The Elephant in the Asylum

"Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency," Dirk said as he picked up the phone.

"Mr Gently, this is Mrs Dunswood," said the very pleasant voice of an elderly woman from whom Dirk did not hear.

"Ah, Mrs Dunswood," he said genially. "What an absolute pleasure it is to hear the sound of your voice, or at least a reasonable facsimile via British Telecom system. And what can I do for you this fine morning?"

"I would like you to tell me why I should pay your bill I just received in the post, and to demand the return of either my retainer fee or my cat!"

"I would be happy to explain this to you, Mrs Dunswood. As you recall, you retained my services to locate your moggy; Geraldine. And while I was, unfortunately, unable to return her physically to your good self, I was able to locate her."

The elderly lady on the other end of the line paused as she fumbled with a bit of paper, "It says here that she is now living happily in a parallel universe."

"That is correct," Dirk confirmed.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I recently discovered a portal to a parallel world where cats escape to so that they can live in freedom. And I traced the lovely Geraldine to that very portal, which is located in Hyde Park. Now, it was not a pleasant visit for me when I went to this other world. So if you want me to actually return Geraldine into your custody, then I would have to charge significantly more than I have already. So, you may consider yourself lucky... financially speaking."

The woman was clearly very angry, and decided to let Dirk know it at this point in the conversation, "Mr Gently! I want my cat back! Now that is what I paid you for, and that is what I expect you to do! Return my cat or return my retainer fee!"

Dirk decided that a calming tone of voice would be the right thing at this point, "My dear Mrs Dunswood, you hired me to locate your cat. That is exactly what I did. Now on the other hand..."

But he was mistaken that a calming tone of voice would be the right thing. "Cut the shit, Gently! I'm sending my grandson over to your office right now to encourage you to return my retainer fee."

"Indeed, I am most anxious to meet another member of your charming family."

"I hope that you are. He is a professional weight lifter."

"Splendid. A worthy profession for a youth. Do please assure him I shall be awaiting his visit with eager anticipation."

He quickly hung up the phone, grabbed his long coat, red hat and darted out of the office. It was time for his walk. And his walk would probably take all day. And if he happened to miss the Dunswood grandson, then he was sure he would recover.

#

Martin Baywater drove home. He was angry. About an hour earlier, he had gotten into an argument with his boss at the bookshop. His boss, it transpired, was very poor at giving instructions. And so, on regular occasions, when Martin would do exactly as he was told, following the verbal instructions word for word, his boss would chastise him for not listening. Martin had given up asking for clarification whilst in the moment, as his boss would shout at him when he did such a thing, and claim that that he should not be asking that question, and clearly that he wasn't listening, and he would then give slightly different instructions which only served to confuse the matter further. And whenever Martin would write down the instructions, his boss would become impatient with him that he clearly wasn't writing fast enough. And then of course when Martin did not write down his instructions, his boss would get one sentence in, then pause and look at him as though he was an idiot of some kind, and then shout, "Well, write this down!" There was simply no winning, and, as murder was still illegal in England, he had long since resigned himself to simply getting a new job. The trouble was that nobody seemed to be hiring.

And so, on this particular day, Martin had decided that he had had enough, and he had shouted back. He had pointed out the fact that his boss didn't bother to clarify matters well. He had pointed out the fact that his boss had neglected to mention several very important details that would have come in handy if he had been expected to do the job properly. And now, as a result of this altercation, a rare first edition book was torn beyond repair, and two customers and their small terrier were dead. But the only thing his boss would focus on was the fact that Martin had raised his voice. In fact, the exact quote had been, "You don't shout at me! YOU work for ME!" And finally, as his boss was being taken away by the police, he had allowed Martin to go home to think about this shocking breech of protocol for the next three days before being allowed to return and apologise.

Martin sat in his car at a red light whilst the arguments with his boss went round and round in his head. He came up with better and more clever insults to hurl at his boss, who, in his mind, became more and more apologetic, small, and just generally pathetic. As he sat, he noticed that a boy of about ten had decided to clean his window. The boy had a bucket of soapy water and a squeegee, and began assaulting Martin's window in a very amateurish attempt at cleanliness. Martin hadn't asked the boy to do this. He didn't want the boy to do this. And best of all, he didn't have to pay the boy to do this.

A moment later, the light turned green and Martin pressed on the gas pedal. In the next second, the boy realised that he wasn't going to be paid for his shoddy attempt at work, and so shook off his squeegee onto Martin's windscreen, splattering it with soapy water.

