Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/294

 aloud to the driver as their car took still another corner on the run. They slowed down and stopped. The smaller man on Sadie's right stepped out, closing the door behind him. Sadie could see him talking in low tones to the driver. What passed between them she could not tell. But her heart went down a little at the resultant discovery that this licensed chauffeur was a conscious factor in the movement. And the big man on her left, with his ever-menacing big hand close to her face, was holding her securely down in the seat.

It was as the smaller man climbed back in the car that Sadie's hopes suddenly rose. Under a street lamp not twenty paces away she saw the light flash on the metal buttons of a patrolman's uniform. A glimpse of that uniform fortified her with the memory that she was now on the side of the Law—that she and the approaching officer were colleagues in a common sense. She squinted thoughtfully at the huge paw poised so close to her face. She took a deep breath, like a diver about to make his plunge. Then with all the strength of her sturdy young lungs she shrilled out the one pregnant and disturbing word of "Help!"