"Brian Lumley - Titus Crow 1 - The Burrowers Beneath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

his furrowed forehead. Plainly he had said as much as he was going to without
prompting. And yet I found myself no longer truly eager to question him.
This was, without a doubt, a much different Titus Crow from the man I had
known previously. I full knew the extent of his probing into various strange
matters, and that his research over the years in the more obscure corners of
various sciences had been prodigious, but had his work finally proved too much
for him?
I was still worriedly staring at him in sympathetic apprehension when he
opened his eyes. Before I could hide it, he saw the expression on my face and
smiled as I tried to cover my embarrassment.
'I... I'm sorry, Titus, I -'
'What was it you said, de Marigny?' He stopped me short. 'Something about
doubting a man before trying him? I told you it was going to be hard to
swallow, but I don't really blame you for whatever doubts you have. I do have
proof, though, of sorts . . .'
'Titus, please forgive me,' I answered dejectedly. 'It's just that you look
so, well, tired and washed out. But come on - proof, you said! What sort of
proof do you mean?'
He opened his desk drawer again, this time to take out a folder of letters, a
manuscript, and a square cardboard box. 'First the letters,' he said, handing
me the slim folder, 'then the manuscript. Read them, de Marigny, while I doze,
and then you'll be able to judge for yourself when I show you what's in the
box. Then, too, you'll be better able to understand. Agreed?'
I nodded, took a long sip at my brandy, and began to read. The letters I
managed pretty quickly; they drew few conclusions in themselves. Then came the
manuscript.
Cement Surroundings
(Being the Manuscript of Paul Wendy-Smith)
1
It will never fail to amaze me how certain allegedly Christian people take a
perverse delight in the misfortunes of others. Just how true this is was
brought forcibly home to me by the totally unnecessary whispers and rumours
which were put about following the disastrous decline of my closest living
relative.
There were those who concluded that just as the moon is responsible for the
tides, and in part the slow movement of the Earth's upper crust, so was it
also responsible for Sir Amery Wendy-Smith's behaviour on his return from
Africa. As proof they pointed out my uncle's sudden fascination for
seismography - the study of earthquakes -a subject which so took his fancy
that he built his own instrument, a model which does not incorporate the
conventional concrete base, to such an exactitude that it measures even the
most minute of the deep tremors which are constantly shaking this world. It is
that same instrument which sits before me now, rescued from the ruins of the
cottage, at which I am given to casting, with increasing frequency, sharp and
fearful glances.
Before his disappearance my uncle spent hours, seemingly without purpose,
studying the fractional movements of the stylus over the graph.
For my own part I found it more than odd the way in which, while Sir Amery was
staying in London after his
return, he shunned the underground and would pay extortive taxi fares rather