Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/187

 toward the girl, and over that cherubic and chinless face a brick-red colour, apoplectic in intensity, had slowly spread. He became suddenly significant and impressive in his rage.

"This is your doing!" he cried out as he advanced on the wide-eyed girl, who fell back before him, step by step. But it was more bewilderment than fear that caused this retreat.

"Mine? What t' hell have I done?" was her belligerent demand.

The robin-like figure was now all but majestic in its rage.

"Done?" Words seemed beyond him.

"Yes, what have I done, you double-faced old cut-up?"

"What have you done? You've—" He suddenly stopped, for from the front of the house came a cry that sounded strangely like a cry of warning, or a cry for help. Kestner, at the same moment that he surmised Wilsnach had got through the front door and encountered the Jap, saw the cherry-clad figure wheel suddenly about and run for the door at the far end of the room. He himself dodged out through the doorway in which he stood and ran for the head of the stairs.

On the landing below him he saw Wilsnach and the Japanese valet writhing together, face down on the hardwood boards. Kestner could not decipher the nature of the valet's hold on his colleague. It seemed, at that first fleeting glance, a hold inextricably complicated and yet absurdly powerful.

Even before Kestner realised the need for