Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/225

Rh she had lost too much of her torpor for that. But what gave point to her attitude was the fact that in a close-crooked right hand, poised on a level with her breast, she held a black-barreled automatic pistol, a twin-sister, apparently, to the one which I carried in my own somewhat astounded right hand.

Close beside her, at her feet, stood the black club-bag which I so recently had seen in the hand of Wendy Washburn. But along the opposite wall of the room, distinct in the light that flooded it from floor to ceiling, stood a motley and very melancholy appearing row of men and women.

They stood side by side in that strained and unnatural position which results from holding the hands high above the head. And in that row I saw my Hero-Man himself, and close beside him Miss Ledwidge, with anger more than apprehension on her indignant face, and next to her again Doctor Otto Klinger, with beads of perspiration on his forehead and a very unhealthy color about his somewhat puffy cheeks. Next came old Ezra Tweedie Bartlett, with his wizened little weasel face quivering with either apprehension or indignation, I couldn't tell which. Beside him stood his brother Enoch, his squinting and half-closed eyes plainly burning with a light of sullen revolt. Next to this hunched-