Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/210

 had picked and nibbled a square foot of the lathing as clean of plaster as a hound gnaws a ham bone clean of meat. But the finishing coat of the ceiling below still remained intact. And this, she knew, was the perilous part of the operation.

So it was with the care of a surgeon, using her corset-steel as a bistoury, that she made her first tentative incision through the harder plaster-of-Paris below one of the wider lath-vents. A small section of this cracked loose, and with the aid of her steel point she was able to keep it from falling. Holding her breath, she finally succeeded in lifting it away. By the soft flow of warmer air against her cheek she knew that she had cut an opening through the ceiling-shell into the room below.

So she lay there, without moving, listening intently and staring down through the narrow crevice. Yet no sound was to be heard and no faintest glimmer of light showed itself. So she began to work again at the plaster, this time attacking a lath-end nearly severed by a heaven-sent knot-hole. From this knot-hole she picked away every shred of plaster, taking infinite precautions that no loose ends should fall away and strike the floor below. For what that floor held was still a mystery to her.