Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/279

Rh one-time Hero-Man was at that moment engaged in jimmying his way into an empty summer-home. And it seemed to take him a very long time. Bud, I remembered, would have done the job in one quarter of what it took my new confederate.

"Come on!" he whispered, as he led me toward the side of the house. A door stood open, but no lights showed behind it. I wasn't thinking much about lights, however. I was thinking more about a bed, a big wide bed with an Ostermoor and a duck- feather pillow or two, and ten long hours far from the madding crowd.

"Whose house is this, anyway?" I languidly inquired, as I mounted the wide steps of Milton bricks with tubbed plants on either side of them.

"What difference does it make?" asked Wendy Washburn as he waited to close the door behind me. The next moment he had switched on the lights.

"It looks like a very nice one," I admitted, as I stared about me. It didn't interest me much more, though, than the foyer of a hotel interests a road-weary trooper on the grape-vine circuits.

"I pride myself on being a good picker," said my guide. I noticed that he had carefully locked the door. But even this did not disturb me.

"Are you—er—nervous?" he asked.