Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/209

 tongue-and-groove flooring. So she spread out one of the old newspapers, kneeled down upon it, and began a silent and cautious investigation of the board-cracks.

In five minutes she had the first short piece of flooring removed. In a scarcely greater length of time she had succeeded in lifting away the remaining six boards. This gave her a clear view of the floor-joists and the plaster and laths forming the ceiling of the room below. What stood in that room below she had no means of knowing and no power of judging. She merely remembered that her work must be absolutely silent. For with the first sound, she felt, her last chance would be gone.

She knelt beside her burrow, for several minutes, deep in thought. Then she rose to her feet, spread several of the newspapers about the opening, found the corset-steel she had tossed aside, and from under the couch drew out the old cotton umbrella with the broken ferule. Placing these beside her, she lay face down on the floor with her head directly over the opening. Then, with the utmost care and delicacy of finger movement, she began to pick away all detachable pieces of plaster showing between the laths. She persevered at this until she