Contents
Title
Publisher's Note
Free Stuff
ONE The Andamanese Giant
TWO Treasure in the Garbage Dump
THREE A Familiar Face
FOUR Harold Wilson's Daughter
FIVE Ernst Looks for a Dance Partner
SIX The Mystic of Anthill
SEVEN Harold Wilson Goes to Sleep
EIGHT Policemen Not Allowed
NINE The Biggest Show on Earth
TEN Suicide or Murder
ELEVEN The Blessed Banana
TWELVE It was a Murder
THIRTEEN The Chairman of the Wilhelm Bank
FOURTEEN Harold Wilson's Cabin
FIFTEEN Nadia and Natasha
SIXTEEN The Intruder in a Black Cloak
SEVENTEEN The Wilson Brothers
EIGHTEEN An Old Acquaintance
NINETEEN The Missing Link Between Monkeys and Humans
TWENTY Happy Billy Sneaks out of the Circus
TWENTY-ONE Hyena or Human
TWENTY-TWO The Most Successful Security Guard
TWENTY-THREE Happy Clown's Dirty Act
TWENTY-FOUR The Brightest Basement
TWENTY-FIVE An Unexpected Gift
TWENTY-SIX Helena's Secret Potion
TWENTY-SEVEN The Circus Accountant
TWENTY-EIGHT The Miraculous Chemist
TWENTY-NINE Guru Ramdas's Favorite Devotee
THIRTY The Secret Life of Bill Wilson
THIRTY-ONE The Cold Rope
THIRTY-TWO The Guilty Brother
THIRTY-THREE Olivia's Tale of Love, Loss and Love
THIRTY-FOUR The Wanted Chemist
THIRTY-FIVE Crow Meets some Sparrows
THIRTY-SIX A Knife Dripping with Blood
THIRTY-SEVEN The Choice
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THE MYSTIC’S MIRACLE
NOAH ALEXANDER
Copyright © 2021 Noah Alexander
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The Spiritualist’s Dilemma - Detective Maya Mystery Novella
Dr. Chinew's first night in his new house is disturbed by a break-in. The intruder steals nothing but leaves behind a message - Death Comes to All.
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ONE
The Andamanese Giant
The head office of Dolgoff Legal Consultants perched on the second floor of an imposing yellow stone building, a few blocks from Emilia Square. In the 6 years that it had been in operation, the office had not seen a single client. A part of the reason was that Benjamin Dolgoff, its owner and sole employee, was not a lawyer at all. In fact, his legal acumen was limited to knowing which judges were responsible for which districts of Cardim and how much money (or threat) would it take for them to change their decision in the favor of his organization.
Benjamin Dolgoff used the office as a masquerade to do his real job clandestinely. He wouldn’t want his lovely wife and two kids to know where the money that paid for their lavish parties, fancy clothes, and extravagant holidays came from. He certainly could not tell them about the person that he worked for. Not that he knew much about his master anyway.
Benjamin worked for a man he had named The Investor - he had no idea what his real name was, or how he looked like, or where he lived. He only knew that The Investor was by far the richest, and the most dangerous man in Cardim. The faceless man controlled a major portion of all the illicit activities that happened in the metropolis – from smuggling to kidnapping to money laundering, all the dirty drains of these illegal businesses finally flowed into the sewer that was The Investor. And it was Benjamin’s job to keep track of all these different tributaries. He was the chief accountant of The Investor and took care of all the money flowing in and out of the organization. It was his responsibility to ensure that the organization was in the green at all times, and men like the one who now sat in front of him, eating an apple, were indispensable to his work.
Regulius Crow wasn’t a person he would like his kids to see before going to bed. He stood over eight feet tall and five wide and weighed almost as much as a stallion. It was no coincidence, then, that his long brown hair hung upon his shoulders in a manner not dissimilar to horses. But what made the giant especially frightening, so much so that the children on the street clutched their mother's hands tighter when they saw him, was his face. Every inch of his dark skin, from his forehead to the neck, was covered in deep green tattoos. With time they had come to resemble the scales of a tropical snake. Only, Benjamin knew Crow to be far more dangerous than the venomous serpents.
Though he did not like to share much about his past, Benjamin had found out (as was customary for him to do with the people he worked with) that Crow was once the chief attraction of the Museum of Absurdities in Zanzibar, going by the name of The Andamanese Giant. (Come! See the most powerful being on Earth, the last of his species, and a man with the strength of four Elephants.)
He quit his job when the owner of the museum starved him for two days to make him more aggressive and hence more attractive to the visitors. His experiment was successful. In the morning of the third day, Crow broke the cage that he was kept in, tore his owner’s head off his body, and ran away.
He had never lost his aggressiveness since then.
