Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/114

 the exception of one lamppost burning bleakly at the beginning of the alley, there were no lights. Windows were barred and although here and there a shaft of yellow light escaped through a ramshackle shutter, it did little but accentuate the general gloom and dispiritedness of the place. It was a location to take the heart out of a man who had no legitimate business there—nor did it look, on the other hand, as though any one who lived there could have any legitimate business.

They found the house they were looking for at the far end; it was a three-story frame house—one of the few frame houses still in existence on the East Side. There was no front door, though the hinges were still there to show that at some happier and far distant time there had been such an affair at the entrance. The hall yawned blackly before them.

“Got your flash?” queried Val. The other handed it to him. “Looks like midnight inside a cow’s belly,” commented Val.

“Yes, sir,” replied Eddie, impassively.

They entered the house. By working his flashlight diligently, Val discovered that there was a door to an apartment on each side of the hall. He knocked on one of them, loudly. There was no answer. He knocked again. There was a sound of moving around, and he heard a low, guttural, feminine voice cursing wholeheartedly. The door was opened a crack, as far as a stout chain would permit.

“Can you tell me where Teck lives?” asked Val.

“One flight up, on the left, in the rear,” grunted the woman, and banged the door. People evidently did not keep their doors open any longer than they could help in this neighborhood, meditated Val. Ah,