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

say yours - is to handle strong men, of the wrong kind."

"Quite right," nodded Cranston. "Only we're dealing with a different Johnny."

"He looked like the same Johnny when I saw him, except that he isn't drinking."

"But he is drinking, Margo, a wonderful beverage called Sapphire Water. It's done wonders for him."

"You mean that stuff from the place where Johnny took the rest cure? Why, you could fill one of those
blue bottles with Catskill punch right out of a Manhattan faucet and nobody would know the difference.
Not even Johnny."

"Probably not, Margo."
There was something calm in Cranston's reflective tone; a note that Margo was quick to catch. Instantly
her manner became serious, for she recognized that the subject was deeper than she supposed.
Cranston's summary of "probably not" gave Margo her cue.

"You mean that Johnny is a mental case?" demanded Margo. "But I thought he'd improved!"

"So he has," affirmed Cranston. "His Sapphire sojourn cured him thoroughly. He's a different person, a
strong one, at least on the surface."

"Then it's all for the better -"

"You remember the old Johnny," interposed Cranston. "He was always denouncing others and taking it
out on himself."

"Yes," nodded Margo. "He was always trying to drink up bars and pitch himself out of windows. His
friends managed to stop him before it became fatal."

"Well, suppose" - Cranston's calm gaze became speculative, but Margo saw a glint of foresight in those
eyes - "suppose that Johnny became his old self in a strong way."

"You mean he'd take it out on others instead of himself?"

Cranston nodded, slowly, but emphatically.

"He ought to be watched," decided Margo, seriously. "Yes, he really ought to be."

"His friend Noble Elder thinks the same," said Cranston, with a smile. "That's why I've been watching
him. It's even more important, now that he's shipping his trained seal back to Sapphire Springs."

Margo's eyes opened in wonder.

"Trained seal?" Incredulity filled Margo's tone. "You don't mean they have such things flipping around the
waters of the health resort? You mean Johnny brought one with him as a pet - or as a sort of fetish?"

"This one is a human seal," explained Cranston. "It answers to the name of Kirkwood. He's an attendant
from the sanitarium; they call them trained seals, just for short."