Martin slammed on the breaks and opened his door to remonstrate with the little punk. But the little punk was already across the street and making his way north, pausing only long enough to give Martin an obscene gesture over his shoulder.

Martin was too old and tired to pursue the little punk. And he was already holding up traffic as it was. So, he sighed, got back into his car and proceeded along his way, angrier than before.

#

Florence Packer was busy sitting on her sofa, reading the latest magazine about decorating rooms in such a way as to impress other people, when her husband Gerold burst through the front door in a panic and then slammed it shut behind him. He pressed his back to the door, obviously trying to keep something out. He slowly turned around, checked through the peephole, turned back again and saw that his wife he was safely seated on the nearby sofa, and then said to her, "There's an elephant following me! I think he wants to kill me!"

Florence didn't even look up from her magazine, "Well, I can't say I'm surprised."

Gerold locked the door and moved to the front window in the living room to check on the progress of his stalker. "I think it knows where we live."

"You've only yourself to blame," she said, finally setting the magazine down and staring accusingly at her husband.

He could see he wasn't going to be getting any sympathy from her tonight, so he removed his necktie and made for the stairwell, "I'm going to have a bath. I feel decidedly unclean."

Florence called up after his retreating form, "Well, be sure to pick your damp towels up off the floor! I do dislike stepping on them when I'm in my stockings!" She paused. Then she picked up another magazine, this one was all about garments, and she began to browse through it, hoping that it would fulfill her dreary existence in a way that the previous forty-eight issues had failed to do.

#

At around this same time, in a higher dimension, two pale blue life forms were going about their dreary higher dimensional business. It had been the same thing, day after day. Or rather, it would have been if they had experienced days. Days were only possible on planets… planets that rotated. And these pale blue higher dimensional life forms existed on a plane where planets appeared as small dots on a field of deepest violet.

Then something very minor went wrong. The first pale blue higher dimensional life form directed some negative energy at the second one and even chastised it for not doing its job properly. The second pale blue higher dimensional life form pointed out that the first pale blue higher dimensional life form hadn't properly explained what it had wanted in the first place, and so the mistake was on it. Then the first pale blue higher dimensional life form suddenly went mad and attacked the second one.

It took a while for the pale blue higher dimensional life form emergency services to arrive and put an end to the confrontation because this sort of thing had been going on with more and more regularity recently and they were very busy.

One of the pale blue higher dimensional life forms commented to the other that something would have to be done about this increasing amount of violence. The second pale blue higher dimensional life form agreed completely, and then suggested they go off together and soak up some energy from a passing singularity.

#

Dirk Gently headed back to his office. Before he got there, he was accosted by a disciple of the religion called Positive Vibrations. It was a new movement that had sprung up recently, and the followers went around annoying people who were not followers by telling them to be kind to one another. Dirk thought that if they really wanted to be kind, they would stop annoying people in the streets. "There are too many mean people here on Earth," the man said to Dirk. "There's too much negative energy. We have a ten-step programme."

"Isn't that for alcoholics?"

"That's twelve steps. With ours, when you're angry, you just count to ten."

Dirk paused and counted to ten before pushing his way past the irritating man.

The man said to Dirk's retreating form, "But don't you agree there's too much anger in our world?"

"Oh, indeed, I do. And you're not helping!" And he stomped off down the sidewalk, angrier than before.

A few moments later, Dirk entered his front office.

The glass in the front office door was cracked. A note was wedged into the broken glass. Dirk pulled it out and read it. It said, "Sorry I missed you. I'll call again, Angus Dunswood!"

That was good news. It meant he had gone.

Dirk opened the door which hadn't even been locked, and walked past the unoccupied secretary desk. He hadn't seen Janice since she had gone to work for the airline a year or two previously. He should probably get a new secretary at some point, he thought to himself. Eventually. The trouble was, hiring someone was the sort of thing that he would normally delegate to his secretary. And as he didn't have a secretary anymore, it was unlikely to happen any time soon.

He went through the next door into his main office and found a woman sitting there waiting for him. "Ah," he smiled, removing his large-rimmed red hat and tossing it on top of the filing cabinet. "I do apologise. Have you been waiting long?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Has my secretary given you any tea or coffee?"

"I didn't see a secretary out there."

