Array Коллектив авторов - 75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘You’ll find your correspondence in the library,’ went on Saunders. ‘Most of it I’ve seen to. There are a few private letters I haven’t opened. There’s also a box with a rat, or something, inside it that came by the evening post. Very likely it’s the six-toed albino. I didn’t look, because I didn’t want to mess up my things but I should gather from the way it’s jumping about that it’s pretty hungry.’

‘Oh, I’ll see to it,’ said Eustace, ‘while you and the Captain earn an honest penny.’

Dinner over and Saunders gone, Eustace went into the library. Though the fire had been lit the room was by no means cheerful.

‘We’ll have all the lights on at any rate,’ he said, as he turned the switches. ‘And, Morton,’ he added, when the butler brought the coffee, ‘get me a screwdriver or something to undo this box. Whatever the animal is, he’s kicking up the deuce of a row. What is it? Why are you dawdling?’

‘If you please, sir, when the postman brought it he told me that they’d bored the holes in the lid at the post-office. There were no breathin’ holes in the lid, sir, and they didn’t want the animal to die. That is all, sir.’

‘It’s culpably careless of the man, whoever he was,’ said Eustace, as he removed the screws, ‘packing an animal like this in a wooden box with no means of getting air. Confound it all! I meant to ask Morton to bring me a cage to put it in. Now I suppose I shall have to get one myself.’

He placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had been removed, and went into the billiard-room. As he came back into the library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the sound of something falling, and then of something scuttling along the floor.

‘Bother it! The beast’s got out. How in the world am I to find it again in this library!’

To search for it did indeed seem hopeless. He tried to follow the sound of the scuttling in one of the recesses where the animal seemed to be running behind the books in the shelves, but it was impossible to locate it. Eustace resolved to go on quietly reading. Very likely the animal might gain confidence and show itself. Saunders seemed to have dealt in his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence. There were still the private letters.

What was that? Two sharp clicks and the lights in the hideous candelabra that hung from the ceiling suddenly went out.

‘I wonder if something has gone wrong with the fuse,’ said Eustace, as he went to the switches by the door. Then he stopped. There was a noise at the other end of the room, as if something was crawling up the iron corkscrew stair. ‘If it’s gone into the gallery,’ he said, ‘well and good.’ He hastily turned on the lights, crossed the room, and climbed up the stair. But he could see nothing. His grandfather had placed a little gate at the top of the stair, so that children could run and romp in the gallery without fear of accident. This Eustace closed, and having considerably narrowed the circle of his search, returned to his desk by the fire.

How gloomy the library was! There was no sense of intimacy about the room. The few busts that an eighteenth-century Borlsover had brought back from the grand tour, might have been in keeping in the old library. Here they seemed out of place. They made the room feel cold, in spite of the heavy red damask curtains and great gilt cornices.

With a crash two heavy books fell from the gallery to the floor; then, as Borlsover looked, another and yet another.

‘Very well; you’ll starve for this, my beauty!’ he said. ‘We’ll do some little experiments on the metabolism of rats deprived of water. Go on! Chuck them down! I think I’ve got the upper hand.’ He turned once again to his correspondence. The letter was from the family solicitor. It spoke of his uncle’s death and of the valuable collection of books that had been left to him in the will.

‘There was one request,’ he read, ‘which certainly came as a surprise to me. As you know, Mr. Adrian Borlsover had left instructions that his body was to be buried in as simple a manner as possible at Eastbourne. He expressed a desire that there should be neither wreaths nor flowers of any kind, and hoped that his friends and relatives would not consider it necessary to wear mourning. The day before his death we received a letter canceling these instructions. He wished his body to be embalmed (he gave us the address of the man we were to employ – Pennifer, Ludgate Hill), with orders that his right hand was to be sent to you, stating that it was at your special request. The other arrangements as to the funeral remained unaltered.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Eustace; ‘what in the world was the old boy driving at? And what in the name of all that’s holy is that?

Someone was in the gallery. Someone had pulled the cord attached to one of the blinds, and it had rolled up with a snap. Someone must be in the gallery, for a second blind did the same. Someone must be walking round the gallery, for one after the other the blinds sprang up, letting in the moonlight.

‘I haven’t got to the bottom of this yet,’ said Eustace, ‘but I will do before the night is very much older,’ and he hurried up the corkscrew stair. He had just got to the top when the lights went out a second time, and he heard again the scuttling along the floor. Quickly he stole on tiptoe in the dim moonshine in the direction of the noise, feeling as he went for one of the switches. His fingers touched the metal knob at last. He turned on the electric light.

About ten yards in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man’s hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly, in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the fingers humped up one moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the hand disappeared round the corner Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw it, but he could hear it as it squeezed its way behind the books on one of the shelves. A heavy volume had been displaced. There was a gap in the row of books where it had got in. In his fear lest it should escape him again, he seized the first book that came to his hand and plugged it into the hole. Then, emptying two shelves of their contents, he took the wooden boards and propped them up in front to make his barrier doubly sure.

‘I wish Saunders was back,’ he said; ‘one can’t tackle this sort of thing alone.’ It was after eleven, and there seemed little likelihood of Saunders returning before twelve. He did not dare to leave the shelf unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At last he heard steps down below.

‘Morton!’ he shouted; ‘Morton!’

‘Sir?’

‘Has Mr. Saunders got back yet?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Well, bring me some brandy, and hurry up about it. I’m up here in the gallery, you duffer.’

‘Thanks,’ said Eustace, as he emptied the glass. ‘Don’t go to bed yet, Morton. There are a lot of books that have fallen down by accident; bring them up and put them back in their shelves.’

Morton had never seen Borlsover in so talkative a mood as on that night. ‘Here,’ said Eustace, when the books had been put back and dusted, ‘you might hold up these boards for me, Morton. That beast in the box got out, and I’ve been chasing it all over the place.’

‘I think I can hear it chawing at the books, sir. They’re not valuable, I hope? I think that’s the carriage, sir; I’ll go and call Mr. Saunders.’

It seemed to Eustace that he was away for five minutes, but it could hardly have been more than one when he returned with Saunders. ‘All right, Morton, you can go now. I’m up here, Saunders.’