"Robert Rankin - Brentford 04 - The Sprouts Of Wrath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

pulled out of Brentford Central. He was precisely sixty-six days from his Gold Watch And Retirement Speech and
he no longer gave a monkey's. In fact, like many an old locoman who had gone before him, he had ceased to give
a monkey's with the passing of the age of steam. Ted could recall the young boys who clambered on to the
footplates of the great locos, or lined the bridge parapets to be bathed in steam as one of the mighty King Class
thundered beneath at full throttle, whistle blowing. But that had all gone now. The romance of railways was
behind him and with it had gone the pride. No-one could honestly feel for an electric train. It had no
personality, no being, no glory. It was just another carriage, but with a motor in it.
Half-heartedly, Ted offered a two-fingered Harvey Smith towards the departing train and shuffled away to
his cosy office, his morning cuppa and the next chapter of Farewell My Window (a Lazlo Woodbine thriller).
Upon the platform a solitary figure remained, the only passenger to alight from the morning train. He was
tall, gaunt and angular in appearance, clad in a Boleskine tweed three-piece. From his right hand hung a heavy
pigskin valise, from his left a black Malacca cane with a silver mount. A small white ivory ring pierced the lobe
of his left ear and a pair of mirrored pince-nez clung to the bridge of his long aquiline nose. A pelt of snow-white
hair turfed his narrow skull. Such was the singular appearance of this solitary traveller and such it was that had
put the wind up many a case-hardened veteran of the criminal

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fraternity. For this was none other than that doyen of detectives, that Nemesis of ne'er-do-wells - Let evil doers
beware, let felons flee and varlets vanish, run the sound, roll the cameras, cue the action - enter Inspectre Hovis
of Scotland Yard.
The man behind the mirrored specs turned his sheltered gaze upon Brentford Central. 'You there!' His voice tore
along the platform, striking Ted McCready, who was turning into his sanctum sanctorium, from behind.
'By the love of St Pancras!' The station master clutched at his palpitations and lurched about.
That's right, I mean you, porter chappy! Up this way at the trot, if you please.' A shaft of sunlight angling down
through the ironwork of the footbridge held the great detective to perfection.
'You talking to me?' choked Ted, squinting towards his tormentor.
That's right, my man, at the double!' Hovis indicated his pigskin valise. 'Let's be having you.'
With bitter words forming between his lips, Ted humped the heavy case down the platform. He'd had a trolley
once, but it had rusted away. He'd had a porter once, but he had been cut back. He'd had a hernia once ... With his
free hand Ted felt at his groin. He still had a hernia.
Ahead of him the spare frame of Hovis bobbed along to an easy stride. A voice called back across an angled
padded shoulder. 'Pacy pacy, Mr Porter,' it called. Tempusfugit.'
Ted McCready stared daggers into the receding back. He was the first man in Brentford to encounter the great
detective and by this token, the first man to really hate him. He would by no means be the last.




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5

Omally turned right at the traffic lights, right again and finally right into Ganesha Lane. Marchant rattled over the
uneven cobbles and John spread wide his legs as they swept down into the alleyway that led past Cider Island
to the weir, the abandoned boatyards and the venerable Thames.
John dismounted as they reached the weir. Weird and wonderful Marchant might have been, but he did not
include the climbing of steps as part of his metaphysical repertoire. Omally shouldered his bike, skipped up the
steps and continued on his way, whistling brightly.
Suddenly, the bright and breezy, devil-may-care jauntiness of his step vanished, to be replaced by a furtive,
shifty, quite definitely guilt-ridden scuttle. Omally was up to something.
A slowing of pace, a quick shufti over the shoulder, a sudden movement. A section of corrugated iron swings