Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/309

 And at almost the same time, approaching him from the west, he had caught sight of another figure.

It was that of a dapper and thin-faced man who might have been anywhere from forty to sixty years of age. He walked, however, with a quick and nervous step. Yet the most remarkable thing about him seemed to be his eyes. They were wide-set and protuberant, like a bird's, as though years of being hunted had equipped him with the animal-like faculty of determining without actually looking back just who might be following him.

Those alert and wide-set eyes, in fact, must have sighted McCooey at the same time that he fell under the vision of the old cement seller. For the dapper figure wheeled quietly and quickly about and stooped down at the very side of the humming patrolman. He stooped and examined one of the peddler's many-fractured china plates. He squinted down at it as though it were a thing of intense interest to him.

As he stooped there the humming patrolman