"Michael Moorcock - Seaton Begg - The Case of the Nazi Canary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Bavaria, Germany.
"Rum style, eh?"
"About as laconic as his countryman Nietzsche," reflected Sinclair with a snort. "No doubt the poor blighter's
trench-crazy. Harmless enough, I'm sure, but still barking barmy. I mean to say, old sport, you are our leading
metatemporal snooper. There's all sorts of ordinary 'tecs could do this job. This case is merely about a particularly
grubby murder of a girl, who was probably no better than she ought to be, by a seedy petit bourgeois who sets himself
up as the savior of the world. He'll likely find his true destiny, if not on the gallows, among the sandwich-board men of
Hyde Park Corner, warning against the dangers of red meat and Asian invasion. A distinct case of an undersatisfied
libido and an overstimulated ego, I'd say."
"Quite so, old man. I know your penchant for the Viennese trick cyclists. But surely you wouldn't wish to see the
wrong cove found guilty of such an unpleasant crime?"
"There's no chance he's guilty, I suppose?" Sinclair instantly regretted his words. "No, no. Of course we must
assume his innocence. But there are many more deserving cases around the world, I'm sure."
"Few of them cases allowing me to take the very latest in aerial luxury liners and even put yourself and Dolly on
the payroll without question."
"It's no good, Begg, the idea's unpalatable to me. . . ."
With an athlete's impatient speed, Begg crossed to his vast, untidy bureau, and tugged something out of a
pigeonhole. "Besides, our tickets arrived not ten minutes before you turned up for tea. Oh, say you'll do it, old man. I
promise you, the adventure will be an education, if nothing else."
Taffy began to grumble, but by midnight he was on his feet, phoning down for his Daimler. He would meet Begg,
he promised, at Kings Cross, where they would travel to Manchester that afternoon on the high-speed M & E Flyer,
so as to be safely aboard the zep by four-thirty.
Begg was delighted. He trusted and needed his old comrade's judgment and cool head. Their personalities were
complementary, like a couple of very different fives players. This time Begg felt he had involved himself in a job that
would have him holding his nose for longer than he cared.
As for the Presbyterian Taffy, he would still be debating the morality of accepting the tickets when they met the
next day and began the journey to Munich.


CHAPTER TWO
HOMICIDE OR SUCIDE?

Sir Seaton and Taffy had fought the "pickle-fork brigade" for too long to hate them. They understood that your
average Fritz wasn't so very different from your average Tommy and that it took self-interested and foolish politicians
to make men kill one another. Yet for all his certainty that the War to End War had done its work, Begg knew that
vigilance was forever the price of freedom. Few threats to our hard-won rights came from the expected sources. The
unexpected angle of attack was generally successful. Authority is by nature conservative and therefore never truly
prepared for surprises. It was Seaton Begg's job always to be prepared for the unexpected. That was why the
Admiralty, the War Office, the Home Office, and the Foreign Office all continued to pay him substantial retainers to
investigate any affair that, in their opinion, required the specialized services of one versed in the subtleties of
alternative timelines, which he was able to cross with rare ease. It was also why they encouraged him to take the
occasional foreign case.
The service aboard the Spirit of Nuremberg was impeccable. This made Taffy a little nervous.
"Sort of military feel about it, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I think I prefer the old, sloppy cockneys we get
on the Croydon-Paris run."
Begg was amused by this. "Sit back and enjoy it, old man," he said. He had asked for that morning's Munich
newspapers, which were full of the recently averted bomb attack on the new Miami-Havana rail tunnel. After quickly
scanning the headlines, Begg ignored this news, and concentrated his attention on the newspapers' interiors,
especially the back sections.
"I see a well-known hater of Hitler and Co. is leading a new orchestra at the Carlton Tea Rooms. Though wisely he