Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/337

 room and the hand that had held it suddenly collapsed.

A quick wonder seemed to fill Watchel's eyes as he stared at his own arm, for from the elbow down it hung helpless. But the wonder did not remain long in the pale eyes, for Kestner's second blow crashed down on the huge head, held slightly to one side. Before Kestner could strike again the swaying figure crumpled up on itself and sank to the floor, oddly twisted and contorted, as apparently spineless as a straw-stuffed effigy fallen from a fruit-tree.

Kestner stared for a moment at the tall standard of the lamp, bent like a rod of lead. Then he stared at the man on the floor. Then he suddenly dropped the lamp, for at the sound of a little gasp he remembered the fact of Maura Lambert's presence there.

She had sunk into a chair, and was bent forward clasping her right hand in her left. The thumb and fore-finger of the latter tightly enclosed the first finger of the other hand. There was blood on her skirt.

For a moment Kestner's breath caught in his throat. Then he saw what it all meant. That tightly held forefinger was without its first joint. Watchel's second bullet had torn away the entire bone and flesh of the first phalanx.

The thought of that perfect hand being thus disfigured awakened a foolish rage in him. Then through the first black moment of his anger shot a newer thought. It was more than a disfigured hand. It was a helpless one. Its power had been taken from