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

A mental hiding place. A mechanical brain? No, it didn't fit, any more than a human brain would have
fitted. A phonograph record? A tape recording?
Bales' eyes narrowed. He'd have to check with Ridley about that.
 But it was no good. The next day he didn't ask any direct questions, but he got Ridley talking, and it
was plain that this couldn't be the answer. Besides, there was no indication that a record or a tape
recording wouldn't rot before it was found and played.
They had decided not to go to the school authorities about the forged information that Burroughs had
sent. There was nothing to be gained by getting him thrown out, so that he'd have to leave town. Better to
keep him here, where he'd be under constant observation.
But Bales did go to the school to learn a few things.
Burroughs was a good teacher. He took his kids from the beginning of Julius Caesar to the middle of
the book, and then shifted them to something tougher and more interesting. He wasn't the pally type, but
the kids liked him anyway, and even learned some Latin. Forged data or not, the school board was
getting its moneys worth.
Bales took a look at one of the textbooks, the pages of the first half grimy, where the kids had
ploughed through them, those of the second half nice and clean. It was put out by some publishing
company he had never heard of. The editor was Virgil K. Stuart, Head of the Latin Department at some
jerkwater high schoolтАФ
Excitement quickened through him. Wait a minute, that was the high school where Burroughs had
taught. Vigil K. Stuart must have been his pal. But Virgil had never finished the text. What was it Ridley
had said? He had dropped dead just before knocking off the last page. And yet here the thing was,
neatly printed and already in use. Who had finished that last page? Burroughs?
Way back in his own high school days, Bales had gone through most of Caesar's Commentaries
himself, and outside of Gaul being divided into three parts, he didn't remember a thing about it. What he
remembered about Latin he could have put in a pig's eye.
But this was, you might say, a mental hiding placeтАФa hiding place open to public view, too open to
be suspected. He picked up a copy of the book and a Latin dictionary, and began to fight his way
through Caesar's Gallic wars ...
Bales was back at the man's apartment once more. Burroughs said, "What do you want to talk about
this time?"
"The strange customs of the Germanic tribes Caesar fought," said Bales. "The peculiar medicines they
used."
Burroughs' breath came faster. He said, "You've found it."
"Sure I've found it. You expected it to be found some day, didn't you? And after the hint you gave
me, it wasn't so hard."
Burroughs must have made some signal. The dog padded in and stood there looking at the two men.
"Put your dog at ease," said Bales. "We've got some talking to do."
"What about?" asked Burroughs.
"How clever you are. And how stupid I am. It was clever, Burroughs, to choose that kind of hiding
place. You finished Stuart's book, didn't you?"
"It was a labor of friendship."
"It was more than that. It gave you the chance to insert your pretty little formula in Latin right in the
middle of Caesar's Roman gobbledygook. You knew what a Latin class was like. You knew that all the
kids did when they translated was use words."
"They never expect to make sense out of Caesar," said Burroughs.
"Of course not. So when the kids came to your formula, they could translate it word for word, and
not expect to understand it any more than they understood most of what they read. But one thing I don't
get. How about the teachers?"
"I was the only teacher."
"Sure of that?" asked Bales.