The Spiritualist's Dilemma

Robber's Tale

There was an unmistakable hint of relief on Randall William's face as he heard of Munro's death. "Tried to cheat me eh," said he brashly, "Bastard. I knew it. Peacocks are never to be trusted."

He then began to laugh. Hysterically, as if out of his wits. A burst of manic laughter which rung around the room and left Randall rolling on the floor clutching his stomach.

Ernst Wilhelm gave the man a long penetrating glance, "Is that Randall Williams?" he asked doubtfully.

Maya smiled at him. "Yes he is"

The High Guard immediately jumped into action pulling out a handcuff from his belt and latching Randall's hands behind his back. The robber barely resisted, it almost felt like he knew this would happen all along.

"He was hiding here all this time!" said Ernst once he had cuffed the man. "What a remarkable discovery. Let me call the Longstaffs so they can take him away, a third of the guards in Cardim have been looking for him this past week."

"No wait," Maya stopped him, "let him be a moment more, I think he has a few things to reveal before he can be taken away. But first, tell me what happened to Munro, he's dead you said."

Ernst kept his eyes firmly at Randall, deeply suspicious that he might escape.

"Yes Munro is dead," he said, "When I entered his house, broke in actually, dead men don't open any doors, I found him bent over a dining table, his face was all blue and pupils dilated. A strange box sat on the table and there was a needle in his throat, a poisoned needle apparently."

Randall Williams roared in a renewed fit of laughter.

"It is obvious that you arranged it," said Maya to him.

"Who else has the brains for that?" said Randall, "You were wrong when you said I did not suspect that Munro would cheat me. I knew he would and I had planned for it."

"I don't understand," said Ernst, "Why did you kill him?"

"Because Munro was trying to be smart. Too smart." Randall Williams straightened his legs and scratched his face with his dirty shoulder, "There were many people in the prison who could have helped me escape but I chose Munro for one reason only. He came across as a foolish fellow. One I could easily manipulate to engineer my escape and to help me recover the loot. But it turns out that he was smarter than I thought he was. Too much smartness is never good. Look at him. Look at my brother Dohorthy.

The deal that I had struck with Munro was half of the 100 thousand Cowries in return for escape and the man was easily convinced. He helped me escape, it was rather easy, smuggling a key to my cell and arranging the uniform of a Longstaff. He then put me up in his own room for a couple of days. All over Cardim, the police had begun to sniff for my trail, little did they know that I hid in the house of one of their own. On the third day of my escape, Munro put me up in a police cab, which is not stopped at any checkpoint, and took me to the house of my dear brother Dohorthy who had betrayed me and still kept the secret of the loot in his heart. But we were late. My brother had already heard of my escape and he knew for certain that I was coming for him. Just as we reached his house we heard a gunshot. When we entered his room he was lying in a pool of blood. Though the newspapers reported that I killed him, actually he had shot himself. Perhaps he feared that I might not be satisfied just by killing him. I guess there was some merit in his fear. I must tell you I was in no mood to be lax on him. He had betrayed Hristo and me in a manner that not even enemies do. To think that he was our brother..."

"What about Hristo," asked Maya "is he alive?"

"No," said Randall, "Hristo is dead. That part of the story is correct. When we looted the Bank of Cardim, we did not anticipate that our haul would be so great. A hundred Thousand Cowries, the biggest loot in the history of robbers. After celebrating for a day we realized that our deed was too great for our own good. We knew that soon the whole city would be hot on our tracks. And with all the machinery against us, it was only a matter of time before we were tracked and captured. We decided to give ourselves the best chance of evasion. The three of us would split and try to divide the attention of the Police. Hristo would leave to Bombay from where he would go to Madagascar, I left for Delhi while Dohorthy stayed in Cardim. The informers of the High Guards told them that all the loot was divided in two, with a part with Hristo and another with me, while Dohorthy, since he was the youngest, was just hiding. Actually, we had planted that information, the money was with Dohorthy. We had asked him to hide the money in Shadow Vault and then lie low. A year or two later when the matter had cooled down we could meet and divide the money. But Dohorthy had other plans. He did put the money in Shadow Vault, in three separate lockers but he also decided to keep it all for himself. Hristo died when his ship drowned and Dohorthy found that an ideal excuse to make the story that the loot went with him. He became a witness and got me arrested. When I escaped he knew that I would come for him, for the loot. But he chose to kill himself instead of giving the locker numbers away. That was so like Dohorthy. He would rather die than share his things. But he couldn't have just died with the locker numbers. That did not seem right, I was certain that he must have confided the numbers and the keys to someone. So we got hold of his wife and inquired about the loot but even she seemed to know nothing. We managed to find the three keys to the vaults in the house but not the locker numbers. We would have failed if not for his 10-year-old son. It turned out that the day I had escaped, Dohorthy, fearing for his life, had taken his son to an old house. The two had stood outside the gate and Dohorthy had told the boy that when he was a big man he should come to this house and claim his inheritance. The boy hadn't understood a bit of what his father was saying, he must have felt his father had gotten cranky. People grow silly with fear. Dohorthy foolishly believed that telling a boy 10 years old about secret locker numbers would allow his son to claim the treasure even if he perished. The boy gave us the description of the house and I knew instantly that it was this same house. Our house, the house that we had grown up together. Dohorthy had hidden the locker numbers here before killing himself.

