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.
“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.
“I have a license to carry a gun,” I said, tartly.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“In the wallet that man took from me when he lifted the gun,” I answered. “If you’ll search him you’ll find it.”
“Oh, poor lad! Poor lad!” murmured Consardine. And so sincere seemed his distress that I was half inclined to feel sorry for myself. He spoke again to the Sergeant.
“I think perhaps the matter can be settled without running the risk of the journey to Headquarters. As Officer Mooney has told you, my patient’s present delusion is that he is a certain James Kirk
ham and living at the Discoverers’ Club. It may be that the real Mr. Kirkham is there at this moment. I therefore suggest that you call up the Discoverers’ Club and ask for him. If Mr. Kirkham is there, I take it that will end the matter. If not, we will go to Headquarters.”
The Sergeant looked at me, and I looked at Consardine, amazed.
“If you can talk to James Kirkham at the Discoverers’ Club,” I said at last, “then I’m Henry Walton!”
We walked over to a telephone booth. I gave the Sergeant the number of the Club.
“Ask for Robert,” I interposed. “He’s the desk man.”
I had talked to Robert a few minutes before I had gone out. He would still be on duty.
“Is that Robert? At the desk?” the Sergeant asked as the call came through. “Is Mr. James Kirkham there? This is Police Sergeant Downey.”
There was a pause. He glanced at me.
“They’re paging Kirkham,” he muttered—then to the phone—“What’s that? You are James Kirkham! A moment, please—put that clerk back. Hello—you Robert? That party I’m talking to Kirkham? Kirkham the explorer? You’re certain? All right—all right! Don’t get excited about it. I’ll admit you know him. Put him back—Hello, Mr. Kirkham? No, it’s all right. Just a case of—er—bugs! Man thinks he’s you—”
I snatched the receiver from his hand, lifted it to my ear and heard a voice saying:
“—Not the first time, poor devil—”
The voice was my very own!
CHAPTER THREE
The receiver was taken from me, gently enough. Now the Sergeant was listening again. Mooney had me by one arm, the man in the Inverness by the other. I heard the Sergeant say:
“Yes—Walton, Henry Walton, yes, that’s the name. Sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Kirkham. Goo’-by.”
He snapped up the ’phone and regarded me, compassionately.
“Too bad!” he said. “It’s a damned shame. Do you want an ambulance, doctor?”
“No, thanks,” answered Consardine. “It’s a peculiar case. The kidnapping delusion is a strong one. He’ll be quieter with people around him. We’ll go up on the subway. Even though his normal self is not in control, his subconscious will surely tell him that kidnapping is impossible in the midst of a subway crowd. Now, Henry,” he patted my hand, “admit that it is. You are beginning to realize it already, aren’t you—”
I broke out of my daze. The man who had passed me on Fifth Avenue! The man who had so strangely resembled me! Fool that I was not to have thought of that before! “Wait, officer,” I cried desperately. “That was an impostor at the Club—some one made up to look like me. I saw him—”
“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 my withdrawal, 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 detection—if 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 go—doctor,” I said, quietly. We started down the subway steps, his arm in mine.
We passed through the gates. A train was waiting. I 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 of—
“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 hat—hair 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, well—disconcerting.
“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 be—an 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 wills—”
Cobwebs seemed to be dropping around me, cobwebs whose multitudinous strands were held by one master hand, and pulling me, pulling me—irresistibly…where…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 me—”
“Oh, Ha
rry, Harry!” murmured the girl and touched her eyes with a foolish little square of lace.
“All that I ask you to do,” I went on, “is to call up the Discoverers’ Club when you leave this car. Ask for Lars Thorwaldsen, tell him what you have seen, and say I told you that the man at the Club who calls himself James Kirkham is an impostor. Will you do that?”
“Oh, Dr. Consardine,” sobbed the girl. “Oh, poor, poor brother!”
“Will you come with me a moment, lieutenant?” asked Consardine. He spoke to the man who had called the girl Eve—“Watch; Walter—look after Harry—”
He touched the lieutenant’s arm and they walked to the front of the car.
“Sit down, Harry, old man,” urged Walter.
“Please, dear,” said the girl. A hand of each of them on my arms, they pressed me into a seat.
I made no resistance. A certain grim wonder had come to me. I watched Consardine and the lieutenant carry on a whispered conversation to which the latter’s leathernecks aimed eager ears. I knew the story Consardine was telling, for I saw the officer’s face soften, and he and his men glanced at me pityingly; at the girl, compassionately. The lieutenant asked some question, Consardine nodded acquiescence and the pair walked back.
“Old man,” the lieutenant spoke to me soothingly, “of course I’ll do what you ask. We get off at the Bridge and I’ll go to the first telephone. Discoverers’ Club, you said?”
It would have been wonderful if I had not known that he thought he was humoring a lunatic.
I nodded, wearily.
“‘Tell it to the marines,’” I quoted. “The man who said that knew what he was talking about. Invincible but dumb. Of course, you’ll not do it. But if a spark of intelligence should miraculously light up your mind tonight or even tomorrow, please phone as I asked.”
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 89