23
“NO, PLEASE,” SAID Dirk, restraining Miss Pearce’s hand from opening a letter from the Inland Revenue, “there are wilder skies than these.”
He had emerged from a spell of tense brooding in his darkened office and there was an air of excited concentration about him. It had taken his actual signature on an actual salary check to persuade Miss Pearce to forgive him for the latest unwarrantable extravagance with which he had returned to the office, and he felt that just to sit there blatantly opening letters from the tax man was to take his magnanimous gesture in entirely the wrong spirit.
She put the envelope aside.
“Come!” he said. “I have something I wish you to see. I shall observe your reactions with the very greatest of interest.”
He bustled back into his own office and sat at his desk.
She followed him in patiently and sat opposite, pointedly ignoring the new unwarrantable extravagance sitting on the desk.
The flashy brass plaque for the door had stirred her up pretty badly but the silly phone with big red push-buttons she regarded as being beneath contempt. And she certainly wasn’t going to do anything rash like smile until she knew for certain that the check wouldn’t bounce. The last time he signed a check for her he canceled it before the end of the day, to prevent it, as he explained, “falling into the wrong hands.” The wrong hands, presumably, being those of her bank manager.
He thrust a piece of paper across the desk.
She picked it up and looked at it. Then she turned it around and looked at it again. She looked at the other side and then she put it down.
“Well?” demanded Dirk. “What do you make of it? Tell me!”
Miss Pearce sighed.
“It’s a lot of meaningless squiggles done in blue felt tip on a piece of typing paper,” she said. “It looks like you did them yourself.”
“No!” barked Dirk. “Well, yes,” he admitted, “but only because I believe that it is the answer to the problem!”
“What problem?”
“The problem,” insisted Dirk, slapping the table, “of the conjuring trick! I told you!”
“Yes, Mr Gently, several times. I think it was just a conjuring trick. You see them on the telly.”
“With this difference—that this one was completely impossible!”
“Couldn’t have been impossible or he wouldn’t have done it. Stands to reason.”
“Exactly!” said Dirk excitedly. “Exactly! Miss Pearce, you are a lady of rare perception and insight.”
“Thank you, sir, can I go now?”
“Wait! I haven’t finished yet! Not by a long way, not by a bucketful! You have demonstrated to me the depth of your perception and insight, allow me to demonstrate mine!”
Miss Pearce slumped patiently in her seat.
“I think,” said Dirk, “you will be impressed. Consider this. An intractable problem. In trying to find the solution to it I was going round and round in little circles in my mind, over and over the same maddening things. Clearly I wasn’t going to be able to think of anything else until I had the answer, but equally clearly I would have to think of something else if I was ever going to get the answer. How to break this circle? Ask me how.”
“How?” said Miss Pearce obediently, but without enthusiasm.
“By writing down what the answer is!” exclaimed Dirk. “And here it is!” He slapped the piece of paper triumphantly and sat back with a satisfied smile.
Miss Pearce looked at it dumbly.
“With the result,” continued Dirk, “that I am now able to turn my mind to fresh and intriguing problems, like, for instance . . .”
He took the piece of paper covered with its aimless squiggles and doodlings, and held it up to her.
“What language,” he said in a low, dark voice, “is this written in?”
Miss Pearce continued to look at it dumbly.
Dirk flung the piece of paper down, put his feet up on the table, and threw his head back with his hands behind it.
“You see what I have done?” he asked the ceiling, which seemed to flinch slightly at being yanked so suddenly into the conversation. “I have transformed the problem from an intractably difficult and possibly quite insoluble conundrum into a mere linguistic puzzle. Albeit,” he muttered, after a long moment of silent pondering, “an intractably difficult and possibly insoluble one.”
He swung back to gaze intently at Janice Pearce.
“Go on,” he urged, “say that it’s insane—but it might just work!”
Janice Pearce cleared her throat.
“It’s insane,” she said, “trust me.”
Dirk turned away and sagged sideways off his chair, much as the sitter for “The Thinker” probably did when Rodin went off to be excused.
He suddenly looked profoundly tired and depressed.
“I know,” he said in a low, dispirited voice, “that there is something profoundly wrong somewhere. And I know that I must go to Cambridge to put it right. But I would feel less fearful if I knew what it was . . .”
“Can I get on now, please, then?” said Miss Pearce.
Dirk looked up at her glumly.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh, “but just—just tell me—” he flicked at the piece of paper with his fingertips “—what do you think of this, then?”
“Well, I think it’s childish,” said Janice Pearce frankly.
“But—but—but!” said Dirk, thumping the table in frustration, “don’t you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn’t developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don’t expect to see.”
“Then why don’t you go and ask one?”
“Thank you, Miss Pearce,” said Dirk reaching for his hat. “Once again you have rendered me an inestimable service for which I am profoundly grateful.”
He swept out.
