"Moorcock, Michael - Oswald Bastable 01 - The Warlord of the Air" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

He shrugged. "Anything. Rum?"

I poured him a stiffish shot of rum and handed him the glass. He downed it in a couple of swallows and nodded his thanks. He sat placidly in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, staring at the table.

His accent, though distant and bemused, had been that of a cultivated man-a gentleman-and this aroused my curiosity even further.

"Where are you from?" I asked him. "Singapore?"

"From?" He gave me an odd look and then frowned to himself. He muttered something which I could not catch and then the houseboy entered and told me that he had prepared the bath.

"The bath's ready," I said. "If you'd like to use it I'll be looking out one of my suits. We're about the same size."

He rose like an automaton and followed the house-boy into the bathroom, but then he re-emerged almost at once. "My bag," he said.

I picked up the bag from the floor and handed it to him. He went back into the bathroom and closed the door.

The houseboy looked curiously at me. "Is he some-some relative, sahib?"

I laughed. "No, Ram Dass. He is just a man I found on the quay."

Ram Dass smiled. "Aha! It is the Christian charity." He seemed satisfied. As a recent convert (the pride of one of the local missions) he was constantly translating all the mysterious actions of the English into good, simple Christian terms. "He is a beggar, then? You are the Samaritan?"

"I'm not sure I'm as selfless as that," I told him. "Will you fetch one of my suits for the gentleman to put on after he has had his bath?"

Ram Dass nodded enthusiastically. "And a shirt, and a tie, and socks, and shoes-everything?"

I was amused. "Very well. Everything."

My guest took a very long time about his ablutions, but came out of the bathroom at last looking much more spruce than when he had gone in. Ram Dass had dressed him in my clothes and they fitted extraordinarily well, though a little loose, for I was considerably better fed than he. Ram Dass behind him brandished a razor as bright as his grin. "I have shaved the gentleman, sahib!"

The man before me was a good-looking young man in his late twenties, although there was something about the set of his features which occasionally made him look much older. He had golden wavy hair, a good jaw and a firm mouth. He had none of the usual signs of weakness which I had learned to recognise in the others of his kind I had seen. Some of the pain had gone out of his eyes, but had been replaced by an even more remote-even dreamy-expression. It was Ram Dass, sniffing significantly and holding up a long, carved pipe behind the man, who gave me the clue.

So that was it! My guest was an opium eater! He was addicted to a drug which some had called the Curse of the Orient, which contributed much to that familiar attitude of fatalism we equate with the East, which robbed men of their will to eat, to work, to indulge in any of the usual pleasures with which others beguile their hours-a drug which eventually kills them.

With an effort I managed to control any expression of horror or pity which I might feel and said instead:

"Well, old chap, what do you say to a late lunch?"

"If you wish it," he said distantly.

"I should have thought you were hungry."

"Hungry? No."

"Well, at any rate, we'll get something brought up. Ram Dass? Could you arrange for some food? Perhaps something cold. And tell Mnr. Olmeijer that I shall have a guest staying the night We'll need sheets for the other bed and so on."

Ram Dass went away and, uninvited, my guest crossed to the sideboard and helped himself to a large whisky. He hesitated for a moment before pouring in some soda. It was almost as if he were trying to remember how to prepare a drink.

"Where were you making for when you stowed away?" I asked. "Surely not Rowe Island?"