"Clayton Emery - Robin & Marian - Dowsing The Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

Robin took the corner Peter had passed, stumbled up a short alley towing Denis like a barge, and came
to a crossing. Peter would know these alleys, he realized, but he didn't have a clue. The trashy floor was
impossible to read. The deputy Berthold took off down one alley, but Robin wouldn't risk running blind.
"Denis! Find his trail!"
Manfully, Denis hoisted his dowsing stick before him. "By Saint Germain, the hunter, find this felon --"
Robin slapped the dowsing stick out of his hands. "Balls to that, you fat fraud! Get moving!" And he
half-flung Denis before him.
Denis sighed and then whistled. "Come, Turk, track him, boy!"
The dog barked twice and took off skittering down an alley as if shot from a catapult. Robin was hard
put to keep up with him, crippled or not. They tore down a short alley and then around a corner, down
another straightaway where the houses almost touched, and on. Robin let his legs stretch and ran full out.
He splashed in puddles, slipped in garbage and manure, ducked jutting beams and drying laundry.
They rounded a corner. Ahead he glimpsed the fleeing Peter.
"Halloo, the fox!" The outlaw put on a burst of speed. Within five heartbeats he caught up to the winded
boy, and five paces beyond that, crashed full into him. The two tumbled headlong down the filthy alley.
Robin scrambled up first, shedding dirt and debris, and smashed both knees onto the lad's back. With a
sob, Peter crumbled. The dog cocked his head, happy and confused.
As Robin jerked him upright, the boy began to cry. Robin only shoved him down the alley. He panted,
"It's about time -- you cried. I've no doubt -- your parents -- cried over you -- many a time."
Back in the main street, the first thing he saw was Marian, her eyes shining.
It wasn't long before the sobbing boy was trussed and guarded. The deputy strapped the door bar
across his shoulders and tied his hands to it -- an appropriate punishment, Robin thought. He asked,
"What will happen to him?"
The sheriff hiccuped. He'd been plying himself with brandy from the inn for his wound. "He'll needs tell us
where he's hid the rest of Jabin's money, for one. What Nicholas had in the strongbox probably wasn't a
tenth of the old man's wealth. Then... usually we hang murderers. But this one's killed his own parents like
some cold-blooded viper. Probably he'll burn." The boy, pale and pained, gave a moan and fainted.
"But there are still some things I don't understand," the sheriff added. The others agreed, but together
they figured it out.
The sheriff offered, "Peter must'a gotten tired of working for his skiving father, who wouldn't give a groat
to the Pope. He lived in this hovel next to a strongbox bursting with silver. He must'a decided to collect
his inheritance early and hired Nicholas to do the killin'. In the dead of night, he called his father to unbar
the door. Nicholas hacked the parents to pieces."
Marian took over. "Peter went straight to the chimney and extracted the strongbox. Robin found grit on
the floor. The thief had to know its hiding place, for the red chest was locked. A stranger would have
breached it first. And I suspicioned Peter when he rushed into the room and closed his dead father's
eyes. Everyone knows the image of the murderer lingers in the victim's eyes. Peter feared his own image
would be etched there, rather than Nicholas's."
Robin added, "He chucked a leather bag full of brimstone on the fire to release the stench of witchcraft.
Then he affixed the beeswax so the bar would fall when he closed the door. Thus only a supernal being
could have exited. But the wax was stickier than he thought. When Peter returned in the morning, he
found the door open -- the wax still held the bar. So he banged the door to crack the wax and drop the
bar. He woke the street with his pounding and shouting."
The sheriff commented, "He was quick to backstab Nicholas too, once he was cornered."
"But," Robin finished, "we never would have found him without the aid of Denis the Dowser. Sir Fraud of
Lincoln."
The fat magician aped a pained expression. Without his dowsing stick to play with, he fiddled with his
fingers. "Not so much a fraud. Half a fraud, perhaps. I did take you straight to Nicholas's door."
"You did no such thing!" Robin retorted, but he smiled to draw the sting. He patted the dog on his scruffy
head. "T'was your hound did all the work! Your foolish howling to the saints and dancing like a March