"Jack Finney - From Time to Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

"Is that it, Audrey-the date? said the chairman.

"Yes.

"Okay, well, it's a good one. Write it up, will you? Use the new form; we got new ones, we're getting
organized, sort of. Can we keep the paper?

"Sure. Her face flushing with pleasure, she ducked to give close attention to bending down the clasp of
her envelope.

A woman of thirty, small, with straight dark hair, said, "Dick, I have to leave early; I've got a babysitter
who can't stay long. Can I he next?

"Sure, go ahead.

She touched a cardboard folder on the table before her. "I got this from my aunt in Newton, Kansas.
The local library there has a little history room. History of the town; people give them old photographs,
clippings, and so on, and she had one of these photos copied for me. Opening the folder, she exposed a
large, glossy black-and-white photograph. "This was taken in 1947 -she touched the date inscribed in
white in a lower corner of the photograph. "It shows the main street. As it was then, of course. It includes
the movie theater, and you can read the marquee. I'll pass this around in a minute, but let me just read it
to you first. From the table she picked up her reading glasses and put them on, bending over the photo,
pushing the glasses slightly higher on her nose. "It says, Clark Gable and Mary Astor in Devil's Judgment,
Cartoons, and Path├й News.'

She sat back, snatching her glasses off, sliding the photograph to the man beside her. "I've checked
every old-movie book in the libraries here; listings of old pictures. And this summer in New York I
checked a lot more in the main library there. No such movie is listed. I wrote to the studio, never got an
answer, so I phoned, got through to someone eventually who said he'd check it out, and call me back.
To my amazement, that's just what he did. Phoned a couple days later. Very pleasant; had a nice voice.
They had no record of any such movie, he said. And-well, that's my offering. She glanced around at the
others.

The chairman said, "Well, it's interesting, but we've got to be rigorous. The movie listings could be
incomplete. Or the studio's mistaken. Or, nice as your man's voice was, maybe he didn't really look that
hard. Old pictures that weren't too popular get forgotten. Lost.

"But a Clark Gable?

"I know, but -he moved a shoulder reluctantlv- we've got to be impeccable. It could be only a title
change. Released as Devil's Judgment, then changed to something else. I think they do that.

"Okay. She reached across the table as someone returned her picture. "I had some more checking in
mind anyway, but I wanted to bring this to the meeting to show I haven't been loafing all summer.'

"Well, it sounds good. Keep on it, see if you can really pin it down. Steve, you got something?