Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/227

 in line to buy two seats for the Casino opening. And one of those seats, she also suspected, was for her.

Kestner sat studying the trim young figure in steel blue. Then he smiled a little, as though some untoward incident had confirmed his earlier suspicions as to her disingenuousness.

"Sadie, where did those violets come from?" he calmly inquired.

"Is wearin' 'em against the law?'* she as calmly equivocated.

Kestner smiled for the second time.

"Has Wilsnach been sending you flowers for the second time?"

Sadie, at this, swung squarely about and faced her interrogator.

"So he told yuh he sent me them roses?" There was an unlooked-for note of sharpness in that indignantly put question.

"Yes," admitted Kestner, "he told me."

Sadie's laugh was quite without mirth. "And I s'pose he told yuh why?"

"He said you deserved them, as I remember it, for he considered you'd done as neat a piece of work as he'd ever seen in all the Service."