"Philip E. High - The Artifact" - читать интересную книгу автора (High Phillip E)

“True, Chief, but if I am to be absolutely honest, you must be prepared for some really drastic surgery. In
the first place, as far as I am concerned, nothing is ‘mystic'. All our technical advances would have been
regarded as mystic or magic a few hundred years ago. Secondly, speaking for myself, I do not even
pretended to be in communication with spirits from the next world or anywhere else. If spirit guides
surround me, they failed to make themselves known. In simple words: I am a psychic—everyone is
psychic. The majority is not aware of it and many, who deny it, unconsciously use it in their daily lives.
Very few in our present culture are taught of its existence and trained to use it.”

“Hang on, a moment, constable Barret—are you trying to tell me I'm psychic?”

“No, Chief, I'm not telling you anything, but I will ask you a question. How many times in your many
investigations have you acted on a hunch that paid off? How often have you questioned an apparently
innocent man andknew , straight away, that he was lying?”

Ransome turned uneasily away, knowing that the answer was very often.

“I have to admit that,” he acknowledged grudgingly.

“In short, Chief, you often acted on a hunch—and hunches are psychic.”

“Right, you've made your point, constable, but I'd like to hear more about you. Just how do you do
whatever it is you do? Without any psychiatric wrapping, please.”

“Well, Chief, as I have tried to explain, I don't have any spirit contacts. I am not clairvoyant, no spirit
guide whispers facts into my ear and I definitely don't have visions. Boiled down to basics, all I do isfeel
things. You, yourself, admitted when we entered that alleged murder scene, that it didn't feel right. To me,
needless to say, the feelings were much more powerful. The radiations from the supposed normal vase
were particularly strong. Again, the alleged body, apparently carved to pieces by a berserk, felt very near
the theatrical. The whole thing was a set-up which might have worked but for the damper.”

“There was no murder at all?”

“Not in my opinion, Chief, no.”

“Then the remains were not those of a certain mid-European con-man?”

“I am absolutely certain, Chief, that no one died in that room.”

Ransome looked at me directly. “You sound very sure of yourself, constable, and I am prepared to go
along with much of what you say but there's a hell of a lot of unfilled gaps. We found an almost complete
organic, human body. Just where the hell did it come from? In this part of the world all bodies are
cremated by law, no one has been buried for over a hundred years so the corpse was not dug up. Again
how the hell did he get it up there—any ideas?”

“Yes, Chief, but with respect, I'd like to keep it to myself until I get more confirmation. What I'm getting
now is, even to me, kind of bizarre.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. In any case, it seems to me in your business, you have something you can't
push.”