Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/242

226 question or two," I told him. The way in which I barked out those words came as a surprise to me. I knew that I was slowly but surely losing my sense of humor.

"What is it you want to know?" my deposed Hero-Man was asking me.

"The first thing I want to know is where you got a key to this house."

He looked up at me, apparently perplexed.

"Didn't you drop a key into that black bag of yours?" he asked.

"No, I didn't. And I don't believe you ever found one there!"

"My dear young lady, you can believe what you like. But really, you know, I don't carry pass-keys for every house in Manhattan!"

"But you carried one for this house!"

"Which I should never have done if you hadn't happened to be carrying the family jewels of the same place!"

He didn't seem a bit afraid of me. On the contrary, he seemed to be enjoying some unknown joke at my expense. He seemed to be laughing at me in his sleeve, as he had so often done before. But I wasn't playing second fiddle, that night, to anybody, and this fact I intended to make quite clear