Arkady Strugatsky - The Dead Mountaineer's Inn

"And what do you think about this thievery, Inspector?" he said.

"I think someone here has been playing jokes," I answered.

"There's an odd idea," Moses said disapprovingly.

"Not really," I retorted. "First of all, none of these activities appear to have any goal other than confusion. Second, the dog isn't acting like there are strangers here."

"Oh yes," the owner said in a hollow voice. "Of course, no one in this house is a stranger to him. But HE wasn't just 'not a stranger' to my Lel. HE was his god, gentlemen!"

Moses stared at him.

"Who is this 'HE'?" he asked sternly.

"HE. The dead mountaineer."

"How fascinating!" Mrs. Moses chirped.

"Don't fool around with my head," Moses told the host. "And if you know who's behind these events, then advise him-strongly advise him!-to stop. Understand me?" He turned his bloodshot eyes at us. "Otherwise I'll start pulling some practical jokes of my own!" he snapped.

Everyone was silent. It seemed to me that they were all trying to imagine what a practical joke from Mr. Moses would look like. I didn't know about the others, but personally I didn't think anything good would come out of it. Moses stared down each of us in turn, not forgetting to take a sip from his mug as he did so. It was completely impossible for me to tell who he was and what he was doing here. And why was he wearing that ridiculous coat? (Perhaps he had already started joking with us?) And what did he have in that mug? And how come it always seemed full, even though, to my eyes, he had already taken around a hundred sips from it-deep ones, too?

Mrs. Moses set down her plate, applied a napkin to her beautiful lips and, raising her eyes to the ceiling, said:

"Oh how I love beautiful sunsets! What a feast of colors!"

I immediately felt a strong desire to be alone. I stood and said firmly:

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'll see you at dinner."

3.

"I have no idea who he is," the owner said, examining his glass under the light. "He signed the book claiming to be a salesman traveling for personal reasons. But he's no salesman. A half-crazy alchemist, magician, inventor maybe... but not a salesman."

We were sitting in front of the fireplace. The coals were hot; the armchairs ancient, sturdy, reliable. The port was warm, infused with lemon, and fragrant. The low light was comfortable, ruddy, utterly cozy. A blizzard was whipping itself up outside and causing the fireplace to whistle. The inn was quiet, except for the peal of sobbing laughter that burst out every once in a while, as if from a cemetery, accompanied by the clack of a well-shot billiard ball. Kaisa was banging pans together in the kitchen.

"Salesman are usually cheap," the owner continued thoughtfully. "But Mr. Moses is not cheap-not at all. 'Might I ask,' I asked him, 'Whose recommendation I have to thank for the honor of your stay?' Instead of answering me he took a hundred-crown bill out of his pocket, set fire to it with his lighter, then lit a cigarette off of that and answered, blowing smoke in my face: 'The name is Moses, sir. Albert Moses! A Moses doesn't require a recommendation. A Moses is at home everywhere and under every roof.' What do you think of that?"

I thought about it.

"I know a counterfeiter who said the exact same thing when asked for his papers," I said.

"Impossible," the owner said smugly. "His bills are real."

"Some kind of insane millionaire, then?"

"He's definitely a millionaire," the owner said. "But who is he? He's traveling for personal reasons... But no one just passes through my valley. People come here to ski or rock climb. It's a dead end. It doesn't go anywhere."

I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs. It felt unusually good to be sitting in exactly this position and speculating, in the most serious possible manner, on the identity of Mr. Moses.

"Well, all right, then," I said. "A dead end. And what is someone like Mr. Du Barnstoker doing at this dead end?"

"Oh, Mr. Du Barnstoker-he's another matter altogether. He's been visiting me every year now for thirteen years. The first time he came, the inn was still known as 'The Shack.' He's crazy for my liqueur. Mr. Moses, on the other hand, appears to be constantly drunk-but he hasn't asked me for a single bottle."

I grunted significantly and took a large sip.

"An inventor," the owner said decisively. "An inventor, or a magician."

"You believe that there are such things as magicians, Mr. Snevar?"

"Please, call me Alek. Plain Alek."

I picked up my glass and toasted Alek with another long swallow.

"In that case, call me Peter," I said.

The owner nodded solemnly and took a generous sip in Peter's honor.

"Do I believe in magicians?" he said. "I believe in anything that I can imagine, Peter. In wizards, in almighty God, in the devil, in ghosts, in flying saucers. If the human brain is capable of imagining something, then that means it must exist somewhere-otherwise why would the brain be capable of imagining it?"

"You're a philosopher, Alek."

"Yes, Peter, I'm a philosopher. I'm a poet, a philosopher, a mechanic. Have you seen my perpetual motion machines?"

"No. Do they work?"

"Sometimes. A lot of the time I have to stop them, their parts wear out way too fast... Kaisa!" he yelled, so suddenly that I was startled. "Another glass of hot port for Mr. Inspector!"

The St. Bernard came in, sniffed us, gazed skeptically at the fire, retreated to the wall and fell on the floor with a thud.

"Lel!" the host said. "Sometimes I envy that dog. He sees and hears a lot-quite a lot-as he wanders the halls at night. He could probably tell us quite a story, if he was capable of doing it. And if he wanted to, of course."

Kaisa appeared, looking very flushed and slightly disheveled. She handed me the glass of port, curtsied, giggled and left.

"What a little dumpling," I muttered mechanically. After all, I was on my third glass. The owner laughed good-naturedly.

"She's irresistible," he confessed. "Even Mr. Du Barnstoker couldn't restrain himself. He pinched her bottom yesterday. And the reaction she gets from our physicist..."

"In my opinion, our physicist has his eye primarily on Mrs. Moses," I said.

"Mrs. Moses..." the host said thoughtfully. "You know, Peter, I have good reason to suspect that she is neither a Mrs. nor a Moses."

I didn't object to this. Who cares, anyway...

The owner continued. "No doubt you've already noticed that she is significantly dumber than Kaisa. Not to mention the fact that" – he lowered his voice – "Moses beats her. In my opinion."

I shuddered.

"What do you mean 'beats'?"

"In my opinion, he uses a whip. Moses has a whip. A quirt. As soon as I saw it I thought, 'Now why would Moses need a quirt?' Can you answer that one for me?"

"But Alek..." I said.

"I'm not prying," the owner said. "I never pry, about anything. As for Mr. Moses, you brought him up-I would never have allowed myself to bring up that particular subject. I was speaking of our illustrious physicist."

"All right," I agreed. "Let's talk about the illustrious physicist."

"This is the third or fourth time he's stayed with me," the owner said. "Each time he visits, he's more illustrious."

"Wait," I said. "Who are we actually talking about?"

"Mr. Simone, obviously. Don't tell me you've never heard of him?"

"Never," I said. "Why would our paths have crossed-because of some forged baggage documents?"

The owner gave me a reproachful look.

"One should know the heroes of one's national science," he said sternly.

"You're serious?" I said.

"Absolutely."

"That pesky little bore-a hero of our national science?"

The owner nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I know what you mean: the way a man carries himself is the most important thing, everything else is secondary. No doubt you're right. Mr. Simone has provided me with an inexhaustible source of reflection on the glaring discrepancy between a man's behavior when he's relaxing, and the value for humankind of that same man when he's at work."