"Ron Goulart - The Prisoner of Blackwood Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

The Prisoner of
Blackwood
Ron Goulart
Copyright ┬й 1984 by Ron Goulart


CHAPTER 1
Zevenburg in the spring of 1897 was a magnificent. and glittering city.
Capital of Orlandia, that small sovereign nation on the eastern fringes of
the vast Habsburg Empire, Zevenburg was known worldwide as a
metropolis where existence is more beautiful, joy more easily obtained
and trouble more quickly thrown away than anywhere else. Its overall
mood was especially festive that spring, because its splendid
Quadricentennial Exposition had opened only three weeks earlier, and
eager visitors were flocking to this gleaming city on the River Fluss from
all over Europe and beyond. True, benevolent old King Ulrich was rumored
to be slowly dying in his shadowy chambers in the ornate palace on
Mariahilferstrasse. But he had had a long happy reign and would be
succeeded by the popular and beautiful Princess Alicia. Business, in
everywhere from the great hotels to the tiny shops, had never been better,
and the weather had held pleasant and serene for nearly a full week.
And so nearly everyone in Zevenburg on the tranquil spring evening on
which our story commences was content and happy, with the exception of
old King Ulrich, who was justifiably downcast about his imminent death,
and Harry Challenge.
Harry had just been thrown out of the palace, thrown out by two gilded
and overdressed footmen on the explicit orders, so they claimed as they
tossed Harry onto the hard cobblestones of the twilit Mariahilferstrasse, of
Princess Alicia herself.
"Well, damn," remarked Harry, rising up from beside a curbside border
of freshly bloomed flowers and glancing around for his bowler hat.
"Your hat, swine!" called one of the burly brass-buttoned footmen as he
pegged the dented headgear out through the high wrought-iron gateway
of the palace grounds.
"Much obliged." Harry caught the sailing hat out of the air, poked out
the most conspicuous dents and tapped it onto his head.
A closed carriage went clopping by, heading for the Ulrichplatz and
trailing light feminine laughter.
Harry was a man of middle height, lean, cleanshaven and a shade
weather-beaten. He was not quite a year beyond thirty, and in the course
of pursuing his profession he had killed several men. In fact, beneath the
coat of his dark suit he wore a Colt .38 revolver in a snug shoulder holster.
It was one of his rules, however, never to shoot anyone in anger.
Besides which, the two louts who'd heaved him out into the growing
dusk had apparently been acting on orders from the fair Alicia.
"Women are changeable," Harry reminded himself as he brushed the
dust of Mariahilferstrasse from his clothes and started walking away from
the high-walled palace grounds. "No reason for the princess to be anyтАФ"
Slowing, he glanced back over his shoulder. The new electric lamps were
late in coming on tonight, and the darkness that stretched out behind him