"Oh, dear. I may have to let that woman go," he bluffed. A business with a secretary clearly looked more impressive than one without. Even if that secretary was absent without explanation. "She simply must stop abandoning her post like that. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I understand you handle messy divorces."

"I do. I do indeed, Mrs…?"

"Packer. Florence Packer."

"Mrs. Packer. Splendid. Why don't you…" she was already seated. "… remain in that extremely comfortable chair." It was in fact Dirk's old chair which he had abandoned because it didn't recline.

He then sat himself down in the reclining chair behind his desk. "So, you are getting divorced?"

"That is the plan, yes. My husband has been acting very oddly lately. And I simply cannot live with him any longer," she said, waving a dismissive hand at the very thought. "I need you to find something that I can take to my lawyer to prove that he's out of his tiny little mind."

"Is he in fact out of his tiny little mind?"

"Oh, without question."

"And how does this manifest?"

"He seems to have developed an inappropriate penchant for elephants."

"I see." Dirk wrote down "elephants" on a pad of paper… mainly so that he could give himself time to think of a follow-up question. "And by inappropriate, do you mean… sexual?"

"Oh, good heavens, no. Just… constant. It's elephant this and elephant that. 'Good evening, dear. Did you see any elephants in the back garden today?' Or, 'Good morning, dear. Did you know that the African elephant gestates for 22 months, whereas the Indian elephant can gestate for as little as 18 months?' It really is so tiresome." And she sighed wearily to emphasize just how tiresome it all was.

"I can see how it would be. Do you think I might be able to visit you at your home and observe your husband in his natural habitat, as it were?"

"He should be home tomorrow evening."

"Splendid. I'll stop by around 7 o'clock, if that works?"

It did indeed work for Mrs. Packer. And she gave Dirk her address and left.

#

The next day Dirk arrived at the Packer house at seven o'clock and found nobody was home. Or at least, he found that nobody was answering the door. He knocked again. Just one more minute, he decided, and he would have no choice but to go through the window. And when that other minute had arrived, he decided it would be best to simply look through the window instead.

He stepped back to find the largest window that would afford him the best view of the interior of the house. As he approached the window, he discovered several indentations in the lawn, and two more, in the mud, a little deeper, just outside the window. They couldn't be footprints. They were round and very large. Unless of course they were elephant footprints.

Dirk then crept up to the window, making sure not to make any obvious footprints of his own. He managed to get right up to the glass without stepping in the mud. He pushed his face up close and looked inside. And there he saw matching elephant footprints on the floor inside the house on the other side of the window. Mud prints. The same size and shape as the ones outside. However, the window was three feet off the ground, and only about four feet high and two feet wide. Not enough room for an elephant to get through. And as he continued to look inside, he saw, on the far side of the room, there was an arm on the floor just peeking out from behind the sofa. A human arm. Hopefully it was still attached to a body. But it lay motionless on the floor as though it didn't care if it was attached to a body or not.

Dirk decided that his best course of action would be to retreat to his office and forget that he had ever met Mrs. Packer.

#

Dirk resumed his regular life as best he could. At the end of the next day, he returned to his office to lock the door and turn off the lights for the day, when he walked in on Detective Inspector Gilks. But Gilks was not waiting patiently in the chair. He was brazenly going through Dirk's desk drawers. He looked up as Dirk walked in, "Ah, Gently. Do come in."

"Looking for a paperclip, detective inspector? Well, I wouldn't know about such things. You'd have to ask my secretary for a paper clip." He turned to the front office and feigned surprise at the total absence of a secretary, "Ah, she seems to have gone home early today."

"What a pity," Gilks said. "But as long as we're both here, I need to ask you a few questions. Why don't you sit down?" and he pointed to Dirk's old and non-reclining chair, while he, Gilks, planted himself firmly in Dirk's far more comfortable, and fully reclining chair.

Dirk reluctantly sat down as casually as he could.

"Do you know a Mr and Mrs Packer?" Gilks inquired.

"I know many people, detective inspector."

"It's just that they seem to know you. Mrs Packer was in possession of one of your business cards. She had also written in her appointment book, 'Seven PM meeting with Dirk Gently.'"

"Oh, that Mrs Packer! You don't think that I could have done it, do you?"

"Done what? I haven't said why I'm here."

He had Dirk, and Dirk knew it. "I did happen to go by their home yesterday for the scheduled interview. But nobody answered the door. I did then notice evidence of an intrusion of some sort near their front window. However, I simply could not have done this for two reasons. First, I have no motive. And second, my feet are the wrong size."

