"Manly Wade Wellman - Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wellman Manly Wade)

because of his deplorable private life. Wells I dislike for his manifest disapproval of our civilization and
our government. Of his private life I know nothing. Perhaps it is best not to inquire into it."
"Not inquire?" repeated Holmes, smiling more broadly. "A man in my profession does not hear such
things happily. But I won't interrupt you again."
Watson resumed his writing. Holmes read "The Crystal Egg" through. It seemed offered as fiction, but
the names of Cave and Wace appeared in it, and there was mention of "a tall dark man in gray"
who had vanished with the crystal. Plainly neither Templeton nor Hudson had dared identify Holmes
when ques-tioned.
Holmes pondered the matter, then and on days to follow. He hesitated to interrupt Challenger with
fur-ther questions. The study of the crystal egg might have advanced as far as possible, unless the
Martians could be induced to give and receive signals. And Challenger had seemed irritated when
Holmes had suggested that to view the Martians only as of a more advanced cul-ture, comparable to that
of terrestrial humanity as a European city might compare to a savage community, was too optimistic.
Increasingly Holmes felt that man-kind was a race of creatures much lower in evolution than the
Martians.
The problem was unpleasantly perplexing. He made no progress in solving it alone. On May 13 he sat
moodily at breakfast while Watson read a newspaper opposite. Suddenly Watson leaned across the
table.
"What do you make of this, Holmes?" he asked, pointing to the page.
The headline read: STRANGE ERUPTION OF MARS, and underneath:


An observatory in Java reports that a sudden eruption of glowing gas was seen on the planet
Mars at about midnight. Dr. Lavelle, who com-pares the phenomenon to "flaming gases rushing
out of a gun," reports that the spectrograph showed it to be a mass of superheated
hydrogen, moving toward earth with tremendous speed. The light became invisible in about
fifteen minutes.


"Singular," said Holmes, with strained calm.
"So I thought. But excuse me, I must not be late at my seminar."
Watson departed. Holmes telephoned Challenger.
"I was on the point of putting in a call for you," came back Challenger's great voice. "Can you come
here? I have summoned Stent, the Astronomer Royal. I think it is time that we acquainted the world with
what we have discovered."
Holmes caught up his hat and strode into the hall. Martha met him there. "You are disturbed about
some-thing," she said.
"No, my dear, I am only in a hurry. I shall be back for lunch with you."
Outside, he took a hansom for Enmore Park. Mrs. Challenger herself opened to him.
"I hope you can calm George," she said tremulously. "He's in a furious moodтАФa quarrel with a visitor,
I don't know why."
Holmes entered the study. Challenger stood there, bearded face scowling. He tramped and swayed
like an angry elephant.
"Stent!" he snapped out. "How such an imbecile was named Astronomer Royal is beyond even my
compre-hension. Some political chicanery, I would not be amazed to find out. His refusal to accept my
wordтАФ"
 "Was Stent here?" asked Holmes. "I deduce that he was, from what you are saying."
"I had telephoned him before you and I spoke to-gether. That ejection of gas on Mars impelled me to
do so. I told him that I had information of a nature that would astonish the world, or at any rate that part
of the world capable of grasping its implications. He came, and thenтАФ" Here Challenger drew up his