Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/310

 knob and swung through to the outer room without any of the outstretched hands reaching her. A revolver barked out, somewhere behind her, before she could swing the door shut again. But the bullet missed her, and she was now well ahead of her pursuers. She even had time to swing shut the hall door as she passed through it. Another ten steps took her to the head of the stairway. The exultation of battle was in her veins by this time, and she went down the carpeted treads like a reindeer down a rock-side.

At the bottom she saw a shadow looming up before her. But she was unable to stop. She saw this shadow assume the form of a cross, and even as she felt her hurtling body engulfed in a pair of massive arms, she knew, sickeningly, that it was the same huge-bodied man who had held her down in the taxicab once more making her a prisoner. Above the shock of that sudden arrest and the deadening pressure of the constricting arms about her she could hear the sharp calls and shouts from above and then the huskily reassuring words of her captor. "It's all right! I've got her!"

Keudell and Andelman were already down the stairs and close behind her. Wallaby Sam, leaning