"Arthur C. Doyle - The Poison Belt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

reverberated through the house. His answers lingered in my mind.

"Yes, yes, of course, it is I.... Yes, certainly, _the_ Professor
Challenger, the famous Professor, who else?... Of course, every
word of it, otherwise I should not have written it.... I
shouldn't be surprised.... There is every indication of it....
Within a day or so at the furthest.... Well, I can't help that,
can I?... Very unpleasant, no doubt, but I rather fancy it will
affect more important people than you. There is no use whining
about it.... No, I couldn't possibly. You must take your
chance.... That's enough, sir. Nonsense! I have something more
important to do than to listen to such twaddle."

He shut off with a crash and led us upstairs into a large airy
apartment which formed his study. On the great mahogany desk
seven or eight unopened telegrams were lying.

"Really," he said as he gathered them up, "I begin to think that
it would save my correspondents' money if I were to adopt a
telegraphic address. Possibly `Noah, Rotherfield,' would be the
most appropriate."

As usual when he made an obscure joke, he leaned against the
desk and bellowed in a paroxysm of laughter, his hands shaking
so that he could hardly open the envelopes.

"Noah! Noah!" he gasped, with a face of beetroot, while Lord
John and I smiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic
goat, wagged his head in sardonic disagreement. Finally
Challenger, still rumbling and exploding, began to open his
telegrams. The three of us stood in the bow window and occupied
ourselves in admiring the magnificent view.

It was certainly worth looking at. The road in its gentle curves
had really brought us to a considerable elevation--seven hundred
feet, as we afterwards discovered. Challenger's house was on the
very edge of the hill, and from its southern face, in which was
the study window, one looked across the vast stretch of the
weald to where the gentle curves of the South Downs formed an
undulating horizon. In a cleft of the hills a haze of smoke
marked the position of Lewes. Immediately at our feet there lay
a rolling plain of heather, with the long, vivid green stretches
of the Crowborough golf course, all dotted with the players. A
little to the south, through an opening in the woods, we could
see a section of the main line from London to Brighton. In the
immediate foreground, under our very noses, was a small enclosed
yard, in which stood the car which had brought us from the station.

An ejaculation from Challenger caused us to turn. He had read
his telegrams and had arranged them in a little methodical pile