At one moment,
however, he was there; in the next he was gone.
Five minutes later Chief Inspector Kerry entered the street. His dark
overcoat and white silk muffler concealed a spruce dress suit, a fact
betrayed by black, braided trousers, unusually tight-fitting, and
boots which almost glittered. He carried the silver-headed malacca
cane, and had retained his narrow-brimmed howler at its customary
jaunty angle.
Passing the lines of waiting vehicles, he walked into the entrance of
a popular night-club which faced the narrow street. On a lounge
immediately inside the doorway a heated young man was sitting fanning
his dancing partner and gazing into her weakly pretty face in vacuous
adoration.
Kerry paused for a moment, staring at the pair. The man returned his
stare, looking him up and down in a manner meant to be contemptuous.
Kerry's fierce, intolerant gaze became transferred to the face and
then the figure of the woman. He tilted his hat further forward and
turned aside. The woman's glance followed him, to the marked disgust
of her companion.
"Oh," she whispered, "what a delightfully savage man! He looks
positively uncivilized. I have no doubt he drags women about by their
hair. I do hope he's a member!"
Mollie Gretna spoke loudly enough for Kerry to hear her, but unmoved
by her admiration he stepped up to the reception office.
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