"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 12 - Dead man's handle" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)

Danny said, "I sometimes think that if somebody has a particular capacity to cope, it seems to attract the particular situations that he or she is fitted to cope with. Of course, that doesn't help you to stop worrying. You and Steve have a great rapport with Modesty and Willie, haven't you?"
"Yes, we're very close and we all understand one another. I guess that happens when you go through bad times together."
"Dinah, when you had that. . . that shiver a little while ago, was it a premonition of some kind?"
Before she could answer, Steve Collier returned. He was frowning, and went straight to his wife, resting his hands on her shoulders. "That was a real flash you had, wasn't it, darling?"
She nodded slowly. "Danny just asked me the same thing."
"I remember I'd just said I was going to hypnotise Modesty and that I had these incredible powers. Any trigger word there?"
"Could be. But if so I don't know which it was. Wish to God I did. It might give me some idea of ... of the shape of what scared me." She scooped the contents of the frying pan on to a hot plate and turned off the hob. "Sit down and have your breakfast, Steve."
"In a second, sweetheart." He turned her gently towards him. "I felt that shock-fright hit you. Was it connected with any of us?"
She screwed up her eyes tightly as if trying to recapture an impression. "No ... it wasn't specific. Oh God, you know how vague these things are, Steve, you've tried hundreds of experiments with me. I just get aЧa flash in my head, and a couple of moments later it's hard to recall whether it was visual, aural, or just a feeling, nothing to do with the senses."
Danny said quietly, "Visual?"
Without turning his head Collier said, "Dinah didn't become blind until she was eleven. She has normal conception of form and colour." He touched his wife's brow with fingertips. "There's always some kind of content in a flash, Dinah. It's never been a complete void for you before. Does nothing come back to you now?"
She said in a strained voice. "Wait. I'm trying." Then, after a few seconds and very slowly: "There must be a connection . . . but I can't find it. There was just this . . . yes, this face. No, a head. I'm sorry, it's so difficult. A head with a halo round it? Well, like a halo. A saint?" She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and shook her head in despair. "No, that can't be right. Why would a flash image of a saint terrify me?"
Collier grimaced, patted her arm and said, "Sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you to verbalise the impression. I've probably distorted it now." He guided her to the table. "Just forget it, and listen to me eat my breakfast. You don't know any terrifying saints, do you, Danny?"
Danny Chavasse picked up Collier's attempt to lighten the mood and said, "Not personally, but maybe this was Saint Paul. His ideas on women were pretty terrifying."
Dinah rubbed her arms as if chilled, and managed a small smile. "The halo impression made him look like a saint, I hope to God it was a freaky false flash, Steve, because what he felt like was something dead inside ... a zombie."

Chapter 3
Thaddeus Pilgrim was a big man with a round face and fluffy white hair that stood up round his head like a halo. The monk's robe he wore was of coarse brown material. His feet were in strong sandals, his hands rested with fingers linked, relaxed. White eyebrows curved over large eyes whose watery gaze was courteous but kept wandering vaguely, as if the mind behind them was on other and higher matters. Seated at his desk in the austerely furnished study of the Hostel of Righteousness, he transferred his remote gaze from the jackdaw in a cage by the window and focused with a kindly smile on the reporter sitting opposite him.
"It is true that we seek no converts, Mr. Papadakis," he said gently. "In fact we discourage the notion, for we have no creed to which we seek to convert our fellow mortals." A glint of humour touched the mild blue eyes. "Also, we seek no funds for our work. You will find no evidence of our persuading gullible people to donate their wealth or work or time to us, I assure you."
Papadakis smiled deprecatingly as if he needed no such assurance, and wrote something in his notebook. He was a dark, well-built Greek in his middle thirties, speaking fluent English. "I understand there is a branch of your society in Macau, another in South Carolina, and another in England," he glanced at his notebook, "in the village of North Thursby, near Hull."
Thaddeus Pilgrim inclined his head. "We have a handful of followers at each of those branches, Mr. ah . . ." He paused to lean forward and study the card on his desk. "Yes . . . Mr. Papadakis, is it not? Perhaps I should not have referred to them as followers, since I do not, you understand, in any sense consider myself to be a leader. That might involve the sin of pride, might it not? I suppose it would be true to say, or at least it would not be untrue to say, that I amЧthrough no merit of my own I hasten to addЧthat I am perhaps the centre of our little group, since it was I who had the privilege, the very substantial privilege, I assure you, of founding the Hostel of Righteousness here on Kalivari. I would not, of course, have you imagine, or cause the readers of your no doubt excellent newspaper to imagine, that what one might call my position here is in any sense superior to that of my colleagues, Mr. ah. . ." He leaned forward to look at the card again, the halo of white hair stirring a little with his movement. "Ah yes, Mr. Papadakis . . ."
