“Eight o’clock,” said Darley.
Two tiny green specks appeared in the luminous circle above the Mukden Theater sign. Only Darley noticed them, for Cleve was rising from his chair. Those specks were shining globes of light, showing from the distance like the pupils of two emerald eyes.
“I should be downtown now,” remarked Darley. “Let us go.”
The two men chatted as they rode through the night. Cleve alighted at a corner near his hotel. Beneath the glare of a street light, he stood beside the door and waved good-by to Darley.
Cleve’s face was in full view — plain in the light. Every feature was visible to Darley. There, on the center of Cleve’s forehead, Darley noted a tiny spot of red. It flared in vivid crimson, like a blot of blood.
The limousine drew away. Cleve stood alone. Darley had not mentioned the spot that he had seen; so Cleve was still unconscious of it.
He did not know that his forehead bore the same mark that Stephen Laird had carried that night on the Mountain Limited.
That mark was the mark of death!