"A. C. Doyle - The Disintegration Machine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

is to be lost in getting to the bottom of the affair. The man courts publicity as he is anxious to sell his
invention, so that there is no difficulty in approaching him. The enclosed card will open his doors. What I
desire is that you and Professor Challenger shall call upon him, inspect his invention, and write for the
Gazette a considered report upon the value of the discovery. I expect to hear from you toтИТnight.тИТтИТ R.
McARDLE."

'There are my instructions, Professor,' I added, as I refolded the letter. 'I sincerely hope that you will come
with me, for how can I, with my limited capacities, act alone in such a matter?'

'True, Malone! True!' purred the great man. 'Though you are by no means destitute of natural intelligence, I
agree with you that you would be somewhat overweighted in such a matter as you lay before me. These
unutterable people upon the telephone have already ruined my morning's work, so that a little more can
hardly matter. I am engaged in answering that Italian buffoon, Mazotti, whose views upon the larval
development of the tropical termites have excited my derision and contempt, but I can leave the complete
exposure of the impostor until evening. Meanwhile, I am at your service.'

And thus it came about that on that October morning I found myself in the deep level tube with the Professor
speeding to the North of London in what proved to be one of the most singular experiences of my remarkable

The Disintegration Machine and Other Stories 2
 The Disintegration Machine and Other Stories

life.

I had, before leaving Enmore Gardens, ascertained by the muchтИТabused telephone that our man was at home,
and had warned him of our coming. He lived in a comfortable flat in Hampstead, and he kept us waiting for
quite half an hour in his anteтИТroom whilst he carried on an animated conversation with a group of visitors,
whose voices, as they finally bade farewell in the hall, showed that they were Russians. I caught a glimpse of
them through the halfтИТopened door, and had a passing impression of prosperous and intelligent men, with
astrakhan collars to their coats, glistening topтИТhats, and every appearance of that bourgeois wellтИТbeing which
the successful Communist so readily assumes. The hall door closed behind them, and the next instant
Theodore Nemor entered our apartment. I can see him now as he stood with the sunlight full upon him,
rubbing his long, thin hands together and surveying us with his broad smile and his cunning yellow eyes.

He was a short, thick man, with some suggestion of deformity in his body, though it was difficult to say
where that suggestion lay. One might say that he was a hunchback without the hump. His large, soft face was
like an underdone dumpling, of the same colour and moist consistency, while the pimples and blotches which
adorned it stood out the more aggressively against the pallid background. His eyes were those of a cat, and
catlike was the thin, long, bristling moustache above his loose, wet, slobbering mouth. It was all low and
repulsive until one came to the sandy eyebrows. From these upwards there was a splendid cranial arch such
as I have seldom seen. Even Challenger's hat might have fitted that magnificent head. One might read
Theodore Nemor as a vile, crawling conspirator below, but above he might take rank with the great thinkers
and philosophers of the world.

'Well, gentlemen,' said he, in a velvety voice with only the least trace of a foreign accent, 'you have come, as
I understand from our short chat over the wires, in order to learn more of the Nemor Disintegrator. Is it so?'

'Exactly.'

'May I ask whether you represent the British Government?'