Red Vallon dropped into the seat vacated by Whitie Jack.
“Hello, Bundy!” he greeted affably.
“Hello, Red!” The response was purely mechanical. Billy Kane shifted his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other—to hide a smile in which there was no humor. His intuition, if it were intuition, had not been at fault. A woman had just entered the dance hall. He was not likely to mistake that slim, graceful figure, nor those dark, steady eyes—that were spanning the room and resting upon him. He could not see the lurking mockery in those eyes, the distance was a little too great for that, but his imagination could depict it readily enough. Nor did it require much imagination! It was the Woman in Black. He glanced at Red Vallon. Red Vallon’s back was turned to the door, and he had quite evidently not observed her.
The beer-stained attendant hurried to the table.
“What’ll you have, Red?” inquired Billy Kane pleasantly.
Red Vallon waved the man away.
“Nix!” he said in a lowered voice. “I got to beat it—I got to meet Birdie Rose. There’s something doing.”
Billy Kane, even as he watched that trim figure make its way to a table near the wall on a line with his own, leaned abruptly, eagerly forward, toward Red Vallon. He felt his pulse throb and quicken. Luck seemed to be breaking wide open at last. If, coupled with his own clue, Red Vallon and Birdie Rose had unearthed another, this infernal masquerade that threatened his life at every turn was as good as ended.
“What is it?” he demanded sharply. “Have you spotted the stones?”
Red Vallon shook his head.