ATTORNEY AND
COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
There was a small sign at the corner of the door; in obedience to its
invitation to “Walk In,” Annister, his hand upon the knob in a noiseless
pressure, abruptly flung it wide.
A split second before the opening of that door, and while his hand was on
the knob, Annister had seen, or thought that he had seen, a swift shadow
pass suddenly across the ground-glass panel; there was the grating sound
of a chair being moved backward.
Then, standing in the doorway, Annister’s eyes narrowed; he stood rigid,
tense.
For the man facing him across the stained and battered desk, lean head
like a vulture’s set upon wide shoulders; mouth like a straight gash with
its thin, bloodless lips; cold eyes fixed upon him in a silent, ophidian
brightness—was—the “third light,” as he had called him—the man whom he
had met for a moment back there in the smoker of the Transcontinental.
_CHAPTER THREE_