Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/106

 to the roof. And on more than one occasion, in the past, Sadie had had occasion to soar upward and skim along the sky-line route.

So she stooped down and made sure the manila envelope was still in her stocking. Then, with a deep breath, she took the hall at a run.

She was across the hall and had reached the stairway before Keudell even caught sight of her. Before he had scrambled to his feet and started in pursuit she was half-way up the stairway itself. She was harried by the fear that he might fire at her, yet she did not let this thought deter her flying steps. She decided not to lose ground by trying to shoot back until she was compelled to. Then, she grimly concluded, she would go the limit. For she felt reasonably certain there were no enemies above her, or she should have long since heard from that quarter. Her one fear was that the heavy-bodied Keudell might overtake her—and that would mean the undoing of Kestner's planning, and the defeat of Wilsnach's hopes.

She decided, as she reached the landing and swung about the banister, to take a pot-shot or two for luck. So she fired, as she ran, and saw her first bullet scatter the wall-plaster not two feet