Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/358

 Yet as she sat there, in a sort of expectant crouch, she reminded the younger woman of a house cat seated close over a mouse-hole. But still the watch continued. The manipulator of the strange instruments even called for paper and pencil and from time to time on a telegraph pad made notes in a sprawling and all but illegible script. Then she divided her attention between the dial and the dictaphone receiver. But still the watch continued. An hour passed away.

The girl in the uniform, tired of suspended action, tried to bury herself in a book. She had given up the book and turned to needlework when Sadie looked up and asked the time.

"They'll come in on the night train, those other ginks," she finally asserted. "Yes, on the night train—I'll bet my hat!" And she consulted her time-table to make sure of the hour of its arrival. And after again turning to her instruments she announced with a sigh that the room was once more empty.

So they took advantage of the lull to eat their meal together. Then the trays were carried away and the cat once more crouched over its mouse-hole. As the time for the night train from the West drew