Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/129

 "You're about the cheesiest thing at picking track-winners that ever got loose!" he irately avowed,

"I'm what?" asked the amazed Sadie.

Kestner flung his folded newspaper indignantly down on the table in front of her.

"You had the nerve to take a fiver for that sure-thing tip of yours," he declared, menacing her with an unsteady forefinger, "and you didn't come within a mile of a winner!" He pushed the paper toward her. "Did you get a look-in on that list? And did you or didn't you advise me to go the limit on those two long shots you were so sure about?"

Sadie resignedly shook her head. It was too much for her. Then she wearily took up the paper and held it in front of her. As she did so her quick eye caught sight of the end of a scaled manila envelope showing from between its folded pages. Her face did not change. But she drew in a great breath of relief. She could have hugged Kestner until his collar-bones cracked.

Instead of any such amatory outburst, however, she suddenly rose to her feet and confronted him with a show of anger as great as his own. And as she did so the folded newspaper fell from the table-edge to the floor where she stood.