Papadakis mentally tuned the longwinded ramblings to a background noise and concentrated on blocking out the story he would write. Not just write, but write and syndicate worldwide. It would be that kind of story. The weekly ferry, on which he purported to have arrived from Athens this morning, would pick him up this evening when it called after making its rounds of some of the nearer islands among the wide scattering called The Cyclades. By dawn it would be at Piraeus, and by noon he would be sitting at his desk in Athens with the whole story written.
The Hostel of Righteousness had once been a monastery, abandoned and decaying until the followers of Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim had leased the small island of Kalivari from the Greek government and restored the building. There was no other habitation apart from The Hostel itself and the various outbuildings. The small fishing boat in which Papadakis had in fact come to Kalivari after dark the previous day had left at once after putting him ashore half a mile from the miniature harbour and quay. This morning it had not been difficult for him to hide near the quay and mingle with the few visitors and men handling supplies when the early ferry arrived.
Papadakis became aware that Thaddeus Pilgrim had actually droned to a halt. Making a meaningless scribble in his notebook he said with assumed interest, "May I ask what is the precise purpose of the Hostel of Righteousness, as opposed to the purposes of other and larger religious bodies, Dr. Pilgrim?"
"Oh, I am sorry to hear you use the word 'opposed', Mr. ah ... yes, Mr. Papadakis. We are not opposed to other religious bodies Ч"
"No, I didn't quite mean that Ч"
"Neither do we attempt to recruit from such brethren, I assure you. We of the Hostel of Righteousness are humble folk." Dr. Pilgrim beamed mistily upon the reporter, though his focus was disconcertingly a little to one side, as if he were addressing somebody behind Papadakis. "When I say humble, I hope you will not, indeed I pray you will not, misconstrue this as mock humility, or would it be more accurate to say false humility? That is not our way, Mr. ah . . ., not our way at all. Ours is not a narrow religion, if indeed we may dare to call it by the name of religion. Our God is the Being who made all things, and we do not dare to define Him more specifically than that." Thaddeus Pilgrim's voice sank to a lower tone. "You will understand that I use the word 'Him' merely for convenience, and without in any way presuming to invest the Creative Being with Ч ah Ч with gender."
"And your particular purpose, Doctor?" Papadakis said quickly. "Can you sum it up in a few words?"
Dr. Pilgrim's gaze wandered about the reporter's head, then he spread his arms in a gesture of simplicity. "I can sum it up in a single word, Mr. Papadakis. A single word will suffice, if you will forgive what may seem, but I assure you is not, a somewhat extravagant boast, which would be entirely contrary to the nature of our little community, you understand."
He stopped abruptly, nodding rather shyly as if apologising for having made a point which might just possibly offend his hearer. After a moment or two Papadakis said, "What is the single word?"
Thaddeus Pilgrim started. "Oh, forgive me, Mr. ah ... Yes, of course. I fear I did not complete the answer to your question. The word is ... prayer. That is our sole purpose, dear friend. We follow no creed, no ritual, no formal procedures. We simply pray."
Papadakis jotted the words down verbatim, relishing them. Maintaining a sober air, he looked up and said, "What is it your people pray for, Dr. Pilgrim?"
"Oh, not my people, Mr. Papadakis." The white hair danced as Thaddeus Pilgrim shook his head. "We, that is to say our community here and elsewhere, pray for all the world. We pray for peace, for an end to poverty, an end to racial strife, an end to strife between Ч ah Ч male and female, in fact we pray quite simply for what is good to come about. We also pray, and quite specifically, for groups or for individuals who send requests for our prayers on their behalf, though I must ask you, in view of the nature of our community here, not to regard this function, if that is the correct word, as being in the context of intercession. That would be too Ч ah Ч too doctrinal in character for us. However, I believe that on both counts, that is to say both the general and the particular categories of our submissions to the Creative Being, we may claim, if that is not too assertive a word, that the Hostel of Righteousness is truly a powerhouse of prayer."
"I believe you have some thirty or forty people here," said Papadakis, "almost all male. Does this cause no problem?"
Thaddeus Pilgrim pursed his lips and looked like a man trying not to look reproachful. "None," he said in a low voice. "My colleagues are dedicated people, I assure you."
"Do you all do nothing but pray, Doctor?"
