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One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window watching the glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft heavy step on the landing outside his room. A floorboard creaked, and the key turned in the lock. The step was heard again on the stairs. John Andrews laughed aloud. The window was only twenty feet from the ground, and there was a trellis. He got into bed contentedly.
Tom jammed the accelerator down to the floorboard and the jet car fairly leaped ahead. Fifty yards from Vidac's stalled car, Tom slammed on the brake, bringing the little car to a screaming halt only two feet away. Roger was halfway out before the car had stopped moving. Beside Vidac's car, Bush was wrestling with Astro. "Tom! Roger! Get back! It's a trap!" yelled Astro.
The fight was still to be made, Quinnion's friends would be taking a hand now, Steve had already joined issue. There were six of them against him and with one shot fired from his heavy Colt there were but five left. No shot to be wasted. A little creaking of a floorboard, a vague, misty blur almost at his side, and still Lee saved his fire.
Then he stooped to pick up the dog. Lass, waking at the slight creak of a floorboard, lifted her head. At sight of the figure leaning above her adored master, the lip curled back from her white teeth. Far down in her throat a growl was born. Then she recognized the intruder as the man who had petted her and fed her that evening.
Then a floorboard creaked faintly to my left, and turning short, I whirled my staff, felt it strike home and heard a fierce cry and the uneven tread of staggering feet. "Fight, rogues!" cried I. "Here's meat and drink to me fight!" and setting my back to the wall I waited for their rush.
She had saved threepence this week, sixpence that, sometimes even a shilling went into the child's money-box that she had chosen as a safe deposit. When the coins mounted to a sovereign, she had changed them into a gold piece. Then, her mind disturbed by visions of thieves bent on plunder, she had hit on a plan. A floorboard was loose in the kitchen.
If she drew back from our floorboard, there was the tongue in her head to say it. No obligation bound her. True, we had given her of our love freely. But it was a thing no man could set a price on, and no man could pay, save as he told back the coin which he had borrowed. And failing in that coin, it was a debt beyond him. The door to our house stood pulled back on its hinges.
I've never heard a sound, not the creak of a floorboard, the slam of a door, the opening of a window, nor the distant gurgle of cool, clear water, gushing into plumbing. So you've been married. This I know. You have a daughter. This I accept. Your husband is dead. This happens to people every day; nice people, bad people, bright people, dull people. There was a young boy here last summer.
With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and creep beneath it.
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