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Beat it on yer toes fer the front of the house!" The room was flooded with light. Through the portieres, that Jimmie Dale parted by the barest fraction of an inch, he could see Stangeist and another man, a thick-set, ugly-faced-looking customer Clarie Deane, according to that brief, whispered colloquy that he had heard outside. He looked again through the window.
The hall was a huge one, dim in the corners, with a fine stairway that ran down in the centre, and was lighted by a great branching candelabrum held up by a bronze figure on either side. Doors, hung with portières of tapestry, opened here and there along the hall, and in a fireplace at one side slow flames crept along a freshly-heaped pile of logs.
I was now ready for the strange journey, and, approaching my visitor, I said: "And now, Reon, I will accompany you, but there is no time to be lost, as an experiment I am conducting with one of these instruments demands my attention in two hours." I held back the portières as Reon passed out, and following him down a short passage, we stepped out upon a wide balcony constructed of white marble.
The period is subtly evoked in one detail, constantly reiterated in Saltus's early books: ladies and gentlemen when they leave a room "push aside the portieres." Sometimes the "rings jingle."
She seemed to be more especially interested in herself, and when Farr departed was fondling into place the masses of her hair before a mirror in the vestibule. Through the space formed by the portieres he saw Dodd reaching eager hands to the girl, her presence having apparently charmed away his thoughts of vengeance. The iceman went humbly on his way.
The floors hid themselves decently under thick red and black carpets, and the margins which were uncarpeted were disguised by beeswax, so that no one knew they were there at all. The narrow hall was steeped in shadow, for there two black velvet portieres, at distances of six feet apart, depended from rods in the ceiling.
It was so politely contemptuous that I could almost have throttled him. "We are waiting to see Mr. Brixton," explained Kennedy. "What is the latest from the Near East?" Wachtmann asked, with the air of a man expecting to hear what he could have told you yesterday if he had chosen. There was a movement of the portieres, and a woman entered. She stopped a moment. I knew it was Miss Brixton.
In the second place, all these towers, terraces and structures must be distinctly delineated; for with just a trifle of inattention, the railings will slant, the pillars will be topsy-turvy, doors and windows will recline in a horizontal position, steps will separate, leaving clefts between them, and even tables will be crowded into the walls, and flower-pots piled on portieres; and won't it, instead of turning out into a picture, be a mere caricature?
Australian Ike's elbow just grazed the portieres, and Jimmie Dale flattened himself against the window, holding his breath a smile on his lips that was mirthless, deadly, cold. The end was not far off now; and then WHAT? Stangeist had the outer door of the safe open now and now the inner door swung back.
Thick carpets covered the floors, doubled and quilted portieres excluded all draughts from chinks in the doors.
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