Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/136

 vest and began picking but the stitching along its lining-front.

Sadie watched him as he pulled the released edges of this vest-lining apart and from its hiding-place between the garment-padding drew out an oblong of black silk carefully stitched about the edges.

This oblong was scarcely eight inches long and two inches wide, and no thicker than an empty card-case.

"That's your pay!" announced Dorgan as he tossed it down on the table. He took up his vest and put it on. Then he did the same with his coat.

Sadie continued to view him with carefully coerced disapproval as he once more took up the pen-knife and proceeded to cut the stitching at one end of his mysterious oblong of black silk. From the interior of this sheathing he drew out a sheet or two of paper tightly folded together.

"I ain't interested in house-plans," she wearily announced, as he unfolded the thin sheets on her table-top and revealed to her puzzled eye an indescribably intricate network of lines and figures and lettering, the latter so crowded and minute that for all its scholar-like precision she was unable to read it.

"House-plans!" ejaculated Dorgan, holding up