Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/289

 door open for her. She knew, as she stepped lightly up into the hooded darkness of the cab, that he was moving over on the seat to make room for her. At the same moment, however, she became conscious of the fact that a second man was crowding in through the narrow door behind her.

She turned to Wilsnach with a question on her lips. She realized, as she did so, that the taxicab was already well under way. But her second discovery quite obliterated her earlier one. As she stared through the gloom she found that the man who sat so close beside her was not Wilsnach.

She twisted quickly about and saw that the second man who had followed her into the cab was equally unknown to her. It was a moment or two before the significance of the situation actually struck home. Then followed a reaction that was as natural as it was inevitable. She wasted no further time on doubts. She had for too many months been the center of contending forces, buffeted by the tides of intrigue, conspired against by the enemies of evil. She started to her feet and shouted aloud with all the strength of her lusty young lungs.

But that call of alarm was not long-lived. She found herself jerked bodily back into the cab-seat