Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/175

Rh But she was directly interested in neither of these things, at the moment. For before her stood the open door of a wall-safe, and the woman was intently engaged in investigating the contents of this safe.

There was something so businesslike about her movements that for a moment I thought she must be some official from an appraiser's office making out a list of the assets of the Bartlett estate. Yet as I stood there watching her I noticed that she kept dropping neatly banded papers into the club-bag beside her. Then came a drawerful of jewelry, stones of many colors, some in cases, some loose in the drawer, a string of pearls in a square of black velvet, a long and slender chained lavaliere wound about a pad of soft buckskin, and a diamond sun-burst in a little holder that looked like a chamois boodle-bag.

And all this loot, I saw as I stood there, was being dropped promptly and calmly into the open leather bag on the rug-end.

I didn't like the look of that woman and I didn't like the look of that automatic. But I had no time for taking chances.

I tiptoed silently across the room until I stood close behind the figure so intently stooping over a