Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/349

 there's any hitch in that I've doped out a scheme for sendin' a push-bell signal to the house-engineer down-stairs, so's he can shut off the power and get the bunch between floors in the elevator, once they try to make a break for the open. Yuh see, all I gotta do is make sure I got my gang together. And that reminds me: Yuh're goin' to have the room directly above this one. In a day or two I'm goin' to be moved up to that room. I'll have to make a kick about the noise—and there's sure ground for it, with them Grand Trunk engine-bells goin' all night and them street-cars poundin' across the station-rails all day!"

"But why change rooms?" asked the young nurse.

"Because this is the room where that gang is goin' to sit down and have its secret conference. They're goin' to sit down at that round table there, right under that old-fashioned chandelier, and imagine they're gettin' their money's worth because they're lit up by the heaviest brass-work east of Keokuk!"

Still again the younger woman seemed unable to follow her older companion.

"But how can you be sure they will come to this room?"