"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 290 - Death has Grey Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

DEATH HAS GREY EYES
by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," April 1945.

There were strange, sinister plans for Dick Whitlock's post-war future.
Could The Shadow solve the secret of the past and prevent the fulfillment of a
fanatical doctor's crazed ideas?


CHAPTER I

THE eyes were there again, cold grey eyes, as hard and merciless as the
flack that had shredded the wings of the Flying Fortress "Sweetie Pie" before
Dick Whitlock had bailed out over Germany.
And Dick was still in Germany.
The thrumm of planes, the muffled burst of bombs with the odd, crackly
echoes they produced, told Dick he was somewhere in a target area that must be
in Naziland, considering the pounding it was taking.
Being on the receiving end was different from handling the bomb sights,
but Dick didn't mind taking it, considering that it would eliminate a covey of
undesirable companions, including the man with the grey eyes.
Dick was hoping, though, that the girl had left; the girl with the dark
hair and the straight lips that were as sympathetic as her eyes; those eyes
that were a deep brown in contrast to the grey orbs.
The man behind the grey eyes was crisp-faced, colored like long-faded
ashes. His voice, instead of being sharp, was smooth as a cat's contented
purr,
yet commanding in every word. It carried a nefarious encouragement that was
somehow irresistible.
"State your case again," it ordered. "Tell me: who are you?"
"I am Dick Whitlock," was Dick's mechanical reply. "A prisoner of war -
wounded -"
He was pointing across to his right arm when he found that he was raising
it. Some of the numbness was still there, but the sling was absent. Dick
hadn't
been wearing it for days, for weeks, perhaps for months.
How could he tell with those grey eyes keeping their fixed stare?
"Wounded and hospitalized," picked up the purred voice. "Well-treated,
given every consideration."
Dick's response was a mechanical nod. The voice hadn't lied, in fact it
never did. Somehow its words were friendly - always so - but too sure in their
persuasion to be accepted. Behind their smooth suggestion was an ever-present
threat Dick had ever sensed but never tested.
"Turn to the mirror," toned the grey-eyed man. "See for yourself that you
are well."
It was the same mirror, the broad one opposite the fireplace. Dick had
lost count of how many times he had studied his own reflection in that glass.
It was getting to be funny, even with the grey-eyed man around. Dick smiled in
the mirror and heard a dry chuckle from his shoulder.