The Hand of Peril/Part 5/Chapter 10
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Kestner was not sure of his man until he felt the stiifened body relax and the arms fall away. Then he rolled over, heavily, uncouthly, so that he stood straddling the other figure, one knee on each side of the heaving lungs, but with a hand held close on the sinewy throat.
"I've got you!" he gasped, a little drunkenly.
He still held the great throat with one hand while the other explored the shaking body, every pocket and garment, to see that nothing was there which ought not to be there. He remembered, to his sorrow, that he had come without a pair of hand-cuffs. And from now on he would take no risks. He had learned his lesson, with this gang; henceforth he would act as an official, and not as an individual. And the Law was relentless.
"It's taken a long time, Lambert," he mumbled foolishly through the darkness. "A long time—but now I've got you!"
He sat back, trying to think connectedly, his body burning with its innumerable cuts and bruises. His hip was still bleeding a little. But he knew it was only a flesh wound. He could also feel the slow trickle of blood down one side of his stiffened face. What troubled him most was his thirst. He would have given up anything but Lambert for a glass of ice-water. And he crouched still closer over his captive.
"You're mine," he repeated. The thumb of his left hand, which had been bitten deep by the other's teeth, throbbed and smarted with pain. His lip was torn. His breath was still coming in gasps. The ache of utter weariness was in all his limbs. But the ordeal was over, and he sat there dully and foolishly happy.
Then he tightened his hold on Lambert and lifted him to a sitting posture. He was able to stagger to his feet with that inert enemy, always making sure of his hold. That enemy's arm, as Kestner swayed with him there for a moment or two, was swung back and twisted oddly behind the other's waist. Small-bodied policemen may occasionally be observed leading huge drunkards stationward by much the same method.
Kestner knew the need for caution, for making assurance doubly sure. He half-led and half-dragged his captive along the dark length of the wharf, feeling his way as he went. When he came to the little iron-clad storage-room, he opened the door and thrust Lambert inside.
"And that's the end," he murmured to himself. He relocked the door with his skeleton-key. This took him some time, for he was a little dizzy and his hands were numb and his fingers shaking. But the triumph faded out of his heart, for his thoughts at that inapposite moment went back to Maura Lambert.
He remembered that he was very thirsty. Then he felt through his pockets for a cigar. He found nothing more than some powdered tobacco leaves. He thought next of the telephone. But he decided to recover his lost revolver first,—and also his shoes, for his feet were bruised and sore. Yet he relished least of all the thought of being there without a gun.
He groped weakly about, trying to strike matches on his moist trouser-leg. When he came to an open crate of olive-oil tins he sat down. He concluded it would be best to rest there for a moment or two, for he felt light-headed, impressed with the idea that the oak-flooring under him was gently but perceptibly oscillating, heaving back and forth with wave-like regularity. He laughed a little as he leaned forward and turned one of the olive-oil tins over and over in his hands. Then he was dimly conscious of the doors at the wharf-end being swung open, of hurrying figures with lanterns, of the lightening greyness of the world beyond the wide maw of the door, of the call of voices through the cavernous gloom of the wharf-shed itself.
He leaned back against the crate, wishing he had a drink of water. But he did not forget that Lambert was safely locked in the little iron-clad storage-room next to the pier-office.
••••••
"Are you all right now?" Wilsnach was asking as he handed a pocket-flask back to a second stooping figure beside him.
"I'm all right," was Kestner's slowly articulated answer, after blinking for a moment or two up into the face of the ever-dependable Wilsnach. He stared about him for another moment or two. Then he remembered.
"I've got Lambert," he quietly announced.
He turned himself about, so that he faced the end of the pier, where the lights were clustering round the locked door of the storage-room. Some one, he finally comprehended, was pounding on that door with a piece of timber. Kestner started dizzily but determinedly to his feet.
"Get that man away," was his jealous command. "I don't want any interference with my prisoner."
"You've got him in there?" demanded the incredulous Wilsnach.
"I've got him there," said Kestner as he leaned forward and began to pull on the pair of shoes which Wilsnach had dropped beside him.
Wilsnach, however, did not wait for his colleague. He pulled a pair of nippers from his pocket as he ran. And he ran straight for the storage-room. He pushed through the group with the lanterns as the door gave way. Kestner could see the flicker of his flash-light inside the small chamber. That invasion and that interrogative shaft of light angered him. This was a personal matter. And here was a case and a prisoner that was entirely his own.
He scrambled to his feet, stiff and sore. Yet he was running by the time he reached the pier-end and the lanterns that moved in and out through the small storage-room door, like the fire-flies in and out of a cave-mouth. He fell against those silent figures, pushing them promptly aside. When he reached the narrow doorway itself he found Wilsnach blocking his advance. The nippers were still in his hand. He looked at them foolishly, as though he dreaded meeting Kestner's eye.
Wilsnach's face seemed heavy and colourless in the uncertain light. Yet there was something solemn and authoritative about it as he clutched at the door-post. He even refused to move aside as Kestner pushed peevishly against him.
"I want that man," proclaimed the Secret Agent.
Wilsnach looked at him almost pityingly. He looked at him for a long time.
"You can't have him," he said at last.
"What?" It was more a bark than a definitely articulated interrogation.
Wilsnach put the hand-cuffs in his pocket and caught his friend by the arm, just below the elbow.
"He's gone!" he quietly announced.
"Gone?" echoed the other, now tugging to free himself.
"You can't go in, old man!" contended Wilsnach. "It's no use!"
"But Lambert's in there!"
"He's there! But you can't get him!"
"I've got to get him!"
The look of pity went out of Wilsnach's face. He seemed to lose patience at the other man's unlooked for heaviness of mind. But he began to push Kestner back from the doorway, step by step.
"What good 's he to you," was his almost angry demand, "when he's dead?"
It was Kestner's turn to stare a long time at his comrade of the Paris Office. Carefully every detail and condition of that small iron-clad storage-room was reviewed in Kestner's incredulous mind.
"He can't be," he protested. "He couldn't do it!"
"He has done it!"
"But there was no way."
"There was a light-bulb in the roof. He unscrewed that bulb and broke it."
"Cut his throat with it," amplified a watchman in a bottle-green overcoat, as he pushed out through the narrow door. His face had taken on a tinge of the same colouring as his raiment, and he laughed foolishly as he pushed back his faded cap. "Cut his throat with it, clean as a whistle!"
Kestner leaned heavily against the side-wall covered with sheet-iron.
"Then we've lost him!" he slowly acknowledged.