24
THE WEATHER BEGAN to bleaken as Richard made his way to Susan’s flat. The sky which had started out with such verve and spirit in the morning was beginning to lose its concentration and slip back into its normal English condition, that of a damp and rancid dishcloth. Richard took a taxi, which got him there in a few minutes.
“They should all be deported,” said the taxi driver as they drew to a halt.
“Er, who should?” said Richard, who realized he hadn’t been listening to a word the driver said.
“Er—” said the driver, who suddenly realized he hadn’t been listening either “—er, the whole lot of them. Get rid of the whole bloody lot, that’s what I say. And their bloody newts,” he added for good measure.
“Expect you’re right,” said Richard, and hurried into the house.
Arriving at the front door of her flat he could hear from within the sounds of Susan’s cello playing a slow, stately melody. He was glad of that, that she was playing. She had an amazing emotional self-sufficiency and control provided she could play her cello. He had noticed an odd and extraordinary thing about her relationship with the music she played. If ever she was feeling emotional or upset she could sit and play some music with utter concentration and emerge seeming fresh and calm.
The next time she played the same music, however, it would all burst from her and she could go completely to pieces.
He let himself in as quietly as possible so as not to disturb her concentration.
He tiptoed past the small room she practiced in, but the door was open, so he paused and looked at her, with the slightest of signals that she shouldn’t stop. She was looking pale and drawn, but gave him a flicker of a smile and continued bowing with a sudden intensity.
With an impeccable timing of which it is very rarely capable the sun chose that moment to burst briefly through the gathering rainclouds, and as she played her cello a stormy light played on her and on the deep old brown of the wood of the instrument. Richard stood transfixed. The turmoil of the day stood still for a moment and k
ept a respectful distance.
He didn’t know the music, but it sounded like Mozart, and he remembered her saying she had some Mozart to learn. He walked quietly on and sat down to wait and listen.
Eventually she finished the piece, and there was about a minute of silence before she came through. She blinked and smiled and gave him a long, trembling hug, then released herself and put the phone back on the hook. It usually got taken off when she was practicing.
“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t want to stop.” She briskly brushed away a tear as if it was a slight irritation. “How are you, Richard?”
He shrugged and gave her a bewildered look. That seemed about to cover it.
“And I’m going to have to carry on, I’m afraid,” said Susan with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been . . .” She shook her head. “Who would do it?”
“I don’t know. Some madman. I’m not sure that it matters who.”
“No,” she said. “Look, er, have you had any lunch?”
“No. Susan, you keep playing and I’ll see what’s in the fridge. We can talk about it all over some lunch.”
Susan nodded.
“All right,” she said, “except . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, just for the moment I don’t really want to talk about Gordon. Just till it sinks in. I feel sort of caught out. It would be easier if I’d been closer to him, but I wasn’t and . . . I’m sort of embarrassed by not having a reaction ready. Talking about it would be all right except that you have to use the past tense and that’s what’s . . .”
She clung to him for a moment and then quieted herself with a sigh.
“There’s not much in the fridge at the moment,” she said, “some yoghurt, I think, and a jar of rollmop herrings you could open. I’m sure you’ll be able to muck it up if you try, but it’s actually quite straightforward. The main trick is not to throw them all over the floor or get jam on them.”
She gave him a hug, a kiss and a glum smile and then retreated back to her music room.
The phone rang and Richard answered it.
“Hello?” he said. There was nothing, just a faint sort of windy noise on the line.
“Hello?” he said again, waited, shrugged and put the phone back down.
“Was there anybody there?” called Susan.
“No, no one,” said Richard.
“That’s happened a couple of times,” said Susan. “I think it’s a sort of minimalist heavy breather.” She resumed playing.
Richard went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He was less of a health-conscious eater than Susan and was therefore less than thrilled by what he found there, but he managed to put some rollmop herrings, some yoghurt, some rice and some oranges on a tray without difficulty and tried not to think that a couple of fat hamburgers and fries would round it off nicely.
He found a bottle of white wine and carried it all through to the small dining table.
After a minute or two Susan joined him there. She was at her most calm and composed, and when they had had a few mouthfuls she asked him about the canal.
Richard shook his head in bemusement and tried to explain about it, and about Dirk.
“What did you say his name was?” said Susan with a frown when he had come, rather lamely, to a conclusion.
“It’s, er, Dirk Gently,” said Richard, “in a way.”
“In a way?”
“Er, yes,” said Richard with a difficult sigh. He reflected that just about anything you could say about Dirk was subject to these kinds of vague and shifty qualifications. There was even, on his letterhead, a string of vague and shifty-looking qualifications after his name.
He pulled out the piece of paper on which he had vainly been trying to organize his thoughts earlier in the day.
“I . . .” he started, but the doorbell rang. They looked at each other.
“If it’s the police,” said Richard, “I’d better see them. Let’s get it over with.”
Susan pushed back her chair, went to the front door and picked up the Entry phone.
“Hello?” she said.
“Who?” she said after a moment. She frowned as she listened, then swung round and frowned at Richard.
