"Oh, hell!" she finally said. She stooped forward with a sigh of resignation. "Just gaze out of that window for a moment."

"Why?"

"Because those plates are stowed away in my stockin'!" was her grimly indifferent reply. The taxi-cab had slowed down and was drawing close in beside the curb.

Kestner turned perfunctorily away. He heard the rustle of silken drapery and the sound of a deeper breath from the stooping figure so close to his side.

"All right," said the young woman so close to him. The taxi-cab by this time had come to a stop.

Kestner turned about to her. She had swung half round in her seat, and her forward-thrust face was quite close to his. Something about the expression on that face made him glance quickly down. Her right hand, he saw, was held up close to him. But instead of holding the package of plates between her fingers, she held a black-metalled automatic revolver. It was a short and ugly-looking firearm, suggestive of both a Boston bull-terrier in its squat proportions, and, oddly enough, of the girl who held it. Its lines seemed to repeat the lines of that pert and impertinent profile, and one seemed as unexpectedly menacing as the other.

"Now, Mister Slooth," said the determined rouged lips, "you make one move an' I'll pump your floatin'