Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/29

 source and origin of what might indeed prove a tidal-wave of illicit money, that here, indeed, lay the means of debauching and imperilling the currency of an entire country.

Then he stopped short, still kneeling there, and scarcely breathing.

It was just as his fingers had closed about the second package that he heard that first small noise behind him. It sounded like the diminished thud of an outer door being softly closed. A second and nearer sound, that of an inaudible gasp, brought him wheeling about on one knee. He did not rise, but his hand shot down to his hip, where his automatic always rested in its specially padded pocket.

"Not this time, honey-boy!" cried a firm if somewhat nasal young voice.

Facing him, with her back against the closed door of the studio, was a woman who could not have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. She had a pert young face, with a short nose, a rebellious and slightly heavy-lipped mouth, and a row of singularly white and singularly large teeth.

Kestner noted that she wore the small tiptilted hat affected by the Parisienne of the moment. He further noted that she was startlingly well dressed, and that in this attire she had attempted to approach the chicness of the native. Yet it was plain to see, for all her exotic raiment, that she was American to the finger-tips.

But Kestner's mind did not dwell on these points. His attention was directed to the fact that in her right hand she held a hammerless Colt, and that the barrel