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

sound of movement.
The Ritz-ZauberтАФ even Baedeker agreed on thisтАФ was one of the best
hotels in Zevenburg. Harry didn't much like the place and found it too
frilly and fancy, yet he always stayed here. His father felt that any partner
in the Challenge International Detective Agency must always reside in a
top hotel. As the only partner besides his formidable father, Harry didn't
exactly agree, but he didn't argue.
He glanced at the front page once again, then sipped at his coffee.
" '. . . wet umbrellas and parcels must be left in the cloakroom,' " the
plump American tourist was reading to her husband. " 'Then one is ready
to stroll along the echoing corridors of the renowned Kunsthistorisches
Museum to view the manyтАФ' "
"It isn't raining," interjected her small gray husband.
"Well, of course, it isn't, Silas."
"Then why bother to tell me what to do with my wet umbrella? Seems to
me, Fanny . . ."
Harry slid the blue envelope out of his breast pocket, removed the note
he'd received last night. After unfolding it and spreading it out on the
crisp white tablecloth, he ran his fingertips over the royal crest at the top
of the page. He was damn sure this was a real sheet of Princess Alicia's
notepaper, and equally certain the handwriting was hers.
She'd written him fifteen letters during his last visit. And Harry had
saved them.
 "Schoolboy stuff," he murmured. "A wonder I didn't tie them up with a
pink ribbon."
"I didn't realize I had a hangover until I heard those nitwit birds,"
announced the Great Lorenzo as he settled in opposite Harry. "My own
fault, drinking champagne out of the duchess's slipper after our intimate
midnight supper."
Harry slipped the letter away. "Which duchess is this?"
"Duchess Hofnung," replied the portly magician, who was decked out in
a bottle-green frock coat and fawn trousers this morning. "A petite,
though aging, beauty who is possessed of uncommonly large feet. Her
slippers, as a result, heldтАФ Cease that vile chirping!" Twisting in his chair,
he gestured at the nearest birdcage.
All six canaries fell suddenly mute.
"Nice trick," observed Harry.
"Not a trick, my boy, simply an exhibition of mental telepathy,"
explained the Great Lorenzo. "Since my brainтАФ my critics and detractors
to the contraryтАФ is superior to that of a canary bird, there's no realтАФ
Whatever is that plutocrat babbling about?"
The tourist was poking at his plump wife. "Fanny, what's wrong? Why
can't you speak? I didn't mean to be snide about the Spaniscue
Hofreitschule."
"Ah, a little spillover," realized the magician. "I didn't mean to include
you, madam." He snapped his pudgy fingers.
" '. . . no one should miss the lyric singing of the famed Sevenburg Boys'
Choir,' " resumed the befurred matron.
The magician said, "One must be most careful not to abuse power.
Now, before I regale you with a fiery account of what befell me last