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

are doing everywhere in Europe."
"And who is Bonaparte?" I asked.
He stared at me as though I had asked him, "Who is the Lord Jehovah?" Then, after a moment, a look
of comprehension came into his face.
"So, you Prussians concede him the title of Emperor, and refer to him as Napoleon," he said. "Well, I
can assure you that His Britannic Majesty's government haven't done so, and never will; not so long as
one Englishman has a finger left to pull a trigger. General Bonaparte is a usurper; His Britannic Majesty's
government do not recognize any sovereignty in France except the House of Bourbon." This he said very
sternly, as though rebuking me.
 It took me a moment or so to digest that, and to appreciate all its implications. Why, this fellow
evidently believed, as a matter of fact, that the French Monarchy had been overthrown by some military
adventurer named Bonaparte, who was calling himself the Emperor Napoleon, and who had made war
on Austria and forced a surrender. I made no attempt to argue with himтАФone wastes time arguing with
madmenтАФbut if this man could believe that, the transformation of a coach-and-four into a cabbage
wagon was a small matter indeed. So, to humor him, I asked him if he thought General Bonaparte's
agents were responsible for his trouble at the inn.
"Certainly," he replied. "The chances are they didn't know me to see me, and took Jardine for the
minister, and me for the secretary, so they made off with poor Jardine. I wonder, though, that they left me
my dispatch case. And that reminds me; I'll want that back. Diplomatic papers, you know."
I told him, very seriously, that we would have to check his credentials. I promised him I would make
every effort to locate his secretary and his servants and his coach, took a complete description of all of
them, and persuaded him to go into an upstairs room, where I kept him under guard. I did start inquiries,
calling in all my informers and spies, but, as I expected, I could learn nothing. I could not find anybody,
even, who had seen him anywhere in Perleburg before he appeared at the Sword & Scepter, and that
rather surprised me, as somebody should have seen him enter the town, or walk along the street.
In this connection, let me remind your excellency of the discrepancy in the statements of the servant,
Franz Bauer, and of the two peasants. The former is certain the man entered the inn yard from the street;
the latter are just as positive that he did not. Your excellency, I do not like such puzzles, for I am sure
that all three were telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. They are ignorant common folk, I admit,
but they should know what they did or did not see.
After I got the prisoner into safekeeping, I fell to examining his papers, and I can assure your
excellency that they gave me a shock. I had paid little heed to his ravings about the King of France being
dethroned, or about this General Bonaparte who called himself the Emperor Napoleon, but I found all
these things mentioned in his papers and dispatches, which had every appearance of being official
documents. There was repeated mention of the taking, by the French, of Vienna, last May, and of the
capitulation of the Austrian Emperor to this General Bonaparte, and of battles being fought all over
Europe, and I don't know what other fantastic things. Your excellency, I have heard of all sorts of
madmenтАФone believing himself to be the Archangel Gabriel, or Mohammed, or a werewolf, and another
convinced that his bones are made of glass, or that he is pursued and tormented by devilsтАФbut so help
me God, this is the first time I have heard of a madman who had documentary proof for his delusions!
Does your excellency wonder, then, that I want no part of this business?
But the matter of his credentials was even worse. He had papers, sealed with the seal of the British
Foreign Office, and to every appearance genuineтАФbut they were signed, as Foreign Minister, by one
George Canning, and all the world knows that Lord Castlereagh has been Foreign Minister these last five
years. And to cap it all, he had a safe-conduct, sealed with the seal of the Prussian ChancelleryтАФthe
very seal, for I compared it, under a strong magnifying glass, with one that I knew to be genuine, and they
were identical!тАФand yet, this letter was signed, as Chancellor, not by Count von Berchtenwald, but by
Baron Stein, the Minister of Agriculture, and the signature, as far as I could see, appeared to be genuine!
This is too much for me, your excellency; I must ask to be excused from dealing with this matter, before I
become as mad as my prisoner!