CHAPTER 24

The weather began to bleaken as Richard made his way to Susan’sflat. The sky which had started out with such verve and spirit in themorning was beginning to lose its concentration and slip back into itsnormal English condition, that of a damp and rancid dish cloth. Richardtook a taxi, which got him there in a few minutes.

“They should all be deported,” said the taxi driver as they drewto a halt.

“Er, who should?” said Richard, who realised he hadn’t beenlistening to a word the driver said.

“Er — “said the driver, who suddenly realised he hadn’t beenlistening either, “er, the whole lot of them. Get rid of the wholebloody lot, that’s what I say. And their bloody newts,” he added forgood measure.

“Expect you’re right,” said Richard, and hurried into the house.

Arriving at the front door of her flat he could hear from withinthe sounds of Susan’s cello playing a slow, stately melody. He was gladof that, that she was playing. She had an amazing emotional selfsufficiency and control provided she could play her cello. He hadnoticed an odd and extraordinary thing about her relationship with themusic she played. If ever she was feeling emotional or upset she couldsit and play some music with utter concentration and emerge seemingfresh and calm.

The next time she played the same music, however, it would allburst from her and she would go completely to pieces.

He let himself in as quietly as possible so as not to disturb herconcentration.

He tiptoed past the small room she practised in, but the door wasopen so he paused and looked at her, with the slightest of signals thatshe shouldn’t stop. She was looking pale and drawn but gave him aflicker of a smile and continued bowing with a sudden intensity.

With an impeccable timing of which it is very rarely capable thesun chose that moment to burst briefly through the gatheringrainclouds, and as she played her cello a stormy light played on herand on the deep old brown of the wood of the instrument. Richard stoodtransfixed. The turmoil of the day stood still for a moment and kept arespectful distance.

He didn’t know the music, but it sounded like Mozart and heremembered her saying she had some Mozart to learn. He walked quietlyon and sat down to wait and listen.

Eventually she finished the piece, and there was about a minuteof silence before she came through. She blinked and smiled and gave hima long, trembling hug, then released herself and put the phone back onthe hook. It usually got taken off when she was practising.

“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t want to stop.” She briskly brushedaway a tear as if it was a slight irritation. “How are you Richard?”

He shrugged and gave her a bewildered look. That seemed about tocover it.

“And I’m going to have to carry on, I’m afraid,” said Susan witha sigh “I’m sorry. I’ve just been…” She shook her head. “Who would doit?”

“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 aboutGordon. Just till it sinks in. I feel sort of caught out. It would beeasier if I’d been closer to him, but I wasn’t and I’m sort ofembarrassed by not having a reaction ready. Talking about it would beall right except that you have to use the past tense and that’swhat’s…”

She clung to him for a moment and then quieted herself with asigh.

“There’s not much in the fridge at the moment,” she said, “someyoghurt, I think, and a jar of roll-mop herrings you could open. I’msure you’ll be able to muck it up if you try, but it’s actually quitestraightforward. The main trick is not to throw them all over the flooror get jam on them.”

She gave him a hug, a kiss and a glum smile and then retreatedback to her music room.

The phone rang and Richard answered it.

“Hello?” he said. There was nothing, just a faint sort of windynoise on the line.

“Hello?” he said again, waited, shrugged and put the phone backdown.

“Was there anybody there?” called Susan.

“No, no one,” said Richard.

“That’s happened a couple of times,” said Susan. “I think it’s asort of minimalist heavy breather.” She resumed playing.

Richard went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He was lessof a health-conscious eater than Susan and was therefore less than thrilled by what he found there, but he managed to put some roll-mopherrings, some yoghurt, some rice and some oranges on a tray withoutdifficulty and tried not to think that a couple of fat hamburgers andfries would round it off nicely.

He found a bottle of white wine and carried it all through to thesmall dining table.

After a minute or two Susan joined him there. She was at her mostcalm and composed, and after a few mouthsful she asked him about thecanal.

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 hehad 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 thatjust about anything you could say about Dirk was subject to these kindof vague and shifty qualifications. There was even, on his letterheading, a string of vague and shifty-looking qualifications after hisname. He pulled out the piece of paper on which he had vainly beentrying to organise his thoughts earlier in the day.

“I…” he started, but the doorbell rang. They looked at eachother.

“If it’s the police,” said Richard, “I’d better see them. Let’sget it over with.”

Susan pushed back her chair, went to the front door and picked upthe Entryphone.

“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 ofvoice 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 brokeinto an excited gallop. That is to say that, excitedly, he spurred hishorse to a gallop and, unexcitedly, his horse broke into it.

