The cry was half-smothered, and followed by a gurgling sound and noise
as of a scuffle in the alley.

I rushed to the window and looked out. A band of half a dozen men was
struggling and pushing away from Montgomery Street into the darker end
of the alley. They were nearly under the window.

"Give it to him," said a voice.

In an instant there came a scream, so freighted with agony that it
burst the bonds of gripping fingers and smothering palms that tried to
close it in, and rose for the fraction of a second on the foul air of
the alley. Then a light showed and a tall, broad-shouldered figure
leaped back.

"These aren't the papers," it hissed. "Curse on you, you've got the
wrong man!"

There was a moment's confusion, and the light flashed on the man who
had spoken and was gone. But that flash had shown me the face of a man
I could never forget--a man whose destiny was bound up for a brief
period with mine, and whose wicked plans have proved the master
influence of my life. It was a strong, cruel, wolfish face--the face of
a man near sixty, with a fierce yellow-gray mustache and imperial--a
face broad at the temples and tapering down into a firm, unyielding
jaw, and marked then with all the lines of rage, hatred, and chagrin at
the failure of his plans.

It took not a second for me to see and hear and know all this, for the
vision came and was gone in the dropping of an eyelid. And then there