My father and mother had died young and the three of us were brought up by our grandfather. You may not have heard of him but Jonathan Williams was a great man in his own right, he was a smuggler, a gold smuggler, and his house had provisions built in it to allow for his clandestine profession. This house is so much more than what meets the eye. Below the house, there is a huge basement and it is not accessible from anywhere in the house. You need to clamber up the roof and crawl between the roof beams and the ceiling boards to above the kitchen where, through the chimney, which has been plastered on the outside, there is a staircase which leads to the basement. I knew that the locker numbers were in the house but not where. When Munro and I came to this house, it was empty but there was a servant cleaning the house. He told us that this house had been bought by his master who would be shifting here the next week. We paid him well to gain access and he left. For a day I searched the place but there was no clue. The next day Munro went away and I continued my search when suddenly I saw some motion at the door. It seemed like the servant had lied, the owner of the house was already shifting. I clambered up the ceiling and hid while the professor shifted his things inside the house. It was while hiding in the basement that I found that some portion of the basement floor had been dug up recently and filled in with earth. The locker numbers were hidden in the basement. My brother liked to be completely thorough. He left nothing to chance, which explains perhaps why I was caught while he wasn't. He planned for the future, that little crooked swine. Dohorthy had plans to keep the locker numbers safe for his wife and child even if something happened to him. So, he had dug holes in the basement to hide the numbers and not just one hole to hide all the locker numbers. He had dug more than 20 holes. Three of them held the locker numbers. A little game of treasure, my brother liked that too. It took a lot of effort to dig the earth, I had no tools and I also had to be slow or I risked busting my cover. I found the first code and came down to the room with it but somehow in the dark, I landed on the cupboard and caused an unwanted ruckus. Munro was waiting for me outside, I tried to open the window but couldn't, so instead, I wrote the numbers on the window. He already knew about the three Shadow Vault lockers, so I anticipated that he would go there the next day and get the loot out. Soon I heard the professor open the door and quickly clambered up through the hole and out into the basement. The next day I gave him the second locker number so that only one remained. But there was a problem. Munro, as you must already know, was not an honest man. If he could betray the Police for money there was nothing to stop him for betraying a robber. If he had all the loot he might just leave me stuck in the house and depart, he might even tip the peacocks about me before leaving to get me arrested. No, I could not hand him all the aces. I threw up my own net and if what this gentleman tells me about his death is correct I was successful.

This was my brother's idea, my younger brother's. I hate to say it but he was perhaps the brainiest amongst us, greedy yes, but brainy, he had a large head. When we had just started in our profession and had looted a jewelry shop in Vasco we hid the spoils in a locker in Shadow Vault. But there were other more powerful gangs who had the sniff of our dealings. There was a real danger that someday one of them might corner us and ask us for our loot. For that, we took a locker in Shadow Vault and planted it with a poison box. Anyone who opened the box would be stung by a poisonous dart. We got the ingenious mechanism made by a watchmaker in the Flea Market and set it in one of the lockers. The locker was also different. It could be opened by any key, the keyhole was basically a blank slot. Our plan was that if anyone asked for whereabouts of our loot by putting a knife to our throats we would point that man to our trap. He would open the box in anticipation of riches but would find only death. We never were able to use that plan though, a situation never arose. But now, years later, I decided to use the setup. I wrote the locker number for that box on the window yesterday. Munro fell for it and was stung by the poison dart. I suppose he died within a minute. The poison might be old but age does nothing to the strength of a poison. My plan was to escape tonight with the last code, go to his house and take a ship out of this city. This lady though seems to have foiled my plan."

Randall glared at Maya crunching his teeth, "When I escape next," he said, "beware, lady, I might come for you."

Maya peered into the frog eyes of Randall Williams and was disturbed to see a hint of truth in them. But there was no point in fretting now. He was caught and the mystery of the secret symbols, much to her relief, was solved. She felt like a huge boulder had lifted off her head.

"This is your spirit Prof. Chinew," she said to the professor who had been hearing the fantastic tale of Randall Williams with peculiar disbelief, "unfortunately you have lost your 50 Cowries."

"Yes it seems so," said the professor disappointed

"Though," continued Maya, "if I am not too off the mark there is a reward of 10,000 Cowries on Randall's head of which I would willingly share half."