ne.

"Don't look for a minute, but that's Chandra Dass over in the corner,
and he's watching us," he said.

Ennis shook his clutching hand away. "Damned old shark!" he muttered
again.

He turned his swaying head slowly, letting his eyes rest a moment on the
man in the corner. That man was looking straight at him.

Chandra Dass was tall, dressed in spotless white from his shoes to the
turban on his head. The white made his dark, impassive, aquiline face
stand out in chiseled relief. His eyes were coal-black, large, coldly
searching, as they met Ennis' bleared gaze.

Ennis felt a strange chill as he met those eyes. There was something
alien and unhuman, something uncannily disturbing, behind the Hindoo's
stare. He turned his gaze vacantly from Chandra Dass to the black
curtains at the rear, and then back to his companion.

The silent Malay waiter had brought the liquor, and Campbell pressed a
glass toward his companion. "'Ere, matey, take this."

"Don't want it," muttered Ennis, pushing it away. Still in the same
mutter, he added, "If Ruth's here, she's somewhere in the back there.
I'm going back and find out."

"Don't try it that way, for God's sake!" said Campbell in the wheedling
undertone. "Chandra Dass is still watching, and those Malays would be on
you in a minute. Wait until I give the word.

"All right, then," Campbell added in a louder, injured tone. "If you
don't want it, I'll drink it myself."

He tossed off the glass of gin and set the glass down on the table,
looking at his drunken companion with righteous indignation.

"Think I'm tryin' to bilk yer, eh?" he added. "That's a fine way to
treat a pal!"

He added in the coaxing lower tone, "All right, I'm going to try it. Be
ready to move when I light my cigarette."

He fished a soiled package of Gold Flakes from his pocket and put one in
his mouth. Ennis waited, every muscle taut.

The inspector, his red, oily face still injured in expression, struck a
match to his cigarette. Almost at once there was a loud oath from one of
the shabby loungers outside the front of the building, and the sound of
angry voices and blows.

The patrons of Chandra Dass looked toward the door, and one of the Malay
waiters went hastily out to quiet the fight. But it grew swiftly,
sounded in a moment like a small riot. _Crash_--someone was pushed
through the front window. The excited patrons pressed toward the front.
Chandra Dass pushed through them, issuing quick ord