THE HAND OF PERIL
57
rheumatic fingers and she stooped to pick it up. This was not easy to do. She had to steady herself, as she stooped, with one hand clinging to the door beside her.
Yet in that brief space of time a skeleton-blank had been thrust into the key-hole, a quick turn made, and an exact imprint of the wards of the lock left on the wax-coated metal of the key-flange.
Waving her cane in a splutter of anger, she hobbled on after the others, without so much as a glance back over her shoulder as she went.
