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.Instantly the little man paused and peered into the shadows where Benton crouched.Benton cursed himself and shrank back; although the street was almost deserted, he had not wanted his presence known just yet.But his presence was known!The hunchback lifted up Ellen’s hand to his lips in grotesque chivalry and kissed it.He whispered something loathsomely, and then, as Ellen made off without a word down the street, he turned again to peer with firefly eyes into Benton’s doorway.The hiding man waited no longer.He leapt out into view, his knife bright and upraised, and the hunchback turned without ceremony to scurry down the cobbled street, his coat fluttering behind him like the wings of a great crippled moth.Benton ran too, and quickly the gap between them closed as he drove his legs in a vengeful fury.Faster and faster his breath rasped as he drew closer to the fugitive hunchback, his hand lifting the knife for the fatal stroke.Then the little man darted round a corner into an alleyway.No more than a second later Benton, too, rushed wildly into the darkness of the same alley.He skidded to a halt, his shoes sliding on the cobbles.He stilled his panting forcibly.Silence…The little devil had vanished again! He—No, there he was—cringing like a cornered rat in the shadow of the wall.Benton lunged, his knife making a crescent of light as it sped toward the hunchback’s breast, but like quicksilver the target shifted as the little man ducked under his pursuer’s arm to race out again into the street, leaving the echo of his hideous chuckle behind him.That whispered chuckle drove Benton to new heights of raging bloodlust and, heedless now of all but the chase, he raced hot on the hunchback’s trail.He failed to see the taxi’s lights as he ran into the street, failed to hear its blaring horn—indeed, he was only dimly aware of the scream of brakes and tortured tyres—so that the darkness of oblivion as it rushed in upon him came as a complete surprise…The darkness did not last.Quickly Benton swam up out of unconsciousness to find himself crumpled in the gutter.There was blood on his face, a roaring in his ears.The street swam round and round.“Oh, God!” he groaned, but the words came out broken, like his body, and faint.Then the street found its level and steadied.An awful dull ache spread upwards from Benton’s waist until it reached his neck.He tried to move, but couldn’t.He heard running footsteps and managed to turn his head, lifting it out of the gutter in an agony of effort.Blood dripped from a torn ear.He moved an arm just a fraction, fingers twitching.“God mister what were you doing what were you doing?” the taxi driver gabbled.“Oh Jesus Jesus you’re hurt you’re hurt.It wasn’t my fault it wasn’t me!”“Never, uh…mind.” Benton gasped, pain threatening to pull him under again as the ache in his lower body exploded into fresh agony.“Just…get me, uh, into…your car and…hospital or…doctor.”“Sure, yes!” the man cried, quickly kneeling.If Benton’s nose had not been clogged with mucus and drying blood he would have known of the hunchback’s presence even before he heard the terrible chuckling from the pavement.As it was, the sound made him jerk his damaged head round into a fresh wave of incredible pain.He turned his eyes upwards.Twin points of light stared down at him from the darkness beneath the floppy hat.“Uh…I suppose, uh, you’re satisfied…now?” he painfully inquired, his hand groping uselessly, longingly for the knife which now lay half-way across the street.And then he froze.Tortured and racked though his body was—desperate as his pain and injuries were—Benton’s entire being froze as, in answer to his choked question, the hunchback slowly, negatively shook his shadowed head!Dumbfounded, amazed, and horrified, Benton could only gape, even his agony forgotten as he helplessly watched from the gutter a repeat performance of those well-known gestures, those scenes remembered of old and now indelibly imprinted upon his mind: the filthy whispering in the taxi driver’s ear; the winking of bright, bird eyes; the mazed look spreading like pale mud on the frightened man’s face.Again the street began to revolve about Benton as the taxi driver walked as if in a dream back to his taxi.Benton tried to scream but managed only a shuddering cough.Spastically his hand found the hunchback’s grimy ankle and he gripped it tight.The little man stood like an anchor, and once more the street steadied about them as Benton fought his mangled body in a futile attempt to push it to its feet.He could not.There was something wrong with his back, something broken.He coughed, then groaned and relaxed his grip, turning his eyes upwards again to meet the steady gaze of the hunchback.“Please…” he said.But his words were drowned out by the sudden sound of a revving engine, by the shriek of skidding tyres savagely reversing; and the last thing Benton saw, other than the black bulk of the taxi looming and the red rear lights, was the shuttering of one of those evil eyes in a grim farewell wink…Some few minutes later the police arrived at the seen of the most inexplicable killing it had ever been their lot to have to attend.They had been attracted by the crazed shrieking of a white-haired, utterly lunatic taxi driver.NO SHARKS IN THE MEDCustoms was non-existent; people bring duty frees out of Greece, not in.As for passport control: a pair of tanned, hairy, bored-looking characters in stained, too-tight uniforms and peaked caps were in charge
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