Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/304

 of this chit of a girl facing him were certain facts to which he sought access, certain facts which he must possess. They were there in the small vault of her skull, there clear and plain, there as definitely and indisputably as a tradesman's greenbacks lie in a safe-drawer. Yet between that frontal-bone and a safe-door there was a perilous difference. The heavier chamber of steel could be shattered and ravished. But with the crushing of that smaller chamber of bone and tissue its treasure went with it.

It was that which frustrated him, as it must frustrate all men who seek to live by force alone. Between him and those most desired of facts stood nothing more than a fraction of an inch of sutured calcium salts which one blow could shatter. Yet they remained inaccessible, impervious to his power.

"You think, madame, you may perhaps beat us at this game?" he finally suggested. An ominous note of quietness had come into his voice. It was in his suavest moods, she remembered, that he was most to be feared.

"What game?" temporized Sadie.

"The game, madame, that is going to end before you get out of this house!"