Crow and his gang were reported to have killed more people than the plague. They earned their living murdering and intimidating poor people for men like Benjamin. Given the nature of his work, it wasn’t surprising that he had ended up in jail more than a dozen times. But Crow always managed to escape, thanks in part to the connections that Benjamin maintained across all the major jails in the city. It wasn’t much trouble slipping in a spare key inside his cell, or some sedative in the guards’ food. This time, though, Benjamin had to resort to an audacious plan to ambush the police caravan transporting him to a more secure prison in the west. The exercise had been complicated, not to mention expensive, but he had an urgent assignment for Crow which was worth all the trouble.
“Did you eat well?” Benjamin asked Crow, who had fit himself with difficulty in the mahogany chair in front of Benjamin and was still nibbling at the cob of an apple.
“Yeah,” said Crow in his heavy guttural voice, “you sent the right man this time. Not like the last time around, that man might have lost his life for refusing to give me a couple bowls more of the pie.”
Benjamin nodded, satisfied.
“Although,” continued Crow, keeping the apple cob on Benjamin’s table, “I would have preferred a jug or two of ale as well. But no complaints, I have plenty of time to take care of that. I have come to realize that having a little ale mixed in cane juice before going to bed, allows me to doze like a log. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for a week. A pig would have felt cramped in that jail cell they kept me in.”
“No, no Crow,” said Benjamin disapprovingly, “I didn’t spend 1000 Cowries on your escape for you to doze around. I have some very important work for you.”
Crow looked disappointed.
“What about Maria, I told her that I would meet her tonight.”
Maria was Crow’s girlfriend.
“I am sure she can do without you for some more days. Right now, work is more important.”
“What work could be more important than Maria’
s embrace?” said Crow rather dreamily.
“This work,” said Benjamin, “It is complicated, and four men have already tried and failed. I want you to focus, otherwise, The Investor would not be pleased.”
The mention of The Investor brought a sudden change in Crow. He sat up straight and listened intently.
“I want you to find a man. He is called Oswald Gray. He is a chemist who took some money from the organization and has now disappeared without a trace. We want him alive so that we can put him in cell No 1 and make an example out of him.”
“Ooh…” shuddered Crow at the mention of the personal prison of The Investor, “I don’t envy this man.”
“Don’t take him lightly," said Benjamin, "He is very clever. We have been trying to find him for more than three months now but he has vanished off the map.”
Benjamin handed him an envelope.
“This is the information that we have on him. He used to be a professor of chemistry at the University of Cardim and lived on the campus. But he resigned from his post and vacated his room eight months ago. He did not leave a redirecting address, does not have any known relatives, nor any close friends and, based on what we know, he was last seen in North Bank trying to pawn some jewelry for money.”
Crow nodded, pocketing the envelope that he had received.
“How much time do I have to find this unfortunate man?”
“Not more than two weeks,” said Benjamin, “I am scheduled to meet The Investor in two weeks and I want to be armed with some positive news about him.”
“Then I should get going,” said Crow trying to get up, but he was stuck in the chair.
“No, wait,” Benjamin stopped him, “I have another minor task for you. I would have given it to someone else, but since you are already here, I think you can handle this as well.”
Benjamin opened the drawer of his table and took out a slip of paper with two names on it.
“Do I need to send these two to hell,” asked Crow yawning.
“No, no,” said Benjamin handing him two more envelopes, “Why are you so excited at the prospect of violence? These two are not serious offenders. We need to merely warn them to not come in our way or the results would not be good. I have written them brief warning notes in these envelopes. Just find a way to deliver these to them. Make sure that they receive them personally.”
Crow read the names aloud, “Ernst Wilhelm, Vasco Constabulary and Maya Mitchell, Tamarind Street.”
He scratched his ears.
“Do you have any problem if I warn them in my own way.”
“As long as they are alive to heed your warning, no.”
Crow cracked his fingers, trying to get up one more time from the chair. This time he was successful.
“It’s good to be back,” he grinned.
TWO
Treasure in the Garbage Dump
Swami slung his dirty jute sack upon his shoulder and forded angrily out of the garbage pile at the back of the Shiva Temple in Anthill. For all his afternoon’s worth of effort, he had found nothing but a dozen empty glass bottles, a few patched pieces of garments, three half-eaten apples, and a couple of black overripe bananas.
It wasn’t fair.
He had been scavenging the garbage dumps in this area of Anthill for more than two decades, and yet the most valuable thing that he had ever stumbled upon was a pair of unworn woolen socks. Not once in his entire career had he ever found anything even remotely valuable to allow him to skip work for just a day and spend it relaxing in the pub. And yet, that wretched Chander, who begged outside the temple and had been fording through the garbage looking for something to eat, had stumbled upon a treasure. 120 Cowries! That was the worth of the gold necklace that he had found in the garbage yesterday. Enough for Chander to give up begging and start a tea stall in front of the temple (not that he would use it for anything more than opium and prostitutes). But still. 120 Cowries! Swami could have repaired his old dripping house and still managed to save enough to pay back his dues to the grocer.
Swami threw down his bag in disgust upon the pavement as he reached the main street. The sound of glass bottles breaking reached his ears and he knew that he had lost half a Cowrie more. He took out a leaf cigarette and lit it. There was a long line of devotees waiting at the temple gate with garlands and sweets, jostling to get inside. A few beggars (most with limbs missing or twisted unnaturally) crawled at their feet, their begging bowls grazing the devotees’ knees.
