Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/223

 him as he raised it high above his head. Then, swinging back to the locked door, he brought the chair-legs with a shattering crash against the faded panels. That quick blow splintered the edge of the door, breaking away the mortised lock and leaving it free to swing outward into the next room.

Kestner, dropping the chair, stepped into that next room.

On the floor, half-way between the bedroom and the opened door leading to the hall, lay Morello. He lay on his back, with either arm thrown out at right angles to his body, in the form of a cross.

Kestner stooped over him. There was a small blue hole in the man's forehead, just above the nose-bridge where the black-haired eye-brows met, and from the back of the head the skull had been blown entirely away. And in the meantime the rhapsodic rag-time Saturnalia of sound went on in its. nearby room uninterrupted.

Kestner stepped to the hall door and shut and locked it. Then he picked up the revolver which Lambert must have thrown back into the room as he fled. The Secret Agent's fingers were a little unsteady as from force of habit he examined this revolver and found the cartridge of one chamber empty. But he dropped the fire-arm, without emotion, close beside Morello's outstretched right hand. Then he peered quickly and inquiringly about the room.

The package of plates was no longer there. On the floor was the piece of green baize in which they had been wrapped, but the delicately chased oblongs of metal were gone. Gone too was the travelling-bag