"Hornung, E W - A J Raffles 02 - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman (The Black Mask)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hornung E. W)

"Are you Mr. Maturin's son?"

"No, my name's Theobald. You may have seen it down below."

"The doctor?" I said.

"His doctor," said Theobald, with a satisfied eye. "Mr.
Maturin's doctor. He is having a male nurse and attendant by my
advice, and he wants a gentleman if he can get one. I rather
think he'll see you, though he's only seen two or three all day.
There are certain questions which he prefers to ask himself, and
it's no good going over the same ground twice. So perhaps I had
better tell him about you before we get any further."

And he withdrew to a room still nearer the entrance, as I could
hear, for it was a very small flat indeed. But now two doors
were shut between us, and I had to rest content with murmurs
through the wall until the doctor returned to summon me.

"I have persuaded my patient to see you," he whispered, "but I
confess I am not sanguine of the result. He is very difficult
to please. You must prepare yourself for a querulous invalid,
and for no sinecure if you get the billet."

"May I ask what's the matter with him?"

"By all means--when you've got the billet."

Dr. Theobald then led the way, his professional dignity so
thoroughly intact that I could not but smile as I followed his
swinging coat-tails to the sick-room. I carried no smile across
the threshold of a darkened chamber which reeked of drugs and
twinkled with medicine bottles, and in the middle of which a
gaunt figure lay abed in the half-light.

"Take him to the window, take him to the window," a thin voice
snapped, "and let's have a look at him. Open the blind a bit.
Not as much as that, damn you, not as much as that!"

The doctor took the oath as though it had been a fee. I no
longer pitied him. It was now very clear to me that he had one
patient who was a little practice in himself. I determined
there and then that he should prove a little profession to me,
if we could but keep him alive between us. Mr. Maturin,
however, had the whitest face that I have ever seen, and his
teeth gleamed out through the dusk as though the withered lips
no longer met about them; nor did they except in speech; and
anything ghastlier than the perpetual grin of his repose I defy
you to imagine. It was with this grin that he lay regarding me
while the doctor held the blind.