Out of the corner of my eye I saw Haisam stretching out a great paw to hold me back, and I heard Etienne yelling, “Don’t be an idiot!” But I’d shot off like a torpedo; nothing could stop me. I threw myself at the guy’s neck and wrapped my thighs around his waist, squeezing as hard as I could. He began to bellow like a pig about to be slaughtered. I had time to get a close-up view of his red pimples and to think how gross they were. We fell to the ground, locked together. He tried to break free but my thighs gripped him firmly, as if I had him in a vice. I thought I might cut him in half. Then one of his ears came into my line of sight and I bit it hard. After that I let go.

“He’s ripped my ear off, the animal!”

“And he’s bust my nose! And a tooth too, the jerk!”

I was laying it on a bit thick, but I wanted to show that I’d been injured too. And I hadn’t even got started on the moral injuries.

In the end we were both led off, him by a teaching assistant to see the nurse, and me by my Egyptian friend to the caretaker’s lodge. Haisam stuffed some cotton wool up my nose, which made me look like a sheep’s head in a butcher’s shop with parsley coming out of its nostrils. It also made me talk like a duck. I began to feel a bit better. I thought again about the question Lucky Luke had put to me.

“Haisam, I’ve got something important to ask you.”

“Go ahead, but I’m going to have trouble taking you seriously looking like that.”

“Do you know if Alexandre Dumas wrote his books on his own, or did he have collaborators?”

He seemed surprised and raised his eyebrows. He took a moment to put away the cotton wool in the first-aid cupboard before he replied.

“It would take more than one life just to copy out all his books. He must have had many collaborators, and almost certainly ghostwriters too.”

“Ghostwriters?”

“Yes, people who write books for other people to put their name to. It’s very common in literature.”

“What if the writer really was a ghost? What would you call the person who wrote his book for him?”

“Why do you always have to complicate everything?”

He was right. I always made things difficult.

He thought for a moment.

“And actually it’s true it’s not that straightforward, since Alexandre Dumas also wrote some ghost stories.”

“There, so you see,” I said, “things are complicated.”

But I didn’t come across as particularly authoritative, because of the tufts of cotton wool coming out of my nostrils.

Then Lucky Luke came to get me and I followed him to his office.