"The wrong size for what?"

"I was not on the scene very long. But I did find indications that the crime had been committed by an elephant."

"You think an elephant murdered her?"

"If she is now deceased, then I think it highly likely."

"And what, pray, led you to that conclusion?"

"There were clearly elephant footprints in the grass and in the mud leading to the house. And may I ask what the cause of death was?"

"She was stabbed by a large blunt object approximately seven inches in diameter."

"Seven inches!?"

"Yes. Tapering to a tip, of course."

"And tell me, would an elephant's tusk fit the description?"

Gilks narrowed his eyes, certain that he was being led on a journey of obfuscation and absurdity. "Possibly. However, the lady was murdered inside the house. And an elephant cannot have gotten in through the doors or the windows. And those are the only possible methods of ingress or egress."

Dirk decided not to bring the chimney to the detective inspector's attention, as even he did not think that an elephant could have shimmied down such a narrow passage.

"But you must admit that there are muddy elephant tracks inside the house, and they synchronize up with the ones outside on the opposite side of the wall. And the mud on the floor is of the same variety as that just outside where the elephant foot indentations were made."

Gilks sighed. There was something else on his mind. "You will never convince me that an elephant magically passed through the wall and murdered the lady."

"I do not believe in magic. If an elephant did pass through the wall, then it was by some other means… which simply remains unexplained."

"Like?"

"I cannot say at present. But just because I have not worked it out at the present time does not mean that it cannot be worked out eventually."

"Fine." Gilks removed a small black leather book from his coat pocket and opened it up to a page he had marked. "This is Mrs Packer's diary. In which it says, and I quote, 'I despise all elephants. I had an argument with one at the zoo the other day, and I think he took it personally. In fact, I believe this particular elephant has been following me. I don't feel safe in my own home.' And the night she was killed, an anonymous neighbor phoned the police to say that they saw an elephant lurking around her house."

Dirk said, "I must admit, I am unable to explain how an elephant might have passed through the wall whilst leaving it completely intact, but the evidence suggesting that an elephant has committed this crime is certainly mounting up."

Gilks said, "I think it far more likely that this was all done by the husband. I believe that the man is so far gone that he assumed it would throw us off his trail if he made it look as though an elephant had committed the murder."

"Well, you work on your theory, and I shall work on mine."

"And just why did Mrs Packer wish to see you, may I ask?"

"She was under the impression that her husband was losing his mind and she wanted evidence to that effect which she could then produce in court for a divorce."

Gilks smiled. "Then it looks as though evidence for my own theory is mounting up." He got up to go, "Pursue what ever theory you want, Gently. Just kindly stay out of my way."

#

Dirk went home for the night. He sat in his kitchen, trying to work out how an elephant might have entered the Packer house and then killed Mrs Packer. There were several magic tricks to make it appear as though someone could pass through a solid wall. In ancient China, the monks of a certain sect even convinced their own disciples that they themselves could pass through a solid wall. They would stand in front of a wall, blindfold them, tell them to believe in themselves, and to run forwards at top speed. Those who did believe in themselves ran at full speed and were very impressed with themselves to discover that when they removed the blindfold a few moments later, they were standing on the other side of the solid wall. But what they had failed to realise was the fact that the monks in charge would simply slide open a hidden panel in the wall, hence the blindfold. So, it was of course a great disappointment to the graduate monks who tried to show off their new talent to other people on an entirely different solid wall some-time later, only to get a very nasty bump on the head. But that clearly wasn't the case here.

Dirk's other major concern was how he was going to get some money out of Mrs Packer's family once the mourning period was over. Or indeed, before, if he could find a way. They might find they could mourn better, knowing that this painful bill was behind them.

#

The next day, Dirk made several telephone calls trying to track down a stray elephant. Unfortunately, the zoo wasn't missing any and there weren't any circuses currently in town. And that trail went cold quickly.

Later, he went to the Packer residence once again. He rang the doorbell. A uniformed police constable answered the door. Before he could speak, Dirk cut him off, "It's about time!" he blustered, sweeping past the man. He marched into the living room and came to a sudden stop as he found Gilks sitting behind a desk, going through a pile of papers.

"What are you doing here, Gently?"

"I was rather hoping for an opportunity to question Mr Packer."

"Well, he's not here at the moment. I've had him arrested."

"So he's in prison?"

