Inside, warm lights cast a subdued glow; the thumping rhythms of a swing band fought against the wolf whine of the November winds. At the end of the corridor, the French doors were tightly sealed. No patron of the club would wish to brave that terrace, open to the arctic breath from the nearby river. Yet now, someone was outside. The knob of the door turned slowly. And against the lighted panes of glass, there was a queerly distorted shadow, as if a man with curiously hunched shoulders crouched there, working on the lock!Muted shouts and a muffled shot from outside slapped across the musical murmur that sifted into the corridor from the huge dining-room, but these sounds were swallowed in the universal thump of the orchestra. There was a brittle snap of breaking metal . . . and the door thrust open! A few, hard fine snowflakes whirled in through the opening and the curtains shivered in the cold. Then a figure whipped into the corridor, the door clapped shut and a man whirled to send his piercing blue-grey gaze stabbing through the dim reaches of the club.The shouts outside were louder, but there were no more shots . . .
