"de Camp, L Sprague - Nothing in the Rules UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

NOTHING IN THE RULES



NOT MANY SPECTATORS turn out for a meet between two minor women's swimming clubs, and this one was no exception. Louis Connaught, looking up at the balcony, thought casually that the single row of seats around it was about half full, mostly with the usual bored-looking assortment of husbands and boy friends, and some of the Hotel Creston's guests who had wandered in for want of anything better to do. One of the bellboys was asking an eveninggowned female not to smoke, and she was showing irritation. Mr. Santalucia and the little Santalucias were there as usual to see mamma perform. They waved down at Connaught.
Connaught-a dark devilish-looking little man-glanced over to the other side of the pool. The girls were coming out of the shower rooms, and their shrill conversation was blurred by the acoustics of the pool room into a continuous buzz. The air was faintly steamy. The stout party in - white duck pants was Laird, coach of the Knickerbockers and Connaught's arch rival. He saw Connaught and boomed: "Hi, Louie!" The words rattled from wall to wall with a sound like a stick being drawn swiftly along a picket fence. Warnbach of the A. A. U. Committee, who was refereeing, came in with his overcoat still on and greeted Laird, but the booming reverberations drowned his words before they got over to Connaught.
Then somebody else came through the door; or rather, a knot of people crowded through it all at once, facing inward, some in bathing suits and some in street clothes. It was a few seconds before Coach Connaught saw what they were looking at. He blinked and looked more closely, standing with his mouth half open.
But not for long. "Hey!" he yelled in a voice that made the pool
room sound like the inside of a snare drum in use. 'Protest! PROTEST! You can't do that!"

It had been the preceding evening when Herbert Laird opened his front door and shouted, "H'lo, Mark, come on in." The chill March wind was making a good deal of racket but not so much as all that. Laird was given to shouting on general principle. He was stocky and bald.
Mark Vining came in and deposited his briefcase. He was younger than Laird-just thirty, in fact-with octagonal glasses and rather thin, severe features, which made him look more serious than he was.
"Glad you could come, Mark," said Laird. "Listen, can you make our meet with the Crestons tomorrow night?"
Vining pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I guess so. Loomis decided not to appeal, so I don't have to work nights for a few days anyhow. Is something special up?"
Laird looked sly. "Maybe. Listen, you know that Mrs. Santalucia that Louie Connaught has been cleaning up with for the past couple of years? I think I've got that fixed. But I want you along to think up legal reasons why my scheme's okay."
"'Why," said Vining cautiously, "what's your scheme?"
"Can't tell you now. I promised not to. But if Louie can win by entering a freak-a woman with webbed fingers-"
"Oh, look here, Herb, you know those webs don't really help her-"
"Yes, yes, I know all the arguments. You've already got more water resistance to your arms than you've got muscle to overcome it with, and so forth. But I know Mrs. Santalucia has webbed fingers, and I know she's the best damned woman swimmer in New York. And I don't like it. It's bad for my prestige as a coach." He turned and shouted into the gloom: "Iantha!"
"Yes?"
"Come here, will you please? I want you to meet my friend Mr. Vining. Here, we need some light"
The light showed the living room as usual buried under disorderly piles of boxes of bathing suits and other swimming equipment, the sale of which furnished Herbert Laird with most of his income. It also showed a young woman coming in in a wheelchair.
One look gave Vining a feeling that, he knew, boded no good for him. He was unfortunate in being a pushover for any reasonably attractive girl and at the same time being cursed with an almost patho
logical shyness where women were concerned. The fact that both he and Laird were bachelors and took their swimming seriously was the main tie between them.
This girl was more than reasonably attractive. She was, thought the dazzled Vining, a wow, a ten-strike, a direct sixteen-inch hit. Her smooth, rather flat features and high cheekbones had a hint of Asian or American Indian and went oddly with her light-gold hair, which, Vining could have sworn, had a faint greenish tinge. A blanket was wrapped around her legs.
He came out of his trance as Laird introduced the exquisite creature as "Miss Delfoiros."
Miss Delfoiros did not seem exactly overcome. As she extended her hand, she said with a noticeable accent: "You are not from the newspapers, Mr. Vining?"
"No," said Vining. "Just a lawyer. I specialize in wills and probates and things. Not thinking of drawing up yours, are you?"
She relaxed visibly and laughed. "No. I 'ope I shall not need one for a long, long time."
"Still," said Vining seriously, "you never know-"
Laird bellowed: "Wonder what's keeping that sister of mine. Dinner ought to be ready. Martha!" He marched out, and Vining heard Miss Laird's voice, something about "-but Herb, I had to let those things cool down-"
Vining wondered with a great wonder what he should say to Miss Delfoiros. Finally he said, "Smoke?"
"Oh, no, thank you very much. I do not do it."
"Mind if I do?"
"No, not at all." -
"Whereabouts do you hail from?" Vining thought the question sounded both brusque and silly. He never did get the hang of talking easily under these circumstances.
"Oh, I am from Kip-Cyprus, I mean. You know, the island."
"Will you be at this swimming meet?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You don't"-he lowered his voice-"know what scheme Herb's got up his sleeve to beat La Santalucia?"
"Yes . . . no . . . I do not . . . what I mean is, I must not tell." More mystery, thought Vining. What he really wanted to know was why she was confined to a wheelchair; whether the cause was temporary or permanent. But you couldn't ask a person right out,
and he was still frying to concoct a leading question when Laird's bellow wafted in: "All right, folks, soup's on!" Vining would have pushed the wheelchair in, but before he had a chance, the girl had spun the chair around and was halfway to the dining room.
Vining said: "Hello, Martha, how's the schoolteaching business?" But he was not really paying much attention to Laird's capable spinster sister. He was gaping at Miss Delfoiros, who was quite calmly emptying a teaspoonful of salt into her water glass and stirring.
"What. . . what?" he gulped.
"I 'ave to," she said. "Fresh water makes me-like what you call drunk."
"Listen, Mark!" roared his friend. "Are you sure you can be there on time tomorrow night? There are some questions of eligibility to be cleared up, and I'm likely to need you badly."
"Will Miss Delfoiros be there?" Vining grinned, feeling very foolish inside.
"Oh, sure. lantha's our . . . say, listen, you know that little eighteen-year-old Clara Havranek? She did the hundred in one-oh-five yesterday. She's championship material. We'll clean the Creston Club yet-" He went on, loud and fast, about what he was going to do to Louie Connaught's girls. The while, Mark Vining tried to concentrate on his own food, which was good, and on Iantha Delfoiros, who was charming but evasive.
There seemed to be something special about Miss Delfoiros' food, to judge by the way Martha Laird had served it. Vining looked closely and saw that it had the peculiarly dead and clammy look that a dinner once hot but now cold has. He asked about it.
"Yes," she said, "I like it cold."