"No, as it happens. He happens to be rich enough to have hired a very expensive lawyer who managed to convince the very naïve judge that he should be transferred to Woodshead Mental Hospital."

"Woodshead Mental Hospital?"

#

Two hours later, Dirk found himself in the office of the director and chief consultant psychologist of Woodshead Mental Hospital, Mr. Ralph Standish.

"I was hoping to interview one of your patients; a Mr Gerold Packer."

"And who are you again?" Standish asked.

Dirk handed him his business card. "I am working on a case for his wife."

"His dead wife?"

"Well, yes."

"It's just that you said an elephant killed her in her own living room."

"I did."

"And I was wondering how it got through the door."

"As am I, I assure you. Though a door is not the only means of entering a house, as, I am sure, you are aware."

"Indeed."

"So might I be allowed to meet with Mr Packer?"

Standish looked at Dirk, pondering the matter deeply. "Very well," he finally said. He then rose to his feet and gestured for Dirk to precede him out of the room.

As they walked down the corridor, Standish described some of the inmates on the other sides of the doors they were passing. As Dirk could not see them through the closed cell doors, he had to take Mr Standish at his word that he was in fact describing the inmates correctly.

"The gentleman in this room has a peculiar psychological condition which prevents him from actually seeing certain types of automobiles. Unfortunately, as the type in question is very popular, this has led to his being in several traffic accidents over the years. He was eventually diagnosed correctly, removed from the road, and finally removed from civilized society altogether so that we can study his condition and hopefully one day give him a scholarship."

Dirk nodded, "I see."

They moved on.

"In here," Standish said, indicating the next door as though they were in an art gallery, "is our most recently hired staff member. And our most recently fired staff member. And also one of our most recent patients."

"But there's only one man in there." Dirk said peeking through the small, head-high window in the door.

"Oh, it's all the same person. We hired him about three months ago, fired him, and then admitted him as a patient. After we initially hired him, we gave him an office of his own. For the first month, everything seemed to be going just fine. He would counsel the inmates several times a day. But then one day I went to his office to talk to him about something. I paused as I heard him in there giving advice and having a very intense conversation of some kind. I went in for a quick word, ready to apologise for the interruption, only to discover that he was completely alone. He was not in fact talking to anybody. He then noticed me and turned back to the empty air, dismissed it, told it that he would see it again at the same time the next day, and then asked me to bring in his next patient. When I paused, he then began another therapy session all on his own. Listening to nothing and responding to nothing. And generally giving some very good advice, from what I could hear of his side of the conversation.

"So we did a more thorough check on his background and found that his credentials had all been forged. Very, very cleverly. It turns out he's a paranoid schizophrenic. He sees people who aren't there. But the odd thing in his case is that all of the people he imagines are themselves crazy. He imagines his own patients. He apparently does not imagine sane people. Perhaps because they're a reflection of own mind."

They approached the next room. "And in here we have another paranoid schizophrenic who imagines people who accuse him of being a paranoid schizophrenic. But when these imaginary people tell him he's a paranoid schizophrenic, he denies it. He hears voices in his head telling him that he needs psychiatric help. In fact, these imaginary voices and people were able to diagnose his condition very well. They told him to admit himself, specifically here at our facility. So, ironically, the voices in his head have been very helpful on his road to recovery."

They finally arrived at the day room. An orderly unlocked the door for them and let them in. It looked to Dirk like a typical hospital waiting room. There were windows, but they had bars. There were ten or so patients sitting about, mostly trying to keep to themselves. Some were playing board games or cards. Packer sat on his own, near a window, staring off into space.

Standish gestured to Packer and said, "There he is. Just ask the orderly here when you're ready to leave." Dirk nodded to the orderly guarding the door and thanked Mr Standish. Standish then went back through the security door.

Dirk headed for Packer, but was distracted by a man playing a tape recording of cat meows. Dirk paused a moment, watching over the man's shoulder. The man played a meow, paused the tape, wrote out some complicated mathematical equation on a sheet of paper, then wrote out a single word on second sheet of paper.

"I see you've worked out how to translate the cat language into English," Dirk said.

"One of the cat languages," the man said. "Like humans, there are several different cat languages. But unlike humans, it does not depend upon geography."

Dirk was intrigued, "Upon what does it depend?"

The man looked at Dirk as though he was an idiot, "The length of the cat's hair!"

Dirk nodded. He was fully prepared to accept that the man may have been onto something. But he didn't have the time to get into at the moment. "I could have used you on a case a few months ago," he said.