"Oh, no, no, my dear friend," said Dr. Pilgrim with a confiding smile in the direction of the jackdaw. "That is quite impossible. Positive prayer calls for considerable mental effort, though I hasten to say that we do not begrudge such effort, for we regard ourselves as labourers in God's vineyard, if you will forgive what may appear to be, though it is not meant as such, a somewhat sectarian phrase. No, we spend much time in meditation on the subject and quality of our prayers, and we also labour more practically, though not of course to better effect, on our little patch of crops and with our fishing lines. We are not self-sufficient, you will understand, but we try to keep our Ч ah Ч imports from the mainland to a minimum."
"On the subject of imports, Doctor, these must be paid for, which brings us back to the question of funds. I believe you said you seek no contributions from outside, and also that nobody becoming a member of the Hostel of Righteousness is allowed to bring money into the community, or to provide money for it in any way. So how do you exist?"
"Ah. Now, what you say is essentially correct, Mr. ah ... essentially correct, but in the former part of the last sentence there is perhaps a degree of misunderstanding, which I have no doubt has arisen from my own failure to express myself clearly, and for this I hope you will accept my apology. It is true that we do not seek contributions to our work, but it is our firm belief that God will provide, and indeed He has done so Ч again I hope you will excuse the use of gender in this reference. We do not seek, but we do receive, because those groups and individuals for whom we pray, at their request, as I have explained, are invariably most generous in their recognition of our efforts, and indeed, if I may say so, of our achievements on their behalf. We do not lack for funds, my dear friend. What we need for our modest establishments, we spend. All surplus is passed on to those whom our meditations tell us are most in need of help. Oh, please excuse me."
The last words followed a tap on the door, which opened to admit a tall woman wearing a white robe with the hood thrown back, a handsome woman of about thirty. She was blonde, with her hair in ringlets, the eyes grey, the features strongly sculptured. Her body was hidden by the robe, but from the way she moved Papadakis had the impression that it might be a rather fine body to look at.
"Do excuse me, Dr. Pilgrim," she said in slightly accented English, "I thought you would wish to have a note of this evening's work before Mr. Papadakis leaves." She laid a piece of paper on the desk.
Thaddeus Pilgrim's erratic gaze wandered around and past her for several seconds before a beam of recognition lit his face. "My dear Sibyl, of course, of course," he said happily. "I believe you have not yet been introduced to our distinguished visitor from the Press. May I present Mr. Ч ah Ч Papadakis." He gestured with a large hand. "Mr. Papadakis, it gives me great pleasure, and I say this in all sincerity, to introduce a lady who is one of the stalwarts of our little community, Sibyl Pray."
Papadakis stood up and shook hands, trying not to let curiosity and speculation show in his face. "Delighted," he murmured.
Sibyl Pray studied him candidly and said with careful enunciation, "How do you do?"
Dr. Pilgrim had picked up the sheet of paper and might have been reading from it, but Papadakis doubted that, for the amiable voice was droning on again with its tortuous structure of clauses and sub-clauses. "You may well reflect Mr. Papadakis Ч indeed it would be surprising if you did not reflect, since the association of ideas, I would suggest, is manifest Ч that Sibyl's name is remarkably appropriate for that occupation which is the prime endeavour of our little Community. I am of course referring to her surname, you understand, a fact which, in all probability, it is quite unnecessary for me to point out, and indeed I hope I have not in any way offended you by so doing, my dear friend."
Papadakis said politely, "You mean that your work here is to pray, and this lady's name is Pray?"
"Quite so, quite so, Mr. ah . . ." said Dr. Pilgrim, his head nodding in confirmation. "That is the nub of my remark. It may be of interest to you to know, since your journalistic vocation must demand Ч or so I have always thought Ч a wide variety of knowledge in matters both large and small, that the name Pray does not derive from the English word, as one might imagine, but from the paternal element of Sibyl's Anglo-Hungarian parentage." He lifted his eyes from the paper, placed it on his desk, smiled vaguely in the woman's general direction, and continued without pause, "Thank you, my dear, most kind of you to remind me that we have much to do this evening, and I hope, in fact I am sure we all hope, that Mr. Papadakis will consent to be our guest tonight, so that he may observe the nature of our prayerful submissions on behalf of those who have sought our help." He looked at the reporter, eyebrows arched in hopeful query.
"I'm sorry," said Papadakis with fairly convincing regret, "but I have to leave on this evening's ferry. Another time, perhaps."
"As you wish," said Thaddeus Pilgrim with a courteous inclination of his white head. "Thank you, Sibyl, I will not keep you longer from your duties, my dear. Perhaps you could spare me a few minutes when Mr. ah ... our friend from the Press has left."
"Of course, Doctor." Sibyl Pray nodded briskly to Papadakis and went from the study.