This world, the Monk thought, was a good one. He loved it. Hedidn’t know whose it was or where it had come from, but it wascertainly a deeply fulfilling place for someone with his unique andextraordinary gifts.

He was appreciated. All day he had gone up to people, fallen intoconversation with them, listened to their troubles, and then quietlyuttered those three magic words, “I believe you.”

The effect had invariably been electrifying. It wasn’t thatpeople on this world didn’t occasionally say it to each other, but theyrarely, it seemed, managed to achieve that deep timbre of sinceritywhich the Monk had been so superbly programmed to reproduce.

On his own world, after all, he was taken for granted. Peoplewould just expect him to get on and believe things for them withoutbothering them. Someone would come to the door with some great new ideaor proposal or even a new religion, and the answer would be “Oh, go andtell that to the Monk.” And the Monk would sit and listen and patientlybelieve it all, but no one would take any further interest.

Only one problem seemed to arise on this otherwise excellentworld. Often, after he had uttered the magic words, the subject wouldrapidly change to that of money, and the Monk of course didn’t have any– a shortcoming that had quickly blighted a number of otherwise verypromising encounters.

Perhaps he should acquire some — but where?

He reined his horse in for a moment, and the horse jerkedgratefully 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 aidof, and didn’t care. All it did care about was that it was being madeto gallop up and down past a seemingly perpetual roadside buffet. Itmade 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 further up it for another look. The horse

resumed its meal a few yards further along.

Yes. The Monk had been here last night.

He remembered it clearly, well, sort of clearly. He believed thathe remembered it clearly, and that, after all, was the main thing. Herewas where he had walked to in a more than usually confused state ofmind, and just around the very next corner, if he was not very muchmistaken, again, lay the small roadside establishment at which he hadjumped into the back of that nice man’s car — the nice man who hadsubsequently reacted so oddly to being shot at.

Perhaps they would have some money there and would let him haveit. He wondered. Well, he would find out. He yanked the horse from itsfeast once again and galloped towards it.

As he approached the petrol station he noticed a car parked thereat an arrogant angle. The angle made it quite clear that the car wasnot there for anything so mundane as to have petrol put into it, andwas much too important to park itself neatly out of the way. Any othercar that arrived for petrol would just have to manoeuvre around it asbest it could. The car was white with stripes and badges and importantlooking lights.

Arriving at the forecourt the Monk dismounted and tethered hishorse to a pump. He walked towards the small shop building and saw thatinside it there was a man with his back to him wearing a dark blueuniform and a peaked cap. The man was dancing up and down and twistinghis fingers in his ears, and this was clearly making a deep impressionon the man behind the till.

The Monk watched in transfixed awe. The man, he believed with aninstant effortlessness which would have impressed even a Scientologist,must be a God of some kind to arouse such fervour. He waited with bated breath to worship him. In a moment the man turned around and walked outof the shop, saw the Monk and stopped dead.

The Monk realised that the God must be waiting for him to make anact of worship, so he reverently danced up and down twisting hisfingers in his ears.

His God stared at him for a moment, caught hold of him, twistedhim round, slammed him forward spreadeagled over the car and friskedhim for weapons.

Dirk burst into the flat like a small podgy tornado.

“Miss Way,” he said, grasping her slightly unwilling hand anddoffing his absurd hat, “it is the most inexpressible pleasure to meetyou, but also the matter of the deepest regret that the occasion of ourmeeting should be one of such great sorrow and one which bids me extendto you my most profound sympathy and commiseration. I ask you tobelieve me that I would not intrude upon your private grief for all theworld 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’sextraordinary.”

He swept through the room and deposited himself on a spare chairat 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. “Thepuzzle is solved, and the solution is so astounding that it took aseven-year-old child on the street to give it to me. But it isundoubtedly the correct one, absolutely undoubtedly. “What, then, isthe solution?” you ask me, or rather would ask me if you could get aword in edgeways, 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 willnot tell you, because you won’t believe me. I shall instead show you,this very afternoon.

“Rest assured, however, that it explains everything. It explainsthe trick. It explains the note you found — that should have made itperfectly clear to me but I was a fool. And it explains what themissing third question was, or rather — and this is the significantpoint — it explains what the missing first question was!”

“What missing question?” exclaimed Richard, confused by thesudden pause, and leaping in with the first phrase he could grab.

Dirk blinked as if at an idiot. “The missing question that GeorgeIII asked, of course,” he said.

“Asked who?”