He moved on and sat at the same small round table occupied by Packer. He made sure to sit between Packer and the window, so that the man had no choice but to face Dirk. "Good afternoon, Mr Packer. My name is Dirk Gently. I've been retained by your late wife to investigate your situation."

Packer was clearly doped up on something which drained his energy. He slowly turned a dead gaze upon Dirk... and then drooled a bit.

"Perhaps you're not in the mood for an in-depth conversation at the moment?" Dirk said.

Packer paused for several seconds. Dirk couldn't tell if he was trying to compose a response or not. But then the man simply turned his gaze slowly back to the window and what lay beyond.

Dirk felt something dwindle away. Anyone else would have mistaken it for a waning enthusiasm. But it was more than that. Something was clearly telling him to take no further interest in the man. So why was he here? Why had he pursued this case this far? Clearly his holistic approach to investigating had served to get him here where he will then find the true reason for his presence. Everything is connected.

He looked around the room. There were inmates all sitting about, not enjoying their day. There were hospital staff keeping an eye on everyone. They didn't look as though they were enjoying their day either. Soon, Dirk's attention was caught by an inmate who was sitting on the nearby sofa, explaining to another inmate what the voices in his head had been telling him. Well, this sounded far more interesting than Packer's situation. So Dirk rose to his feet, turned to Mr Packer, stuck out is hand and said, "Thank you for your time, Mr Packer. I shall be leaving you now." Packer didn't even seem to notice. Dirk withdrew his unshaken hand and then moved over to the man with the voices in his head. "Sir, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dirk Gently. I am an holistic detective. I find some of what you were saying a moment ago to be of genuine interest."

"What?"

"I believe you mentioned to your fellow inmate here that there were voices in your head."

"Get with the programme! It's not in my head. It's Lord Axo, and he's real. I can hear him because he's telepathically linked to me. You don't think that I'm in your head do you? Yet you can only hear the sound of my voice inside your head."

"A valid point, I must say. And may I inquire as to what sort of thing the Lord Axo tells you?"

"He wants the human race to be nicer."

"Well... not the worst advice I've ever heard," Dirk had to admit. "And has he suggested for you a method for carrying out suggestion of his?"

"I have to pass on his word. His wisdom. He has created a new religious order for that very purpose."

Dirk smiled, "Perhaps the Lord Axo hasn't noticed. But no other religion has ever been able to bring peace to the world. I would therefore think that perhaps another approach might be in order at this point."

"Like what?"

"Well... I am afraid I am at something of a loss."

"Then fuck off."

Dirk smiled as politely as he could, which wasn't very much. "Then I bid you a good day, sir," he said. "Best of luck in your messianic adventures." He turned and headed for the door.

#

Dirk went home. In spite of the man's response, Dirk felt sure that he was somehow on the right track.

He fixed himself some dinner; some unidentified kind of meat which he stuck between two slices of bread, ate it, and then climbed into bed and utterly failed to fall to sleep. For some reason, he kept thinking about the man on the street who was with the crackpot religion. The memory of their meeting was going round and round in his head like a relentless piece of music. There was something bothering Dirk about the man. Something he was unable to identify. Obviously, his subconscious was onto something. After two hours, he finally got out of bed, got himself a glass of milk, sat down at the small table in his kitchen and promptly put himself into a trance. He slowed his breathing, he relaxed, he let his subconscious memories come into focus. He took himself back. In his mind, he was once again walking down the sidewalk. He could see the man clearly. The man was standing on the sidewalk, annoying passersby with unsolicited information about his religion. In his mind, Dirk approached the man. The man was maybe thirty years old. He had long blonde hair. He wore a battered old army jacket and torn and faded blue jeans. There was something on the left lapel of his jacket. Words. Hand-written. In black felt... "Axo is the way."

Dirk snapped out of it immediately! Lord Axo was also the name of the voice speaking to the looney he had met earlier! Okay... so what? There was a connection there. But what was it!? What could it be? Did they know each other? Was schizophrenia contagious? Obviously the two people couldn't be hearing the same voice in their head. Unless... that voice was real.

Now that he was on the track of something, he was definitely not going to sleep for some time!

#

The next day, Dirk wandered the streets in the area where he had met the man the other day. Hours went by, and he just hadn't been able to find him. Why were religious nuts never around when you wanted them?

Dirk found a bench on the sidewalk and sat down. He waited, and the man for whom he was looking stubbornly refused to walk by. So Dirk got up and resumed walking about again.

