"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Disappearance Of Lady Frances Carfax" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

wrist with great violence on the public promenade by the lake.
He was a fierce and terrible man. She believed that it was out
of dread of him that Lady Frances had accepted the escort of the
Shlessingers to London. She had never spoken to Marie about it,
but many little signs had convinced the maid that her mistress
lived in a state of continual nervous apprehension. So far she
had got in her narrative, when suddenly she sprang from her chair
and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear. "See!" she
cried. "The miscreant follows still! There is the very man of
whom I speak."

Through the open sitting-room window I saw a huge, swarthy man
with a bristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of
the street and staring eagerly at he numbers of the houses. It
was clear that, like myself, he was on the track of the maid.
Acting upon the impulse of the moment, I rushed out and accosted
him.

"You are an Englishman," I said.

"What if I am?" he asked with a most villainous scowl.

"May I ask what your name is?"

"No, you may not," said he with decision.

The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the
best.

"Where is the Lady Frances Carfax?" I asked.

He stared at me with amazement.

"What have you done with her? Why have you pursued her? I
insist upon an answer!" said I.

The fellow gave a below of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger.
I have held my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of
iron and the fury of a fiend. His hand was on my throat and my
senses were nearly gone before an unshaven French ouvrier in a
blue blouse darted out from a cabaret opposite, with a cudgel in
his hand, and struck my assailant a sharp crack over the forearm,
which made him leave go his hold. He stood for an instant fuming
with rage and uncertain whether he should not renew his attack.
Then, with a snarl of anger, he left me and entered the cottage
from which I had just come. I turned to thank my preserver, who
stood beside me in the roadway.

"Well, Watson," said he, "a very pretty hash you have made of it!
I rather think you had better come back with me to London by the