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In the bow-window was a window-seat piled high with cushions, from which by daylight one might have surveyed the passing show dull enough in Grant Place. "Have you no kiss for your Storri, my San Reve?" cried Storri plaintively, but still sticking to the lightly confident. The San Reve accepted Storri's gallant attention as though thinking on other things than kisses.
It was this dogged, single-hearted persistency, coupled with his cunning and his desperate courage, that made London Bill the foremost figure of his old but criminal guild of 'peter-men. There was a rich man's son who infested the club; and, being a snob with a liking for noble nearnesses, Croesus Jr. had wormed himself into Storri's regards as far as Storri would permit.
The address and the entire note were in typewriting: Mr. Storms: Count Storri's hold on Mr. Harley consists in this: Mr. Harley wrote Count Storri's name on five stock certificates aggregating two hundred shares of the Company Provence of Paris, France. It was done to borrow money, but with honest intentions and at Count Storri's request.
In it he told her that soon he would have canceled the last element of Storri's power, removed the last fear of Mr. Harley, and, in loving brief, destroyed the last bar which separated them and kept them apart. Dorothy read the letter again and again, and then kissed it pending the advent of something more kissable.
Also, when he saw how Inspector Val looked forward to the capture of Storri in the midst of crime, the strain of expectation made silence the natural thing. It took Inspector Val's sudden yet decisive assertion that Storri was dead, to provoke the first word. Storri's death instantly overshadowed all else in the thoughts of Richard.
Storri's imagination was like a tar barrel; accident might set fire to it, but once in the least of flame it must burn on and on, with no power of self-extinguishment, until it burned itself out. Or it was like him who, given a halter, straightway takes a horse. It is the theory of Europe that Americans are maniacs of money. European conservatism draws a money-line beyond which it will not pass.
The one thing now was Storri's signal; and with that all hands would go aboard, get up steam, and point the sable cutwater of the Zulu Queen for Washington. Steamboat Dan informed Inspector Val of nothing which the thief-taker's sagacity or vigilance had not anticipated.
I've an idea, however, that the Russian legation people possess as many motives for holding Storri's death a secret as do the Secret Service men for keeping dark the fact that the Treasury has been tapped. Yes, the Russians, with the State Department to help them, will find a way.
Richard sought Bess; he saw much of the pythoness now. Dorothy, for her part, never crossed the street lest she meet him, and bring down Storri's wrath upon her father. Richard knew what Bess would say, but he must have someone to converse with. Bess took the course anticipated: he must obey Dorothy in this as in the rest.
Storri's picture of an enterprise so vast that it proposed to set out the world like a mighty pan of milk, and skim the cream from two hemispheres, dazzled him and caused his wits to lose their way. At the end of three days Mr. Harley had begun to get his bearings; he was still fascinated, but the fog was lifting.
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