“Well, the Professor,” said Dirk impatiently. “Don’t you listento anything you say? The whole thing was obvious!” he exclaimed,thumping the table, “So obvious that the only thing which prevented mefrom seeing the solution was the trifling fact that it was completelyimpossible. Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated theimpossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be theanswer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible. Now. Letus go.”

“No.”

“What?” Dirk glanced up at Susan, from whom this unexpected — orat least, unexpected to him — opposition had come.

“Mr Gently,” said Susan in a voice you could notch a stick with,”why did you deliberately mislead Richard into thinking that he waswanted by the police?”

Dirk frowned.

“But he was wanted by the police,” he said, “and still is.”

“Yes, but just to answer questions! Not because he’s a suspectedmurderer.”

Dirk looked down.

“Miss Way,” he said, “the police are interested in knowing whomurdered your brother. I, with the very greatest respect, am not. Itmay, I concede, turn out to have a bearing on the case, but it may justas likely turn out to be a casual madman. I wanted to know, still needdesperately to know, why Richard climbed into this flat last night.”

“I told you,” protested Richard.

“What you told me is immaterial — it only reveals the crucialfact that you do not know the reason yourself! For heaven’s sake Ithought I had demonstrated that to you clearly enough at the canal!”

Richard simmered.

“It was perfectly clear to me watching you,” pursued Dirk, “thatyou had very little idea what you were doing, and had absolutely noconcern about the physical danger you were in. At first I thought,watching, that it was just a brainless thug out on his first and quitepossibly last burgle. But then the figure looked back and I realised itwas you — and I know you to be an intelligent, rational, and moderateman. Richard MacDuff? Risking his neck carelessly climbing updrainpipes at night? It seemed to me that you would only behave in sucha reckless and extreme way if you were desperately worried aboutsomething of terrible importance. Is that not true, Miss Way?”

He looked sharply up at Susan, who slowly sat down, looking athim with an alarm in her eyes which said that he had struck home.

“And yet, when you came to see me this morning you seemedperfectly calm and collected. You argued with me perfectly rationallywhen I talked a lot of nonsense about Schrodinger’s Cat. This was not the behaviour of someone who had the previous night been driven toextremes by some desperate purpose. I confess that it was at thatmoment that I stooped to, well, exaggerating your predicament, simplyin order to keep hold of you.”

“You didn’t. I left.”

“With certain ideas in your head. I knew you would be back. Iapologise most humbly for having misled you, er, somewhat, but I knewthat what I had to find out lay far beyond what the police wouldconcern themselves with. And it was this — if you were not quiteyourself when you climbed the wall last night…then who were you, -?and why?”

Richard shivered. A silence lengthened.

“What has it got to do with conjuring tricks?” he said at last.

“That is what we must go to Cambridge to find out.”

“But what makes you so sure — ?”

“It disturbs me,” said Dirk, and a dark and heavy look came intohis face.

For one so garrulous he seemed suddenly oddly reluctant to speak.

He continued, “It disturbs me very greatly when I find that Iknow things and do not know why I know them. Maybe it is the sameinstinctive processing of data that allows you to catch a ball almostbefore you’ve seen it. Maybe it is the deeper and less explicableinstinct that tells you when someone is watching you. It is a verygreat offence to my intellect that the very things that I despise otherpeople for being credulous of actually occur to me. You will rememberthe…unhappiness surrounding certain exam questions.”

He seemed suddenly distressed and haggard. He had to dig deepinside himself to continue speaking.

He said, “The ability to put two and two together and come upinstantly with four is one thing. The ability to put the square root offive hundred and thirty-nine point seven together with the cosine oftwenty-six point four three two and come up with…with whatever theanswer to that is, is quite another. And I…well, let me give you anexample.”

He leant forward intently. “Last night I saw you climbing intothis flat. I knew that something was wrong. Today I got you to tell meevery last detail you knew about what happened last night, and already,as a result, using my intellect alone, I have uncovered possibly thegreatest secret lying hidden on this planet. I swear to you that thisis true and that I can prove it. Now you must believe me when I tellyou that I know, I know that there is something terribly, desperately,appallingly wrong and that we must find it. Will you go with me now, toCambridge?”

Richard nodded dumbly.

“Good,” said Dirk. “What is this?” he added, pointing atRichard’s plate.

“A pickled herring. Do you want one?”

“Thank you, no,” said Dirk, rising and buckling his coat. “Thereis,” he added as he headed towards the door, steering Richard with him,”no such word as “herring” in my dictionary. Good afternoon, Miss Way,wish us God speed.”