"Sean McMullen - The Pharaoh's Airship" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

were no drawings: Stephen knew what he wanted to build. There were no offcuts: Stephen was
meticulous in cleaning up after himself.
Mrs. Cole met us at the front door. She was a thin, tense woman in her fifties. She had a heavy cough
and she chain-smoked for the whole time we were there.
"I took him a cup of chocolate milk every night at nine," she said as she showed us the garage. The
tools remaining gave us no clues. Outside, I could see two deep grooves in the lawn where the Pharaoh
had rested briefly.
"So you saw it for the whole six months it took to build," said Taylor. Mrs. Cole wheezed, then
coughed violently before she could reply.
"Oh yes, but I don't understand mechanical things. That Dr. Richards has already asked me about all
that."
She had seen the Pharaoh every night as Stephen built it. I groaned inwardly at the thought that she
might develop lung cancer and die-- as her husband had.
"Mrs. Cole, would you agree to undergo further questioning under hypnosis?" Taylor asked.
"I've already told you all I know," she said impatiently. "I don't remember any more than that. I'm not a
technical person, Dr. Taylor. He could have been building an atomic bomb for all I know."
"Under hypnosis you often remember things more clearly," she assured her. "The US government will
compensate you for your time and trouble, of course."
If Stephen had been building an atomic bomb it could not have caused more consternation. At the
mention of a four-figure compensation payment Mrs. Cole agreed to undergo hypnosis, and to having her
house and garage searched yet again. Taylor, efficient as ever, produced the forms from her briefcase at
once.
I wandered into Stephen's old bedroom while I waited. There was nothing out of the ordinary among
the books and notes remaining there. The furniture was somewhat sparse and almost military in neatness.
A photograph above the desk caught my attention. It was of an impossible contraption, a collection of
large balloons supporting a deckchair, which in turn had an engine and rotor beneath it. It was several
feet above the ground, and there were uniformed police in the crowd watching it land. I brought it to
Mrs. Cole's attention. She became uneasy.
"Oh yes, he did get into trouble over that thing, but he was only 14 at the time. He flew it to school one
day as part of a science fair, and the police arrested him."
"He probably committed half a dozen breaches of your Air Navigation Act," laughed Taylor.
"Oh yes, but they let him go with a warning. He was such a good boy. Now that I think of it, he
named that balloon thing the Pharaoh, too."
"He did?" I exclaimed with a sharp pang of excitement. "Are you sure?"
"Of course. It's in the police museum if you want to see it."
***

The officer in charge of the museum was more helpful than we could have dreamed. Among the exhibits
were such strange items as a small cannon that fired beer cans filled with concrete: it had once belonged
to a bikie gang, we were told. Stephen's two flying machines put all the other exhibits to shame,
however.
The first looked like a hang glider attached to a propeller-driven go-cart-- except that the thing was
made out of packing-case wood, the wheels were from a pram, and the motor was electric. Stephen had
been 10 years old when he had built the thing and had done it alone. It showed signs of extensive
damage, carefully repaired.
"This bird actually flew," Sergeant Powell told us. "It only got off the ground because he was such a
small kid, the experts told us, but still, he did it."
"He must have had help," I said. "Who bought the tools and materials?"
"No problem. His old man died the year before, and he had free run of the workshop in the garage.
He scrounged the parts from neighbours, or the local dump."