Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/230

 "Talk away!"

"We haven't a trace of the woman yet," began Wilsnach.

"What woman?" angrily demanded Kestner. He always hated the other man when he spoke of Maura Lambert as a Bertillon exhibit, and there were times when he half-suspected Wilsnach's knowledge of that feeling.

"The scratcher for that Lambert gang," was the none too placatory response over the wire. But time was too precious for personal issues.

"We can find that woman best by first finding Carlesi. I've already told you that."

"But she's the king-pin of those counterfeiters. She's the one we've got to get!"

"And she's the one we'll get the easiest—when the time comes!"

"Well, Carlesi shouldn't be hard. Romano has just phoned me that one of his men has spotted Carlesi."

"Spotted him?"

"Yes, and tailed him to a shooting-gallery."

"Where?"

"Down on the East River water-front."

"And he's there now?" demanded Kestner.

"As far as I know," was the answer. "He'll be easy to find. A middle-aged Dago, stoop-shouldered, with granulated eye-lids."

"But why a shooting-gallery?"

"That they can't say until some one gets inside. And they waited for word from you."

"Good!"