Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/221

 you. He took you to a convent in Switzerland. You will remember that. And when he took you out of that convent he began training you for his work. Already he was a forger, yes, a good forger. He forged the papers in which you always believed, the papers about yourself. Then you know what he did. You know how he—"

Kestner, straining to catch every word, heard Morello's voice trail off into sudden silence. In that silence, for a second or two, he could hear nothing but the stridently muffled notes of the distant piano and the far-away rattle and clank of an elevator door-grill as it slid shut on its runway. Then he caught the unmistakable sound of a woman's gasp of terror and surprise.

Immediately following that strange gasp came another sound, the sound of a newer and deeper voice sounding in the room just beyond the locked door.

"You welcher!" boomed out that sterner and harsher voice. And the cry was repeated, slowly and deliberately, but in a tone even more passionate. "You dirty welcher!"

Kestner could see nothing of what had taken place or was then taking place. But as he heard that voice he knew it was Lambert himself speaking, Lambert who must have stepped quietly into the room while the Neapolitan was pouring out his volcanic utterances to the bewildered woman in front of him. And the sudden realisation of what Lambert's intrusion meant at such a moment brought a tingle of nerves needling up and down the backbone of the intently listening Kestner.