The Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page A

gesticulating wildly with the other. “I beg your pardon, Sir Hully, but I am in great need of your help and advice.”
    They exchanged a long, meaningful glance; the old fellow had switched to Silent Speech. A moment later, Juffin frowned, and Sir Makluk shrugged, looking a bit shamefaced.
    “Let’s go,” Juffin said abruptly, and stood up. “And you, Max, come with us. Don’t bother to dress up. This is business.”
    For the first time I was witnessing Juffin Hully on the job—or, more precisely, on the verge of one. The speed at which he crossed the garden exceeded in all likelihood the cruising speed of the amobiler. I automatically undertook to pacify Sir Makluk, who clearly felt a bit unmoored without the four heavyweights who carried his palanquin. We reached the finish without breaking any records—but also without doing any damage to his weak knees. Along the way, Sir Makluk took advantage of the opportunity to confide in the “Gentle Barbarian.” He seemed to need to get it off his chest.
    “I have—or, rather, had—a servant named Krops Kooly, a good lad. I had even planned to secure a place for him at court in fifteen or twenty years, when he had some experience under his belt . . . But I digress. A few days ago, he disappeared. Disappeared—just like that. He had a sweetheart on the Right Bank. Naturally, his colleagues decided that since you’re only young once, they wouldn’t make a fuss about it. You know, simple people are also capable of noble discretion . . . His disappearance was reported to me only today. My cook ran into his girlfriend at Linus Market, and the girl asked him why Krops hadn’t been to see her in so long—didn’t they allow him any Days of Freedom from his professional commitments? Then everyone began to panic. How could Krops just up and leave? Where had he gone, and why? About an hour and a half ago, Maddi and Shuvish went to clean the room of my late cousin, Sir Makluk-Olli, as they always did at that time. Yes, Sir Max, I had a cousin, a big bore, I’ll have you know. It even took him ten years to die. He finally decided to go at the beginning of the year, soon after the Day of Foreign Gods. Yes . . . and in there, in the room of my late cousin Olli, they found poor Mr. Kooly; and in what condition!”
    Sir Makluk shivered visibly, as if to say that he had never expected such antics from poor Krops Kooly, even posthumously.
    In the meantime, we had arrived at a small door—the backdoor of Sir Makluk’s luxurious living quarters. The old fellow had grown somewhat calmer after relating the recent events. Silent Speech is all well and good, but it’s not for nothing that psychotherapists make their patients talk out loud.
    Without wasting time to call for a palanquin, we made our way into the late Sir Olli’s bedroom. Almost half the room was taken up by a soft floor. Here in Echo this is the way beds are constructed. A few tiny marquetry tables were scattered haphazardly around the giant lair. One wall was an enormous window onto the garden. On the opposite wall there was an ancient mirror with a small vanity table to the side.
    It would have been preferable if this had about summed things up, but there was another element of the room’s interior. On the floor, between the mirror and the window, lay a corpse, a dead body that resembled, more than anything else, slobbery chewing gum. The spectacle was not even grisly; it was, rather, awkward, even absurd.
    Somehow, it didn’t fit my notions of a crime victim—no streams of blood, spattered brains, no icy gaze of a dead man. Just some sorry, rubbery ABC gum.
    I didn’t see Juffin at first. He had retreated to the farthest corner of the room. His slanting eyes shone phosphorescent in the dusk. When he saw us, he abandoned his post and came up to us with a deeply troubled expression.
    “For the time being, two pieces of bad news; I daresay more will follow. First, this is no ordinary murder. You don’t end up