The Spiritualist's Dilemma

Second Message

Maya held the wrought iron gate to Mortemius Chinew's garden panting like a dog. She was dripping with sweat, the bun upon her head was loose, with strands of hair falling all over her face, while her white blouse clung to her skinny frame as if she had been out in the rain. She looked behind slyly to see if there was any trace of the man who was chasing her. The street was deserted apart from a single hansom waiting a few dozen yards away. She seemed to have lost her pursuer. The man had been on her heels for the large part of a mile from the Office of the Vasco Land Registry to the Mill Street. The pursuit had cost Maya one of her shoes and left her feet bloodied. Maya ignored her feet and glanced at the paper in her hand. This was the object which had led to the eventful adventure - a history of the ownership of Prof. Mortemius Chinew's house.

After spending some more time in trying to decipher the codes that she had found on the window of the professor's room, she had resigned to the fact that it wasn't possible to make any progress without the aid of some ore data and facts. The existing threads for analysis had all been exhausted and it had occurred to her that looking at the previous owner of the professor's house might give her some insight. The professor had shifted to the house only recently. Perhaps all this strange business had to do with the previous owner. But she had realized it too late.

The Vasco Land Registry Office closed at 5 in the evening and just as she hurriedly made her way to the office, she found the attendant closing the inquiry window. To get any details, she was told, she needed to be early the next day and with a referral letter from a gazetted officer. She certainly had no time for that (she doubted she would have been able to sleep properly if she had an unexplored thread in her head). So, she got hold of a cleaner who worked at the place, Maya had found in her work that sweepers were the most resourceful of people, and with the help of a crisp 5 Cowrie note got access to the archives of the Registry office after all the workers had left. The archive was a long damp hall full of old dusty documents and it took her an hour to find the register belonging to the Steel Mill Street. But just when her tired fingers turned over to the page of Prof. Chinew's House No. 345 she heard a shrill watchman's whistle ring outside the hall. The guard of the office had seen the door to the archive open, as well as the light pouring through it and suspecting a break-in had decided to examine the place. Maya tore a couple of pages from the register, blew the candle in her hand, and tiptoed to the door. When the watchman entered the hall, she pushed him inside and bounded through the door out of the building. But the watchman, a young and brawny fellow, did not give up easily and decided to give the thief a chase. He ran after Maya shouting raucously through the crowded by-lanes of Vasco, clattering into hawkers and passersby. He followed her till the Temple Bridge, at which point Maya found a beggar she knew and covering herself in his borrowed rags she joined a group of tramps sitting on the pavement. When the guard passed by, mistaking her to be one of the beggars, she got rid of the rag and turned to Mill Street.

Maya hadn't yet studied the records of the house but she was positive that she could find something worthwhile there. She had decided to discuss it with the professor as well, but the thought slipped out of her mind as soon as she reached the professor's house.

"The spirit has returned," announced Prof. Chinew grimly opening the door. Maya was taken aback by the old man's appearance. He was dressed in a loose bright red robe embroidered with oriental gold motifs. Upon his neck were slung numerous beaded garlands of varying length, the longest of which reached below his paunch, while on his head rested an ornate turban with a bird feather. In his left hand, the old man held a curiously engraved bronze staff with a crystal head. Maya eyed the professor with incredulity, wordlessly inquiring about his strange appearance, but the professor seemed to have other things upon his mind. He led her straight to the living room where the two had sat yesterday. Some of the space in the room had been cleared by dragging the wooden boxes to one side. In the clearing, a star and a concentric circle had been drawn with white chalk. In the middle of the illustration was an oil lamp and all the corners of the star were lit by candles.