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Rh stood in an arched passageway which smelled damp, like a tunnel. They were within, but Collins hardly noted the fact; he had turned his head and was watching the stripes-clad man.

He was the first convict that John Collins had ever seen. He wore a two-piece garment, coarse shoes, and a visored cap. Jacket and trousers were circled by alternating bars of black and white; the cap was similarly barred from back to front. But it was not the garment that drew the attention of John Collins. It was the man’s face. There was something about it—it may have been in the bloodless cheeks—something arsenical and poisonous; something glittering, too—it may have been in the eyes—something glittering, furtive, and threatening. Collins could not fathom the look, but a vague discomfort slid coldly along his spine.

Walking beneath the concrete arch, between the garotter and the murderer, linked to them with steel, he passed from beneath the spanning building into a court. On the right were several doors; at the second one was a narrow bench Rh