Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/119

 here and gatherin' in both Dorgan and Keudell yourself?"

"I don't want Dorgan. He's the sick oyster that's had the pearl taken out of him. And I don't want Keudell until I can get him right. And I can't waste another minute arguing about it. If Dorgan comes before I can get back you'll have to handle him alone!"

Sadie watched him as he stepped hurriedly toward the door.

"Hold on a minute!" she commanded, for she hated the thought of his leaving her.

"I can't!" was Wilsnach's retort as he flung open the door and made for the street.

Sadie stood looking after him for a meditative moment or two. She shut her lips tight, to put a stop to their trembling. Then she studiously and dejectedly scratched the point of her tip-tilted nose. Then she stared slowly about her mysteriously lighted reception-room, from the reptiliously-adorned screen to the black-draped materializing cabinet. Then she crossed to the table and stood between her framed signs of the Zodiac and the leering white skull on its velvet pad. She stood