"G.K.Chesterton. The man who was Thursday. A nightmare (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

listen to me. I like you. The consequence is that it would annoy me for just
about two and a half minutes if I heard that you had died in torments. Well,
if you ever tell the police or any human soul about us, I shall have that
two and a half minutes of discomfort. On your discomfort I will not dwell.
Good day. Mind the step."
The red-haired detective who had masqueraded as Gogol rose to his feet
without a word, and walked out of the room with an air of perfect
nonchalance. Yet the astonished Syme was able to realise that this ease was
suddenly assumed; for there was a slight stumble outside the door, which
showed that the departing detective had not minded the step.
"Time is flying," said the President in his gayest manner, after
glancing at his watch, which like everything about him seemed bigger than it
ought to be. "I must go off at once; I have to take the chair at a
Humanitarian meeting."
The Secretary turned to him with working eyebrows.
"Would it not be better," he said a little sharply, "to discuss further
the details of our project, now that the spy has left us?"
"No, I think not," said the President with a yawn like an unobtrusive
earthquake. "Leave it as it is. Let Saturday settle it. I must be off.
Breakfast here next Sunday."
But the late loud scenes had whipped up the almost naked nerves of the
Secretary. He was one of those men who are conscientious even in crime.
"I must protest, President, that the thing is irregular," he said. "It
is a fundamental rule of our society that all plans shall be debated in full
council. Of course, I fully appreciate your forethought when in the actual
presence of a traitor--"
"Secretary," said the President seriously, "if you'd take your head
home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can't say. But it might.
The Secretary reared back in a kind of equine anger.
"I really fail to understand--" he began in high offense.
"That's it, that's it," said the President, nodding a great many times.
"That's where you fail right enough. You fail to understand. Why, you
dancing donkey," he roared, rising, "you didn't want to be overheard by a
spy, didn't you? How do you know you aren't overheard now?"
And with these words he shouldered his way out of the room, shaking
with incomprehensible scorn.
Four of the men left behind gaped after him without any apparent
glimmering of his meaning. Syme alone had even a glimmering, and such as it
was it froze him to the bone. If the last words of the President meant
anything, they meant that he had not after all passed unsuspected. They
meant that while Sunday could not denounce him like Gogol, he still could
not trust him like the others.
The other four got to their feet grumbling more or less, and betook
themselves elsewhere to find lunch, for it was already well past midday. The
Professor went last, very slowly and painfully. Syme sat long after the rest
had gone, revolving his strange position. He had escaped a thunderbolt, but
he was still under a cloud. At last he rose and made his way out of the
hotel into Leicester Square. The bright, cold day had grown increasingly
colder, and when he came out into the street he was surprised by a few
flakes of snow. While he still carried the sword-stick and the rest of