He made his way between the close-packed tables to the stairs, and descended to the lower floor.
Here, if anything, the confusion was greater than above; but here, too, was an exit through to the rear street--and a moment later he was sauntering past the front of an unkempt little pawnshop, closed for the night, over whose door, in the murk of a distant street lamp, three balls hung in sagging disarray, tawny with age, and across whose dirty, unwashed windows, letters missing, ran the legend: IS AC PELINA Pawn brok r The pawnshop made the corner of a very dark and narrow lane--and, with a quick glance around him to assure himself that he was unobserved, Jimmie Dale stepped into the alleyway, and, lost instantly in the blacker shadows, stole along by the wall of the pawnshop.

Old Isaac's business was not all done through the front door.
And then suddenly Jimmie Dale shrank still closer against the wall.

Was it intuition, premonition--or reality?
There seemed an uncanny feeling of PRESENCE around him, as though perhaps he were watched, as though others beside himself were in the lane.

Yes; ahead of him a shadow moved--he could just barely distinguish it now that his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness.

It, like himself, was close against the wall, and now it slunk noiselessly down the length of the lane until he lost sight of it.