Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/98

 her left hand, feeling about the smooth wood until her fingers came in contact with it. Then she drew back a step or two. She still watched Keudell and still kept him covered. Yet as she did so a barely perceptible change crept over the figure confronting her from the chair on the other side of the table.

"I see, mademoiselle, you do not trust me," he said with a smile as she backed away.

Bout as much as a rattler!" was her prompt reply. Yet his smile widened, apparently at this pleasantry. And that smile disturbed Sadie. It wavered before her as the signal of some secret and reassuring knowledge to which she was not as yet a party. But she intended not to lose her chance.

"Yuh don't make a mark outta me!" she proclaimed as she continued to back away, step by step, with her revolver in one hand and the house-key in the other. "And it's worth rememberin' the first move outta that chair means flirtin' wit' a tombstone!"

He turned his head a little as she continued to back away, shifting about so as to be still facing her. And still again he smiled.

"Then I warn you, mademoiselle, to watch me most carefully," he half mockingly called out to her.