Another hour went by, and then finally, he spotted him! He was across the street, accosting people who clearly wanted to be left alone. He continued to annoy people with the message that they should all be nicer. He seemed to spend all his time hitting people over the head with his message. What he clearly forgot, however, was that when people are hit over the head, their natural response was to duck!

Dirk approached the man. "Good afternoon to you," Dirk said, doffing his red, wide-brimmed hat. As he got closer, he saw that the man was still wearing the jacket with the hand-scrawled message, "Axo is the way" written on it.

"I say, don't I know you?" the man said on seeing Dirk.

"Indeed, I did have the pleasure of making your acquaintance only the other day, though I regret, I did not get your name."

The man stuck out his hand, "Simon Dixon."

"Mr Dixon, it is a genuine pleasure to find you today. My name is Dirk Gently. So you were good enough to speak to me when last we met about how mankind is filled with 'bad vibes,' or something of the sort."

The man lit up with enthusiasm. "That's right! I'm just trying to bring to the people of Earth the message of peace and love."

"A very timely and important message, I must agree. Now, may I inquire as to where you came across this message?" The man hesitated, suddenly unsure of Dirk's intentions. "It is of vital importance, I assure you," Dirk said.

"I am bringing to humanity the message of the Lord Axo."

"And might I inquire just where are you receiving this message?"

""The Lord Axo speaks to me, if you must know. He's a higher dimensional life form."

"Indeed. How very exciting. And I wonder if anyone else can hear the Lord Axo?"

"The Lord Axo does not speak to everyone."

"And just why is that, I wonder?"

"He said to me that he can only project his thoughts into people's minds one at a time. Once he has aligned his biological frequencies with another person, then they are linked and he can speak to them."

"I see." Dirk realised he was really onto something. "May I sit with you a few minutes and ask you a series of in-depth questions on this subject?"

"All right. But only if you promise to live your life according to the will of Lord Axo."

"I would be unable not to fail to do so at this point," Dirk said.

Satisfied with Dirk's triple negative, the man sat down with Dirk in a nearby café where Dirk managed to convince the man that he should treat them both to coffee. Dirk took out a pad of paper and stubbly little pencil and asked the man a series of questions about the Lord Axo.

"Lord Axo," the man began, "has said that we humans perceive things... um... the wrong way. Our mental energy that we put out into the universe affects beings like the Lord Axo who are made up of pure mental energy. And there are so many people on our world who are so full of negativity that it is beginning to affect them in their non-physical realm. He said that we should think of it as a kind of mental pollution. Our bad vibes are bombarding them in their realm. We're harming them with our hatred. We have to stop. And of course, if we do, we can only help ourselves by becoming better, nicer people. So what do we have to lose?"

"Nothing to lose except our chains of bad vibes, eh? And you are prepared to swear that you are not receiving this information from a fellow human being of any kind?"

"The Lord Axo is not human."

"Well, it has been a pleasure, Mr Dixon." Dirk finished his now room temperature coffee in one swallow and left.

#

Dirk returned to Woodshead Hospital. He stepped into Mr Standish's office. Standish had been staring off into space, and looked up at Dirk, startled. He rose to his feet and stuck out his hand, "Ah, yes. And what can we do for you?"

There was a definite lack of recognition in the man's eyes, even though they had spoken at length only the day before. "Mr Standish. I was here yesterday, if you recall."

Nothing in his face showed understanding as he said, "Yes, of course. Well, welcome back. How can we help you today?"

"I would like to speak to one of your patients, if I may. I spoke to Mr Packer yesterday. But I believe that my methods of deduction have led me to this fine establishment so that I can meet one of your other patients. And this is my true reason for being here. As I keep telling people, I may not have ended up where I intended, but rather where I needed to be."

"So who is this other patient?"

"I fear I did not get his name the last time I was here. But he is the gentleman who is hearing voices from the Lord Axo."

Stanidsh clearly had no idea what any of this meant. "Yes, well, I'll have my assistant escort you to the day room." Standish opened a drawer and activated an intercom inside.

A moment later, what looked like a cupboard in the wall opened, and a woman entered from what was clearly not a cupboard in the wall, but was in fact a joining office.

"Miss Mayhew, please escourt Mr, erm... this gentleman here to the day room so that he can interview Mr, erm... one of the inmates."

"Yes, Mr Standish."

