"Gene Wolfe - The Case of the Vanishing Ghost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

is saturated with the vile black ink peculiar to the Swineherds. Had the amount exceeded that
sum you would have been more thoroughly disturbed and would have put the pen in your
mouth so that your lips, rather than your haberdashery, would have been black. But enough of
this idle chitchat, I have just received a missive concerning a case which promises to be of
some interest."

The Great Detective's statement is followed instantly by the entry of an old apple-woman.

"Greetings, Sir Humphrey Blassington-Smyth of Little Slopshire on the Gimlet," drawls The
Great Detective.

"Gad, sir!" exclaims Sir Humphrey. (For, as the reader may have guessed, it was really he.) "I
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"As a matter of fact, it was a rather pretty young man with curly blond hair, pink cheeks, very
red lips, and beautiful blue eyes. He spoke with an American accent which was almost
smothered by a pronounced lisp, as I recall."
"How was he dressed?" inquires The Great Detective.

"Strange that you should ask that, for he was oddly dressed indeed. He wore a bright orange
sweater, an orange bow tie with white polka-dots, and pink knickers. There were letters of
some sort on his sweater -- UT I believe. From a few polite questions we learned that he was
an American college student vacationing in England. He had been cycling to Slopshire when
darkness overtook him and he had tumbled into the moat, having mistaken our garden path for
the Slopshire-Digby highway. Fortunately for our self respect, china is uninflammable and we
still had a pinch of orange pekoe left, so that we were able to offer him a cup of tea. When he
lifted it to his lips a remarkable thing happened. He took on a sip, screamed a few words, and
dropped dead."

"What did he say?"

"I can still hear that agonized shriek. He said, 'They make it better than we do at Shu Fli Pi!'
Then he fell. It was terrible."

"Go on," urges The Great Detective.

"Well, it was only a few days later that we learned that this strange incident had been the
salvation of the family. Castle Blassington, which had been barren for eight hundred years, was
haunted!"

"You opened it to the public at once, no doubt."

"Dashed right we did. We charged two shillings, sixpence a head and got it too. Imagine,
gentlemen, the only haunted castle in England with an American ghost. We couldn't keep those
tourists away."

"It must have been a gold mine, but now--?"

"Gentlemen, the ghost vanished two days ago!"

"I see," muses The Great Detective.