"George Langelaan - The Fly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Langelaan George)

Another policeman stepped out of a doorway and led us towards one of the shops
where all the lights had been turned on. More policemen were standing by the
hammer, watching two men setting up a camera. It was tilted downwards, and I
made an effort to look.
It was far less horrid than I had expected. Though I had never seen my brother
drunk, he looked just as if he were sleeping off a terrific binge, flat on his stomach
across the narrow line on which the white-hot slabs of metal were rolled up to the
hammer. I saw at a glance that his head and arm could only be a flattened mess, but
that seemed quite impossible; it looked as if he had somehow pushed his head and
arms right into the metallic mass of the hammer.
Having talked to his colleagues, the Commissaire turned towards me:
"How can we raise the hammer, Monsieur Delambre?"
"I'll raise it for you."
"Would you like us to get one of your men over?"
"No, I'll be all right. Look, here is the switchboard. It was originally a steam-hammer,
but everything is worked electrically here now. Look, Commissaire, the hammer has
been set at fifty tons and its impact at zero."
"At zero...?"
"Yes, level with the ground if you prefer. It is also set for single strokes, which
means that it has to be raised after each blow. I don't know what Helene, my
sister-in-law, will have to say about all this, but one thing I am sure of: she certainly
did not know how to set and operate the hammer."
"Perhaps it was set that way last night when work stopped?"
"Certainly not. The drop is never set at zero, Monsieur le Commissaire."
"I see. Can it be raised gently?"
"No. The speed of the upstroke cannot be regulated. But in any case it is not very
fast when the hammer is set for single strokes."
"Right. Will you show me what to do? It won't be very nice to watch, you know."
"No, no, Monsieur le Commissaire. I'll be all right."
"All set?" asked the Commissaire of the others. "All right then, Monsieur Delambre.
Whenever you like."
Watching my brother's back, I slowly but firmly pushed the upstroke button.
The unusual silence of the factory was broken by the sigh of compressed air rushing
into the cylinders, a sigh that always makes me think of a giant taking a deep breath
before solemnly socking another giant, and the steel mass of the hammer shuddered
and then rose swiftly. I also heard the sucking sound as it left the metal base and
thought I was going to panic when I saw Andre's body heave forward as a sickly
gush of blood poured all over the ghastly mess bared by the hammer.
"No danger of it coming down again, Monsieur Delambre?"
"No, none whatever," I mumbled as I threw the safety switch and, turning around, I
was violently sick in front of a young green-faced policeman.

II.
For weeks after, Commissaire Charas worked on the case, listening, questioning,
running all over the place, making out reports, telegraphing and telephoning right and
left. Later, we became quite friendly and he owned that he had for a long time
considered me as suspect number one, but had finally given up that idea because,
not only was there no clue of any sort, but not even a motive.
Helene, my sister-in-law, was so calm throughout the whole business that the
doctors finally confirmed what I had long considered the only possible solution: that