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nydus/Continental Op StoriesPublic

A collection of short stories about an unnamed agent of a detective agency in the early 1920s.

Page 530 of 1257
Table of Contents

IV

She had me almost running through the rain that had lightened now to a drizzle.

The hand with which she tried to fit a key to the front door was a shaky, inaccurate hand. I took the key and opened the door. We rode to the third floor in an automatic elevator, seeing no one. I unlocked the door to which she led me, near the rear of the building.

Holding my arm, with one hand, she reached inside and snapped on the lights in the passageway.

I didn’t know what she was waiting for, until she cried:

“Frana! Frana! Ah, Frana!”

The muffled yapping of a small dog replied. The dog did not appear.

She grabbed me with both arms, trying to crawl up my damp coat-front.

“They are here!” she cried in the thin dry voice of utter terror. “They are here!”

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