Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/38

 projected on the cotton screen. It disturbed him in a manner which he would have found hard to describe. For even in its magnified form, where any deviation from the original would be doubly and trebly accentuated, it stood out a practically perfect facsimile of his own handwriting.

This quiet-mannered woman with the violet-blue eyes and the misleading delicacy of Dresden china was one of the most accomplished forgers who ever handled a pen. That much Kestner could see at a glance. And at a second glance it came home to him that this same woman, in the right hands, could indeed develop into an actual peril to society.

"Try tracing it," Lambert was saying to her.

She took the Kestner signature and crossed to a small table, the top of which consisted of plate glass. She reached in under this glass and turned a switch. The moment she did so a powerful electric light showed itself directly below the table-top.

On this top she placed the paper, covered by a second sheet. Then she tested a number of pens, and having found one to her purpose, carried on a similar test with regard to her ink. Then for a silent moment or two she bent over her task.

Lambert took the paper from her when she had finished. This time he placed the three signatures in the lens and threw them on the screen, one above the other.

Kestner, studying the three, could not be sure which was his own and which were the imitations. The other occupants of the room, he noticed, were studying the letters quite as intently as he had done.