Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

go and let her out later.  Please don’t concern yourself.  Let us revive our spirits with some port.’
    ‘But... how did it get in there?’
    ‘Well, the bathroom window’s open.  I expect she came in through that.’
    Richard looked at him, not for the first and certainly not for the last time, through eyes that were narrowed with suspicion.
    ‘You’re doing it deliberately, aren’t you?’ he said.
    ‘Doing what, my dear fellow?’
    ‘I don’t believe there’s a horse in your bathroom,’ said Richard suddenly.  ‘I don’t know what is there, I don’t know what you’re doing, I don’t know what any of this evening means, but I don’t believe there’s a horse in your bathroom.’  And brushing aside Reg’s further protestations he went up to look.

    The bathroom was not large.
    The walls were panelled in old oak linenfold which, given the age and nature of the building, was quite probably priceless, but otherwise the fittings were stark and institutional.
    There was old, scuffed, black-and-white checked linoleum on the floor, a small basic bath, well cleaned but with very elderly stains and chips in the enamel, and also a small basic basin with a toothbrush and toothpaste in a Duralex beaker standing next to the taps.  Screwed into the probably priceless panelling above the basin was a tin mirror-fronted bathroom cabinet.  It looked as if it had been repainted many times, and the mirror was stained round the edges with condensation.  The lavatory had an old-fashioned cast-iron chain-pull cistern.  There was an old cream-painted wooden cupboard standing in the corner, with an old brown bentwood chair next to it, on which lay some neatly folded but threadbare small towels.  There was also a large horse in the room, taking up most of it.
    Richard stared at it, and it stared at Richard in an appraising kind of way.  Richard swayed slightly.  The horse stood quite still.  After a while it looked at the cupboard instead.  It seemed, if not content, then at least perfectly resigned to being where it was until it was put somewhere else.  It also seemed... what was it?
    It was bathed in the glow of the moonlight that streamed in through the window.  The window was open but small and was, besides, on the second floor, so the notion that the horse had entered by that route was entirely fanciful.
    There was something odd about the horse, but he couldn’t say what.  Well, there was one thing that was clearly very odd about it indeed, which was that it was standing in a college bathroom.  Maybe that was all.
    He reached out, rather tentatively, to pat the creature on its neck.  It felt normal -- firm, glossy, it was in good condition.  The effect of the moonlight on its coat was a little mazy, but everything looks a little odd by moonlight.  The horse shook its mane a little when he touched it, but didn’t seem to mind too much.
    After the success of patting it, Richard stroked it a few times and scratched it gently under the jaw.  Then he noticed that there was another door into the bathroom, in the far corner.  He moved cautiously around the horse and approached the other door.  He backed up against it and pushed it open tentatively.
    It just opened into the Professor’s bedroom, a small room cluttered with books and shoes and a small single bed.  This room, too, had another door, which opened out on to the landing again.
    Richard noticed that the floor of the landing was newly scuffed and scratched as the stairs had been, and these marks were consistent with the idea that the horse had somehow been pushed up the stairs.  He wouldn’t have liked to have had to do it himself, and he would have liked to have been the horse having it done to him even less, but it was just about possible.
    But why?  He had one last look at the horse, which had one last look back at him, and then he returned downstairs.
    ‘I agree,’ he said.  ‘You have a horse in your bathroom and I will, after all,