"H. Beam Piper - He Walked around the Horses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

Beick and Herzer where was his coach, and when they told him they didn't know, he turned and ran into
the inn.
Of my own knowledge, the man had not been inside the inn before then, nor had there been any
coach, or any of the people he spoke of, at the inn, and none of the things he spoke of happened there,
for otherwise I would know, since I was at the inn all day.
When I went back inside, I found him in the common room shouting at my master, and claiming that he
had been drugged and robbed. I saw that he was mad and was afraid that he would do some mischief,
so I went for the police.
Franz Bauer
his (x) mark
(Statements of Wilhelm Beick and Fritz Herzer, peasants, taken at the police station at Perleburg, 25
November, 1809.)
May it please your honor, my name is Wilhelm Beick, and I am a tenant on the estate of the Baron von
Hentig. On this day, I and Fritz Herzer were sent into Perleburg with a load of potatoes and cabbages
which the innkeeper at the Sword & Scepter had bought from the estate superintendent. After we had
unloaded them, we decided to grease our wagon, which was very dry, before going back, so we
unhitched and began working on it. We took about two hours, starting just after we had eaten lunch, and
in all that time, there was no coach-and-four in the inn yard. We were just finishing when this gentleman
spoke to us, demanding to know where his coach was. We told him that there had been no coach in the
yard all the time we had been there, so he turned around and ran into the inn. At the time, I thought that
he had come out of the inn before speaking to us, for I know that he could not have come in from the
street. Now I do not know where he came from, but I know that I never saw him before that moment.
Wilhelm Beick
his (x) mark
I have heard the above testimony, and it is true to my own knowledge, and I have nothing to add to it.
Fritz Herzer
his (x) mark




(From Staatspolizeikapitan Ernst Hartenstein, to His Excellency, the Baron von Krutz, Minister of
Police.)
25 November, 1809
Your Excellency:
The accompanying copies of statements taken this day will explain how the prisoner, the self-so-called
Benjamin Bathurst, came into my custody. I have charged him with causing disorder and being a
suspicious person, to hold him until more can be learned about him. However, as he represents himself to
be a British diplomat, I am unwilling to assume any further responsibility, and am having him sent to your
excellency, in Berlin.
In the first place, your excellency, I have the strongest doubts of the man's story. The statement which
he made before me, and signed, is bad enough, with a coach-and-four turning into a farm wagon, like
Cinderella's coach into a pumpkin, and three people vanishing as though swallowed by the earth. But all
this is perfectly reasonable and credible, beside the things he said to me, of which no record was made.
Your excellency will have noticed, in his statement, certain allusions to the Austrian surrender, and to
French troops in Austria. After his statement had been taken down, I noticed these allusions, and I
inquired, what surrender, and what were French troops doing in Austria. The man looked at me in a
pitying manner, and said:
"News seems to travel slowly, hereabouts; peace was concluded at Vienna on the 14th of last month.
And as for what French troops are doing in Austria, they're doing the same things Bonaparte's brigands