Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/189

 the four bewilderingly involved human beings went rolling and cascading down that wide stairway to the hall floor below.

Then came gasps and calls and spasmodic movements, a thick grunt or two of satisfaction, a final stir amid the shattered glass and clock entrails, and then nothing but the sound of quickly taken breaths.

"Wilsnach!" called Kestner, with his knees planted firmly on a rotund and heaving chest. But still for several seconds there was silence.

"It's all right!" finally answered Wilsnach, a little thickly. "I've got him! Dam' 'im, he's taken the count!"

"Can you switch on the lights there?"

"Yes."

There was the sound of crunching glass, a clang of metal being struck by a shoe, and the next moment the newel-post lights flashed up.

"Where's Sadie?" asked Kestner, staring a little dazedly about the ruins, and realising for the first time, that he was cut and scratched and streaked with blood.

"I heard her get past us on the stairs!" acknowledged Wilsnach.

Kestner did not hear him.

"Call up headquarters," he said.

"But what's the game?" demanded the bewildered Wilsnach.

Kestner laughed as he wiped the blood from his face.

"Oh, we were trailing a rabbit and rounded up a hyena!" was his answer. "That's all!"