Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/159

Rh "Sign that will!" he whispered. It was not a loud whisper. But it vibrated against my ear-drum like the hiss of a snake.

"Woof! Woof!" I whispered back. For I intended to show him that he couldn't intimidate me.

"Sign that will!" he repeated.

I looked him square in the eye.

"Not on your life!" I whispered back.

He leaned over me again. His hands were shaking, his face was about the color of a well-ripened camembert. For a moment I thought he was going to fly off the handle and Desdemona the life out of me with a bed-pillow.

It was the calm-eyed Miss Ledwidge who gently but firmly drew him back.

"Are you feeling worse, dear?" she said out loud, to cover the maneuver. "Is it tiring you too much?" But as she fussed about me I could hear her whispering to the three old crows so close beside her. "Don't stop things now, or you will lose everything!"

I could see those three old conspirators confer together, eye to eye. They did so without speaking a word. But I knew that a silent debate was taking place there, close beside me. I witnessed the wordless and mysterious giving and taking of messages,