Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/251

 ready to merge inconspicuously into his background of neutral-tinted companions. Yet Shindler himself, Sadie knew, was not unlike the drab-liveried water-moccasin, in being quite as virulent as he was self-effacing. That was a part of his effectiveness.

By this time Sadie had collected her wits and started for the door. Yet before she stepped from the car platform she made a second and even more disconcerting discovery. Moving aimlessly along through the ever-shifting crowd, with the air of a man who had no object in view and no mission in life, Wilsnach himself passed within ten feet of her. And she knew, at a glance, that Wilsnach was shadowing Shindler.

She realized, as she merged into the crowd and moved discreetly after them, that her career seemed suddenly to focus and centralize on those two strangely divergent yet alarmingly contiguous figures.

The thought of their coming together did not add to her peace of mind. Shindler, she knew, was a good dodger. She had, in the past, encountered only too many proofs of that. And if in the tumult of her seething little brain any one definite idea sought articulation, it was the frantic hope that