Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/168

156 "This isn't my Claire!" he announced, with a heavy frown of perplexity.

"Of course it isn't your Claire!" old Enoch Bartlett piped out, as he kept dancing excitedly about close behind the massive intruder. On Miss Ledwidge's face, as she stared at this intruder, I saw genuine alarm. She edged away, slow step by step, until she rounded the bed. Then she slipped quietly out through the inner door.

"Who let this madman in here?" Ezra Bartlett shrilly and angrily demanded. "Where are those fools of servants? Why doesn't somebody get a policeman?"

But Pinky McClone was in no way disturbed by these thin-noted challenges. He strode across the room, stopped at the still open door and swung about.

"Don't think you can get away with it, you purse-proud bunch of snobs," he bellowed out. "You may keep me away from her to-day, but you won't be doing it to-morrow. And mark my words on that!"

And having delivered himself of that enigmatic message, he turned about and walked majestically out through the door, slamming it after him.

This inflammatory interruption, apparently, was too much for the sheep who had been kept herded