Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/187

Rh knew that I was back in the world of realities, back in the land of sane and sensible people engaged on their sane and sensible ends. It seemed like emerging from a nightmare, a distorted and tangled nightmare of wizened old misers and white-faced ghosts and missing bodies and ravished wall-safes and yellow-faced lawyers with undulating Adam's apples.

Yet I stood there for a minute or two on the house steps, making sure that the coast was clear. Then I carefully stowed Copperhead Kate's blue-barreled automatic in the over-ample bosom of her black waist, where it promptly seemed to hang like a mill-stone about my neck. I still wanted that gun where I could get at it, however, for I had not forgotten what I had overheard as to the possibilities of a certain Cacciata and his persuasive sand-bag.

But there was plainly no Cacciata in sight, so I took a deep breath, dropped the veil about my hat-rim, and started down the wide stone steps.

I reached the sidewalk and turned eastward. I was more excited I suppose than I imagined. But I was not excited enough to expect what happened to me before I had taken twenty steps along that wet sidewalk. For as I faced the driving rain and squinted up through my veil to make sure of my bearings, I saw a ghost.