But the
manner in which the taxi-driver looked him up and down penetrated
through the veil of abstraction which hitherto had rendered Kerry
impervious to all external impressions, and:
"Give me another look like that, my lad," he snapped furiously, "and
I'll bash your head through your blasted wind-screen."
A ready retort trembled upon the cabman's tongue, but a glance into
the savage blue eyes reduced him to fearful silence. Kerry entered the
cab and banged the door; and the man drove off positively trembling
with indignation.
Deep in reflection the Chief Inspector was driven westward through the
early morning traffic. Fine rain was falling, and the streets
presented that curiously drab appearance which only London streets can
present in all its dreary perfection. Workers bound Cityward fought
for places inside trams and buses. A hundred human comedies and
tragedies were to be witnessed upon the highways; but to all of them
Kerry was blind as he was deaf to the din of workaday Babylon. In
spirit he was roaming the bank of old Father Thames where the river
sweeps eastward below Limehouse Causeway--wonder-stricken before the
magic of the one-eyed wizard who could at will efface himself as an
artist rubs out a drawing, who could camouflage a drug warehouse so
successfully that human skill, however closely addressed to the task,
failed utterly to detect its whereabouts.
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