"Resnick, Mike - Redchapel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"I'm certainly glad you're not given to exaggeration," remarked Roosevelt sardonically.
"If anything," replied the small Englishman seriously, "that was an understatement."
"All right. Tell me about it."
"I would prefer that you saw it without any preconceptions."
"Except that it could cause a riot if seen in daylight."
"I said a panic, not a riot," answered Hughes, still without smiling.
Roosevelt buttoned his shirt and fiddled with his tie. "What time is it, anyway?"
"6: 20 AM."
"The sun's not an early riser in London, is it?"
"Not at this time of year." Hughes shifted his weight awkwardly.
"Now what's the matter?"
"We have a crisis on our hands, Mr. Roosevelt. I realize that I have no legal right to enlist your help, but we are quite desperate."
"Enough hyperbole," muttered Roosevelt, slipping on his coat.
"You really hunted down those murderers in a blizzard?" said Hughes suddenly.
"The Winter of the Blue Snow," said Roosevelt, nodding his head briskly. "Doubtless exaggerated by every dime novelist in America."
"But you did bring them back, alone and unarmed," persisted the Englishman, as if Roosevelt's answer was the most important thing in his life.
"Yes ... but I knew the territory, and I knew who and where the killers were. I don't know London, and I assume the identity of the killer you're after is unknown."
"So to speak."
"I don't understand," said Roosevelt, adjusting his hat in front of a mirror.
"We don't know who he is. All we know is that he calls himself Saucy Jack."

* * * *

The two men approached the police line behind the Black Swan. The night fog had left the pavement damp, and there was a strong smell of human waste permeating the area. Chimneys spewed thick smoke into the dawn sky, and the sound of a horse's hooves and a cart's squeaking wheels could be heard in the distance.
"Sir?" asked one of the constables, looking from Hughes to Roosevelt.
"It's all right, Jamison," said Hughes. "This is Theodore Roosevelt, a colleague from America. He is the man who brought Billy the Kid and Jesse James to justice."
Constable Jamison stepped aside immediately, staring at the young American in awe.
"Now, why did you say that, John?" asked Roosevelt in low tones.
"It will establish respect and obedience much faster than if I told him you were an expert on birds."
The American sighed. "I see your point." He paused. "Just what am I supposed to be looking at?"
"It's back here," said Hughes, leading him behind the building to an area that had been temporarily lit by flaming torches.
They stopped when they were about ten feet away. There was a mound beneath a blood-drenched blanket.
"Steel yourself, Mr. Roosevelt," said Hughes.
"After all the monographs I've written on taxidermy, I don't imagine you can show me anything that can shock me," answered Roosevelt.
He was wrong.
The blanket was pulled back, revealing what was left of a middle-aged woman. Her throat had been slit so deeply that she was almost decapitated. A bloody handkerchief around her neck seemed to be the only thing that stopped her head from rolling away.
Her belly was carved open, and her innards were pulled out and set on the ground just above her right shoulder. Various internal organs were mutilated, others were simply missing.
"What kind of creature could do something like this?" said Roosevelt, resisting the urge to retch.
"I was hoping you might be able to tell us," said Hughes.
Roosevelt tore his horrified gaze from the corpse and turned to Hughes. "What makes you think I've ever encountered anything like this before?"
"I don't know, of course," said Hughes. "But you have lived in America's untamed West. You have traveled among the aboriginal savages. You have rubbed shoulders with frontier cowboys and shootists. Americans are a simpler, more brutal people-- barbaric, in ways-- and I had hoped..."
"I take it you've never been to America."
"No, I haven't."
"Then I shall ignore the insult, and only point out that Americans are the boldest, bravest, most innovative people on the face of the Earth."
"I assure you I meant no offense," said Hughes quickly. "It's just that we are under enormous pressure to bring Saucy Jack to justice. I had hoped that you might bring some fresh insight, some different methodology..."
"I'm not a detective," said Roosevelt, walking closer to the corpse. "There was never any question about the identities of the three killers I went after. As for this murder, there's not much I can tell you that you don't already know."
"Won't you try?" said Hughes, practically pleading.
Roosevelt squatted down next to the body. "She was killed from behind, of course. She probably never knew the murderer was there until she felt her jugular and windpipe being severed."
"Why from behind?"
"If I were trying to kill her from in front, I'd stab her in a straightforward way-- it would give her less time to raise her hand to deflect the blade. But the throat was slit, not punctured. And it had to be the first wound, because otherwise she would have screamed and someone would have heard her."