"Michael Nethercott - The Beastly Red Lurker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nethercott Michael)

Heywood Mudcatt take his nourishment? I was soon to find out.

I showed up at Tattermore Estate close to dinnertime. I was received by a
wizened stick-figure of a butler who led me to a comfortable drawing room, then
departed to notify his master of my arrival. Mudcatt soon joined me and
furnished me with some praiseworthy brandy, though he himself did not drink any.
We chatted for a while about shoe polish and clothespins. As always, Mudcatt's
observations were dazzling.

"It seems to me," he remarked, "that 'shoe polish' is an unearned bit of
nomenclature for a substance which, as far as I can tell, does precious little
toward the outcome of a decently polished shoe. Why, if it were not for the
grace of human motivation, the so-called 'polish' would languish uselessly in
its tin or, at best, lie caked upon the surface of a shoe like some vile layer
of excrement."

"Hear, hear!" I cried. The man was, unquestionably, brilliant.

The dinner bell rang. The bell. Was it my imagination or did that particular
bell ring longer than any dinner bell I had ever heard? In point of fact, it did
not ring -- it tolled. My blood went thin. I was seized by a sense of keen
apprehension. What nameless repast awaited me in Mudcatt's mysterious dining
chamber?

"Come," he said. "It's time to eat."

As if in a daze, I followed my host toward destiny.

When I set eyes upon the dinner table, an audible sigh gushed out of me. There
was nothing at all dreadful about the meal awaiting us; on the contrary, it was
a swell spread. Turkey, ham, and fish, encampments of steaming vegetables and
mounds of fresh fruit all lay sprawled out tastefully, invitingly, upon a white
linen tablecloth. Candles in brass holders completed the effect.

We were seated by the narrow butler, and I was served wine. Mudcatt said a few
words, sotto voce, to the old man, who gave a meager bow and left the room. My
host smiled at me.

"Well, dig in, my friend."

I complied, heaping my plate with healthy portions of each dish. I was
delighted, not to say amazed, to see Mudcatt doing the same. In fact, by the
time he had finished serving himself, his plate was almost lost beneath a
pyramid of food.

I began to laugh....

"My dear Mudcatt! I must say, it is a relief to see such evidence of your
appetite. I was beginning to think...well, who knows what I thought. I'm just
glad to see you have a bit of the glutton in you."