The Mystic's Miracle

by Noah Alexander

  Olivia had joined the circus as an assistant to a magician called The Prophet, who also happened to be her husband. But, as some of you would know, about a year ago he vanished, disappeared without any trace. No one knew where, including his wife Olivia. Harold, the circus director, then helped her train to become a circus artist so that she could have a show for herself and earn enough to survive. Olivia said he helped her out of kindness, I think it was more than that. It was love. I searched her trunk this morning and I found, among other things, some very affectionate notes that Harold had sent to her. It seems to me, that to keep their relationship a secret from other circus folks, they communicated in writing. The interesting part is that she had replied to the notes as well. She was not only receptive to his overtures, she was actually happy about them. In fact, he had proposed to her and the two had been planning to marry. This was two months ago. Something happened at that exact time which forced Olivia to reconsider her love for Harold.

  It was the return of her old love.

  Guru Ramdas, who now runs a very successful ashram next door, arrived in Anthill as a poor tramp. He started preaching under a tree in Anthill Town Center, slowly gaining followers. The great thing about him was that he could do miracles or supposed miracles anyway. He could produce fruits from thin air, levitate while meditating, and do other such things which proved to his followers that he was a messenger of God. A Prophet so to say. Which he was. At least in name. Guru Ramdas is none other than Olivia’s estranged husband. However, even she did not know about it till two months ago when Guru Ramdas, now flush with money from his ever-increasing followers, made an ashram next door. I learned that Olivia was sent here along with a few others in advance of the circus troupe to arrange this ground and look at other logistics for the shows. She has been here for around a month and a half. In this time, I suspect she came across the Guru and recognized him as her estranged husband. Love must have blossomed between the two again. The problem arose, however, when Harold and the rest of the circus came here two weeks ago. I think their meetings must have become difficult, so they had to meet in secret. They met via a small hole in the wall which connects the ashram and the circus grounds. I saw them meeting at the exact same spot yesterday, and that was what prompted me to actually explore this angle. Anyway, a few days before his death, Harold, who must already be wondering the reason why Olivia had begun to act distant to him, saw the husband and wife meet in the dead of the night. He recognized Guru Ramdas as well. The reason why he wanted two men to patrol the circus ground at night was not that he was wary of intruders stealing his animals, but he wanted to prevent the woman he loved from meeting her husband. Now, I am not clear on what exactly transpired when Harold discovered Olivia meeting her husband secretly. But I suspect that he threatened to expose Ramdas, tell the world that he was no mountain returned Mystic but a mere circus magician. He acquired all the newspapers that he could find to make a case against him. But Guru Ramdas was not prepared to let the wealth and life he had achieved so unexpectedly go away so easily. He hatched a plan with Olivia to kill Harold and to make it look like a suicide. Here comes the real tricky part, and Olivia and indeed Guru Ramdas would be able to explain it better. But as far as I know, Guru Ramdas, apart from using magic tricks to gain supporters, also uses some sort of drug to put his followers in a trance. He puts something in the prasad that he gives them. I saw it yesterday in his ashram, all the people fed with the prasad lost all control upon themselves and began to dance and laugh and cry like delirious men.

  On the day of his death, Olivia went to Harold’s cabin to feed him this drug and found him fighting with his brother. She had told me that she had heard the fight between Harold and Bill while going to the lady's toilet, but her statement did not account for the fact that the toilet lies to the other side of the cabin.

  I initially thought that she was just eavesdropping like the other ladies around, looking for some topics to gossip about. But later, as I found more about her involvement in the affair, it got me thinking. I believe that Olivia was there to put her plan into action. When Bill went away to his cabin after the fight, she must have entered Harold’s cabin and fed him the drug somehow.

  Then, and this is the part that even I am not clear on, she somehow forced Harold to jump on his own accord. When the others were gathered around Harold, she cleared his room of anything which could implicate her or let her relationship with him out in the open. That included all the letters she had sent him. In her haste, she even picked up the account book. Her plan, to make it look like a suicide, would have succeeded if not for Helena who told me that she suspected that Harold had not killed himself. When I began to investigate, Olivia feared her own role might come to the fore. So she decided to instigate Bill. When I was in the kitchen, telling Natasha that I needed the account book to find if Bill was defrauding the circus, I think she must have been around us. So, she quickly took out the account book and kept it on my bed to help me tighten the noose of guilt around Bill. But it was her bad luck that she chose to meet her husband, the Guru, when I was hiding in the nearby bushes and her involvement became clear to me.

  That is the part of the story that I have been able to deduce and I hope Olivia can clear the part about how she forced Harold to jump to his death.”

  Olivia continued to cry.

  “I am sorry Harold,” she said, “But I loved my husband too much to have any wisdom. It was his plan to kill him. When Harold threatened to reveal his true identity to the world if he did not leave me, he decided that the only possible course of action was to get rid of him. I tried to talk him out of it, but he did not relent. ‘You want to spend your life with me right?’ he told me, ‘then this has to be done.’ I didn’t want to lose my husband once more, so I agreed.

