Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/271

 Kestner? And what would Wilsnach say? And how much did either of them already know?

She felt sure, the next moment, that she could never lie to them. And she knew that she could never start to go straight by crooked thinking. She was in the Service, and that meant being on the side of the Law, and the Law meant truth. She was on a case for Kestner. What that case meant in all its complexities, she could not quite understand. But she had her part to play. She had to stick to Shindler, by hook or crook, to the bitter end. She had to stick to him, no matter what it cost. And Wilsnach, when he found out what he found out, could say and think what he liked.

The next moment she was on her feet, straightening her hat and essaying a furtive dab or two at her nose. She shook down her rumpled skirt as she crossed the room to the door. Then a gasp of dismay broke from her, for Shindler, she found, had quietly locked this door behind him.

She circled back about the room in search of a telephone. But there was none. She found a push-bell, with a printed card of directions, and she was trying to decipher these when she heard the sound