Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/154

 folded page of a newspaper. She saw the foreign agent stare down at this newspaper page, stare down at it a little stupidly, with his jaw muscles slightly relaxed. Then he no longer occupied her attention, for she became suddenly conscious of the fact that Dorgan no longer stood with his back against the wall, but had advanced toward the center of the room, and even as his unbandaged eye was bent on Keudell his right hand was groping quickly and foolishly about the bowl of goldfish on its little tripod of Ruskin bronze. For Dorgan himself had undoubtedly been awaiting that moment of divided attention on the part of his enemy. Even as his hand closed on the lip of the glass bowl, about which the small swarm of iridescent bodies were dreamily revolving, Sadie stood puzzled as to the meaning of the movement. She was puzzled, too, by the quick writhe of his body, like the twist of a ball-thrower's torso, as he wheeled and swept the bowl from its bronze tripod.

Then she understood. For with one and the same movement the bowl with its flame-colored bodies and its gravel-bed and its gallon of green-tinted water went hurtling straight at the head of the startled Keudell.