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

"There, there, lad," he put a hand on my shoulder reassuringly. "You gave your word. You're not going to welch on it, I'm sure. You're all right. I'm telling you. Go with the doctor, now."

For the first time I had the sense of futility. This net spreading around me had been woven with infernal ingenuity. Apparently no contingency had been overlooked. I felt the shadow of a grim oppression. If those so interested in me, or in myЧwithdrawal, wished it, how easy would it be to obliterate me. If this double of mine could dupe the clerk who had known me for years and mix in with my friends at the Club without detectionЧif he could do this, what could he not do in my name and in my guise? A touch of ice went through my blood. Was that the plot? Was I to be removed so this double could take my place in my world for a time to perpetrate some villainy that would blacken forever my memory? The situation was no longer humorous. It was heavy with evil possibilities.

But the next step in my involuntary journey was to be the subway. As Consardine had said, no sane person would believe a man could be kidnapped there. Surely there, if anywhere, I could escape, find some one in the crowds who would listen to me, create if necessary such a scene that it' would be impossible for my captor to hold me, outwit him somehow.

At any rate there was nothing to do but go with him. Further appeal to these two policemen was useless.

"Let's goЧdoctor," I said, quietly. We started down the subway steps, his arm in mine.

We passed through the gates. A train was waiting. 1 went into the last car, Consardine at my heels. It was empty. I marched on. In the second car was only a nondescript passenger or two. But as I neared the third car I saw at the far end half a dozen marines with a second lieutenant. My pulse quickened. Here was the very opportunity I had been seeking. I made straight for them.

As I entered the car I was vaguely aware of a couple sitting in the corner close to the door. Intent upon reaching the leathernecks, I paid no attention to them.

Before I had gone five steps I heard a faint scream, then a cry ofЧ

"Harry! Oh, Dr. Consardine! You've found him!"

Involuntarily, I halted and turned. A girl was running toward me. She threw her arms around my neck and cried again:

"Harry! Harry! dear! Oh, thank God he found you!"

Two of the loveliest brown eyes I had ever beheld looked up at me. They were deep and tender and pitying, and tears trembled on the long black lashes. Even in my consternation I took note of the delicate skin untouched by rouge, the curly, silken fine bobbed hair under the smart little hatЧhair touched with warm bronze glints, the nose a bit uplifted and the exquisite mouth and elfinly pointed chin. Under other circumstances, exactly the girl I would have given much to meet; under the present circumstances, wellЧdisconcerting.

"There! There, Miss Walton!" Dr. Consardine's voice was benignly soothing. "Your brother is all right now!"

"Now, Eve, don't fuss any more. The doctor found him just as I told you he would."

It was a third voice, that of the other occupant of the corner seat. He was a man of about my own age, exceedingly well dressed, the face rather thin and tanned, a touch of dissipation about his eyes and mouth.

"How are you feeling, Harry?" he asked me, and added, somewhat gruffly, "Devil of a chase you've given us this time, I must say."

"Now, Walter," the girl rebuked him, "what matter, so he is safe?"

I disengaged the girl's arms and looked at the three of them. Outwardly they were exactly what they purported to beЧan earnest, experienced, expensive specialist anxious about a recalcitrant patient with a defective mentality, a sweet, worried sister almost overcome with glad relief that her mind-sick runaway brother had been found, a trusty friend, perhaps a fiance, a bit put out, but still eighteen-carat faithful and devoted and so glad that his sweetheart's worry was over that he was ready to hand me a wallop if I began again to misbehave. So convincing were they that for one insane moment I doubted my own identity. Was I, after all, Jim Kirkham? Maybe I'd only read about him! My mind rocked with the possibility that I might be this Henry Walton whose wits had been scrambled by some accident in France.

It was with distinct effort that I banished the idea. This couple had, of course, been planted in the station and waiting for me to appear. But in the name of all far-seeing devils how could it have been foretold that I would appear at that very station at that very time?

And suddenly one of Consardine's curious phrases returned to me:

"A mind greater than all to plan for all of them; a will greater than all their willsЧ"

Cobwebs seemed to be dropping around me, cobwebs whose multitudinous strands were held by one master hand, and pulling me, pulling meЧirresistiblyЕ whereЕ and to what?

I turned and faced the marines. They were staring at us with absorbed interest. The lieutenant was on his feet, and now he came toward us.

"Anything I can do for you, sir?" he asked Consardine, but his eyes were on the girl and filled with admiration. And at that moment I knew that I could expect no help from him or his men. Nevertheless, it was I who answered.

"You can," I said. "My name is James Kirkham. I live at the Discoverers' Club. I don't expect you to believe me, but these people are kidnapping meЧ"