– And you be silent! – angrily the militiaman told. – Do not force down. I ask, a hand whose? Perhaps, here the smertoubiystvo occurred. Perhaps to the person the hand was cut off, and he without hand goes now and looks for where a hand.
– Good gracious! – Tarasovna began to wail. – Well, as will come yes here will shout: «Give my hand!»
– Here that and it. It, citizens, not a joke, but a crime under the article of the Criminal code. Where your summer resident Wagner?
– In Moscow. Today has to be.
– Here we will arrest him and we will remove interrogation from it. From where it got a human hand and on what code operates it? To stop a grinding! Illegally.
– Ah, fathers! – again Tarasovna screamed. Now she bitterly regretted the curiosity, and it is even more in what in a temper stirred up about the hand which frightened her. – Unless you will stop it? Shout at it do not shout – will not hear, there are no ears. Twists and twists.
– Well and let twists, and do not fill up grain.
Talking loudly, all left a mill. I remained to look what will be done by Tarasovna. She did not dare to disobey an administration order did not fill up grain in a funnel any more. But she regretted a hand which now in vain a millstone spit or maybe it was a pity for millstones, and Tarasovna stopped work of a hand, having turned a rychazhok on a box.
– You did affairs! – I told Tarasovna, becoming angry about her for the fact that her curiosity and garrulity will give now a lot of trouble to Wagner. I for a minute did not doubt that Wagner did not commit any crime.
– You did! – she answered with irritation. – All mill was befouled! Here and people speak: devil’s mill.
The chairman of the Village Council and the militiaman returned with the press and sealing wax. The militiaman remembered that measures to protection of traces of crime are not taken.
– Ceased to grind? – the militiaman asked.
– Poshabashila – Tarasovna answered.
The chairman set the seal to doors of a box in which there was a hand, and Tarasovna awfully was afraid that the chairman did not burn a mill. But everything was safely. The second seal was set to a mill door.
I met halfway on Wagner Road, intending to warn him about events of day. However my maneuver was not successful. The militiaman called to me and suggested to return. Anything else did not remain to me how to go to a garden and to continue the interrupted reading.
The village worried and hooted as an alarmed beehive. All with impatience expected Wagner’s arrival, and he forced itself to expect long enough. Already began to get dark when the boys guarding on the road cried:
– Goes! Goes!
All hurried on the road. Wagner really drove up to us. But on what crew! Imagine the long office table covered with the cloth which is going down to the earth. Above at the edges «table» is fenced with a board or iron wall of centimeters fifty height. It, obviously, was also that «samobezhka» about which Wagner spoke to me.
Because of the mountain the gray cloud rose. Wind twisted small tornadoes of dust on the road. The rain, long ago zhdanny Tarasovna came.
– Sit down! – Wagner shouted, having seen me. It stopped the extraordinary cart, I jumped and took seat near it. At this time the crowd, predvoditelstvuyemy the chairman of the Village Council, already approached a samobezhka.
– The citizen, climb up, you are arrested! – the chairman told.
Unexpectedly the wind gust lifted the edge of cloth which veiled a samobezhka. Shout of horror swept on crowd, and she started back as if not a light breeze, but the strongest hurricane suddenly struck it. Shrill squeal of Tarasovna covered all voices. Several minutes proceeded this confusion which reason I did not understand.
Wagner quietly looked at crowd, undertook a wheel of management, and… the crowd screamed even more loudly than former again. Samobezhka rose by racks as a horse whom the skilled equestrian forces to turn all the case on hind legs. Then Wagner directed the crew uphill, without paying attention to shouts of crowd, the chairman and the militiaman. The militiaman rushed after, but Wagner translated the speed lever, and the samobezhka with extraordinary ease began to take rise.
The militiaman remained behind, but he did not want to be reconciled with the defeat. He ran after us. To the station was nearby. We went not at a full speed yet. In a few minutes after we passed the station and came out to the highway conducting to Moscow, we heard for ourselves a motorcycle crash. Obviously, the militiaman who got from where the car, decided to continue a pursuit. Wagner smiled.
– Here I will show you all qualities of my samobezhka now.
He continued to drive at the same speed, without paying attention to the approaching persecutor. And when the militiaman already almost overtook for us, Wagner turned… is not present, did not turn, and such bend who is absolutely impossible for the ordinary car made. It suddenly stopped a samobezhka and then somehow moved it all case to the right to the roadside as if the samobezhka could run not only forward, but also sideways. It was made so unexpectedly that the militiaman did not manage to constrain the motorcycle and slipped forward.
But Wagner was not satisfied with this effect. It started up a samobezhka forward again and it appeared ahead of the militiaman soon, as if setting on him. At this time the rain went. On the highway the big pools which were flowing down in quite deep ditches on both sides of the highway were formed. Wagner admitted the persecutor even closer and suddenly, having abruptly turned, sent a samobezhka across the highway, to a ditch. I involuntarily grasped overboard. But my fears were vain. Samobezhka as the small tank, safely crept through a ditch and ran on the pitted, kochkovaty field. The militiaman with the motorcycle, of course, could not follow us. He would break the car in the first ditch.
– Here you see! – Wagner himself, probably, delighted with the invention told.
– Perfectly! – I exclaimed. – But how this samobezhka is arranged and what frightened crowd when it uvidat your crew?
– The pursuit lagged behind, we can have a talk – Wagner told. – Bend and raise cloth.
I raised cloth and screamed from surprise. Cloth covered… three pairs of naked human legs!
– Have fun, and there is enough – Wagner told, laughing. – It is necessary to comply also companion militiaman, he honestly fulfilled the duty. We go back and we will give up in hands of the authority. We will return on the dacha and we will explain all incident. I have documents that all hands and legs are taken by me for scientific experiences from dissecting room; it is clear, that I did not commit any murder.
– But what image these legs and the hand rotating millstones…
– And here wait – professor interrupted me – now we will do a ceremony of surrender, and then I will tell you.
And when this ceremony was done, Wagner, continuing to go on the samobezhka under escort of the militiaman accompanying us on the motorcycle began the explanations:
– I will be short. They say, life is burning. However the last observations over vital processes showed that it absolutely not so. Life is not burning, but without burning life cannot last long. Found special substance in muscles a glycogen which from the chemical point of view represents almost the same, as sugar. And so, at muscle work in it lactic acid and warmth, that is free energy are formed of this sugar. It is calculated that upon transition of sugar to one gram of lactic acid hundred seventy calories are released. Thus, muscle work, or if you want, her life, happens without oxidation or combustion. But when in the working muscle heat (energy) was generated and the glycogen appeared, without oxygen this lactic