“You’d better come up,” she said in a less than friendly tone of voice and then pressed the button. She came back and sat down.
“Your friend,” she said evenly, “Mr Gently.”
The Electric Monk’s day was going tremendously well and he broke into an excited gallop. That is to say that, excitedly, he spurred his horse to a gallop and, unexcitedly, his horse broke into it.
This world, the Monk thought, was a good one. He loved it. He didn’t know whose it was or where it had come from, but it was certainly a deeply fulfilling place for someone with his unique and extraordinary gifts.
He was appreciated. All day he had gone up to people, fallen into conversation with them, listened to their troubles, and then quietly uttered those three magic words, “I believe you.”
The effect had invariably been electrifying. It wasn’t that people on this world didn’t occasionally say it to each other, but they rarely, it seemed, managed to achieve that deep timbre of sincerity which the Monk had been so superbly programmed to reproduce.
On his own world, after all, he was taken for granted. People would just expect him to get on and believe things for them without bothering them. Someone would come to the door with some great new idea or proposal or even a new religion, and the answer would be, “Oh, go and tell that to the Monk.” And the Monk would sit and listen and patiently believe it all, but no one would take any further interest.
Only one problem seemed to arise on this otherwise excellent world. Often, after he had uttered the magic words, the subject would rapidly change to that of money, and the Monk of course didn’t have any—a shortcoming that had quickly blighted a number of otherwise very promising encounters.
Perhaps he should acquire some—but where?
He reined his horse in for a moment, and the horse jerked gratefully to a halt and started in on the grass on the roadside verge. The horse had no idea what all this galloping up and down was in aid of, and didn’t care. All it did care about was that it was being made to gallop up and down past a seemingly perpetual roadside buffet. It made the best of its moment while it had it.
The Monk peered keenly up and down the road. It seemed vaguely familiar. He trotted a little farther up it for another look. The horse resumed its meal a few yards farther along.
Yes. The Monk had been here last night.
He remembered it clearly, well, sort of clearly. He believed that he remembered it clearly, and that, after all, was the main thing. Here was where he had walked to in a more than usually confused state of mind, and just around the very next corner, if he was not very much mistaken, again, lay the small roadside establishment at which he had jumped into the back of that nice man’s car—the nice man who had subsequently reacted so oddly to being shot at.
Perhaps they would have some money there and would let him have it. He wondered. Well, he would find out. He yanked the horse from its feast once again and galloped toward it.
As he approached the petrol station he noticed a car parked there at an arrogant angle. The angle made it quite clear that the car was not there for anything so mundane as to have petrol put into it, and was much too important to park itself neatly out of the way. Any other car that arrived for petrol would just have to maneuver around it as best it could. The car was white with stripes and badges and important looking lights.
Arriving at the forecourt the Monk dismounted and tethered his horse to a pump. He walked toward the small shop building and saw that inside it there was a man with his back to him wearing a dark blue uniform and a peaked cap. The man was dancing up and down and twisting his fingers in his ears, and this was clearly making a deep impression on the man behind the till.
The Monk watched in transfixed awe. The man, he believed with an instant effortlessness w
hich would have impressed even a Scientologist, must be a God of some kind to arouse such fervor.
He waited with bated breath to worship him. In a moment the man turned around and walked out of the shop, saw the Monk and stopped dead.
The Monk realized that the God must be waiting for him to make an act of worship, so he reverently danced up and down twisting his fingers in his ears.
His God stared at him for a moment, caught hold of him, twisted him round, slammed him forward spread-eagled over the car and frisked him for weapons.
Dirk burst into the flat like a small podgy tornado.
“Miss Way,” he said, grasping her slightly unwilling hand and doffing his absurd hat, “it is the most inexpressible pleasure to meet you, but also the matter of the deepest regret that the occasion of our meeting should be one of such great sorrow and one which bids me extend to you my most profound sympathy and commiseration. I ask you to believe me that I would not intrude upon your private grief for all the world if it were not on a matter of the gravest moment and magnitude. Richard—I have solved the problem of the conjuring trick and it’s extraordinary.”
He swept through the room and deposited himself on a spare chair at the small dining table, on which he put his hat.
“You will have to excuse us, Dirk—” said Richard, coldly.
“No, I am afraid you will have to excuse me,” returned Dirk. “The puzzle is solved, and the solution is so astounding that it took a seven-year-old child on the street to give it to me. But it is undoubtedly the correct one, absolutely undoubtedly. ‘What, then, is the solution?’ you ask me, or rather would ask me if you could get a word in edgewise, which you can’t, so I will save you the bother and ask the question for you, and answer it as well by saying that I will not tell you, because you won’t believe me. I shall instead show you, this very afternoon.
“Rest assured, however, that it explains everything. It explains the trick. It explains the note you found—that should have made it perfectly clear to me, but I was a fool. And it explains what the missing third question was, or rather—and this is the significant point—it explains what the missing first question was!”
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set Page 18