Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/28

 thinner sheets pasted together, although he could plainly see the silk-fibre in the actual tissue of the paper. How his government's secret process had been so successfully imitated he could not at the moment tell. But as he turned over the note he saw that the engraving had been as expert a piece of work as the paper-making itself.

He saw at once it was not a mere photo-etching process, later tooled out by hand, for every line of the lathe-work was clear-cut, and every touch of colour on the vignette was sharp and full. Even the cross-matching had been worked out with infinite detail and patience. And equally good was the colouring of the border-backs.

It took but a moment to establish the fact that the note had been printed in waterproof ink and not superimposed with a wash-pigment and camel-hair brush. Equally convincing-looking were the denomination counters.

It was, in fact, not one especial feature of the note that won Kestner's admiration. It was the beauty and authoritativeness of the bill as a whole, even to the "ageing" oil-wash to which it had been subjected and the mechanically abraded surface and artfully frayed edges.

He folded up the bill and thrust it down in his vest pocket, chucklingly anticipating Wilsnach's stare of incredulity when it should be passed under the latter's inspection. Then Kestner stepped briskly back to the open safe, dropping on his knees and reaching in for the next package, the one of large denomination. It came home to him, as he did so, that here lay the