Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/165

Rh Something about his manner of reading those words made me distrust him, notwithstanding the fact that on this occasion Enoch Bartlett gave vent to his feelings in a groan that was both soul-stirring and prolonged.

"Will you be so good as to let me see that amendment?" I whispered, looking him straight in the face.

Instead of looking back at me, his watery eye sought out the eye of Ezra Bartlett. The old weasel's face became even more malignant than before. I saw him make a sudden sign to Doctor Klinger. I had no way of knowing what that sign meant. But I reached down under my crested sheet and took firmly hold of the Sheffield-plate candlestick there reposing. It's the way a gun-man, I suppose, reaches for his automatic, when he sees danger around the next turn. And, I decided, one might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Whatever movement Doctor Klinger may have intended to carry out was interrupted, however, by the sound of a quick and angry voice outside the bedroom door. This was followed by other sounds, unmistakably those of physical combat. Somebody, I promptly realized, was trying to enter that room, was determined to enter that room. And somebody