"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 317 - Ten Glass Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

TEN GLASS EYES
Maxwell Grant
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? CHAPTER I
? CHAPTER II
? CHAPTER III
? CHAPTER IV
? CHAPTER V
? CHAPTER VI
? CHAPTER VII
? CHAPTER VIII
? CHAPTER IX
? CHAPTER X
? CHAPTER XI
? CHAPTER XII
? CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER I
IT began, if these things ever have a beginning, when a man darted across a street in broad daylight.

Dashing through the traffic like a mad moth bent on immolating itself in a flame, he made his way through
the tangle of juggernauts. Broken field running, he was thinking, was never like this.

Is there any stop, he wondered, once you begin to run? Is there any escape? But there was no time for
thought. Behind him, tenacious as death, came that tall, thin man whose face kept popping up so often
that it had become a day nightmare.

The man who was running chanced a glance behind him. Had the traffic lost the... no, there was that
aquiline face. Persistent as death.

Into a department store. The man knew he should not run, but it was hard to slow down to a walk with
that menacing presence so close. Through shoppers, mostly female, past counters that offered the
treasures of Araby at ten percent off, he made his way.

That elevator there... could he duck in just as the doors came to a close? He wandered around as though
there was not a thought in his head. Then, just as the doors started to close, he darted within the cubicle.

He sighed. He was alone. Alone but for the twenty or thirty people in the car. The elevator operator
intoned in a voice laden with the weariness of all time, "Second floor, gents furnishings, ties, shirts, suits,
outdoor furniture, anyone out?"

There was no answer. The man who was running from his fate edged his way back as far as he could
when the car door opened at the third floor. A bevy of women left the car. Ahead through the open door
he could see girdles, slips, and various other completely female appurtenances.
He scrunched back into the now slightly more empty car. He had no plans now. Where were those
careful plans he had made? He smiled a sour grin. Where are the snows of yesteryear? The careful plans
had vanished as if they had never been, when that other man had appeared in the background. What use