  His plan to kill Harold was quite strange. He gave me a vial of a thick pink liquid and told me that I needed to feed it to Harold. Once I had done that, he would do whatever I told him to. So, I just needed to take him to the tower and ask him to jump and he would do that. I had a hard time believing that this plan would work, but I did not express my misgivings. On the afternoon of his death, I did as he had told me, mixed the drug in a cup of tea, and went to his room. The effect of the drug was immediate. As soon as he finished the tea, his eyes turned blank and he looked at me devoid of all expression. Just as my husband had told me, I then hurriedly collected all the letters that I had sent to him, put these in a notebook, which later turned out to be the circus account book, and locked the door. I asked Harold to follow me as I walked to the tower, taking the route behind the tents and carefully avoiding any circus folks. But when I reached the tower and turned back after opening the tower’s door with Harold’s hoop of keys, he was nowhere to be seen. He had strayed away. I panicked and began to look for him, but I could not find him anywhere. I found out later that he had actually strayed to the kitchen tent, but at that time I had no clue. I thought that he might have crossed into the forest. So, I jumped the wall to look for him and then my eyes went up to the tower and I saw him standing there at the top. He saw me as well and I beckoned to him to come to me. This worked. Harold jumped. As soon as he did, I ran off farther into the forest, waited there for some time as the circus folks surrounded Harold, and took him to the hospital. When the commotion died down, I got rid of the keys in the forest and returned back.

  That was the whole story, and there is nothing in my life that I regret more than this abominable act. I was foolishly in love. I wanted nothing more than to spend my whole life with my husband and it clouded over all other reasons and feelings.”

  She covered her face once more in her hands, unable to meet the glances of the circus artists who were eyeing her with disgust and anger.

  Maya admired the ingenious way in which Harold had been killed. But she could not do that for long. There was some commotion in the distance and Maya saw half a dozen men running haphazardly towards them. At the very back of the group was a person she did not expect nor hope
to find here. It was Lieutenant Ernst Wilhelm.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The Wanted Chemist

  Ernst looked at Regulius Crow in a mixture of amazement and fear. The hulking man was among the most wanted criminals in Cardim. He had been terrorizing the police force for many years, having murdered more than a dozen policemen and forcing many more to retire in fear. Almost all the constabularies in Cardim had a case or two listed against his name, and yet, all his sentences put together, he had not spent more than a few months in jail. He had recently escaped from a prison for the thirteenth time, and a task force had been set up to nab him again.

  What was he doing here in Anthill?

  “Look who we have here,” said Crow, eyeing Ernst with interest, “Our very own Lieutenant Ernst Wilhelm.”

  Ernst had no clue how Crow knew his name. Was it possible that his mother had somehow secured the services of a murderer to get her son and husband out of the ashram? That seemed absurd. Crow was not a person who would storm an ashram to escort a policeman and his father out.

  “Nosing again, are we?” he smiled at him, “You did not understand the warning then?”

  Ernst was confused for a few moments before he remembered his close shave with death on the street and the warning letter that he had received.

  “It was you who had pushed me in front of the carriage?” he asked.

  “Who else?” said Crow.

  “But why?”

  “Oh, you didn’t realize? Well, I thought that you would introspect, look over your deeds, and find it out yourself. But you do not seem to possess a lot of intelligence, I must say. Then again, not unusual for a peacock. It’s all right, I will give you a brief explanation, I would have gone into the details, but I have some other business now. You received that warning because you were deemed to have caused a major loss to our organization by your over-zealous attitude. Simply put, you messed with some people important to our organization.”

  “Who?”

  “Think about it. Who did you arrest last? And just before that?”

  “The minister. You work for Claude Labarthe, the previous Minister of Order?”

  The man smiled.

  “No," he said, "I work for someone else. The minister worked for that someone else too. And don’t trouble your brain, you wouldn’t know who that person is. Even I don’t know.”

  Ernst was too confused to say anything.

  “Now if you would excuse me. I am here to meet Dr. Gray and it does not seem like he was expecting guests.”

  The chemist, still snoring, turned on the table and made himself more comfortable. “I want you to observe carefully, Lieutenant. If you do not correct your course, before long you would be in the same position that Dr. Gray is going to be in a bit. He tried to cheat the person that I work for.”

  Crow was in no mood for niceties as he heaved the chemist up, like one picks up a puppy, and flung him towards the laboratory wall. He crashed upon the racks on the wall, which came undone and tumbled upon the chemist sending glass flasks and beakers crashing on the floor. The chemist woke up and dragged himself from under the rubble. He looked at Crow, clearly confused, and with glass shards sticking to his white coat and hands. Crow took out a piece of paper from his pocket and cleared his throat.

