"Brian Lumley - A Coven Of Vampires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

protested. 'You can't come in - this compartment is reserved . . .'
'Is that so, noo? Well, if ye'll kindly show me the reserved notice,' Jock had paused to tap
significantly upon the naked glass of the door with a belligerent fingernail, 'Ah'll bother ye no
more - meanwhile, though, if ye'll hold ye're blether, Ah'd appreciate a bleddy seat . . .'
'No, no . . .' The scrawny man had started to protest again, only to be quickly cut off by a terse
command from behind him:
'Let them In...'
I shook my head and pinched my nose, blowing heavily and puffing out my cheeks to clear my ears.
For the voice from within the dimly-lit compartment had sounded hollow, unnatural. Possibly the
train had started to pass through a tunnel, an occurrence which never fails to give me trouble
with my ears. I glanced out of the exterior corridor window and saw immediately that I was wrong;
far off on the dark horizon I could see the red glare of coke-oven fires. Anyway, whatever the
effect had been which had given that voice its momentarily peculiar - resonance? - it had
obviously passed, for Jock's voice sounded perfectly normal as he said: 'Noo tha's better; excuse
a body, will ye?' He shouldered the dubious looking man in the doorway to one side and slid
clumsily into a seat alongside a second stranger. As I joined them in the compartment, sliding the
door shut behind me, I saw that there were four strangers in all, six people including Jock and
myself; we just made comfortable use of the eight seats which faced inwards in two sets of four.
I have always been a comparatively shy person so it was only the vaguest of perfunctory glances
which I gave to each of the three new faces before I settled back and took out the pocket-book I
had picked up earlier in the day in London.
Those merest of glances, however, were quite sufficient to put me off my book and to tell me that
the three friends of the pin-stripe jacketed man appeared the very strangest of traveling
companions - especially the extremely tall and thin member of the three, sitting stiffly in his
seat beside Jock. The other two answered to approximately the same description as Pin-Stripe - as
I was beginning mentally to tag him - except that one of them wore a thin moustache; but that
fourth one, the tall one, was something else again.
Within the brief duration of the glance I had given him I had seen that, remarkable though the
rest of his features were, his mouth appeared decidedly odd - almost as if it had been painted
onto his face - the merest thin red line, without a trace of puckering or any other depression to
show that there was a hole there at all. His ears were thick and blunt and his eyebrows were bushy
over the most penetrating eyes it has ever been my unhappy lot to find staring at me. Possibly
that was the reason I had glanced so quickly away; the fact that when I had looked at him I had
found him staring at me - and his face had been totally devoid of any expression whatsoever.
Fairies? The nasty thought had flashed through my mind unbidden; none the less, that would explain
why the door had been locked.
Suddenly Pin-Stripe - seated next to me and directly opposite Funny-Mouth - gave a start, and, as
I glanced up from my book, I saw that the two of them were staring directly into each other's
eyes.
'Tell them . . .' Funny-Mouth said, though I was sure his strange lips had not moved a fraction,
and again his voice had seemed distorted, as though his words passed through weirdly angled
corridors before reaching my ears.
'It's, er - almost midnight,' informed Pin-Stripe, grinning sickly first at Jock and then at me.
'Aye,' said Jock sarcastically, 'happens every nicht aboot this time . . . Ye're very observant .
. .'
'Yes,' said Pin-Stripe, choosing to ignore the jibe, 'as you say - but the point I wish to make is
that we three, er, that is, we four,' he corrected himself, indicating his companions with a nod


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