Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/247

 "Nope!"

Sadie rose to her feet. "All right," she announced. "I'll root out Coke."

She made her way farther eastward and again turned south. She walked hurriedly and with determination. She passed through unsavory streets and veered nonchalantly about even more unsavory characters who looked after her with quietly appraising eyes. But there was that in her carriage which discouraged pursuit.

She kept on her way until she entered a Second Avenue pawnshop which she knew to be a "fence" for a gang of up-town "dips." Leaning against a counter she beheld a slim-bodied young man with a misleading air of delicacy and with eyes as soft as a woman's. That disarming air of fragility, she remembered, was a valued asset in professions such as his.

"Hello, kid," he said, without moving.

"Hello, Coke."

"What's doin'?" was the youth's languid inquiry.

"Where's Shindler?"

Coke gazed impassively at his nail-ends.

"Search me! I ain't seen him this week."

"Where'd yuh see him last week?"