Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/66



, as had been planned, waited until an hour past midnight.

Then he left his room in the Hotel de France, struck through the Via Bottai to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, swung back out of the life and lights of that thoroughfare, and by streets more obscure threaded his way steadily westward. Then he rounded a block, to make sure he was not being shadowed, and quietly admitted himself to the same house where he and Kestner had met earlier in the day. On the closed door at the top of the stairs he played a tattoo with his finger-tips, the same tattoo that had been used before, but this time more lightly.

A key turned, and he was admitted to the room.

There he beheld Kestner in his shirt-sleeves, with a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, and a switchboard operator's "helmet" made from the wires of a bed-spring clamped over his head. To one side of this improvised helmet was tied a small watch-case receiver, connected with two wires covered with insulation-silk, which ran to the window. Attached to the other side of the helmet and held still close to Kestner's ear by his own hand was a small metal microphone, also connected with two wires which led to the window and from there ran somewhere out into the night.

"Well, we're getting down to tin tacks!" quietly