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”

— За что?!

— Навестите Джералда Шервуда, — сказал безличный голос. — Мы побеседуем с ним о вас.

— Слушайте! — заорал я. — Я не понимаю, что происходит, но...

“Just talk to Gerald Sherwood,” said the voice.

Then the phone went dead. Dead, completely dead. There was no humming on the wire. There was just an emptiness.

“Hello, there,” I shouted. “Hello, whoever you may be.”

But there was no answer.

— Поговорите с Джералдом Шервудом, — повторил голос.

И телефон заглох. Как отрезало. Не было смутного гуденья, не ощущалось, что где-то там по проводам идет ток.

Все глухо и пусто.

— Эй! — кричал я. — Эй, кто там!

Никакого ответа.

I took the receiver from my ear and stood with it in my hand, trying to reach back into my memory for something that I knew was there. That final voice—I should know that voice. I had heard it somewhere. But my memory felled me.

I put the receiver back on the cradle and picked up the phone. It was, to all appearance, an ordinary phone, except that it had no dial and was entirely unconnected.

I looked for a trademark or a manufacturer's designation and there was no such thing.

Я отвел трубку от уха и, не выпуская ее из рук, мучительно шарил в памяти. Этот голос, что говорил последним... словно бы он мне знаком. Где-то когда-то а его слышал. Но где? Когда? Не помню, хоть убей.

Я опустил трубку на рычаг и взял аппарат в руки. С виду самый обыкновенный телефон, но без диска и ни признака проводов и контактов. Я осмотрел его со всех сторон — ни фабричной марки, ни имени фабриканта, ни адреса фирмы не оказалось.

Ed Adler had come to take out the phone. He had disconnected it and had been standing, with it dangling from his hand, when I'd gone out for my walk.

When I had returned and heard the ringing of the phone and seen it on the desk, the thing that had run through my mind (illogical, but the only ready explanation), had been that for some reason Ed had reconnected the phone and had not taken it.

Perhaps because of his friendship for me; willing, perhaps, to disregard an order so that I could keep the phone. Or, perhaps, that Tom Preston might have reconsidered and decided to give me a little extra time. Or even that some unknown benefactor had come forward to pay the bill and save the phone for me.

Только сегодня Эд Адлер снял у меня телефон. Он перерезал провода, и, когда я уходил из конторы, он стоял тут, держа аппарат на весу.