Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/184



, as he stepped into that second room, found himself confronting a figure which at first sight reminded him of a rubicund and weather-beaten old robin.

This figure sat in a wing-chair, at the end of a heavy oak table. Its ample paunch was covered by a cherry-coloured dressing-gown of quilted silk. It had a patriarchal polished dome, and a ruffled fringe of greyish-blonde hair. It also had round and innocent-looking amber-coloured eyes. A terrace of fleshy dewlaps took the place of a chin, and added to the blithe inanity, the cherubic other-worldliness, of the figure's general expression.

The man in the wing-chair, at first sight, seemed querulously invertebrate, a pathetic and foolish figure without guile and without purpose in life. Kestner could not help remembering how good a mask that misleading air of vague imbecility must have proved in the past. It was a pose, and nothing more. For even as he sat there blinking up with his watery-looking amber eyes, it was plain that he was not altogether off his guard. The newcomer noticed that one hand rested in the partly-opened table drawer, as though arrested in that position in search for a paper. But those unseen fingers, Kestner felt sure, held something which in no way resembled paper.

"We meet again, m'sieu, after many years!" said