"Doyle, Arthur Conan - The Stark Munro Letters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

running at the top of his speed in their direction. His
little peculiarity had asserted itself, you see, and he
had unconsciously turned in his flight. They tripped him
up, flung themselves upon him, and after a long and
desperate struggle dragged him to the police station. He
was charged before the magistrate next morning, but made
such a brilliant speech from the dock in his own
defence that he carried the Court with him, and escaped
with a nominal fine. At his invitation, the witnesses
and the police trooped after him to the nearest hotel,
and the affair ended in universal whisky-and-sodas.

Well, now, if, after all these illustrations, I have
failed to give you some notion of the man, able,
magnetic, unscrupulous, interesting, many-sided, I must
despair of ever doing so. I'll suppose, however, that I
have not failed; and I will proceed to tell you, my most
patient of confidants, something of my personal relations
with Cullingworth.

When I first made a casual acquaintance with him he
was a bachelor. At the end of a long vacation, however,
he met me in the street, and told me, in his loud-voiced
volcanic shoulder-slapping way, that he had just been
married. At his invitation, I went up with him then and
there to see his wife; and as we walked he told me the
history of his wedding, which was as extraordinary as
everything else he did. I won't tell it to you here, my
dear Bertie, for I feel that I have dived down too many
side streets already; but it was a most bustling
business, in which the locking of a governess into her
room and the dyeing of Cullingworth's hair played
prominent parts. Apropos of the latter he was never
quite able to get rid of its traces; and from this time
forward there was added to his other peculiarities the
fact that when the sunlight struck upon his hair at
certain angles, it turned it all iridescent and
shimmering.

Well, I went up to his lodgings with him, and was
introduced to Mrs. Cullingworth. She was a timid,
little, sweet-faced, grey-eyed woman, quiet-voiced and
gentle-mannered. You had only to see the way in which
she looked at him to understand that she was absolutely
under his control, and that do what he might, or say what
he might, it would always be the best thing to her. She
could be obstinate, too, in a gentle, dove-like sort of
way; but her obstinacy lay always in the direction of
backing up his sayings and doings. This, however, I was
only to find out afterwards; and at that, my first visit,