Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/308

 him five minutes to write out what we want to know. If he refuses, and fails to change his mind in that time, light the gas-tube and get busy with it."

"And if he still refuses?"

"You can cook his feet off, for all I care!"

The big man turned coolly away. "I'll cook 'em all right!" he determinedly announced, as he crossed the room and passed out through the door.

The quietness of that room was ominous. The man called Heinold was waiting to relock the door before returning to his seat. He even had his hand on the knob before anything happened to interrupt that ominous lull. Yet it was not so much an interruption as an eruption.

The crater of it was the worn leather chair in which Sadie Wimpel sat. It seemed less a reasoned and pre-determined movement than a blind and frenzied explosion of activity. Yet behind that tumult, mad as it seemed, was some shadow of thought, some forlorn attempt at strategy.

For Sadie, in her revolt against quiescence, had not altogether lost her head. When she struck, she struck in the only way possible to her.

She dived so quickly for the green-baize table that the impact of her body sent it crowding over