A man who was turning it just as Nick was approaching it gazed at him sharply, then smiled and bowed.
“Good evening, Garland,” he said familiarly.
“Ah, good evening,” Nick returned genially.
“I thought I recognized you. A misty night, this.”
“Yes, quite so,” said the detective.
They then had passed one another, scarce two feet between them, and in the bright glare from a near arc light, and Nick halted on the corner.
“By Jove, that’s quite encouraging,” he said to himself. “That man evidently is well acquainted with Garland. He felt sure that he recognized me. He saw me plainly, too, in the bright glare from this arc light. I also got by with the voice. Having done so under these conditions, I ought to succeed in fooling Margate. Yes, indeed, it was encouraging.”
Nick was justified in congratulating himself, in fact, for he had, with consummate skill and artistic applications[{31}] of paint and powder, transformed himself into an almost perfect likeness of the man he was aiming to impersonate.
It was, as the passing stranger’s remark implied, a fit night for such an undertaking. A mist hung like a gray pall on the quiet night air. It obscured all but the brightest stars. A half-filled moon shone through it only faintly, surrounded with a great circle, like a halo around the head of a saint.
It was, in fact, a damp, chilly, and disagreeable November night.