The thin woman in her mid-forties. Dirk followed the blank-faced woman down the corridor and into the dayroom where she left him. He looked around, and saw the patient sitting at the same place on the couch where he had been the day before, almost as though he had been there the entire time.

"Hello, again," Dirk said. "Do you remember me from yesterday?"

The man said, "Mmm," very non-comitally.

"My name is Dirk Gently, if you recall. And what is your own name?"

"Nappo."

"Ah, yes," Dirk smiled. "It means large nose, as I recall."

"What do you want?" The man was not clearly impressed with Dirk's knowledge of onomatology.

"I would like to hear more from you on the subject of the Lord Axo."

"No, you don't."

"I do. I assure you, I do."

"Why?"

"I am an holistic detective. I have met somebody else here on Earth who is also receiving wisdom from the Lord Axo."

"Mm, hm." Mr Nappo was not impressed. He already knew darned well that Lord Axo was in contact with many human beings here on Earth. "What of it?"

"Well, for starters, if this is all true, I will see what I can do to secure your release from this facility."

Mr Nappo sat in silence for a few moments, mulling over the situation. Finally, he nodded. "What do you need to know?"

"Why does Lord Axo want us to be nicer?"

"Because our bad vibes are hurting them in their dimension. They're not physical beings. We're polluting their reality. So he wants us all to be nicer."

Dirk nodded, impressed. "Very concise. That tallies with what Mr Dixon told me. Do you know Mr Dixon? Simon Dixon?" Nappo shook his head. "Not to worry. In any case, it is clear to me now that you are receiving genuine telepathic messages from a genuine extra-terrestrial source. I shall do what I can to secure your release from this facility. If that suits your needs?"

The man shrugged, "Sure."

Dirk was let out of the day room and made straight for Standish's office once again. "Mr Standish, I wonder if I might have a word with you about your patient, Mr Nappo?"

"What about him?"

"I believe him to be quite sane. What would be involved in releasing him?"

One minute later, Dirk found himself being thrown out the front door of Woodshead Hospital. That same front door then being slammed behind him. He got back into his car and drove away.

Once again, he found himself unable to sleep that night. He tried over and over to come up with a way to make the best of the situation. It was somewhere around four o'clock in the morning that he finally came up with a solution that satisfied him.

#

The next day he found Simon Dixon prowling the streets once again. "Mr Dixon, hello again."

"Mr Gently. Praise Axo."

"Indeed! I have a very important question to ask you."

"Yes?"

"I was wondering if you can communicate your own thoughts with the Lord Axo? Or is the communication one-way only?"

"Yes, I can do that."

"Then I have a message I hope you might convey to him."

#

A few days later, Dirk sat in his office, reading the newspaper. In it, he read a small article explaining that Mr Standish had been relieved of all duty at the Woodshead Hospital, and that he himself was now hearing voices in his head.

And later that day, as he went to lunch, Dirk saw Mr Nappo in the streets, berating passers-by in an attempt to get them to be nicer.

But the thing that bothered Dirk was why his methods of investigation had led him to these two people. Nobody involved could afford to pay Dirk anything. He wasn't even sure if he could bill them for anything. And Dirk was an expert in finding every possible reason for billing his clients.

#

As he was getting ready to leave his office for the day, the telephone rang. "Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency?"

"Mr Gently. This is Mrs Dunswood."

"Ah, Mrs Dunswood. I must apologise for missing your grandson the other day. But a very complex case had presented itself to me. One that still has me puzzled at this current moment in time."

"Think nothing of it, Mr Gently."

"You're very kind," Dirk said, sure that the other shoe was about to drop.

Mrs Dunswood went on, "In fact, I was just telephoning to let you know that I will not be requiring the return of your retainer fee."

"Oh?"

"Not at all. What good is money when all you need is love?"

"That is a lovely sentiment, Mrs Dunswood. And I am a fan of the Beatles myself. But you do confuse me slightly."

"Whatever is the matter, Mr Gently?"

Dirk thought perhaps he ought to count himself lucky and hang up now. But this behavior was mysterious. And if there was one thing he abhorred as a detective, it was a mystery. Mysteries had to be solved. "It's just that you seemed rather adamant before about collecting my retainer fee. I was just curious as to what it is that has changed your mind."

"Well, I met someone today. It was a chance encounter, but this person has shown me that there is too much negativity in the world. Too many... 'bad vibes,' as he puts it. Mr Gently, I have heard the word of the Lord Axo!"