Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/251

Rh "Until you hear from me," he repeated in a whisper, as he swung the door shut. The next moment I could catch the sound of the key turning in the lock.

I woke up to the fact, as I stood there in the darkness, that I was crying a little, crying, I think, from sheer exasperation, from sheer helplessness. And I was so tired, I remembered, that my joints ached.

Those hundred and one aches in my body, however, weren't half so hard to put up with as that misery of mind which came from knowing that I had made a mess of everything. Every step I'd taken had been a mistake. And the memory of it all suddenly made me see red. For a little while there in that unlighted room I wasn't anything better than a Chatham Square anarchist on the rampage. I think I could have blown up all New York and fiddled over the ruins, like a Nero in petticoats.

But instead of blowing up all Manhattan, I mopped my eyes, groped my way to the wall, found a light-switch and turned on the electrics.

It was a very comfortable-looking room to be a prisoner in, but period furnishings weren't the sort of thing I was trying to get comfort out of.

I tried the door, but that gave me no hope of escape. Then I noticed for the first time that the