Array Коллектив авторов - 33 лучших юмористических рассказа на английском / 33 Best Humorous Short Stories

So we all drove away with three cheers for Mother, and Mother stood and watched us from the verandah for as long as she could see us, and Father waved his hand back to her every few minutes till he hit his hand on the back edge of the car, and then said that he didn’t think that Mother could see us any longer.

Well – we had the loveliest day up among the hills that you could possibly imagine, and Father caught such big specimens that he felt sure that Mother couldn’t have landed them anyway, if she had been fishing for them, and Will and I fished too, though we didn’t get so many as Father, and the two girls met quite a lot of people that they knew as we drove along, and there were some young men friends of theirs that they met along the stream and talked to, and so we all had a splendid time.

It was quite late when we got back, nearly seven o’clock in the evening, but Mother had guessed that we would be late, so she had kept back the dinner so as to have it just nicely ready and hot for us. Only first she had to get towels and soap for Father and clean things for him to put on, because he always gets so messed up with fishing, and that kept Mother busy for a little while, that and helping the girls get ready.

But at last everything was ready, and we sat down to the grandest kind of dinner – roast turkey and all sorts of things like on Xmas Day. Mother had to get up and down a good bit during the meal fetching things back and forward, but at the end Father noticed it and said she simply mustn’t do it, that he wanted her to spare herself, and he got up and fetched the walnuts over from the sideboard himself.

The dinner lasted a long while, and was great fun, and when it was over all of us wanted to help clear the things up and wash the dishes, only Mother said that she would really much rather do it, and so we let her, because we wanted just for once to humor her.

It was quite late when it was all over, and when we all kissed Mother before going to bed, she said it had been the most wonderful day in her life, and I think there were tears in her eyes. So we all felt awfully repaid for all that we had done.

I propose tonight, ladies and gentlemen, to deal with murder. There are only two subjects that appeal nowadays to the general public, murder and sex; and, for people of culture, sex-murder. Leaving out sex for the minute – if you can – I propose tonight to talk about murder as carried on openly and daily at two dollars and fifty cents a crime.

For me, I admit right away that if I’m going to pay two dollars and fifty cents for a book I want to make sure that there’s going to be at least one murder in it. I always take a look at the book first to see if there’s a chapter headed ‘Finding of the Body.’ And I know that everything is all right when it says, The body was that of an elderly gentleman, well dressed but upside down. Always, you notice, an ‘elderly gentleman.’ What they have against us, I don’t know. But you see, if it said that the body was that of a woman – that’s a tragedy. The body was that of a child! – that’s a horror. But the body was that of an elderly gentleman – oh, pshaw! that’s all right. Anyway he’s had his life – he’s had a good time (It says he’s well dressed.) – probably been out on a hoot. (He’s found upside down.) That’s all right! He’s worth more dead than alive.

But as a matter of fact, from reading so many of these stories I get to be such an expert that I don’t have to wait for the finding of the body. I can tell just by a glance at the beginning of the book who’s going to be the body. For example, if the scene is laid on this side of the water, say in New York, look for an opening paragraph that runs about like this:

Mr. Phineas Q. Cactus sat in his downtown office in the drowsy hour of a Saturday afternoon. He was alone. Work was done for the day. The clerks were gone. The building, save for the janitor, who lived in the basement, was empty.

Notice that, save for the janitor. Be sure to save him. We’re going to need him later on, to accuse him of the murder.

As he sat thus, gazing in a sort of reverie at the papers on the desk in front of him, his chin resting on his hand, his eyes closed and slumber stole upon him.

Of course! To go to sleep like that in a downtown deserted office is a crazy thing to do in New York – let alone Chicago. Every intelligent reader knows that Mr. Cactus is going to get a crack on the cocoanut. He’s the body.

But if you don’t mind my saying so, they get a better setting for this kind of thing in England than they do with us. You need an old country to get a proper atmosphere around murder. The best murders (always of elderly gentlemen) are done in the country at some old country seat – any wealthy elderly gentleman has a seat – called by such a name as the Priory, or the Doggery, or the Chase – that sort of thing. Try this for example:

Sir Charles Althorpe sat alone in his library at Althorpe Chase. It was late at night. The fire had burned low in the grate. Through the heavily curtained windows no sound came from outside. Save for the maids, who slept in a distant wing, and save for the butler, whose pantry was under the stairs, the Chase, at this time of the year, was empty. As Sir Charles sat thus in his arm-chair, his head gradually sank upon his chest and he dozed off into slumber.

Foolish man! Doesn’t he know that to doze off into slumber in an isolated country house, with the maids in a distant wing, is little short of madness? But do you notice? – Sir Charles! He’s a baronet. That’s the touch to give class to it. And do you notice that we have saved the butler, just as we did the janitor? Of course he didn’t really kill Sir Charles, but the local police always arrest the butler. And anyway, he’d been seen sharpening a knife on his pants in his pantry and saying, ‘I’ll do for the old Devil yet.’

So there is the story away to a good start – Sir Charles’s Body found next morning by a ‘terrified’ maid – all maids are terrified – who ‘could scarcely give an intelligent account of what she saw’ – they never can. Then the local police (Inspector Higginbottom of the Hopshire Constabulary) are called in and announce themselves ‘baffled.’ Every time the reader hears that the local police are called in he smiles an indulgent smile and knows they are just there to be baffled.

At this point of the story enters the Great Detective, specially sent by or through Scotland Yard. That’s another high class touch – Scotland Yard. It’s not a Yard, and it’s not in Scotland. Knowing it only from detective fictions I imagine it is a sort of club somewhere near the Thames in London. You meet the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury going in and out all the time – but so strictly incognito that you don’t know that it is them, I mean that they are it. And apparently even ‘royalty’ is found ‘closeted’ with heads at the yard – ‘royalty’ being in English a kind of hush-word for things too high up to talk about.

Well, anyway, the Yard sends down the Great Detective, either as an official or as an outsider to whom the Yard appeal when utterly stuck; and he comes down to the Chase, looking for clues.

Here comes in a little technical difficulty in the narration of the story. We want to show what a wonderful man the Great Detective is, and yet he can’t be made tell the story himself. He’s too silent – and too strong. So the method used nowadays is to have a sort of shadow along with him, a companion, a sort of Poor Nut, full of admiration but short on brains. Ever since Conan Doyle started this plan with Sherlock and Watson, all the others have copied it. So the story is told by this secondary person. Taken at his own face value he certainly is a Poor Nut. Witness the way in which his brain breaks down utterly and is set going again by the Great Detective. The scene occurs when the Great Detective begins to observe all the things around the place that were overlooked by Inspector Higginbottom.