"HEINLEIN, Robert A. - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

into your pocket, just as our waiter came up on the other side."
(Oho!) "Which pocket did I put it in?"
"Let me think. I have to turn myself that way in my mind. Your left pocket.
Your left outside jacket pocket."
"How was I dressed last night?"
"Evening dress, we had come straight from the ballet. White turtleneck,
maroon jacket, black trousers."
"Gwen, because you were asleep in the bedroom, I undressed last night here
in the livingroom and hung the clothes I was wearing in that wardrobe by the
outer door, intending to move them later. Will you please open that wardrobe,
find the jacket I wore last night, and get from its left outside pocket the
'weapon' you saw me place in it?"
"But-" She shut up and, solemn-faced, did as I asked.
In a moment she returned. "This is all there was in that pocket." She
handed me the stranger's wallet.
I accepted it. "This is the weapon with which he threatened me." Then I
showed her my right forefinger, bare. "And this is the weapon I used to shoot
him when he pointed this wallet at me."
"I don't understand."
"Beloved, this is why criminologists place more faith in circumstantial
evidence than they do in the testimony of eyewitnesses. You are the ideal
eyewitness, intelligent, sincere, cooperative, and honest. You have reported a
mixture of what you did see, what you thought you saw, what you failed to notice
although it was in front of you, and what your logical mind fills in as
necessities linking what you saw and what you thought you saw. This mixture is
now all solidly in your mind as a true memory, a firsthand, eyewitness memory.
But it didn't happen."
"But, Richard, I did see-"
"You saw that poor clown killed. You did not see him threatening me; you
did not see me shoot him. Some third person shot him with an explosive dart.
Since he was facing you and it hit him in the chest, that dart must have come
right past you. Did you notice anyone standing?"
"No. Oh, there were waiters moving around, and busmen, and the maitre d'
and people getting up and sitting down. I mean I didn't notice anyone in
particular-certainly not anyone shooting a gun. What sort of a gun?"
"Gwen, it might not look like a gun. A concealed assassin's weapon capable
of shooting a dart short range- It could look like anything as long as it had
one dimension about fifteen centimeters long. A lady's purse. A camera. Opera
glasses. An endless list of innocent-appearing objects. This gets us nowhere as
I had my back to the action and you saw nothing out of the way. The dart
probably came from behind your back. So forget it. Let's see who the victim was.
Or whom he claimed to be."
I took out everything from all the pockets of that wallet, including a
poorly-concealed "secret" pocket. This last held gold certificates issued by a
Zurich bank, equivalent to about seventeen thousand crowns-his get-away money,
it seemed likely.
There was an ID of the sort the Golden Rule issues to each person arriving
at the habitat's hub. All it proves is that the "identified" person has a face,
claims a name, has made statements as to nationality, age, place of birth, etc.,
and has deposited with the Company a return ticket or the equivalent in cash, as