Finger, Finger! by Harry Stephen Keeler

Author:Harry Stephen Keeler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, secret servace, spy, crime, oriental
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2018-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXIV

A Picture in Halftone

At her disturbing words, my face must have fallen. The thought she had just expressed, oddly, had never even occurred to me thus far. With Kenwood’s extremely paradoxical character—ranging all the way from that domineering invectiveness in which he expressed his own opinions when he so wished, as though they were the only opinions worth holding by any sensible person, clear to the amiable qualities that cropped out continually in him, there was absolutely no predicting how he was going to take this. From what I knew of him, I could see that it could mean a rage, a sulk, a freezing silence, or even a slap on the back—with congratulations. For, back of all of Kenwood’s self assertion and egotistic qualities, he was considerable of a sportsman. And I told her exactly that.

“Kenwood is very much a sportsman, at heart. I saw him lose $200 on a horse once, and not even blink an eye. Then again—you’ve got to admit that I know this Ultrapolitan game better than anybody he could ever get. He’s not altogether a fool—when it comes to maintaining the earning powers of the business.”

Nevertheless, we were troubled—and for a long time we sat and discussed this last contingency that had suddenly reared its head in front of us. But our decision remained the same—to gamble on Kenwood’s better, kinder self—for her to go to him next day with his ring, before he should invest foolishly in a more expensive circlet—and tell him the truth. And if then he should take advantage of our business relationship—well—I would have to hunt for another position—somewhere else. It seemed, now that Winsome One was to belong to me, that nothing loomed up quite so important.

Seeing that Lake Shore Drive back of us was now beginning to be almost devoid even of rushing automobiles and theatre-returning cabs, and realizing that it must be halfway between 11 o’clock and midnight, so long had we talked, and about so many topics, we rose by a sort of mutual unspoken consent and made our way across the small stretch of parkway that would bring us back to civilization again—as it were. But halfway across the darkish stretch of dying grass and wilted shrubs, Winsome One pointed far across the further drive—and considerably up in the air.

“Do you see that tiny, lighted window, David—about 10 stories up from the street—with a red silk lamp in it?”

“In that ornate furnished apartment hotel?” I asked. “Directly facing us—on the other side of the Drive?”

“Yes. The one with the rough orange brick front, and the handcarved stone doorway. The Regina, it’s called. Well that window is the front window of the apartment of my friend Diana Harringdale. Best girl friend I’ve got, bar none. I know her apartment by the lamp. She’s a—but you’ve met Diana—a tall, statuesque, very patrician-looking red-haired girl—from Monmouth, Illinois. From a very high-up aristocratic family down there. She’s private secretary to an architect here in the city.”

“She must

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