"Masterton, Graham - The Djinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

"It was something to do with the jar. Do you remember the jar?"

I nodded. "Sure. You mean the one he brought back from Arabia, the one with the blue flowers and the horses and everything? Yes, of course I do. It used to be one of my favorite things when I was a kid."

"Well," said Marjorie carefully, "there was something about the jar that none of us knew. Max knew, but it was only toward the end that he told me. The jar was-well, it was strange." "What kind of strange? You mean rare?" "No, no," she said. "It had strange properties. At certain times, it used to sing. I mean, it made singing noises. I never heard it, but Max said he did. It was usually at night. He said he went up to his study once, at two or three in the morning, and the jar was singing."

I frowned. "Singing? Singing what?" Marjorie shook her head. "It wasn't a particular tune or anything, but it really used to sing, or so Max said. He went up several times after that, in the night, and it was singing."

"I guess it was a freak. You know-wind blowing across the mouth of the jar, something like that."

"No," said Marjorie adamantly. "Max said he thought of that, and he put the jar in the attic. It still went on singing. Anyway, the top of the jar was sealed with wax, if you remember, so it couldn't have made a noise."

I thought for a while, smoking my cigarette. "Maybe there was something; inside of it-spices or something-and they made a gas that was leaking out of the seal."

"Then why just at night?" asked Marjorie. "Why didn't it sing all the time?"

"Because the surrounding air is colder at night-time," said Albert Einstein the Second. "The pressure inside the jar was relatively greater at night, so the gases inside it were forced out"

Marjorie shrugged. "I don't know, Harry. All I know was that Max began to grow very-peculiar. He was nervous and worried, and he often complained of headaches and biliousness. He spent a lot of time in his study, and he said he was writing his memoirs or something, but I never saw any writing and he never showed me any. I asked him about it quite often, but he always said he had a great deal of research to do before he actually put pen to paper. I was very worried about him. I tried to get him to see the doctor, but he always said that the sickness would pass."

I watched a two-masted yacht in the distance, bouncing through the foam. Overhead, an airplane droned, circling Hyannis Airport.

"What about the paintings?" I asked her. "Why did he take all those paintings down?"

"I don't know. He said we must. He said it would be a great mistake to leave any kind of portrait or photograph in the house. He had all his books taken away, in case there was a picture in any of them, and he had all our tapestry furniture removed."

I tossed away my cigarette butt "That sounds very weird indeed. What would he want to do a thing like that for?"

"He said there were pictures of people on the tapestry furniture, so we couldn't leave them in the house. There were to be no portraits of any kind, ever. He used to look through the groceries to see if any of the packets had pictures of people on them; and if they did, he used to soak off the labels and burn them."

"Marjorie," I said. "It really sounds as if Max was-well. . ."

"I know!" she said simply. "That's why I didn't want to tell anyone what happened. Nobody liked him much anyway, in his later years. He was a very hard man to get on with. He was always fretting and nagging and losing his temper. I've had six or seven years of it, Harry, and I don't mind saying I'm almost glad he's gone."

"Mmmm," I said. "I can understand." Marjorie shook her head. "That's more than I do. He was always going on about his beastly jar. He almost used to talk as if it were a privileged guest who mustn't be disturbed, I was always telling him to get rid of it, but he said he couldn't. I threatened to smash it once, and he almost went mad with rage. In the end, he locked it in the turret."

I turned my head and stared across at the Gothic turret on the ocean side of the house. Its windows were dark and vacant, and on its pointed roof, the weathervane squeaked monotonously.

"You mean-it's still there?"

Marjorie nodded. "He sealed the door. I used to like going up in the turret to sew. You know what a beautiful view it has. But he insisted on sealing the jar inside, and he wouldn't let me go near it. I know it sounds absurd, and I used to think sometimes he was completely mad, but in everything else he did, he so obviously wasn't. There was something about the jar that worried him, and he felt he had to lock it away."

I scratched my head. "I'd like to see it."

Marjorie immediately gripped my hand. She went quite pale and I was almost sorry I'd spoken.

"Oh, no-you mustn't do that. Please, Harry. Max said specifically that the jar was not to be touched. We were to burn down the house and not to touch the jar."

"Burn the house down? Marjorie, this gets nuttier by the minute. I think the best thing we can do is have a look at this old jar of Max's and see what he was so worried about. I mean-maybe it has some diseased old clothing in it or something, and Max was concerned that we'd all get infected with some Arabian plague. For Christ's sake, you can't be afraid of a jar?"