Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/39

 It was the girl called Cherry who spoke first.

"Take it from me," she said with sudden conviction, "the freehand wins!"

Lambert turned to the woman who had done the writing.

"Your tracing is stiff to-day. What's the matter?"

The question remained unanswered for several seconds. The troubled violet-blue eyes moved from the screen to the man in the fauteuil and then back to the screen again.

"I'd like to know what this means," she finally declared.

Lambert stepped quickly across the room. For a man of his years and a career such as his that gaunt old counterfeiter retained a startling degree of virility.

"You'll find that out quick enough," was his half impatient retort. He tossed the papers he had withdrawn from the lens across the table and motioned for her to be seated.

"Take half a sheet of that bond and write what I tell you. I want it done in the handwriting of that signature, and I want it done right. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," answered the woman. She spoke in the flat and lifeless tones of a coerced child.

"Then write this: 'I have made a mess of things, and I am tired of life. I'm sorry, but this seems the only way out.' Then add the signature. No; wait a minute. Add this: 'The finder will please notify the American Embassy, where the secretary, I trust, will cable the Treasury Department at Washington.' Have you got that?"