Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/318



next hour was a frantically busy one. Almost his first move was to wire Wilsnach at the Paris Office, using the familiar Service Code. "Send me Wimpffen's record quick." This was followed by hurried calls at certain Embassies and on certain Aides, followed again by a brief talk with two civic officials and a secret conference with the uniformed head of the Intelligence Department.

By the time these were over and Kestner had proved that he was not yet without friends and influence in Europe, Wilsnach's cipher wire had arrived. And the reading of that wire brought a more contented smile to Kestner's face.

It was less than half an hour later that an invalid American, much muffled up, made a circuit of the Piazza Barberini, looking for rooms. His knowledge of Italian was excellent, and while he panted up stairways and poked about passages he talked fluently of his ailments and wheezily of his dislike for dampness.

But this invalid American was not easy to suit, and many rooms were explored and many passageways investigated before his loss of strength compelled him to give up for the afternoon.

It was several hours later that a figure oddly resembling this same invalid appeared on a loggia