THE HAND OF PERIL
I
"That's your woman!"
It was Wilsnach of the Paris Office who spoke. He spoke quietly, over the edge of his Le Journal Amusant, But the fingers that held the sheet were a little unsteady.
"The woman with the bird of paradise plumes?" asked Kestner of the Secret Service, paddling in his half-melted mousse au chocolat with a long-handled spoon.
"Yes," answered Wilsnach. "Get her, and get her good!"
Kestner, the wandering mouchard whose home was under his hat and whose beat was all Europe, quietly took out a cigar and lighted it.
He was not studying the woman. Instead, he was sleepily studying the end of his cigar. Yet he studied it persistently, as though its newly formed ash held the solution of many solemn mysteries.
Across the rue de la Paix, opposite the double row of little iron tables where he sat, his idly wandering gaze caught the gleam of metal letters against a white marble wall. These letters spelt the name of an American jeweller. The afternoon sun made them
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