Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/143

 And that peril was all the more disturbing because it remained still undefined. She sat without perceptible movement, however as the door swung open and Keudell himself strode in past the snake-embrodered screen. Nor did she move as he advanced toward the center of the room, seeming to fill it with his huge presence, menacing it with his smile of apparent unconcern. On his scarred blond face, still damp from the driving rain through which he had passed, was an expression too unconcerned to be called a sneer and too sinister to be described as a smile. It was only a pale and slightly protuberant eye, moving restlessly from side to side, which typified the alertness of the mind behind the pretended apathy of the gross and heavy body.

But what most interested Sadie Wimpel was the fact that Keudell's right hand rested in the loose side pocket of his coat. It remained there with a rigidity which tended to thrust the corner of that carefully tailored garment slightly forward and did not at first thought add to the impressiveness of the figure. But Sadie had seen enough of underworld life to venture a guess as to just what Keudell held in that hidden right hand.