The shadows on the street seemed real to Rodney Paget as he threaded his way to Lexington Avenue.
He stopped a cab and rode to his apartment. At the door of the building, he looked across the street, staring suspiciously at the blackness of the opposite sidewalk.
Finally, convinced that his imagination was at work. Paget entered the apartment house. Lights appeared in his windows. Fifteen minutes later, they went out.
Rodney Paget had retired.
It was then that the shadowy mass across the street began to move. Something like a solid form emerged and flitted ghoulishly away.
As it neared the avenue at the end of the street, the moving shape again merged with the black fronts of the building. From that moment, the keenest eye could not have detected its presence.
A taxicab stopped in answer to a whistle. The driver could see no prospective passenger. Then he heard the door of the cab open.
The fare had stepped up without the taximan seeing him. A head appeared at the partition and a low voice gave the cab driver a destination.
As the cab rolled along the street in front of the apartment house where Rodney Paget lived, a low, mocking laugh came from the interior of the cab. It did not seem to be the laugh of a human being. It was a laugh that seemed to be the shadow of a laugh.