The Stranger - Max Frei [126]
I leaped up and knocked over my chair. The mug, blessedly empty, clattered to the floor.
“What an idiot I am!” I cried. “How could I have forgotten! The Soup of Repose! Remember what happened to me, Juffin? Of course he was swaying back and forth on his feet! He sure must have been! Of course, it was my countryman. The guy tried the soup! No more murders for him!”
“Well, that’s that,” Juffin sighed in relief. “Our troubles are over. Though we have nothing to be proud of. We’re just lucky. Theoretically, the killer could have wandered around Echo forever, eating something else.”
“What happened when you ate the soup?” Melifaro asked, perplexed. “I don’t quite get the connection, gentlemen.”
“Max can’t eat Soup of Repose,” Juffin explained. “But don’t even think about joking about it, son. It affects him like poison. He was knocked out flat for three days after eating a bowlful, and I was powerless to help.”
“Poor guy,” Melifaro said sympathetically. “That’s why you’re so overwrought all the time. As though Lonli-Lokli were sitting on your backside. You’re really missing out, mate.”
“I hope it’s the worst loss I experience,” I said indifferently. “I can get along fine without the soup.”
“Everything makes sense to me now,” Sir Kofa announced suddenly. “You can send Lonli-Lokli to the Old Thorn. The killer’s there. He’s the reason I was late.”
“I’ll go myself.” Melifaro jumped up and made it to the doorway in a single bound. “You can’t just kill a miracle of nature like that! Moreover, the Master Who Snuffs Out Unnecessary Smiles is busy with my paperwork. It would be a sin to deprive him of the pleasure.”
“We’ll go together,” said Juffin and stood up. “I’m curious, too, not to mention Max, who simply must exchange greetings with his compatriot. And Sir Kofa has full right to his portion of the laurels.”
Frankly speaking, I wasn’t especially eager to accompany them. I would have to encounter a person who had traveled the same road I had, through the Door between Worlds, to use Juffin’s terminology. If it were up to me, I would have postponed the meeting. But no one thought to ask me.
They put me behind the levers of the amobiler—we had some distance to go, and time was short. Along the way, Sir Kofa recounted his experiences.
“Just after midday, a strange fellow entered the Thorn. As everyone knows, Mr. Chemparkaroke adores oddities. The stranger, the better—that’s his motto. Chemparkaroke is still just as curious as the day he arrived in Echo for the first time from the island of Murimax. Anyway, the visitor made his entrance by shouting out something from the doorway: ‘All women are . . .’ something or other. A hole in the heavens above, I can’t remember for the life of me.”
“Whores,” I prompted. “He probably said ‘all women are whores.’”
“That’s it, Sir Max! You’re not a medium, by any chance?”
“No, it’s just that maniacs like this guy usually get fixated on one idea or phrase, and they keep repeating it over and over. He said the same thing to the red-headed lady. He called her an ‘old whore.’”
“What does it mean?” Melifaro wanted to know.
“Nothing, really. Something like ‘bad woman.’ Or, let’s say, ‘very bad, depraved woman.’”
When he heard my translation, Melifaro colored deeply. But I thought it necessary to continue my lecture.
“Guys like that always bear grudges against women—against all of them without exception, or just against blondes, or plump ones, or tall ones. It all depends.”
“Let’s not get sidetracked, here,” Juffin grumbled. “Let Kofa have his say.”
“Chemparkaroke was in ecstasy over this incomprehensible word. So he agreed with his guest out of politeness. The guy asked whether Chemparkaroke had anything to relieve his suffering. The innkeeper concluded that the visitor wanted to taste some of his legendary soup. He poured him some of the most potent stuff. At first the visitor didn’t want to eat it, but Chemparkaroke swore on his mother’s grave that