Swami was disgusted even more to think that such injustice had happened to him in the vicinity of a temple. In the blatant gaze of the Gods, who had seen him plod tirelessly through garbage for two decades.
He made a mental note to have a word with his wife who offered some chapatti bread every Tuesday to the local shrine. It was time to cut down on these unnecessary expenses.
Swami let loose a sigh into the chilly October air and slung back his sack upon his shoulder. No use fretting over this now. He needed to sift through five more garbage piles if he had any hope of feeding his family of seven tonight.
The garbage dump at Narayan Square was his second stop. He hoped that the metalworkers of the area had been more generous in throwing their junk. Iron was retailing for a quarter Cowrie a Kilo, if he could get a few kilos, he would be good for the day. The Narayan Square garbage dump was one of the biggest in Anthill and was the favorite haunt of not only his fellow rag pickers but also the stray cows and dogs of the area. Swami wove his way through a pack of ruminating bulls, that had made themselves comfortable on a large pile of vegetable peels and were leisurely eating their own throne, and moved towards the center, to the peak of the dump, where a few ragged kids with sacks similar to his own were fording through garbage. They seemed to have been scavenging the area for some time now and, given the size of their sacks, it seemed unlikely that Swami would find anywhere close to the iron that he was hoping for. He waded slowly across the dump, picking up bottles, pieces of garments, and chunks of wood but with no luck in any metal. By the time he reached the edge of the dump, his sack was half full but with nothing substantial, he would struggle to buy enough rice to feed himself, let alone his family.
He cast one more glance at the dump, then sighed and started towards his next stop at the edge of the river. But his gaze was suddenly captured by a pack of dogs who were sniffing excitedly at a dark mass towards the eastern edge of the dump. He picked up a stick and drifted casually to the pile, careful not to draw the attention of the other rag-pickers in the vicinity. The dogs were sniffing at a large jute sack, quite thick in the middle. Could there be iron ingots inside? That would be at least 200 kilos. His heart beating rapidly, Swami shooed the dogs with the stick. They skittered away for a few yards but did not leave him. Apparently, they felt there was a gift worth fighting for in the sack (which meant that its contents were hardly likely to be metallic in nature). Swami prodded the sack with the stick. Something soft. He let down his bag, then, keeping a careful glance on the dogs, lest they attack him, undid the top of the sack. Two feet peeked out at him, one clad in a leather sandal while the other bare. Swami, scared out of his wits, stumbled backward. Though he had heard many tales of pickers finding bodies or parts of bodies in garbage dumps, he had never found one himself.
He quickly picked up his bag and turned to leave. The dogs, their job now made easy, slowly inched closer to their supper. He had taken one step towards the exit when a thought struck him. What if the dead body belonged to someone rich? It hadn’t been touched by the others, so there was a good chance that he could get something worthwhile from the corpse. Perhaps a ring, or even a gold chain.
He shooed the dogs once more and, with a piece of broken glass, tore the jute sack from the middle. The body was of a woman’s, not very rich from appearance, and certainly devoid of any jewelry. She was dressed in a soiled white blouse and a black skirt, and her face was bruised.
She had been beaten to death. Perhaps she was a prostitute at one of the local brothel
s and had chosen the wrong client.
The woman clutched a soiled envelope in her hand.
Swami strained his eyes in the dark. “Maya Mitchell” was written on the envelope in a careful slanting hand. He let the envelope down as his eyes went to a leather bag in her hand.
He explored it in haste. Swami had never seen a woman with stranger things in her bag. There was a notebook, a few glass bottles filled with colorful liquids, a large magnifying glass, a few metal forceps, a scissor, and a small paper-knife. At the bottom was a pocket watch. This might be worth something, Swami thought opening the watch and letting out a whistle when he found it working. He quickly put the watch in his pocket, stuffed all the strange stuff back inside the bag, and kept it in his sack. He got up and stretched himself. This should get him some food.
“That watch is not worth much, you know,” moaned the woman suddenly and Swami’s loud scream was enough to send the dogs scurrying away.
THREE
A Familiar Face
“Your husband, you say?” said the nurse bandaging Maya’s hands. The young detective was in the general ward of the Anthill Council hospital, in the company of an uncharacteristically kind nurse.
“I have seen the work of many monsters in my time here,” the nurse said, gravely upset at Maya’s condition, “but your husband seems to be a different species altogether. Who beats his wife so brutally? What did he use?”
“Whatever he could find,” lied Maya.
Her face, neck, and waist were covered in a pungent yellow paste, while her left hand and feet were bandaged. She felt pain in her ribs, and her eyes and lips were swollen.
The corpulent nurse wiped her hand in her soiled apron, mixed some brandy in half a glass of water, and pressed the glass to Maya.
"Drink," she said, "this will reduce the pain."
Maya sipped a bit of the liquid and felt warmth gush through her gullet.
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