{"product_id":"2940013683105","title":"Seven Footprints to Satan","description":"The clock was striking eight as I walked out of the doors of the\u003cbr\u003eDiscoverers' Club and stood for a moment looking down lower Fifth\u003cbr\u003eAvenue. As I paused, I felt with full force that uncomfortable\u003cbr\u003esensation of being watched that had both puzzled and harassed me for\u003cbr\u003ethe past two weeks. A curiously prickly, cold feeling somewhere deep\u003cbr\u003eunder the skin on the side that the watchers are located; an odd sort\u003cbr\u003eof tingling pressure. It is a queer sort of a sensitivity that I have\u003cbr\u003ein common with most men who spend much of their lives in the jungle or\u003cbr\u003edesert. It is a throwback to some primitive sixth sense, since all\u003cbr\u003esavages have it until they get introduced to the white man's liquor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrouble was I couldn't localize the sensation. It seemed to trickle in\u003cbr\u003eon me from all sides. I scanned the street. Three taxis were drawn up\u003cbr\u003ealong the curb in front of the Club. They were empty and their drivers\u003cbr\u003ebusy talking. There were no loiterers that I could see. The two swift\u003cbr\u003eside-rubbing streams of traffic swept up and down the Avenue. I\u003cbr\u003estudied the windows of the opposite houses. There was no sign in them\u003cbr\u003eof any watchers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet eyes were upon me, intently. I knew it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe warning had come to me in many places this last fortnight. I had\u003cbr\u003efelt the unseen watchers time and again in the Museum where I had gone\u003cbr\u003eto look at the Yunnan jades I had made it possible for rich old\u003cbr\u003eRockbilt to put there with distinct increase to his reputation as a\u003cbr\u003ephilanthropist; it had come to me in the theater and while riding in\u003cbr\u003ethe Park; in the brokers' offices where I myself had watched the money\u003cbr\u003ethe jades had brought me melt swiftly away in a game which I now\u003cbr\u003eruefully admitted I knew less than nothing about. I had felt it in the\u003cbr\u003estreets, and that was to be expected. But I had also felt it at the\u003cbr\u003eClub, and that was not to be expected and it bothered me more than\u003cbr\u003eanything else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, I was under strictest surveillance. But why?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was what this night I had determined to find out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt a touch upon my shoulder, I jumped, and swept my hand halfway up to\u003cbr\u003ethe little automatic under my left armpit. By that, suddenly I\u003cbr\u003erealized how badly the mystery had gotten on my nerves. I turned, and\u003cbr\u003egrinned a bit sheepishly into the face of big Lars Thorwaldsen, back\u003cbr\u003ein New York only a few days from his two years in the Antarctic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Bit jerky, aren't you, Jim?\" he asked. \"What's the matter? Been on a\u003cbr\u003ebender?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nothing like it, Lars,\" I answered. \"Too much city, I guess. Too much\u003cbr\u003econtinual noise and motion. And too many people,\" I added with a real\u003cbr\u003ecandor he could not suspect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"God!\" he exclaimed. \"It all looks good to me. I'm eating it up--after\u003cbr\u003ethose two years. But I suppose in a month or two I'll be feeling the\u003cbr\u003esame way about it. I hear you're going away again soon. Where this\u003cbr\u003etime? Back to China?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI shook my head. I did not feel like telling Lars that my destination\u003cbr\u003ewas entirely controlled by whatever might turn up before I had spent\u003cbr\u003ethe sixty-five dollars in my wallet and the seven quarters and two\u003cbr\u003edimes in my pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not in trouble, are you, Jim?\" he looked at me more keenly. \"If you\u003cbr\u003eare, I'd be glad to--help you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI shook my head. Everybody knew that old Rockbilt had been unusually\u003cbr\u003egenerous about those infernal jades. I had my pride, and staggered\u003cbr\u003ethough I was by that amazingly rapid melting away of a golden deposit\u003cbr\u003eI had confidently expected to grow into a barrier against care for the\u003cbr\u003erest of my life, make me, as a matter of fact, independent of all\u003cbr\u003echance, I did not feel like telling even Lars of my folly. Besides, I\u003cbr\u003ewas not yet that hopeless of all things, a beachcomber in New York.\u003cbr\u003eSomething would turn up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Wait,\" he said, as some one called him back into the Club.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I did not wait. Even less than baring my unfortunate gamble did I\u003cbr\u003efeel like telling about my watchers. I stepped down into the street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho was it that was watching me? And why? Some one from China who had\u003cbr\u003efollowed after the treasure I had taken from the ancient tomb? I could\u003cbr\u003enot believe it. Kin-Wang, bandit though he might be, and accomplished\u003cbr\u003egraduate of American poker as well as of Cornell, would have sent no\u003cbr\u003espies after me. Our, well--call it transaction, irregular as it had\u003cbr\u003ebeen, was finished in his mind when he had lost. Crooked as he might\u003cbr\u003ebe with the cards, he was not the man to go back on his word. Of that\u003cbr\u003eI was sure. Besides, there had been no need of letting me get this far\u003cbr\u003ebefore striking. No, they were no emissaries of Kin-Wang.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145705668848,"sku":"2940013683105","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013683105_p0.jpg?v=1763584311","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013683105","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}