Our pace, therefore, had become swift and mechanical between the lamp-posts; but Basil came to a standstill suddenly like a reined horse; I stopped also.

We had almost run into the man.

A great part of the solid darkness in front of us was the darkness of his body.
At first I thought he had turned to face us.

But though we were hardly a yard off he did not realize that we were there.

He tapped four times on a very low and dirty door in the dark, crabbed street.