"Г.К.Честертон. The Club of Queer Trades " - читать интересную книгу автора

"I was saying that I wondered whether you would mind our strolling
along with you to this house-agent's."

The visitor swung his stick with a sudden whirling violence.

"Oh, in God's name, come to my house-agent's! Come to my bedroom.
Look under my bed. Examine my dust-bin. Come along!" And with a
furious energy which took away our breath he banged his way out of
the room.

Rupert Grant, his restless blue eyes dancing with his detective
excitement, soon shouldered alongside him, talking to him with that
transparent camaraderie which he imagined to be appropriate from
the disguised policeman to the disguised criminal. His
interpretation was certainly corroborated by one particular detail,
the unmistakable unrest, annoyance, and nervousness of the man with
whom he walked. Basil and I tramped behind, and it was not
necessary for us to tell each other that we had both noticed this.

Lieutenant Drummond Keith led us through very extraordinary and
unpromising neighbourhoods in the search for his remarkable
house-agent. Neither of the brothers Grant failed to notice this
fact. As the streets grew closer and more crooked and the roofs
lower and the gutters grosser with mud, a darker curiosity deepened
on the brows of Basil, and the figure of Rupert seen from behind
seemed to fill the street with a gigantic swagger of success. At
length, at the end of the fourth or fifth lean grey street in that
sterile district, we came suddenly to a halt, the mysterious
lieutenant looking once more about him with a sort of sulky
desperation. Above a row of shutters and a door, all indescribably
dingy in appearance and in size scarce sufficient even for a penny
toyshop, ran the inscription: "P. Montmorency, House-Agent."

"This is the office of which I spoke," said Keith, in a cutting
voice. "Will you wait here a moment, or does your astonishing
tenderness about my welfare lead you to wish to overhear everything
I have to say to my business adviser?"

Rupert's face was white and shaking with excitement; nothing on
earth would have induced him now to have abandoned his prey.

"If you will excuse me," he said, clenching his hands behind his
back, "I think I should feel myself justified in--"

"Oh! Come along in," exploded the lieutenant. He made the same
gesture of savage surrender. And he slammed into the office, the
rest of us at his heels.

P. Montmorency, House-Agent, was a solitary old gentleman sitting
behind a bare brown counter. He had an egglike head, froglike jaws,