Абрахам Меррит - Seven Footprints To Satan

To my surprise he made neither objection nor comment. He paced quietly beside me. Soon we were out of the Battery and not far ahead were the lights of the Bowling Green Station. My resentment and anger diminished, a certain amusement took their place. Obviously it was absurd to suppose that in New York City anyone could be forced to go anywhere against his will, once he was in the usual close touch with its people and its police. To be snatched away from a subway station was almost unthinkable, to be kidnapped from the subway once we got in it absolutely unthinkable. Why then was my companion so placidly allowing each step to take me closer to this unassailable position?

It would have been so easy to have overpowered me just a few moments before. Or why had I not been approached at the Club? There were a dozen possible ways in which I could have been lured away from there.

There seemed only one answer. There was some paramount need for secrecy. A struggle in the Park might have brought the police. Overtures at the Club might have left evidence behind had I disappeared. How utterly outside the mark all this reasoning was I was soon to learn.

As we drew closer to the Bowling Green entrance of the subway, I saw a policeman standing there. I admit without shame that his scenic effect warmed my heart.

"Listen," I said to my companion. "There's a bluecoat. Slip my gun back into my pocket. Leave me here and go your way. If you do that, I say nothing. If you don't I'm going to order that policeman to lock you up. They'll have the Sullivan Law on you if nothing else. Go away quietly and, if you want to, get in touch with me at the Discoverers' Club. I'll forget all this and talk to you. But don't try any more of the rough stuff or I'll be getting good and mad."

He smiled at me, as at some child, his face and eyes again all kindness. But he did not go. Instead, he linked his arm firmly in mine and led me straight to the officer. And as we came within earshot he said to me, quite loudly:

"Now come, Henry. You've had your little run. I'm sure you don't want to give this busy officer any trouble. Come, Henry! Be good!"

The policeman stepped forward, looking us over. I did not know whether to laugh or grow angry again. Before I could speak, the man in the Inverness had handed the bluecoat a card. He read it, touched his hat respectfully and asked:

"And what's the trouble, doctor?"

"Sorry to bother you, officer," my astonishing companion answered. "But I'll ask you to help me a bit. My young friend here is one of my patients. War case- aviator. He hurt his head in a crash in France and just now he thinks he is James Kirkham, an explorer. Actually, his name is Henry Walton."

The bluecoat looked at me, doubtfully. I smiled, in my certain security.

"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 you- that 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 York- at 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 Headquarters- 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. However- call a taxi- "

"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.- what was it? Oh, yes, Consardine. Patrol wagon with plenty of police, and Dr. Consardine sitting in it with me- that'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 him- this."

He handed the Sergeant the small automatic.