Chapter Thirty-Six
After lunch, during which Pluck accidentally impaled a waiter’s hand with a salad fork, then, after its extraction and Pluck’s outraged vituperation against the fellow, the inspector accidentally impaled the same waiter’s same hand with a fish fork, and finally, equally unintentionally, when he’d thought the waiter had been taken for bandaging and was therefore nowhere in the vicinity, Pluck attempted to spear a grape in a bowl on the table before him, but ended up falling backwards in his chair and puncturing the waiter’s hand with his dessert fork—after lunch, a tired-looking middle-aged man, who seemed vaguely familiar to the inspector, was escorted in.
“Please sit down, monsieur.”
“Thank you.” The man sat, and yawned.
“Could you state your full name, please?”
The man snored.
“Bartoff—wake him up, will you?”
Bartoff threw one of the four jugs of water at the man—it struck him in the face, shattering, tearing gashes in his cheeks and forehead and sending his wig flying into the fireplace. The man leapt up, screaming in pain, rushed to the hearth, and thrust in his hand, which lit aflame, but he’d extracted the flaming wig, which, unthinkingly, he slapped back atop his head. His screaming, naturally, redoubled, and it took a quick-thinking Enid to douse him with two more jugs of water (she intentionally left one jug’s contents intact, in case Pluck should find cause to complain that he was thirsty). She helped the smouldering, whimpering wreck of a man back to his seat. Pluck shuffled his papers, then asked him:
“Now, sir: do I have your attention?”
“What. . .what is it?”
“Your full name, if you’d be so kind.”
“Alan Brigeiboit Sanns.”
Pluck nodded. “That is sufficient. It accords with my records precisely. You are free to go. And. . .”
Enid was helping the vanquished opponent out of his seat. Mister Sanns turned back to Pluck.
“. . .Remember: there is much in life worth savouring,” Pluck expounded. “Your life might appear pointless and pathetic, but it does not follow that it is. I beg you to keep that in mind and never to lose faith, sir.”
The man turned without a word, and allowed Enid to help him out.