Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/219



, as he stood there leaning against the faded panel of that locked door which separated him from those passionately contending voices, retained little memory of where he was. He had forgotten the Alambo and its unsavoury warrens, he had forgotten the dingy gaiety of the crimson-papered bedroom behind him, he had forgotten the fusillade of ragtime piano-music, melancholy in its constant reiterations, which assailed his ears. He no longer remembered just why he was there. He was unconscious even of the ignominy of his position, of his eavesdropper's attitude behind a closed door, where he crouched with twitching nerves along his body and beads of sweat on his forehead.

All he heard and comprehended were those words of Morello's—the words which seemed to solve at one stroke the enigma of Maura Lambert's life. They flashed light into the deepest corner of a mystery which from the first he had been unable to explain or explore. They brought to him a sudden yet undecipherable sense of elation. They not only carried with them a readjustment of the entire case, but also the consciousness that his interest in the career of this girl, who had been driven into crime under compulsion, was more than a professional interest. And