[He stifles a chuckle behind his hand, not wanting to be rude.

But the mental image of a ninja dropping into one of Kafka's stories, especially this one, to murder the protagonist... Well, it'd be a sight to see.

Or read, as the case would be]

Actually, people have always thought he'd die of illness, rather than having been killed. He was brought there because of a mistake in documentation, but the system was so mired in bureaucracy that nothing really got done.