"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Adventure Of The Bruce Partington Plan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

"Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country
lane. Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall
lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall--that is his cycle. Once,
and only once, he has been here. What upheaval can possibly have
derailed him?"

"Does he not explain?"

Holmes handed me his brother's telegram.

Must see you over Cadogen West. Coming at once.

Mycroft.

"Cadogen West? I have heard the name."

"It recalls nothing to my mind. But that Mycroft should break
out in this erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its
orbit. By the way, do you know what Mycroft is?"

I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of
the Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.

"You told me that he had some small office under the British
government."

Holmes chuckled.

"I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be
discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right
in thinking that he under the British government. You would also
be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he IS the
British government."

"My dear Holmes!"

"I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and
fifty pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of
any kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the
most indispensable man in the country."

"But how?"

"Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself.
There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again.
He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest
capacity for storing facts, of any man living. The same great
powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used
for this particular business. The conclusions of every