"Avram Davidson - What Strange Stars And Skies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

very first to be honoured with the title of dame; and that His Majesty's Government did not take this step
exclusively in recognition of her career prior to her retirement as an educationist, or of her work, through
entirely legal methods, on behalf of the Women's Suffrage Movement.
It was close to midnight when the two ladies arrived in Primrose Alley and Dame Phillipa rapped
lightly with her walking-stick upon the window of a woman in whose maternity she had interested herself:
actually persuading the young woman, who was not over-bright, to accept medical attention, eat
something resembling proper food, and have the child christened in the nearby and unfortunately
ill-attended Church of St. Gustave Widdershins. She rapped a second time
-- loud enough (she hoped) to wake the mother, but not loud enough to wake the child. As it
happened it was the father she woke, a young man who circulated among three or four women in a sort
of tandem polygamy; and who informed the lady that the baby had been sent to its mother's people in
Westham, and who begged her, not altogether disdainfully, for sweet Christ's sake to bugger off and let
him get back to sleep again.

Dame Phillipa left him to his feculent slumbers in absolute but resigned certainty that this time next year
she would again be called upon to swaddle, victual, and renounce by proxy the World, the Flesh, and the
Devil, on behalf of another squalling token of his vigour-- unless the young woman should perhaps
miscarry, as she had done twice before, or carry out her own suggestion of dropping the child in the
river, by accident, like.
It was as she turned from the window, then, that Dame Phillipa first clearly observed the man wearing
the false nose-- as she thought, because of the Guy Fawkes festivities; though it appears Miss
Mothermer instantly suspected that he did so by way of disguise-- although she had been aware, without
giving consideration to the matter, that there had been footsteps behind her. All inquiries as to this man's
identity or motive have failed, but the singularity of his appearance is such that, unless he has been
secretly conveyed out of the Kingdom, he cannot long continue to evade the vigilance of the police.
Thinking nothing further of the matter, as we may assume, Dame Phillipa and her companion continued
their way into Argyll Court. The sound of voices, and the odour of hot gin and lemon, both proceeding
from a bow window greatly resembling in carving and overhang the forecastle of an ancient sailing-ship,
directed her attention to the gas-jet which burned redly in the close air, illuminating the sign of the
seaman's lodging-house. In times gone bye, Evan-bach Llewellyn had been a notorious crimp. Board
regulations, closely attended to, had almost put a stop to this, as far as vessels of British register were
concerned. It was widely said, however, and widely believed, that the masters of foreign vessels putting
into London with cargoes of coffee, copra, palm oil, fuel oil, hardwood and pulpwood; and finding
members of their crew swallowed up by The Smoke, often appealed to the giant Silurian (he sang bass in
the choir of Capel Cymrig) for replacements: and did not appeal in vain. Protests entered by surprised
seamen, whose heads cleared of chloral in the Bay of Biscay, when they found themselves on board of
strange vessels whose language they often did not recognise, let alone speak, would in the general course
of things prove quite bootless.
As Dame Phillipa's attention was distracted to the window, two men, who must have been huddled
silently at the other side of the court, came suddenly towards the two ladies, reeling and cursing, striking
fiercely at one another, and giving off the fumes of that poisonous mixture of methylated spirits and cheap
port wine commonly called red biddy. The ladies took a few steps in confusion, not knowing precisely
what course to take, nor having much time to consider it: they could not go forward, because of the two
men fighting, and it seemed that when they attempted to walk to the side, the bruisers were there, cutting
off their way, too.
Dame Phillipa therefore turned quickly, leading Miss Mothermer in the same direction, but stopped
short, as, out of Primrose Alley, whence they had just issued, darted the man who had been wearing the
false nose. He made a curious sound as he did so; if he spoke words is not certain; what is certain is that
he had plucked the false pasteboard from his face-- it was hideously pockmarked-- and that the flesh
underneath was a mere convoluted hollow, like some gross navel, but nothing like a human nose.