Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/280

 Wilsnach before the latter realized it was his own officer, the officer to whom he had handed the key. This officer came and leaned against the door-post where Wilsnach stood. His eyes were red-rimmed and blinking and his nose was bleeding a little. He wiped his stained lip with the back of his hand. Then he blinked heavily down at his singed uniform.

"Well, your guy got away!" he said in a muffled voice, like a man with a mouthful of food.

"Got away?" echoed Wilsnach.

The hatless man snickered. Both his movements and the sounds that he made seemed oddly uncoordinated.

"Blew himself up with a bomb, before I could even get a foot on the running-board!"

"He what?"

"He blew himself up! Why, there ain't a piece o' him the size of an oyster cracker!"

It was not Wilsnach's voice that spoke next, but Sadie Wimpel's. It sounded thin and quavering from the stillness of the shadowy room.

"Somebody get—get me a drink o' water, quick!" she said, as she sank into the shabby chair beside the table that still held the two empty glasses. "I'm—I'm kind o' sick!"