"William Morrison - Hiding Place" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

"Hell, even the kids he taught could read his mind. They could always figure out when he was going
to spring a test, and other things like that. You don't leave an important secret with that kind of man."
 "No, you don't. StillтАФ How did he die, did you say?" asked Bales.
"Bad heart," said Ridley. "He was putting out a new edition of Julius CaesarтАФyou know, that 'All
Gaul is divided into three parts' stuffтАФand the excitement must have been too much for him. He keeled
over just before he finished the last page."
"Nothing there, then. StillтАФall the sameтАФand yetтАФ"
Ridley nodded understandingly, the irritation in his voice stronger than ever. "Damn it, everything
would have been different if we had been called in right away. But they never suspected. At first they
thought that laboratory explosion was something ordinaryтАФvapor fumes near an oxygen tank, or
something like that. There were some details that didn't quite fit in with that theory, but you know how
these investigators are. It was the easiest answer, and they took it. And when Burroughs quit, he gave
them a sob story about losing his nerve. Two of the guys who worked with him had been killed and he
said he was afraid of its happening to him. They didn't know he had found anything important."
He paused an instant, then went on, "They didn't catch on until almost ten years later. The hint came
in an old progress report that had been filed away and forgotten. It wasn't much, but it was enough to
start them looking for Burroughs again. And when he wasn't willing to talkтАФthey knew."
"They'd been working in the laboratory on the same general problem all the time?" Bales asked.
"Full speed ahead. But no luck."
"Then there's nothing to do but keep watching him," said Bales.
But there was something else to do, and he knew it. No use telling it to Ridley though. Not when they
were both thinking of a handsome bonus, and what one man got the other would undoubtedly lose.
Keeping an eye on Burroughs wouldn't get them anywhere. They could watch his comings and goings
for the next week or month or year, and learn nothing. The thing to do was to use their brains.
Twelve years, and nobody else had hit on it in the laboratory. That meant that the discovery
Burroughs had made was a lucky accident. It mightn't be made again for another hundred yearsтАФa
thousand. And yet Burroughs had said people would eventually be able to use itтАФ
It was Poe all over again, the "Purloined Letter" lying around in plain sight. Only, they weren't as
simple-minded as Poe's detective had been. When they searched, they searched everything. Everything
physical, that is. They hadn't been able to search Burrough's mind.
Bales was beginning to know something about that mind. Burroughs was not a man who cared much
for physical comforts, and he wouldn't have chosen a physical hiding place, either. It would have to be
something in plain mental sight.
Bales finally said with pretended weariness, "I don't think he intends to leave the house. I'm going
down the street for a few drinks. Maybe I'll get an idea."
But he didn't want a drink. Whatever fictional detectives might say, he had never found that alcohol
improved his powers of reasoning. Detectives and the people who wrote about them might drink at their
work. Einstein and company didn't. All he needed was to get away from Ridley and have time to arrange
his thoughts. The answer was in his grasp, it must be, or Burroughs wouldn't have considered putting the
dog on him.
He went down the street into a cheap, almost deserted restaurant, and got himself a cup of coffee.
A mental hiding place. Now, what would that be?
Somebody elseтАЩs brain? No good. A man died, the brain died, and the hiding place died too. Look
at that Latin teacher. A book? That would be both physical and mental. But they wouldn't have
overlooked that. After they had read that old progress report they must have gone through every piece of
paper in Burroughs' place.
They'd have read every book, paid attention to every note scribbled in the margins. Besides, that was
out because it wasn't in plain mental sight. People wouldn't be able, when the time came, to find it, to use
it.
Three cups of coffee got him nowhere. He left the restaurant and began to walk the streets.