"Murray Leinster - The Gadget Had a Ghost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

sort of political shenanigan. But he wouldn’t be referred to. Not
seven centuries ago!”
“You were,” said Ghalil. “And Mr. Mannard. And 8o Hosain. I
think M. Duval and myself will investigate that address and see if it
solves the mystery or deepens it.”
Duval suddenly shook his head.
“No,” he said with a sort of pathetic violence. “This affair is
not possible! To think of it invites madness! Mr. Coghian, let us
thrust all this from our minds! Let us abandon it! I ask your pardon
for my intrusion. I had hoped to find an explanation which could be
believed. I abandon the hope and the attempt. I shall go back to Paris
and deny to myself that any of this has ever taken place!”
Coghlan did not believe him, said nothing.
“I hope,” said Ghalil mildly, “that you may reconsider.” He
moved toward the door with the Frenchman in tow. “To abandon all
inquiry at this stage would be suicidal!”
Coghlan said:
“Suicidal?”
“For one,” admitted Ghalil, ruefully, “I should die of curiosity!”
He waved his hand and went out, pushing Duval. And Goghlan
began to dress for his dinner with Laurie and her father at the Hotel
Petra. But as he dressed, his forehead continually creased into a
scowl of somehow angry puzzlement.

II

All the taxicabs of Istanbul are driven by escaped maniacs whom
the Turkish police inexplicably leave at large. The cab in which
Coghlan drove toward the Hotel Petra was driven by a man with
very dark skin and very white teeth and a conviction that the fate of
every pedestrian was determined by Allah and he did not have to
worry about them. His cab was equipped with an unusually full-
throated horn, and fortunately he seemed to love the sound of it. So
Coghian rode madly through narrow streets in which foot-
passengers seemed constantly to be recoiling in horror from the cab-
horn, and thereby escaping annihilation by the cab.
The cab passed howling through preposterously narrow lanes. It
turned corners on two wheels with less than inches to spare. It
rushed roaring upon knots of people who dissolved with incredible
agility before its approach, and it plunged into alleys like tunnels,
and it emerged into the wider streets of the more mod-
em part of town with pungent Turkish curses hanging upon it like
garlands.
Coghlan did not notice. Once he was alone, suspicions sprang up
luxuriantly. But he could no more justify them than he could accept
the situation his visitors had presented. The two had not asked for
money or hinted at it. Coghlan didn’t have any money, anyhow, for
them to be scheming to get. The only man a swindling scheme could
be aimed at was Mannard. Mannard had money. He’s made a
fortune building dams, docks, railroads and power installations in