"Geoffrey A. Landis - The Singular Habits of Wasps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

read by others, I have often noticed, in chronicling the adventures of my
friend, that in the process of putting pen to paper a great relief occurs. A
catharsis, as we call it in the medical profession. And so I hope that by
putting upon paper the events of those weeks, I may ease my soul from its
dread fascination with the horrid events of that night. I will write this and
then secret the account away with orders that it be burned upon my
death.

Genius is, as I have often remarked, closely kin to madness, so closely
that at times it is hard to distinguish the one from the other, and the
greatest geniuses are also often quite insane. I had for a long time known
that my friend was subject to sporadic fits of blackest depression, from
which he could become aroused in an instant into bursts of manic energy,
in a manner not unlike the cyclic mood-swings of a madman. But the
limits to his sanity I never probed.

The case began in the late springtime of 1888. All who were in London
at that time will recall the perplexing afternoon of the double cannonade.
Holmes and I were enjoying a cigar after lunch in our sitting room at 221B
Baker Street when the hollow report of a double firing of cannon rang out
from the cloudless sky, rattling the windows and causing Mrs Hudson's
china to dance upon its shelves. I rushed to the window. Holmes was in
the midst of one of those profound fits of melancholia to which he is so
prone, and did not rise from his chair, but did bestir himself so much as
to ask what I saw. Aside from other, equally perplexed folk opening their
windows to look in all directions up and down the street, I saw nothing out
of the ordinary, and such I reported to him.
 "Most unusual," Holmes remarked. He was still slumped almost
bonelessly in his chair, but I believed I detected a bit of interest in his eye.
"We shall hear more about this, I would venture to guess."

And indeed, all of London seemed to have heard the strange reports,
without any source to be found, and the subject could not be avoided all
that day or the next. Each newspaper ventured an opinion, and even
strangers on the street talked of little else. As to conclusion, there was
none, nor was the strange sound repeated. In another day the usual gossip,
scandals and crimes of the city had crowded the marvel out of the papers,
and the case was forgotten.

But it had, at least, the effect of breaking my friend out of his
melancholia, even so far as to cause him to pay a rare visit to his brother
at the Diogenes Club. Mycroft was high in the Queen's service, and there
were few secrets of the Empire to which Mycroft was not privy. Holmes
did not confide in me as to what result came of his inquiries of Mycroft,
but he spent the remainder of the evening pacing and smoking,
contemplating some mystery.

In the morning we had callers, and the mystery of the cannonade was
temporarily set aside. They were two men in simple but neat clothes, both
very diffident and hesitant of speech.