The Hand of Peril/Part 6/Chapter 2
II
Sadie Wimpel met Kestner's glance squarely, without flinching. But in that glance she saw only weariness and unbelief and the listless ennui of the man whose last aim in life has led him into the valley of defeat. He was too old a bird to be duped by a molly-gow.
"Sadie," he solemnly and cynically inquired, "what's the game?"
"Ain't he the sour ol' cynic?" Sadie demanded of the circumambient. Then the pert young face grew suddenly sober, and into the sagacious young eyes came a look not unlike resentment. "There ain't no game in this. All I say is Maura Lambert's right here in Rome, an' I can lead you to her any minute you wantta go."
Kestner pushed the atlas to one side and leaned forward, studying the girl's face. Then his own face grew solemn.
"Sadie, how am I to believe you?"
She answered that question by asking another.
"How close d' you ever get to Maura after ol' Lambert cashed in last year over in New York?"
"That's a question I can't answer."
"Then give me a stab at it. Just to show what I'm jerry to! That girl slipped up to Montreal, an' from Montreal she beat it on to Banff. Then she went to the Coast, an' doubled back from Victoria. Then she hit Chicago an' mosied on to Boston. Did you trace along any o' that trail?"
"I did," acknowledged Kestner. The animosity had gone out of his voice.
"Well, I'll give you some more along the same line. From Bean-Town she sailed f'r Paris, an' from Paris she went on to Munich, an' from Munich she ambled off to Prague, an' then swung round to Milan an' then down to Rome. An' all that time she was tryin' to do decent work, kindergartenin' some mutt of a school-girl, or paintin' kid miniatures, or copyin' gallery chromos, or teachin' drawin' to a bunch o' pension dubs whose husbands started zooin' her first crack out o' the box, and gettin' in bad jus' because she had a pair o' lamps that'd make any man sit up an' take notice. She had to do all that woik wit' women. She had to."
"Why?"
"I guess you oughtta know the answer to that," retorted the girl.
"Why should I know?"
"Hully gee! Because she's stuck on you! That's why!"
"Don't say that!" Kestner cried out, revolting against the crudity of the underworld phrase, repelled by the freeness with which a thing so sacred could be tossed about.
"What's the good o' side-steppin' the truth? Didn't I see her fall for you that first time you bumped together in our Paris studio? Didn't she keep the Governor from croakin' you when he had you hipped? An' didn't you let her go when you thought you had her wit' the goods? An' ain't she always mooned round about you an' had blinders on for ev'rybody else? She was stuck on you! An' that's as true as Gawd made little green apples!"
Kestner was on his feet by this time. There was a light of resentment in the world-weary eyes, a look that was almost defiance about the grim line of the mouth.
"I won't have you say a thing like that!" he contended.
"Oh, I've been tellin' her a few things myself this past month. An' she was about as high an' mighty as you're tryin' to be now. But if she wants to make a monkey of herself, that ain't my business. I've got my own reason for handin' out this bunch o' talk, an' I guess you'd better cool down an' listen to it."
Kestner swung about on her.
"If you've got an object in talking this way, I want to know it, and know it quick."
There was a touch of perverseness in her languid unconcern as she went on.
"Y' know, Maura Lambert was never cut out for the brand o' work that I've been doin'. She's not my kind. In the first place, she's too thin-skinned. In the second place, she couldn't get away wit' a lie in a month o' Sundays. She's about as green as grass. Lambert kept her caged up like a white mouse. And when he dropped out she was as alone as a she-lamb that'd fallen off a sheep-train. She saw what she wanted. She decided she was goin' t' go straight. But that's easier t' say than do. She got in wrong, at the start. An' when people know she can do the work she does, there'll always be some guy or other t' give her a yank back to the ol' groove. They jus' won't give her a chance."
"I know all that," quickly acknowledged her impatient companion. "What I want to find out is where she is—now—at this moment!"
"Hold your horses a minute! I'm comin' to that. Maura never was a mixer like me. An' she had more'n lonesomeness to fight against when, I happened along. A girl like that's gotta have money. She's gotta have it to pertect herself. She's gotta go to good hotels, an' keep to the better quarters, an' stick a buffer out b'tween her an' the riff-raff. An' how's she goin' to do that when she's gotta skimp an' save jus' to keep things goin'? And when she won't even push a bit o' phoney paper when the cash runs low?"
"Of course she'd never do that," agreed Kestner. The pert and sophisticated young face across the table from him smiled for a moment. But her manner grew serious as she hurried on with her talk.
"An' when she shook herself free that time in New York she said she was goin' to keep within the law. Y' know that as well as I do. Lambert was gone; Morello was wiped out. The whole gang was done for. It looked like the chance of a lifetime. An' I guess it would 've been—only something reached out an' rattled the skeleton in the fam'ly closet. No; it wasn't a skeleton; it was a whole boneyard!"
