Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/261

Rh "The woman who brought him back to the house—the baby-faced one! We've got to get her taken care of, and it has got to be for life!" announced that venomous old attorney as calmly as though he was talking of doing away with a house-cat. "And if there's any doubt about taking care of her that way, we'll have to take care of her the other way!"

"Hoity-toity!" I breathed against that polished hardwood panel. But in spite of myself I could feel a little scramble of chills go up and down my backbone. Then a still sharper needling of nerve-ends ran like an electric shock about my body, for close behind me, in the darkness, I caught the sound of a softly moving figure.

My eyes were accustomed to the darkness, by this time, and as I stood flat in the shelter of the heavy door-frame I could make out a vague Something grope slowly past me. A faint rustling of skirts told me that this something was a woman. She had groped by me without becoming conscious of my presence there, I felt sure, because there had been no pause in her steady advance. All her attention, in fact, seemed centered on making her passage along those darkened walls a silent one. And I did my best, as I followed her, to keep my movements equally silent.