“I’ve often wondered how you did it,” Harker said musingly. His eyes were measuring the exact spot on the doctor’s thin neck where he would plunge the knife. He derived an ironic satisfaction from talking about the man the doctor had murdered, while preparing to end the doctor’s own life. It was the perfect touch. His smile widened.
“Did you use a knife?” he asked.
“No. I stunned the man with a blow from behind.”
“Then,” Harker said softly, “you borrowed his leg.”
“Yes.”
“But the body?”
“It was a deserted section of the city. No remains will ever be found.” The doctor went on talking but Harker was not listening. He was not interested in what the doctor had done with the body. The time had come to strike.
“Does it still hurt?” Doctor Zinder asked.
“Very much,” Harker said.
Frowning, the doctor bent over the leg and his back was to Harker. Unhurriedly Harker drew the knife from the folds of the blanket and plunged it through the back of the doctor’s neck.
It was all over very quickly. The doctor lurched forward, a strangling, gurgling cry bursting from his throat. As he struck the floor he rolled over and for an instant Harker stared into the dying man’s hate-filled, impotently blazing eyes — and then the spark in those eyes went out forever.
There was quite a lot of blood and it took Harker several hours to clean up the mess. But when he finished he congratulated himself. The doctor’s body was in an asbestos lined trunk which was securely locked and bolted. The express company would pick the trunk up that afternoon and cart it to a river warehouse. Harker had made these arrangements in advance. The bloodstains had been removed from the carpeting and floor, the butcher knife was back in the kitchen drawer where it belonged.
Everything was perfect. It took him only a few moments to pack his bags and then he left the hotel. He did not intend to return. He was leaving the city that night. As he rode down in the elevator he felt magnificent. True he was a little weak from his exertions, but his new leg was strong and buoyant beneath him and he felt fine.
And Zinder was out of the way forever. That was another reason for his ebullient feelings. He was safe now from exposure. His life was his own, to live as he deemed.
Whistling, he strode through the lobby of the hotel and into the bright sunlight of Michigan Boulevard. He hailed a cab and directed the driver to take him to a downtown hotel. As long as he had the entire afternoon to kill he decided to get a little rest. With a contented sigh he leaned back and lighted a cigarette. His eye chanced to fall on an army recruiting poster as he was driven along and he smiled cynically.
“Suckers,” he thought.
Chapter V
He was tired when he got to his hotel room. His breath was short and he was perspiring freely. The new leg was the only part of his body that seemed fresh and strong. The muscles of his own leg were trembling with weariness. He sank gratefully onto the soft bed and stretched out, closing his eyes.
For several minutes he lay there, resting comfortably and musing on the delights of the existence that he would be soon enjoying. And then he noticed that his new leg was twitching strangely. He sat up, perplexed, and as he did, the leg swung off the bed and pulled him up to a standing position.
He stood beside the bed frowning bewilderedly. One instant he had been comfortably lying down, with no immediate intention of getting up; but now, here he was, on his feet. Perhaps he had imagined the entire thing. Maybe he only imagined that the leg, for an instant, had acted independently of his will.
The thought that it might not have been just imagination; had, in fact, actually happened, brought a chill sweat to his forehead.
For several seconds he pondered the happening uneasily, and he had just decided that it was an accidental reflex when the leg moved again, in a long step toward the door. Harker’s own leg moved automatically to keep him from his losing his balance and the other leg continued walking. Powerless to stop, Harker found himself striding across the room to the door.
He would have have crashed into the solid wood of the door if he hadn’t, at the last instant, jerked it open. He was in the hallway then, striding helplessly toward the emergency stairway that led to the street.
He was so confused and bewildered that he was unable to think coherently. The leg started determinedly down the steps and Harker could do nothing but follow. When he reached the street the leg turned sharply and headed for the downtown district with long swinging strides.
Harker fought down the panic mounting in his breast. Obviously there was some rational explanation for the leg’s conduct. Maybe the nerves and muscles of the leg were not as yet coordinated to his thinking processes and were acting with independent, automatic reflexes, like the twitching halves of a severed snake.
There was little comfort in this rationalization. The long strides of the leg forced his own leg to unaccustomed exertion to keep him from falling to the ground with each step. His breath was coming hard and he was perspiring freely after six or seven blocks, but stilt the leg gave no indication of slowing or stopping. When they reached the downtown area the leg apparently lost its determined purposefulness for it led Harker on an aimless, wandering tour of the Loop that lasted until darkness had come and lights were winking on from windows of the office buildings.
Harker was becoming dizzy with fatigue. His body ached and his mouth was parched and dry. Each breath was an effort that became increasingly hard to make. Hunger and thirst were gnawing at him but he was powerless to stop, even for a quick swallow of water. The leg was tireless. It marched along block after block, crossing streets, turning down alleys, retracing its pathway aimlessly and endlessly.
Finally, as the evening was wearing on toward midnight, the leg left the Loop and headed southward. Now there seemed to be a new purpose and direction in its movements and its strides grew longer, more determined.
Harker’s breath sounded like the rasping of dry paper; his body trembled with weariness, but he stumbled on helplessly. He tried to throw himself to the ground to gain a moment’s respite but the leg held him to its course with frightening strength.
Hysteria was plucking at him now, torturing his thoughts with a thousand mad possibilities. He didn’t dare ask himself the questions that hammered at his brain.
The Loop was now far behind. Harker’s hysterically gleaming eyes saw that he was passing through the city’s industrial district. The streets were deserted and the occasional lights cast a ghostly illumination against the crude, squat factory buildings.
The leg’s determined strides slackened noticeably as it turned and started up a dark side street. Halfway down the darkened street it stopped.
A sobbing cry of relief broke from Harker’s parched lips. This hellish business had finally come to an end. He leaned against the wall of a building until his giddy weakness passed and some of his strength returned.
But when he tried to move he found it impossible. The leg was firmly attached to the ground as if it had been rooted there. Harker made a dozen attempts to walk away but they were hopelessly futile. Sobbing, he sank back against the wall of the building. His wild staring eyes tried to pierce the gloomy darkness of the side street. There was no one in sight. The street was deserted.
Fear swept over him in shuddering shocks. What would happen to him? Was he doomed to remain rooted here until he died of thirst? He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. What madness had prompted him to enter into this terrible, inhuman situation? He cursed Doctor Zinder until he was weak and spent.