Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/352

332 work, with a crash, and the hinged frame set with glass swung back and left me staring at Pinky the same as a small boy's guinea-pig in a cigar-box stares at its owner when he suddenly lifts the lid.

But Pinky was in no mood for mere contemplation. There was both hate and rage, the blind unreasoning rage of the Celt, on his russet-jowled face as he stood there, breathing hard and spasmodically opening and closing the brawny fingers encased in the sulphur-colored gloves. "So it's you!" he said, with a swear-word almost as sulphury as his gloves themselves.

I could see his face twitch, and an iron look of cruelty narrow his pale blue eyes to almost a pinpoint. My prophetic bones told me what was coming, as plainly as though he had told it to me in so many words. I could see the blind fury that was gathering for the final eruption. And I knew there was no use in arguing about it, just as I knew it was too late to try to escape. There wasn't even time, I remembered, to get the pearl-handled Colt out of its hiding-place.

"So it's you—still at it!" he repeated, with his nostrils dilated like a running-horse's and a tremor shaking the brawny hulk of his body.

"You coward!" I gasped, in little more than a