Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/257

 above a wood-chuck's hole. To wait and watch, in fact, seemed the only thing left for her to do.

It was a long quarter of an hour before she was rewarded with any sound from that immediate neighborhood. But the sound, in this case, was Shindler's own voice. Narrowing her door-crack, she could see him standing in his own doorway, three rooms to the right on the opposite side of the hall, frugally ordering a pitcher of beer and a cheese sandwich. As of old, he spoke suavely and softly, with an intonation that seemed almost plaintive.

Sadie waited until the slatternly bell-boy had disappeared. Then she stepped out into the hallway, closed her door behind her, and walked quietly to the room which she knew to be harboring Shindler. On the door of this room, after waiting for a moment or two, she quietly knocked. A preoccupied voice from within said "Come!" Taking a deeper breath, she opened the door and stepped into the room.

Bending over a chair, on which stood the opened yellow hand-bag, was Shindler. His coat was off and he was gazing with studious abstraction at some unknown object in the interior of the bag. He sighed pensively as he turned slowly about. He