"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 30 - Dimension Of Horror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

"You mean he said he did all that."

"No! He did it! I swear. I saw the lass myself." His Scottish accent became more pronounced
when he was excited.

"Are you sure?"

"I never saw her close up, but once, in broad daylight, I saw Dr. Colby on a far-off hillside,
walking hand in hand with somebody or something, and when he came back to the manor, he told
me who it was. I had to believe him. Wouldn't a man know his own daughter?"

"Are you saying you saw a ghost in the daytime?"

"These weren't ordinary ghosts. Daytime or nighttime, it was all the same to them. That's why,
for two weeks, we hardly slept for two hours out of the twenty-four. There was always something
happening. Toward the end, though, the haunting tapered off."

"Why was that?"

"How should I know? All I can do is pass on to you what little Jane Colby told her father."

J leaned forward expectantly. "Yes? Yes?"

"She said she could only come through from the other side for a short time. She said she was cut
off from her roots, and that a flower cut off from its roots must die."
"By Jove!" J thumped his fist on the table. "So even a ghost has limitations!"

"Wait. There's more. She said it was up to Colby to open up the gate and keep it open. Then she'd
return to him and stay with him forever."

"And he turned to witchcraft, thinking that witchcraft could open the gate to the other world!" J
was triumphant. At last the whole unthinkable mess was beginning to form some sort of pattern,
incomplete yet with an otherworldly logic of its own.

"You've guessed it," MacMurdo admitted ruefully. "Witchcraft was very much alive in those
days around here. It still is, as a matter of fact. Last month, while I was in town for supplies, I
saw a witch on the telly being interviewed by a reporter, as if she was a bloody film star! But
poor Dr. Colby was losing faith in them before your man came nosing about here and caught him
with his pants off at a ruddy Witches' Sabbath. They'd promised him a lot, but hadn't given him
anything but a bad head cold."

"So that's the story?" J stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"That's the story. I know Copra House retired him into private practice after that, but I have no
idea where he went. Do you?"

"No, but from what you've told me I can make a good guess."

"Wherever it is, I'm sure he has continued his quest for a gateway to the other world. He was a
strongly motivated man, sir. A very strongly motivated man."