"Фредерик Браун. Night of the Jabberwock (англ) " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Get where?"
"Only a few miles from here. I have directions to guide me to a house
on a road called the Dartown Pike. I have a car."
I said, irrelevantly, "So have I, but the tires are flat. Two of them."
I thought about the Dartown Pike. I said, "You wouldn't, by any chance,
be heading for the house known as the Wentworth place?"
"That's the name, yes. You know of it?"
Right then and there, if I'd been completely sober, I'd have seen that
the whole thing was too good to be true. I'd have smelled fish. Or blood.
I said, "We'll have to take candles or flashlights. That house has been
empty since I was a kid. We used to call it a haunted house. Would that be
why you chose it?"
"Yes, of course."
"And your group is meeting there tonight?"
He nodded. "At one o-clock in the morning, to be exact. You're sure
you're not afraid?"
God, yes, I was afraid. Who wouldn't be, after the build-up he'd just
handed me?
So I grinned at him and said, "Sure, I'm afraid. But just try to keep
me away."
Then I had an idea. If I was going to a haunted house at one o'clock in
the morning to hunt Jabberwocks or try to invoke the ghost of Lewis Carroll
or some equally sensible thing, it wouldn't hurt to have someone along whom
I already knew. And if Al Grainger dropped in I tried to figure out whether
or not Al would be interested. He was a Carroll fan, all right, but for the
rest of it, I didn't know.
I said, "One question, Mr. Smith. A young friend of mine might drop in
soon for a game of chess. How exclusive is this deal? I mean, would it be
all right if he came along, if he wants to?"
"Do you think he's qualified?"
"Depends on what the qualifications are," I said, "Offhand, I'd say you
have to be a Lewis Carroll fan and a little crazy. Or, come to think of it,
are those one and the same qualification?"
He laughed. "They're not too far apart. But tell me something about
your friend. You said young friend; how young?"
"About twenty-three. Not long out of college. Good literary taste and
background, which means he knows and likes Carroll. He can quote almost as
much of it as I can. Plays chess, if that's a qualification and I'd guess
it is. Dodgson not only played chess but based Through the Looking-Glass on
a chess game. His name, if that matters, is Al Grainger."
"Would he want to come?"
"Frankly," I admitted, "I haven't an idea on that angle."
Smith said, "I hope he comes; if he's a Carroll enthusiast, I'd like to
meet him. But, if he comes, will you do me the favor of saying nothing about
what I've told you, at least until I've had a chance to judge him a bit?
Frankly, it would be almost unprecedented if I took the liberty of inviting
someone to an important meeting like tonight's on my own. You're being
invited because we know quite a bit about you. You were voted on and I
might say that the vote to invite you was unanimous."
I remembered his familiarity with the two obscure things about Lewis