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"Er--well, this friend of mine told me."
"Who?"
"Well, his name is Dirk Gently."
"You've never mentioned him. Who is he? Did he say anything else?"
"He hypnotised me and, er, made me jump in the canal, and, er, well, that was it really--"
There was a terribly long pause at the other end.
"Richard," said Susan at last with the sort of calmness that comes over people when they realise that however bad things may seem to be, there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn't simply get worse and worse, "come over here. I was going to say I need to see you, but I think you need to see me."
"I should probably go to the police."
"Go to the police later. Richard, please. A few hours won't make any difference. I... I can hardly even think. Richard, it's so awful. It would just help if you were here. Where are you?"
"OK," said Richard, "I'll be with you in about twenty minutes."
"Shall I leave the window open or would you like to try the door?" she said with a sniff.
CHAPTER
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 cheque 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 taxman 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 cheque wouldn't bounce. The last time he signed a cheque for her he cancelled 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 round 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 su
ddenly 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.
CHAPTER
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 dish cloth. 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 realised he hadn't been listening to a word the driver said.
"Er--"said the driver, who suddenly realised 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 would go completely to pieces.
