Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

The other argument was more muffled. As Richard reached the first corridor a door slammed somewhere and brought that too to an end. He looked into the nearest open doorway.

It led into a small ante-office. The other, i

«Is this the detective agency?» Richard asked her tentatively.

The girl nodded, biting her lip and keeping her head down.

«And is Mr Gently in?»

«He may be,» she said, throwing back her hair, which was too curly for throwing back properly, «and then again he may not be. I am not in a position to tell. It is not my business to know of his whereabouts.

His whereabouts are, as of now, entirely his own business.»

She retrieved her last pot of nail varnish and tried to slam the drawer shut. A fat book sitting upright in the drawer prevented it from closing. She tried to slam the drawer again, without success. She picked up the book, ripped out a clump of pages and replaced it. This time she was able to slam the drawer with ease.

«Are you his secretary?» asked Richard.

«I am his ex-secretary and I intend to stay that way,» she said, firmly snapping her bag shut. «If he intends to spend his money on stupid expensive brass plaques rather than on paying me, then let him.

But I won't stay to stand for it, thank you very much. Good for business, my foot. Answering the phones properly is good for business and I'd like to see his fancy brass plaque do that. If you'll excuse me I'd like to storm out, please.»

Richard stood aside, and out she stormed.

«And good riddance!» shouted a voice from the i

«Yes?» answered the voice from the i

«Yes, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. How can we be of help to you?»

The torrent of French from upstairs had ceased. A kind of tense calm descended.

Inside, the voice said, «That's right, Mrs Sunderland, messy divorces are our particular speciality.»

There was a pause.

«Yes, thank you, Mrs Sunderland, not quite that messy.» Down went the phone again, to be replaced instantly by the ringing of another one.

Richard looked around the grim little office. There was very little in it. A battered chipboard veneer desk, an old grey filing cabinet and a dark green tin wastepaper bin. On the wall was a Duran Duran poster on which someone had scrawled in fat red felt tip, «Take this down please».

Beneath that another hand had scrawled, «No».

Beneath that again the first hand had written, «I insist that you take it down».

Beneath that the second hand had written, «Won't!»

Beneath that — «You're fired».

Beneath that — «Good!»

And there the matter appeared to have rested.

He knocked on the i

Let me give you an example. If you go to an acupuncturist with toothache he sticks a needle instead into your thigh. Do you know why he does that, Mrs Rawlinson? No, neither do I, Mrs Rawlinson, but we intend to find out. A pleasure talking to you, Mrs Rawlinson. Goodbye.»

Another phone was ringing as he put this one down.

Richard eased the door open and looked in.

It was the same Svlad, or Dirk, Cjelli. Looking a little rounder about the middle, a little looser and redder about the eyes and the neck, but it was still essentially the same face that he remembered most vividly smiling a grim smile as its owner climbed into the back of one of the Black Marias of the Cambridgeshire constabulary, eight years previously.

He wore a heavy old light brown suit which looked as if it has been worn extensively for bramble hacking expeditions in some distant and better past, a red checked shirt which failed entirely to harmonise with the suit, and a green striped tie which refused to speak to either of them. He also wore thick metal-rimmed spectacles, which probably accounted at least in part for his dress sense.

«Ah, Mrs Bluthall, how thoroughly uplifting to hear from you,» he was saying. «I was so distressed to learn that Miss Tiddles has passed over. This is desperate news indeed. And yet, and yet… Should we allow black despair to hide from us the fairer light in which your blessed moggy now forever dwells? I think not. Hark. I think I hear Miss Tiddles miaowing even now.

She calls to you, Mrs Bluthall. She says she is content, she is at peace. She says she'll be even more at peace when you've paid some bill or other. Does that ring a bell with you at all, Mrs Bluthall? Come to think of it I think I sent you one myself not three months ago. I wonder if it can be that which is disturbing her eternal rest.»

Dirk beckoned Richard in with a brisk wave and then motioned him to pass the crumpled pack of French cigarettes that was sitting just out of his reach.

«Sunday night, then, Mrs Bluthall, Sunday night at eight-thirty. You know the address. Yes, I'm sure Miss Tiddles will appear, as I'm sure will your cheque book. Till then, Mrs Bluthall, till then.»

Another phone was already ringing as he got rid of Mrs Bluthall. He grabbed at it, lighting his crumpled cigarette at the same time.

«Ah, Mrs Sauskind,» he said in answer to the caller, «my oldest and may I say most valued client. Good day to you, Mrs Sauskind, good day.

Sadly, no sign as yet of young Roderick, I'm afraid, but the search is intensifying as it moves into what I am confident are its closing stages, and I am sanguine that within mere days from today's date we will have the young rascal permanently restored to your arms and mewing prettily, ah yes the bill, I was wondering if you had received it.»

Dirk's crumpled cigarette turned out to be too crumpled to smoke, so he hooked the phone on his shoulder and poked around in the packet for another, but it was empty.

He rummaged on his desk for a piece of paper and a stub of pencil and wrote a note which he passed to Richard.

«Yes, Mrs Sauskind,» he assured the telephone, «I am listening with the utmost attention.»

The note said «Tell secretary get cigs».

«Yes,» continued Dirk into the phone, «but as I have endeavoured to explain to you, Mrs Sauskind, over the seven years of our acquaintance, I incline to the quantum mechanical view in this matter. My theory is that your cat is not lost, but that his waveform has temporarily collapsed and must be restored. Schrodinger. Planck. And so on.»

Richard wrote on the note «You haven't got secretary» and pushed it back.

Dirk considered this for a while, then wrote «Damn and blast» on the paper and pushed it to Richard again.

«I grant you, Mrs Sauskind,» continued Dirk blithely, «that nineteen years is, shall we say, a distinguished age for a cat to reach, yet can we allow ourselves to believe that a cat such as Roderick has not reached it? And should we now in the autumn of his years abandon him to his fate? This surely is the time that he most needs the support of our continuing investigations. This is the time that we should redouble our efforts, and with your permission, Mrs Sauskind, that is what I intend to do. Imagine, Mrs Sauskind, how you would face him if you had not done this simple thing for him.»