Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/184

172 The club-bag was still there. I paused long enough to open It and make sure that it still held Copperhead Kate's haul. Then I caught it up and made for the next room. I stopped only long enough in the passageway to swing open one of the press doors, snatch up a pair of suede slippers that stood there, and stick a foot into one of them to make sure they would fit. Then I tucked them away under my arm, for I knew better than to wear shoes during my transit over those polished hard- wood floors. I wanted my advance to be a silent one, for heaven alone knew what I might bump into before I got down to the street-entrance once more.

As I made my way on through those heavily furnished rooms, however, I found them empty. When I crept out to the hall, too, I was confronted by nothing but solitude. I didn't altogether like the sudden silence that had fallen over that house. It seemed ominous. I didn't like it any more than I liked the thought of that ghostly face which had stared down over the stair-railing at me. I had always prided myself on being a good, hard-headed, matter-of-fact, practical-minded girl. I was never strong on the spook stuff, as Bud had once acknowledged. But there were too many mysteries under that roof to keep me there any longer than I could