Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/41

 woman, with a gesture of both protest and repudiation. For the second time Kestner saw the lines about Lambert's mouth harden. There was no doubt of his domination in that little circle.

"It's necessary, and that's enough. You've done your part, now, Tony and I will do ours."

"But you can't kill a man in cold blood,—you can't!" she cried, her voice shaking with a vibrata of horror.

"I've already told you," retorted Lambert, quite untouched by her outburst, "that he's going to do the thing himself!"

"Himself?"

"He's going to hold his own gun, and pull his own trigger with his own finger. And to make sure it's his own act, he's even going to hold that gun in his mouth, pointing upward and backward!"

He met her staring eyes without a moment's flinching.

"Tony, of course, may help him a trifle, but that's our business. There's one too many in this game. And it's too big a game to drop now. Somebody has to step down and out."

"But you can't do this!" she still protested.

Lambert turned on her.

"Can you suggest something better?" was his quick and half-mocking demand.

She looked from Kestner to Lambert, and then back at the man so securely tied down to the huge oak fauteuil.

"Yes," she replied.

"Well," mocked Lambert. "Out with it."