"Gene Wolfe - Detective of dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

apprise you of new developments." He handed me a card. "I am always to
be found at this address - if not I, then one who is to be trusted, acting in
my behalf."
"I understand."
"This should be sufficient for your initial expenses. You may call on me
should you require more." The cheque he gave me as he turned to leave
represented a comfortable fortune.
I waited until he was nearly out the door before saying, "I thank you, Herr
Baron." To his credit, he did not turn; but I had the satisfaction of seeing a
flush red rising above the precise white line of his collar before the door
closed.
Andrщe entered as soon as he had left. "Who was that man? When you
spoke to him - just as he was stepping out of your office - he looked as if
you had struck him with a whip."
"He will recover," I told her. "He is the Baron H____, of the secret police
of K____. D____ was his mother's name. He assumed that because his
own desk is a few hundred kilometers from mine, and because he does not
permit his likeness to appear in the daily papers, I would not know him; but
it was necessary, both for the sake of his opinion of me and my own of
myself, that he should discover that I am not so easily deceived. When he
recovers from his initial irritation, he will retire tonight with greater
confidence in the abilities I will devote to the mission he has entrusted to
me."
"It is typical of you, monsieur," Andrщe said kindly, "that you are
concerned that your clients sleep well."
Her pretty cheek tempted me, and I pinched it. "I am concerned," I
replied; "but the Baron will not sleep well."

My train roared out of Paris through meadows sweet with wild flowers, to
penetrate mountain passes in which the danger of avalanches was only just
past. The glitter of rushing water, sprung from on high, was everywhere;
and when the express slowed to climb a grade, the song of water was
everywhere, too, water running and shouting down the gray rocks of the
Alps. I fell asleep that night with the descant of that icy purity sounding
through the plainsong of the rails, and I woke in the station of I____, the old
capital of J____, now a province of K____.
I engaged a porter to convey my trunk to the hotel where I had made
reservations by telegraph the day before, and amused myself for a few
hours by strolling about the city. Here I found the Middle Ages might almost
be said to have remained rather than lingered. The city wall was complete
on three sides, with its merloned towers in repair; and the cobbled streets
surely dated from a period when wheeled traffic of any kind was scarce. As
for the buildings - Puss in Boots and his friends must have loved them
dearly: there were bulging walls and little panes of bull's-eye glass, and
overhanging upper floors one above another until the structures seemed
unbalanced as tops. Upon one grey old pile with narrow windows and
massive doors, I found a plaque informing me that though it had been first
built as a church, it had been successively a prison, a customhouse, a
private home, and a school. I investigated further, and discovered it was
now an arcade, having been divided, I should think at about the time of the