Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/312



ADIE WIMPEL knew that the task of trussing her up had not been neglected. She lay like a mummy, flat on what seemed to be a dusty tapestry-covered box-couch, staring up at the ceiling. She could move neither hand nor foot. The pain in her arms, pinioned close behind her back, had already become acute. A numbness about the ankles told her that they were tied quite as tightly. After a series of seismic contortions of the body she succeeded in rolling slightly over on her side.

In this position she was better able to study the room in which she lay a prisoner.

She studied it carefully and methodically, and she did not find it an encouraging harborage. It was small and neglected-looking, with a shuttered window on one side and a fireproofed door on the other. This door, she knew, was locked, for she had heard the sound of the turning key after she had been coolly but unceremoniously dropped on the box-couch along the wall. On one side of the door 298