Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/81

 two short and the two long pushes of his finger against the little button. Then she turned and glanced carelessly about at the house-front windows, making note of the fact that they were barred by a grille work which, if airily ornamental, was none the less substantial.

There was a wait of some time before the door itself was opened. It was opened by an oddly hirsute man in the service-coat of a butler. Sadie, whose quick eyes had taken him in at a glance, found him almost as unprepossessing as the house itself. He was a peculiarly large-boned and muscular-looking man, with his hairy skin singularly suggestive of a gorilla. His eyes seemed much too small for his heavy-jowled face, and about their haggard corners was a touch of animal-like pathos. Yet about those eyes was something sullen and reserved, something heavily taciturn, something which left the whole face as blank as the front of the curtain-windowed house itself.

"Where's the boss?" asked the man who had rung the bell.

Sadie watched both of them closely, determined that no secret message or sign should pass between them without her knowing it. But there seemed no