Silent and motionless, his distant figure seemed sinister and menacing to Cleve.
Foy appeared and opened the door to the anteroom. The brass doors were closing now. The form of Ling Soo was hidden from view. The servant accompanied them into the anteroom, and pressed the button for the elevator.
The light was vague here, and the forms of the standing men cast long shadows on the floor. Cleve was glancing toward those shadows. To his surprise, he saw four instead of three!
He looked up in surprise; then toward the floor again. The fourth shadow was slipping away. Dwindling, it drew itself toward the door to the anteroom. It vanished while Cleve was staring at it.
Looking up quickly, the government agent saw the door that led into Ling Soo’s abode closing silently. What was that he glimpsed through the crack of the closing door? It seemed like a mass of black — a huge, living shadow! What could it mean? Had Ling Soo followed them?
No, that was hardly likely. It seemed more that someone had slipped from the anteroom into the hall toward Ling Soo’s reception room — someone who had been waiting here, half hidden in the gloom!
A sudden recollection came to Cleve Branch. He remembered that when he and Darley had passed the Mukden Theater, he had seen such a shadow on the sidewalk in front of the playhouse. It had caught his attention then, but he had forgotten it in his interest to reach Ling Soo’s.
The elevator was here. Mechanically, Cleve followed Darley into the car and felt the descent begin. He was wrapped in thought.
Cleve pictured Ling Soo, the suave Chinaman whose courtesy was lulling. He recalled Foy, the crouching servant of the Mongol master.
But more than that, he visioned the black form that he had seen upon the floor — the rising shadow that had become a thing of life.