Read Online Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams - Free Book Online

automatic light-activated dipper switches.  Look, can you make a note for me to tell Susan -- not you, of course, secretary Susan at the office -- to tell her to send a letter from me to that fellow at the Department of the Environment saying we can provide the technology if he can provide the legislation?  It’s for the public good, and anyway he owes me a favour plus what’s the point in having a CBE if you can’t kick a little ass?  You can tell I’ve been talking to Americans all week.
    ‘That reminds me, God, I hope I remembered to pack the shotguns.  What is it with these Americans that they’re always so mad to shoot my rabbits?  I bought them some maps in the hope that I can persuade them to go on long healthy walks and take their minds off shooting rabbits.  I really feel quite sorry for the creatures.  I think I should put one of those signs on my lawn when the Americans are coming, you know, like they have in Beverly Hills, saying ‘Armed Response’.
    ‘Make a note to Susan, would you please, to get an ‘Armed Response’ sign made up with a sharp spike on the bottom at the right height for rabbits to see.  That’s secretary Susan at the office not you, of course.
    ‘Where was I?
    ‘Oh yes.  Richard and Anthem 2.00.  Susan, that thing has got to be in beta testing in two weeks.  He tells me it’s fine.  But every time I see him he’s got a picture of a sofa spinning on his computer screen.  He says it’s an important concept, but all I see is furniture.  People who want their company accounts to sing to them do not want to buy a revolving sofa.  Nor do I think he should be turning the erosion patterns of the Himalayas into a flute quintet at this time.
    ‘And as for what Kate’s up to, Susan, well, I can’t hide the fact that I get anxious at the salaries and computer time it’s eating up.  Important long-term research and development it might be, but there is also the possibility, only a possibility, I’m saying, but nevertheless a possibility which I think we owe it to ourselves fully to evaluate and explore, which is that it’s a lemon.  That’s odd, there’s a noise coming from the boot, I thought I’d just closed it properly.
    ‘Anyway, the main thing’s Richard.  And the point is that there’s only one person who’s really in a position to know if he’s getting the important work done, or if he’s just dreaming, and that one person is, I’m afraid, Susan.
    ‘That’s you, I mean, of course, not secretary Susan at the office.
    ‘So can you, I don’t like to ask you this, I really don’t, can you really get on his case?  Make him see how important it is?  Just make sure he realises that WayForward Technologies is meant to be an expanding commercial business, not an adventure playground for crunch-heads.  That’s the problem with crunch-heads -- they have one great idea that actually works and then they expect you to carry on funding them for years while they sit and calculate the topographies of their navels.  I’m sorry, I’m going to have to stop and close the boot properly.  Won’t be a moment.’
    He put the telephone down on the seat beside him, pulled over on to the grass verge, and got out.  As he went to the boot, it opened, a figure rose out of it, shot him through the chest with both barrels of a shotgun and then went about its business.
    Gordon Way’s astonishment at being suddenly shot dead was nothing to his astonishment at what happened next.

CHAPTER 8
    ‘Come in, dear fellow, come in.’
    The door to Reg’s set of rooms in college was up a winding set of wooden stairs in the corner of Second Court, and was not well lit, or rather it was perfectly well lit when the light was working, but the light was not working, so the door was not well lit and was, furthermore, locked.  Reg was having difficulty in finding the key from a collection which looked like something that a fit Ninja warrior could hurl through the trunk of a