Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/306

 Japan, the companion for some unknown reason striking eastward again as far as Winnipeg. From Winnipeg she had gone to Chicago. There, Kestner found, she had engaged to accompany two girl students to Paris, sailing from Boston on a ten day steamer. Then Paris, for causes that could not be ascertained, had become suddenly undesirable to her. She had moved on to Munich. And at Munich the trail ended.

Kestner sat absently contemplating his atlas. Then he stared as absently out over the roofs and gardens and hills of Rome. Then he suddenly wheeled about in his chair, his trained ear advising him that some one was opening the door of his hotel room.

The next moment his heart was in his mouth, for he saw a young woman step quickly inside and as quickly close the door behind her. For one brief second he thought it was Maura Lambert herself. But that foolish flutter of hope did not survive his quick stare of inquiry.

He found himself confronted by a figure more pertly audacious, more casually intimate, than that of Lambert's one-time etcher on steel.

They regarded each other for a silent moment or two. Then the girl spoke.

"Some time since we met!" she tentatively chirped.

Kestner studied her. It was Sadie Wimpel resplendent in vernal raiment, raiment plainly from the rue de la Paix.

"Yes, it's some time," he agreed, not without a touch of bitterness, remembering the past.

"You've quit the Service," she continued.