Part Thirty-Six, Chapter Eight - Reports of Gris' Poverty Were Somewhat Exaggerated

Woe is Gris!  "Weary nigh unto death, shocked and drained to the dregs of human depression," he decides he needs to find a hole to crawl into for a temporary respite from his insurmountable troubles.  He resolves to go curl up in the deepest depths of the Apparatus base, listlessly gets dressed and gathers his things, then lurches home from the hospital in the predawn chill while "the wind, with a mournful dirge, played the funeral song of my passage."

On the way in, he happens upon a guard captain who complains, "in the tones of a German police dog surprised by a suspicious stranger," that he's been trying for days to get Gris' signature on a detention order so he can properly lock up the mad Dr. Crobe.  While Gris fumbles for his identoplate, the guard points out that he's somehow put his fur coat on backwards.  When Gris takes it off and whirls the coat around to right it:

PLOP.  PLINK.

The guard captain said, "My Gods, Officer Gris, are you drunk or something?"

I looked at him.  He was pointing at the floor.

THE LOCKET!

THE WALLET!

Yyyyyyyeah.  See, Gris' bearskin coat has a lot of pockets.  Again, when he was all flustered at the airport baggage check, turns out he put his wallet in his coat pocket, not his tunic pocket.  And that emerald locket must've been caught on the wallet when he was shoving it away.  The Countess Krak didn't pickpocket them after all.

So the "Krak robbed Gris" subplot?  Completely pointless.  Less than sixty pages into the book and the author's wasting no time in getting to the wastes of time.

Gris rants for the remainder of the chapter about how Krak may not be a dirty crook after all, and is therefore "taking advantage of her innocence!"  Yes, she's cruelly denying him the luxury of calling her a thief.  Eventually the guard captain manages to get his attention and explain that Captain Bolz also wants to speak with Gris on an urgent matter, leading us into the next subplot.

Will it prove as pointless as the last one?  Tune in next time for another possibly-relevant chapter from Mission Earth!


Back to Part Thirty-Six, Chapter Seven

Forward to Part Thirty-Seven, Chapters One and Two