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

Into Dick's pounding brain floated a strange new recollection of a
haunting laugh, which could only be the creation of a fevered mind. Yet that
weird, parting taunt persisted with the thrumm of the motor that sped the
automobile in which Dick now rode.
The mental echo clung to the slap of waves, as they swashed and pummeled
a
jouncing boat which later carried Dick through absolute darkness, along with
new
companions that he couldn't see or recognize. It all seemed the continuation
of
an impossible dream which held Dick's reeling senses in its whirling midst.
All this motion leveled off at last. Out of an interminable lull, Dick
found himself lying on a padded shelf that was carrying him head-on into the
night. He never would have recognized it as the berth in a sleeping car, but
for the piping whistle that kept floating back from up ahead, the shrill note
peculiar to a European locomotive.
So Dick Whitlock was on a train, going somewhere, away from something he
didn't want to remember, those days and weeks, during which a grey-eyed man
called Doctor Greug had hurried him with probing questions that brought back
every trivial recollection from Dick's past life.
One newer memory had somehow wedged itself into Dick's tormented mind. He
voiced it with mechanical lips just as he was lapsing into sleep. It was a
name, induced by another piping trill from the locomotive whistle and Dick's
lips curled contemptuously as they spoke it.
What Dick said was: "Friedrich."


CHAPTER II
 THE Starview Roof Garden had imitation stars in the form of electric
light
bulbs that flickered in various sizes and colors beneath its ample ceiling.
That was good enough for Dick, now that he was back in New York and among
friends, though he doubted that he would call them friends much longer if they
persisted in asking him to relate adventures that he wouldn't want to talk
about even if he could remember them.
"So you found yourself in Switzerland -"
"That's right," acknowledged Dick, speaking to the group impersonally.
"Riding in a railway train, though how I landed there, even the conductor
didn't know."
Men were leaning on their elbows, interested in hearing more, even though
it might be delivered piece-meal, when Jerry Trimm interrupted.
"Let's have another round of drinks," suggested Jerry. "Maybe with a few
more, you chaps will realize that Dick wants to forget whatever he still can't
remember."
Dick gave Jerry a straight stare and a grateful nod. That would have
closed the subject if it hadn't been for Claire Austley. The blonde gave Dick
a
blue-eyed stare that would have hurt, if Dick hadn't remembered other eyes
that
could focus much more effectively. Dick's lips tightened hard, then relaxed