The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Arkady Strugatsky

Author:Arkady Strugatsky [Strugatsky, Arkady]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61219-433-2
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2015-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

9.

I drank a big cup of coffee and went to question Kaisa. The coffee was excellent. But I got almost nothing out of Kaisa. First off, she kept falling asleep in her chair, and when I woke her up, she immediately asked, “What?” Second, it seemed she was completely incapable of talking about Olaf. Each time I said his name, she blushed red, began to giggle, made a complicated movement with her shoulder and covered herself with one hand. I was left with the unshakable impression that Olaf had been naughty here, and that it had happened almost immediately after dinner, when Kaisa had been clearing and washing the dishes. “But he took my beads,” she said, twittering and mooning. “He said they were a souvenir. Something to remember me by. What a troublemaker …” In the end, I told her to go to bed, and then went out in the lobby to make my way to the owner.

“What do you think about all this, Alek?” I asked.

He pushed his adding machine out of the way with relish and stretched his powerful shoulders until they cracked.

“I think, Peter, that pretty soon I’m going to have to give this inn another name.”

“How so?” I said. “And what name are you thinking of?”

“I don’t know yet,” the manager said. “But it’s bothering me a little. In a few days, this valley of mine will be swarming with reporters; I’ve got to get all my ducks in order before that happens. Naturally, everything depends on what conclusions the official investigation draws, but then the press will have to listen to the proprietor’s thoughts on what happened …”

“Does the proprietor already have thoughts on what happened?” I said, surprised.

“Well, maybe it’s not quite accurate to call them thoughts … In any case, I have experienced certain feelings that you yourself, in my opinion, haven’t arrived at yet. But you will, Peter. I have no doubt events will present themselves in the same way to you as you dig deeper into the case. You and I are just built differently. I’m a mechanic, self-taught, which means that I tend to have feelings instead of conclusions. And you—you’re a police inspector. Feelings for you arise as a result of your conclusions, when the conclusions you draw are unsatisfying. When they discourage you. That’s how I see it, Peter … So now, ask your questions.”

At that point—because I was very tired and very discouraged—I did something I hadn’t expected to do. I told him about Hinkus. He listened, nodding his bald head.

“Yes,” he said, when I had finished. “You see, even Hinkus …”

Having made this mysterious remark he told me, thoroughly and without any undue emphasis, what he’d done after the card game was over. However, he didn’t know much—for example, he’d last seen Olaf around the same time I had. At nine thirty he had gone downstairs with the Moseses, fed Lel, put him out for his walk, told Kaisa off for her tardiness … at which point I showed up.

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