Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/166

 "Collector?" shrilled Sadie. "Yuh gotta keep any collector from unlockin' that box till Morgan gets his men up here, or your job won't be wort' a tradin' stamp!"

"Why?"

Sadie's eye met the slightly skeptical eye of the officer.

"B'cause there's a bunch o' stuff in under that lid wort' a hundred thousand dollars, or yuh kin put me in the nut-ward up at Bellevue!"

The officer replaced his night-stick. The federal authorities, he remembered, had a way of moving darkly and by means of mysterious agents.

"And then what d'you want me to do?"

"I want yuh t' pass me through this ring o' pop-eyed rubbernecks," Sadie said, as she stared wearily about at the ever deepening circle of onlookers, "and then git something in brass buttons up to that house o' mine. But before yuh do that yuh'll kindly lead me into a drum where I kin wrassle wit' a couple o' broiled Delmonicoes! For I'm goin' to feed, and feed deep," she grimly announced. "And what's more, I'm goin' to wash it down wit' a full quart o' fizz!"