Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/262

246 It was not until she approached the vague half-light from the stair-well that I could even venture a guess as to her identity. Then, as she peered anxiously down this well, I saw that it was Alicia Ledwidge. And what startled me most, as she took her flight down that all but lightless stairway, was that she carried a black club-bag in her hand.

The shock of this, however, was submerged in a still greater shock, as a little wave is swamped by a bigger one. The situation, I realized, was not so simple as it seemed. For as that stealthy figure of the trained nurse crept cautiously down the stair-way I noticed that it was being followed by another figure, equally stealthy.

Who or what this second stalker was I could not make out. I merely surmised that it must be a man, since the second creeping shadow plainly bulked heavier and higher than the first. But it followed on after the other, step by step, with a sort of timber-wolf intentness that sorely tempted me to scream out a call of warning.

Instead of doing that altogether unwise, if natural, thing, however, I crept on to the stair-railing and followed after them. For the second moving shadow, I noticed, had drawn closer to the first.

It must have been at the exact moment the woman