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

and a grey hairy fringe of aureole round the lower part of his
face; the whole combined with a reddish, aquiline nose. He wore a
shabby black frock-coat, a sort of semi-clerical tie worn at a very
unclerical angle, and looked, generally speaking, about as unlike a
house-agent as anything could look, short of something like a
sandwich man or a Scotch Highlander.

We stood inside the room for fully forty seconds, and the odd old
gentleman did not look at us. Neither, to tell the truth, odd as he
was, did we look at him. Our eyes were fixed, where his were fixed,
upon something that was crawling about on the counter in front of
him. It was a ferret.

The silence was broken by Rupert Grant. He spoke in that sweet and
steely voice which he reserved for great occasions and practised
for hours together in his bedroom. He said:

"Mr Montmorency, I think?"

The old gentleman started, lifted his eyes with a bland
bewilderment, picked up the ferret by the neck, stuffed it alive
into his trousers pocket, smiled apologetically, and said:

"Sir."

"You are a house-agent, are you not?" asked Rupert.

To the delight of that criminal investigator, Mr Montmorency's eyes
wandered unquietly towards Lieutenant Keith, the only man present
that he knew.

"A house-agent," cried Rupert again, bringing out the word as if it
were "burglar'.

"Yes . . . oh, yes," said the man, with a quavering and almost
coquettish smile. "I am a house-agent . . . oh, yes."

"Well, I think," said Rupert, with a sardonic sleekness, "that
Lieutenant Keith wants to speak to you. We have come in by his
request."

Lieutenant Keith was lowering gloomily, and now he spoke.

"I have come, Mr Montmorency, about that house of mine."

"Yes, sir," said Montmorency, spreading his fingers on the flat
counter. "It's all ready, sir. I've attended to all your
suggestions er--about the br--"

"Right," cried Keith, cutting the word short with the startling