Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/88

 "Turn on the lights!" cried Morello, this time in a command.

"When you promise to do what I say," contended the woman at the table.

An oath escaped the Neapolitan.

"Do you want that man to escape?"

Kestner, as he crouched low, awaiting his chance, wondered if she did or not. He knew he still carried a key for that carefully locked door. He also knew that it would have to be used silently. So he crouched there, still waiting.

"Oh, I'll get you!" he heard that Americanised Neapolitan voice announce, with still another oath. The Secret Agent felt, from the sound of that voice, that his opponent had retreated to the farther wall, so as to command a full view of the place.

The next moment a white bulb of light exploded on the darkness, wavered about the wall, and pencilled for one interrogative moment towards the locked door.

Kestner knew that Morello had turned on a pocket flash-light. As quick as the thought came home to him, and before the light could steady itself, he aimed directly into the heart of the bulb and fired.

There was a gasp from the woman, a cry from the man. But the light went out. And at the same moment that he pulled the trigger Kestner leapt to one side. He ran with cat-like quickness, for he knew what was coming.

He was almost at the locked door before the first shots of that quick volley rang through the room. And he knew the shots were being fired at the quarter in which the flash of his own gun had shown itself.