"Perhaps I'm not so strong as you think--I know a little more about Oriental wrestling than you do, that's all."
"Yes, that's all!" said the woman by the doorway in a mocking tone. She stepped across the threshold and came toward them. "Go over there and sit down." She motioned Dorothy to a chair. "And not another peep out of you--understand?" Her eyes gleamed at Dorothy through narrowed lids with a light more metallic than the reflection from the barrel of her automatic. It was a strange look--combined of ruthlessness and malicious amusement.
"Interesting--very interesting, indeed!"
She turned to Mike, as Dorothy obeyed her and sat down.
"And now that you and your little lady friend have finished your heart-to-heart, perhaps you'll tell me what it's all about--why I find you flat on the floor covered by her gun?"
"Jealous, Sadie?" Mike's tone was tantalizing.
"You fool!"
She took a step forward. The expression on her face underwent a startling change. Mockery gave way to an exasperated ferocity. Her eyes opened to their full size. Then the volcano of her wrath erupted. Words poured forth with the sharp regularity of a riveting hammer. Mike was given a description of his characteristics, moral, mental and physical, that brought the angry blood to his forehead.
Whereupon he retorted in like spirit and soon they were going it hammer and tongs, while the fury on Sadie's face froze into livid hate.
It was a wicked face, yet beautiful, Dorothy thought as she watched from her chair in the corner; a strangely beautiful face beneath a coiled crown of glorious red hair. But its beauty was distorted, devilish. Her lips were scarlet, slightly parted, showing the double rim of her even teeth as she hurled insult after insult at the man before her. Like some evil goddess, she stood motionless, the rise and fall of her bosom the only token of the deadly emotion she felt as her even tones poured forth vituperation.