Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/54

 little unsteadily making his way around the corner into the Cannebière. Woodhouse followed, sauntering. Capper began a dilatory exploration of the various cafés along the white street; his general course was toward the city's slums about the Quai. Woodhouse, dawdling about tree boxes and dodging into shadows by black doorways, found his quarry easy to trail. And he knew that each of Capper's sojourns in an oasis put a period to the length of the pursuit. The time for him to act drew appreciably nearer with every tipping of that restless elbow.

Midnight found them down in the reek and welter of the dives and sailors' frolic grounds. Now the trailer found his task more difficult, inasmuch as not only his quarry but he himself was marked by the wolves. Dances in smoke-wreathed rooms slackened when Capper lurched in, found a seat and ordered a drink. Women with cheeks carmined like poppies wanted to make predatory love to him; dock rats drew aside and consulted in whispers. When Capper retreated from an evil dive on the very edge of the Quai, Woodhouse, waiting by the doors, saw that he was not the only