Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/298

 "I've got Lambert," he quietly announced.

He turned himself about, so that he faced the end of the pier, where the lights were clustering round the locked door of the storage-room. Some one, he finally comprehended, was pounding on that door with a piece of timber. Kestner started dizzily but determinedly to his feet.

"Get that man away," was his jealous command. "I don't want any interference with my prisoner."

"You've got him in there?" demanded the incredulous Wilsnach.

"I've got him there," said Kestner as he leaned forward and began to pull on the pair of shoes which Wilsnach had dropped beside him.

Wilsnach, however, did not wait for his colleague. He pulled a pair of nippers from his pocket as he ran. And he ran straight for the storage-room. He pushed through the group with the lanterns as the door gave way. Kestner could see the flicker of his flash-light inside the small chamber. That invasion and that interrogative shaft of light angered him. This was a personal matter. And here was a case and a prisoner that was entirely his own.

He scrambled to his feet, stiff and sore. Yet he was running by the time he reached the pier-end and the lanterns that moved in and out through the small storage-room door, like the fire-flies in and out of a cave-mouth. He fell against those silent figures, pushing them promptly aside. When he reached the narrow doorway itself he found Wilsnach blocking his advance. The nippers were still in his hand. He