Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [41]
Holly felt herself growing annoyed. Artemis could get under her skin like nobody else. A child who treated everyone like children.
“And who is this one person that you trust?”
Artemis smiled genuinely for the first time since Munich. “Why, myself, of course.”
Munich
Butler woke to find blood dripping from the tip of his nose. It was dripping onto the white hat of the hotel chef. The chef stood with a group of hotel kitchen staff in the middle of a destroyed storage shed. The man gripped a cleaver in his hairy fist, just in case this giant on the tattered mattress wedged into the rafters was a madman.
“Excuse me,” said the chef politely, which is unusual for a chef, “are you alive?”
Butler considered the question. Apparently, unlikely as it seemed, he was alive. The mattress had saved him from the strange missile. Artemis had survived, too. He remembered feeling his charge’s heartbeat just before he passed out. It wasn’t there now.
“I am alive,” he grunted, a paste of tile dust and blood spilling from his lips. “Where is the boy who was with me?”
The crowd assembled in the ruined shed looked at one another.
“There was no boy,” said the chef finally. “You fell through the roof all on your own.”
Doubtless, this group would like an explanation or they would inform the police.
“Of course there was no boy. Forgive me; the mind tends to wander after a three-story fall.”
The group nodded as one. Who could blame the giant for being a touch rattled?
“I was leaning against the railing, sunning myself, when the railing gave way. Lucky for me, I managed to grab the mattress on the way down.”
This explanation was met with the mass skepticism it thoroughly deserved. The chef voiced the group’s doubts.
“You managed to grab a mattress?”
Butler had to think quickly, which is not easy when all the blood in your body is concentrated in your forehead.
“Yes. It was on the balcony. I had been resting in the sun.”
This entire sun business was extremely unlikely. Especially considering that it was the middle of winter. Butler realized that there was only one way to dispel the crowd. It was drastic, but it should work.
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small spiral pad.
“Of course, I intend to sue the hotel for damages. Trauma alone should be worth a few million euros. Not to mention injuries. I presume I can count on you good people as witnesses.”
The chef paled, as did the others. Giving evidence against one’s employers was the first step to unemployment.
“I . . . I don’t know, sir,” he stammered. “I didn’t actually see anything.” He paused to sniff the air. “I think I smell my Pavlova burning. Dessert will be ruined.”
The chef hopped over the chunks of shattered tile, disappearing back into the hotel. The remaining staff followed his lead, and within seconds, Butler was on his own again. He smiled, though the action sent a flare of pain down his neck. The threat of a lawsuit generally scattered witnesses as effectively as any gunfire.
The giant Eurasian disentangled himself from the remains of the rafters. He really had been amazingly lucky not to be impaled on the beams. The mattress had absorbed most of the impact, and the timbers were rotten and had splintered harmlessly.
Butler dropped to the floor, brushing dust from his suit. His priority now was to find Artemis. It seemed likely that whoever had made the attempt on his life had taken the boy. Although, why would someone try to kill him and then take him prisoner? Unless their unknown enemy had taken advantage of the situation and decided to seek a ransom.
Butler returned to the hotel room, where everything was as they had left it. There was absolutely no sign that anything had exploded in here. The only unusual things revealed by Butler’s investigations were small