"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 285 - Fountain of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"Fine," expressed Johnny. "Where?"

"I'll be waiting in my car in back of Claybourne's. It has a Connecticut license plate."

"And the number?"

There was a peculiar pause; then Linda's voice came in its previous monotone:

"I shall send it to you. Watch for a messenger when you leave your hotel."

"Anything else, Linda?"

"Yes." The tone was lower, more emphatic. "If you have written my name and address, tear them up.
Dispose of them utterly. Understand?"

The receiver clicked sharply at the other end and Johnny found himself staring at the drawing on the wall.

"It was like a question, Kirkwood," said Johnny. "Her voice had a lift to it, like I hoped it would. So she
wants me to tear up the paper. Good. I'll do it."

Johnny tore the paper on the way to the window. Raising the sash, he let the fragments flutter out into the
afternoon air. Sniffing the atmosphere as though he expected the pine-tinged ozone of the woods
surrounding Sapphire Springs, Johnny gave a disappointed shrug and turned back from the window.

"I'm getting tired, Kirkwood," Johnny mumbled. "Like I always do, every afternoon. Maybe it's gotten to
be a habit, this nap business."

Half-sprawling on the bed, Johnny reached for a pillow, then came back to his feet.

"Mustn't forget the Sapphire Water," he said. "Finish a bottle before taking a nap. You drilled that rule
into me, Kirkwood, you old drillmaster, you."

Finishing the glass he poured, Johnny relaxed upon the bed and let his head dip deep into the pillow. He
was muttering that naps made him tired and meaning it the opposite way about. But today, with
Kirkwood no longer present to dispute the point with silence, Johnny was finding it literally true.

At least the breeze from the open window resembled the zephyrs that played about Elder's pine trees, for
the noise of city traffic dwindled itself until Johnny mistook it for the gurgle of Sapphire Springs. Within
five minutes, he was deep into a sleep as sound as those that he had enjoyed at the sanitarium.
The depth of that slumber was evidenced when the telephone bell began to ring. The bell was close
beside Johnny's head, but he didn't hear it. After continuing for a full minute, the bell suddenly ceased,
leaving Johnny totally undisturbed.

A deep sleep was something that Noble Elder had always prescribed to his patients. According to Elder,
a mind that slumbered well would be sharper when it was awake. All that had made sense to Johnny
Craver, who had agreed that sharp wits were what he needed most in life.

Johnny was going to need sharp wits tonight. He had paved the way for it, with that mystery call to a girl
that he had never met. And now, while Johnny slept, matters were shaping themselves into a situation