"Make that plainer," commanded Kestner.
"I mean that when Maura got to Paris this las' time she was spotted by a guy called Watchel."
"Watchel?" repeated Kestner. He could not, at the moment, place the name. But he was on his feet by this time, confronting the calm-eyed girl.
"I guess you'd know Watchel by some name or other, as soon as you lamped his mug. He's the big yellow-haired guy who gathered in that Coast Defence stuff for the Tokio people an' sold your Navy's colloiding process secret for big gun smokeless to the Germans. Cambridge Charlie says this guy can get a cool half million for the Flamenco an' Perico blue-prints an' the Canal defence plans. But he's canned for America. He can't even get in. An' he wants somebody, Charlie says, who's able to. An' a woman who's a good looker'd be worth a few thousand to him for that job alone. An' with what she knows o' languages, an' that face o' hers, an' bein' able to copy any paper that's needed, she'd soon be worth more to 'im than any other woman in Europe."
"Do you mean to say this man has been hounding Maura Lambert?" was Kestner's curt demand.
"Watchel never hounds anybody. He's too smooth for that. He jus' does the spider-act, runnin' out a web an' waitin' his chance. An' when he thinks he's got his fly he jus' kicks out one little thread after another, until he's got her tied up like a blue-bottle. An' that's the way he's goin' to tie up our friend Maura."
"How do you know this?"
"I made it my business to know 't. Even Cambridge Charlie's wise to what's goin' on. They've got a plant on foot."
"A plant?"
"Yes—and they're goin' to spring it, an' spring it soon. That's why I'm here."
Kestner leaned forward across the table.
"How soon?"
"Before ten o'clock to-night."
"What's the plant?" was his next demand. He was no longer suspicious of her. It was not a time for equivocating. The thought of action awoke something innate and long idle in his breast.
"Maura's hangin' out in the Piazza Barberini. She's got two or three rooms there. A couple o' days ago the Dago girl who takes care o' those rooms for her lost the keys. They were pinched, an' by one o' Watchel's men. Watchel wants to get her out o' Rome. He knows he can't handle her here. So they're goin' to work a plant on her."
"But what is it?" was Kestner's impatient demand.
"There's an Austrian agent named Ruhl, who's been diggin' out Eyetalian army secrets. He's been reportin' to the Chief o' the General Staff o' the Eighth Army Corps. That's stationed at Prague. They're goin' to take his ol' code messages, an' stick in the cipher key, an' copies o' the blue-prints an' maps an' things he's gathered up. Then they're goin' to plant 'em in Maura's desk. It's ten to one they've got 'em there already. To-night Watchel and two o' his Eyetalian subs are goin' to make a bluff o' raidin' them rooms, Watchel holdin' back until the two subs dig out the papers. Then Watchel's goin' to step in an' catch her on the bounce. He's goin' to pose as the little gawd fr'm the machine, an' buy 'em off until she can get out o' Rome an' across to Corfu or Ragusa. An' that means he's got her tied up for his own work. An' it may mean he's got her for more'n that!"
Kestner looked at his watch. The old listless air had gone from him. He was once more on his feet.
"What else do you know?"
"Ain't that enough?"
"God knows, it's enough!" he gasped, as he strode up and down.
"Then what're you goin' to do about it?"
"I'm going to get to those rooms before Watchel gets there."
"And then what?"
"Then I'm going to hang the Indian sign on that plant, as you'd put it!"
"And then?"
Kestner stood deep in thought. When he spoke, he did so with much deliberation.
"It may even be necessary for you to get some one else to copy those old masters for you. I imagine Maura Lambert isn't going to be many more days in this city."
There was a smile on the pert young face.
"That may not be as easy as it listens."
"I'm used to things that are not easy," admitted Kestner. "And there's just one thing I want you to help me in."
"Fire ahead!"
"I want you to keep Maura Lambert away from her rooms until eight o'clock to-night."
"That's easy!" admitted Sadie, as she rose to her feet. She paused for a moment as she stood powdering her nose. "It may help some," she absently added, "to know that this guy Watchel used to call himself by the name of Wimpffen!"
"Wimpffen!" echoed Kestner, with quickly narrowed eyes and a heavier droop to his meditative lips. "So it's Wimpffen!"
Sadie Wimpel regarded Kestner over her shoulder as she buttoned her glove.
"Cambridge Charlie's some hustler, when it comes to a scrap," she suggested, not without a touch of pride.
For one brief moment a smile played about Kestner's lips.
"I think I'll make this my own particular scrap," he announced; and his tone as he spoke was not without its own touch of pride.
"Then me for the tall timber," said Sadie as she snapped shut her vanity-bag.