Free Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams Page B

though that may be, and there is something I must ask you.  I do not know what awaits me up there, do not know exactly.  I do not know if it is something which I have foolishly brought upon myself with my... my hobbies, or if it is something to which I have fallen an innocent victim.  If it is the former, then I have only myself to blame, for I am like a doctor who cannot give up smoking, or perhaps worse still, like an ecologist who cannot give up his car -- if the latter, then I hope it may not happen to you.
    ‘What I must ask you is this.  When I come back down these stairs, always supposing of course that I do, then if my behaviour strikes you as being in any way odd, if I appear not to be myself, then you must leap on me and wrestle me to the ground.  Do you understand?  You must prevent me from doing anything I may try to do.’
    ‘But how will I know?’ asked an incredulous Richard.  ‘Sorry I don’t mean it to sound like that, but I don’t know what...?’
    ‘You will know,’ said Reg.  ‘Now please wait for me in the main room.  And close the door.’
    Shaking his head in bewilderment, Richard stepped back and did as he was asked.  From inside the large untidy room he listened to the sound of the Professor’s tread mounting the stairs one at a time.
    He mounted them with a heavy deliberation, like the ticking of a great, slow clock.
    Richard heard him reach the top landing.  There he paused in silence.  Seconds went by, five, maybe ten, maybe twenty.  Then came again the heavy movement and breath that had first so harrowed the Professor.
    Richard moved quickly to the door but did not open it.  The chill of the room oppressed and disturbed him.  He shook his head to try and shake off the feeling, and then held his breath as the footsteps started once again slowly to traverse the two yards of the landing and to pause there again.
    After only a few seconds, this time Richard heard the long slow squeak of a door being opened inch by inch, inch by cautious inch, until it must surely now at last be standing wide agape.
    Nothing further seemed to happen for a long, long time.
    Then at last the door closed once again, slowly.
    The footsteps crossed the landing and paused again.  Richard backed a few slight paces from the door, staring fixedly at it.  Once more the footsteps started to descend the stairs, slowly, deliberately and quietly, until at last they reached the bottom.  Then after a few seconds more the door handle began to rotate.  The door opened and Reg walked calmly in.
    ‘It’s all right, it’s just a horse in the bathroom,’ he said quietly.
    Richard leaped on him and wrestled him to the ground.
    ‘No,’ gasped Reg, ‘no, get off me, let me go, I’m perfectly all right, damn it.  It’s just a horse, a perfectly ordinary horse.’  He shook Richard off with no great difficulty and sat up, puffing and blowing and pushing his hands through his limited hair.  Richard stood over him warily, but with great and mounting embarrassment.  He edged back, and let Reg stand up and sit on a chair.
    ‘Just a horse,’ said Reg, ‘but, er, thank you for taking me at my word.’  He brushed himself down.
    ‘A horse,’ repeated Richard.
    ‘Yes,’ said Reg.
    Richard went out and looked up the stairs and then came back in.
    ‘A horse?’ he said again.
    ‘Yes, it is,’ said the Professor.  ‘Wait --’ he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate -- ‘let it be.  It won’t be long.’
    Richard stared in disbelief.  ‘You say there’s a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?’
    The Professor looked blankly at him.
    ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry if I... alarmed you earlier, it was just a slight turn.  These things happen, my dear fellow, don’t upset yourself about it.  Dear me, I’ve known odder things in my time.  Many of them.  Far odder.  She’s only a horse, for heaven’s sake.  I’ll