"A. E. Merritt - Seven Footprints to Satan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

had been no need of letting me get this far before striking. No, they were no emissaries of Kin-Wang.

There had been that mock arrest in Paris, designed to get me quickly out of the way for a few hours, as
the ransacked condition of my room and baggage showed when I returned. A return undoubtedly much
earlier than the thieves had planned, due to my discovery of the ruse and my surprise sally which left me
with an uncomfortable knife slash under an arm but, I afterwards reflected pleasantly, had undoubtedly
left one of my guards with a broken neck and another with a head that would not do much thinking for
another month or so. Then there had been the second attempt when the auto in which I was rushing to
the steamer had been held up between Paris and the Havre. That might have been successful had not the
plaques been tucked among the baggage of an acquaintance who was going to the boat by the regular
train, thinking, by the way, that he was carrying for me some moderately rare old dishes that I did not
want to trust to the possible shocks of fast automobile travel, to which the mythical engagement on the
day of sailing had condemned me.

Were the watchers this same gang? They must know that the jades were now out of my hands and safe
in the museum. I could be of no further value to these disappointed gentlemen, unless, of course, they
were after revenge. Yet that would hardly explain this constant, furtive, patient watching. And why hadn't
they struck long before? Surely there had been plenty of opportunities.

Well, whoever the watchers were, I had determined to give them the most open of chances to get at me.
I had paid all my bills. The sixty-six dollars and ninety-five cents in my pocket comprised all my worldly
goods, but no one else had any claim on it. Whatever unknown port I was clearing for with severely bare
sticks and decks, it was with no debts left behind.

Yes, I had determined to decoy my enemies, if enemies they were, out into the open. I had even made up
my mind as to where it should be.

In all New York the loneliest spot at eight o'clock of an October night, or any night for that matter, is the
one which by day is the most crowded on all the globe. Lower Broadway, empty then of all its hordes
and its canyon-like cleft silent, its intersecting minor canyons emptier and quieter even than their desert
kin. It was there that I would go.

As I turned down Fifth Avenue from the Discoverers' Club a man passed me, a man whose gait and
carriage, figure and clothing, were oddly familiar.

I stood stock still, looking after him as he strolled leisurely up the steps and into the Club.

Then, queerly disturbed, I resumed my walk. There had been something peculiarly familiar, indeed
disquietingly familiar, about that man. What was it? Making my way over to Broadway, I went down that
street, always aware of the watchers.

But it was not until I was opposite City Hall that I realized what that truly weird familiarity had been. The
realization came to me with a distinct shock.

In gait and carriage, in figure and clothing, from light brown overcoat, gray soft hat, to strong Malacca
cane that man had been--Myself!

CHAPTER TWO
I stopped short. The natural assumption was, of course, that the resemblance had been a coincidence,
extraordinary enough, but still--coincidence. Without doubt there were at least fifty men in New York