"Seven Footprints To Satan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt Abraham)

"Go on!" I said. "What else do I think?"

"He's quite harmless," he gently patted my shoulder, "but now and then he manages to slip away from us. Yes, harmless, but very ingenious. He evaded us this evening. I sent my men out to trace him. I found him myself down there in the Battery. At such times, officer, he believes he is in danger of being kidnapped. That's what he wants to tell youЧthat I am kidnapping him. Will you kindly listen to him, officer, and assure him that such a thing is impossible in New York. Or, if possible, that kidnappers do not conduct their captives up to a New York policeman as I have."

I could but admire the deftness of the story, the half humorous and yet patient, wholly professional manner in which he told it. Safe now as I thought myself, I could afford to laugh, and I did.

"Quite right, officer," I said. "Only it happens that my name really is James Kirkham. I never even heard of this Henry Walton. I never saw this man here until tonight. And I have every reason in the world to know that he is trying to force me to go somewhere that I have no intention whatever of going."

"You see!" My companion nodded meaningly to the policeman, who, far from answering my smiles, looked at me with an irritating sympathy.

"I wouldn't worry," he assured me. "As the good doctor says, kidnappers don't hunt up the police. Ye couldn't be kidnapped in New YorkЧat least not this way. Now go right along wit' the doctor, an' don't ye worry no more."

It was time to terminate the absurd matter. I thrust my hand into my pocket, brought out my wallet and dipped into it for my card. I picked out one and with it a letter or two and handed them to the bluecoat.

"Perhaps these identifications will give you another slant," I said.

He took them, read them carefully, and handed them back to me, pityingly.

"Sure, lad," his tone was soothing. "Ye're in no danger. I'm tellin' ye. Would ye want a taxi, doctor?"

I stared at him in amazement, and then down to the card and envelopes he had returned to me. I read them once and again, unbelievingly.

For the card bore the name of "Henry Walton," and each of the envelopes was addressed to that same gentleman "in care of Dr. Michael Consardine" at an address that I recognized as a settlement of the highest-priced New York specialists up in the seventies. Nor was the wallet I held in my hand the one with which I had started this eventful stroll a little more than an hour before.

I opened my coat and glanced down into the inner pocket for the tailor's label that bore my name. There was no label there.

Very abruptly my sense of security fled. I began to realize that it might be possible to force me to go where I did not want to, after all. Even from a New York Subway station.

"Officer," I said, and there was no laughter now in my voice, "you are making a great mistake. I met this man a few minutes ago in Battery Park. I give you my word he is an utter stranger to me. He insisted that I follow him to some place whose location he refused to tell, to meet some one whose name he would not reveal. When I refused, he struggled with me, ostensibly searching for weapons. During that struggle it is now plain that he substituted this wallet containing the cards and envelopes bearing the name of Henry Walton in the place of my own. I demand that you search him for my wallet, and then whether you find it or not, I demand that you take us both to Headquarters."

The bluecoat looked at me doubtfully. My earnestness and apparent sanity had shaken him. Neither my appearance nor my manner was that of even a slightly unbalanced person. But on the other hand the benign face, the kindly eyes, the unmistakable refinement and professionalism of the man of the Battery bench were as far apart as the poles from the puzzled officer's conception of a kidnapper.

"I'm perfectly willing to be examined at HeadquartersЧ and even searched there," said the man in the Inverness. "Only I must warn you that all the excitement will certainly react very dangerously on my patient. HoweverЧ call a taxiЧ"

"No taxi," I said firmly. "We go in the patrol wagon, with police around us."

"Wait a minute," the bluecoat's face brightened. "Here comes the Sergeant. He'll decide what to do." The Sergeant walked up.

"What's the trouble, Mooney?" he asked, looking us over. Succinctly, Mooney explained the situation. The Sergeant studied us again more closely. I grinned at him cheerfully.

"All I want," I told him, "is to be taken to Headquarters. In a patrol wagon. No taxi, Dr. ЧЧЧ what was it? Oh, yes, Consardine. Patrol wagon with plenty of police, and Dr. Consardine sitting in it with meЧthat's all I want."

"It's all right, Sergeant," said Dr. Consardine, patiently. "I'm quite ready to go. But as I warned Officer Mooney, it means delay and excitement and you must accept the responsibility for the effect upon my patient, whose care is, after all, my first concern. I have said he is harmless, but tonight I took from himЧthis."

He handed the Sergeant the small automatic.

"Under his left arm you will find its holster," said Consardine. "Frankly, I think it best to get him back to my sanatorium as quickly as possible."

The Sergeant stepped close to me and throwing back my coat, felt under my left arm. I knew by his face as he touched the holster that Consardine had scored.