Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/193

 "She was a peach," he finally asserted. "But, say, she wasn't th' cheap kind!"

"Then the other kind there are cheap?"

"They's all got a sprinklin' o' broads, them second-raters,—'nd I guess th' Alambo ain't no Martha Washington."

"What did that woman look like?" repeated Kestner.

The youth struggled through a description which Kestner was able to organise into a sufficiently convincing picture of Maura Lambert. But the mystery of the situation only increased. There was a touch of novelty in having the enemy one had pursued half way round the world suddenly turning about and soliciting an interview. And it was equally disturbing to the established order of things to find Maura Lambert in an environment as unsavoury as the Alambo promised to be, for Lambert, whatever his activities, had always sheltered his youthful "scratcher" behind at least a façade of respectability.

"Was that woman alone when she gave you this note?" pursued Kestner.

"Sure," was the answer.

"Did she tell you to bring back an answer?"

"Yep! An' give me a bone extra f'r bein' quick!"

Kestner pondered the situation for a moment or two.

"How soon will you be back at the Alambo?"

The youth took off his cap and examined a second message stowed away there.

S soon as I beat it down to th' McAlpin an' back," was his answer.