III
Kestner did not wait for more. He did not even take time to stow away his dry-cell and his dictophone wires. He merely dropped them beside the back wall of the room, pushed an arm chair over the litter to hide it from the casual eye, and made a dive for his hat and coat.
He was through the door and down the corridor before the elevator boy who had stopped at his floor could slam shut the iron grill and continue his downward flight.
By the time Kestner had reached the street, he had quite recovered his breath and composure, assured of the fact that the woman he wanted had not preceded him. So he lighted a cigar and stood back in the shelter of the carriage starter's box. His wait was not a long one.
His first impression, as he watched Sadie Wimpel alias Francine Florette step to her waiting taxicab door, was that the lady in question seemed very debonair as to manner and very resplendent as to attire. His next impression, as she turned to give a word of direction to her driver, was that she was a valuable woman for the work she had elected to follow, a woman of quick wit and pert manners, touched with both audacity and the love of adventure, as unconscious of any complicating moral-code as were the birds of the air, as light of heart, indeed, as a city sparrow, as ready to snatch at a chance as a terrier is to snatch at a chicken-bone. She was, he decided, in every way a contradiction of what Maura Lambert stood for and seemed to embody.
Kestner waited until the taxi was under way. Then he swung himself up on the running-board, caught the handle of the door, opened it, and stepped inside. It was all done so quickly that the driver of the taxi himself was quite ignorant of that intrusion as the car gathered speed and took the turn at the next corner.
Sadie Wimpel, as Kestner sank down in the seat beside her, did not scream. She made no movement to escape. She did not change colour, since the rouge on her cheeks was too thick to admit of its being a barometer of her emotions. She merely sank back in her seat, staring at the intruder with half petulant and half interrogative eyes.
"Hully gee!" she finally and fretfully remarked. She took a deeper breath as they sped on. "You gumshoe guys sure give me the Willies!"
"That's all right, Francine!" was Kestner's unconcerned retort. He himself leaned forward and glanced out through the taxi window to make sure of their position.
The girl beside him was silent for a minute or two.
"Is this a pinch?" she demanded.
"Not unless you insist on turning it into one!" Kestner told her.
"Then what's the string?"
"Eight bank-note plates!"
She stared at him with widened eyes.
"What's the man ravin' about?" she asked of the circumambient taxi-hood.
"Eight Lambert counterfeit plates sewn up in a chamois," explained Kestner.
"Not in my vanity-bag!" averred Sadie.
"But in this taxi," insisted Kestner.
"Search me!" protested Sadie.
"That's what I'll have to do," intimated Kestner. He slipped a hand into the muff lying on her knees, and found it empty.
"Say, Mister Slooth, haven't you got your numbers mixed?" asked the pitying Sadie.
"It's no use, Sadie. I know. And this is only wasting time and words. I want those eight plates!"
"Then you're go in' to do some slick stage-conjurin'!"
"All right, but I'll get them!"
"I know a plate when I see it, an' I ain't handled one since meal-time!"
"Sadie, we're wasting time. I know what I'm after, and I know that you've got it. Do I get it now, or do we have to go to Bowling Green and see Captain Henry and waste a nice morning in the federal offices?"
"But I tell you I ain't got any plates!"
"And you didn't leave Maura Lambert's hotel-room ten minutes ago?" demanded Kestner.
"Rave away," said the resigned Sadie. But she stirred a little uneasily.
"Sadie, I don't want to spoil your chances about brushing cigar-ashes off anybody's vest-front, but unless I get those plates, I'm going to stick to you until the cows come home!"
Sadie turned and looked at him. Then she sat for a moment in silent thought.
"Oh, hell!" she finally said. She stooped forward with a sigh of resignation. "Just gaze out of that window for a moment."
"Why?"
"Because those plates are stowed away in my stockin'!" was her grimly indifferent reply. The taxi-cab had slowed down and was drawing close in beside the curb.
Kestner turned perfunctorily away. He heard the rustle of silken drapery and the sound of a deeper breath from the stooping figure so close to his side.
"All right," said the young woman so close to him. The taxi-cab by this time had come to a stop.
Kestner turned about to her. She had swung half round in her seat, and her forward-thrust face was quite close to his. Something about the expression on that face made him glance quickly down. Her right hand, he saw, was held up close to him. But instead of holding the package of plates between her fingers, she held a black-metalled automatic revolver. It was a short and ugly-looking firearm, suggestive of both a Boston bull-terrier in its squat proportions, and, oddly enough, of the girl who held it. Its lines seemed to repeat the lines of that pert and impertinent profile, and one seemed as unexpectedly menacing as the other.
"Now, Mister Slooth," said the determined rouged lips, "you make one move an' I'll pump your floatin' ribs so full o' lead you'll look like a range-target! One move—an', by Gawd, I mean it!"
She groped for the taxi door as she spoke, half rising from her seat and backing slowly away as the door swung open.
Kestner stared into that crafty and audacious young face as the girl lifted the revolver so that the round black "O" of its barrel-end gaped insolently and impudently up into his own face. He watched her as she stepped to the running-board of the cab, and from there drew still further back to the curb of the sidewalk.
"Not a move!" she warned him, as she slammed shut the cab door behind her.
She had crossed the sidewalk and was half way up the brownstone steps before he came to a decision. The ignominy of utter inaction, under the circumstances, was more than he could endure. He decided to take the risk. And taking it, he knew it would have to be taken with a rush.
He was half up out of his seat before she saw him. She turned fully around, at that, raising her right arm a little as she turned.
The next moment, Kestner dropped low in the seat, hugging the worn upholstery, for instinctively he knew what was coming. The sharp bark of the revolver mingled with the sudden crash of glass. She had deliberately shot out the window of the cab door.
Kestner heard the driver's shout of terror, and felt the sudden pulse of the accelerated engine as the clutch was let in and the cab started forward. The man inside called for the driver to stop, but several precious moments slipped by before the order could be understood. And before Kestner could fling himself from the seat, the girl who had fired from the brownstone steps had slipped inside the house and the door had closed behind her.
A blue-coat who had heard the shot came on the run from the cross-street to the east. Kestner met him as he came up.
"There's a woman there in One-twenty-seven we've got to get," cried out the Secret Agent.
"Who fired that gun?" demanded the officer.
"Blow for help," was Kestner's frantic command.
"Who're you?"
"Rap for help! And get a cordon round this block. I'm a federal officer and I've got to get that woman!"
"What woman?"
The officer was already tattooing on the curb-stone with his night-stick. The bounding staff of seasoned ash filled the valley of the street with an odd ringing call that carried even better than a human voice could. Kestner remembered that it was a long time since he had heard the sound of a night-stick drumming the pavement.
"What's up?" again asked the still stooping officer, as a second blue-coated figure rounded the corner and approached them on the double quick.
"It's a counterfeiter," was Kestner's answer, as he made for the steps. "And one with the goods on!"