  “Oswald Gray,” he read, “you are accused of lying, taking advantage of our goodwill, and trying to defraud our organization. Late last year, you reached a deal with our organization that you would, in return for being funded for your research on a deadly disease, share half the profit of selling its antidote. However, you did not have any intention of keeping your side of the deal and, after claiming the research money, you escaped. We have found out that you were indeed successful in your research and have started a venture with Guru Ramdas, while not honoring your agreement with our organization. This breach of trust is a punishable offense. By the power vested in me by the organization, I am here to arrest you and imprison you, so that you learn your lesson and also serve as an example to other people who harbor the intention of duping our organization.”

  The chemist’s face lost all color and he fidgeted uneasily in the laboratory, now clearly sober.

  “I am sorry, I forgot to confirm,” Crow added folding the paper and keeping it back, “You are Oswald Gray? Aren’t you?”

  The chemist nodded.

  “Good, so all that I said still stands. What it means essentially is that you have done the worst crime possible by trying to dupe our organization of money. It is time now to pay for your crimes. Step forward so that I can take you to your deserved place, without any more need for violence.”

  “No,” the chemist backed into the wall, “Wait. You are mistaken, I mean your organization is mistaken. It was never my intention to defraud it. I was funded to develop a deadly contagion and sell its antidote to the organization, but I was never able to make that. Instead, during my experiments, I accidentally created a drug that sent people in a trance, made them do whatever you want them to. It wasn’t something that your organization had any use for, so I decided to use it in a business. I am still researching the disease and it was my intention to honor my deal as and when I stumbled upon it. I was definitely not trying to cheat.”

  “See, doctor,” said Crow, “Don’t try to give excuses to me, I am not here to investigate your guilt, that has already been verified. I am here to take you to be punished. So, let’s go.”

  “No, wait,” said the chemist, “I can prove it to you that I have been working on it.”

  He quickly went over to the table at the end of the laboratory and took out a flask that had been heating upon a burner. A pale blue liquid was bubbling inside it. The chemist brought this flask to Crow, grinning proudly.

  “See,” he said to Crow, “This is what I have been working on for your organization. It is not complete yet but I am very hopeful for it.”

  Crow took the corked flask in his hand and observed it.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “Oh, this is the newest wonder of the world,” the chemist took it back in his hand, “This is my key to escape from buffoons like you.”

  Before Crow could do anything, the chemist took a few steps back and threw the flask upon the floor. The shattering of glass was soon followed by a loud bang and a huge cloud of grey pungent smoke engulfed the room. There was shuffling of feet in the mist and Ernst heard someone rush up the steps of the basement.

  “Don’t let him escape,” Crow’s voice rung in the basement and more steps ascended blindly up the stairs.

  All this time, Ernst’s hand, tied to the strange cold rope, had been itching uncontrollably. Now, probably in contact with the smoke, it somehow began to heat up and melt. Ernst suspected that it was not a normal rope, but some other crazy invention of the chemist. So, while the others were coughing from the smoke, Ernst was struggling to get the melting rope from his hand. As soon as he was free, he too trundled slowly out of the basement. He came out just in time to see the lumbering frame of Crow escape towards the right at the end of the lobby.

  Ernst could easily get his father out of the ashram in this chaos, but he wanted to find more about the evil chemist and the man who wanted to capture him. His father could wait in his meditation room for some time more and enjoy his imaginary biscuits.

  Ernst rushed after the men and followed them through another set of winding lobbies and dark rooms, to emerge out of the building and into a large backyard overgrown with shrubs and trees. The chemist knew his way around the ashram. He was now trying to rush towards the boundary wall, though Ernst was not sure how he could possibly scale it. He didn’t need to, it turned out, there was a hole in the wall through which he escaped and ran into the adjacent compound. Ernst followed the two black-clad men and their master Crow into the open space.

  There was a collection of tents in the ground, a score of smaller tents pitched around a large red and gold colored one in the middle. This seemed to be a circus. The chemist continued running tow
ards the largest tent where he barged straight into a group of people and collapsed on the ground, pleading to them to save his life. Crow and his associates saw the more than two dozen people in the group and stopped some distance away.

  Ernst stopped in his tracks as well. Not because he was wary of the group, but because he had seen someone he did not expect to see here.

  Standing in the middle of the group, dressed in a dirty white blouse and a black skirt was Maya. Ernst forgot all about the men that he was chasing and started towards Maya. He wanted to ask his prospective dance partner some questions.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Crow Meets some Sparrows

  Maya stood rooted to the spot as the last person she wanted to see her here (surrounded by people who belonged to a past she desperately wanted to hide from him) trundled towards her, his eyes betraying the questions he held in his heart.

  She had to think of excuses, quick.

  Could she pretend to not know Ernst? An unknown twin sister could always be brought into the picture later. Or she could run away and never meet Ernst again. Or probably she could tell him the truth?

  “What are you doing here?” Ernst’s voice rung in her ears before she could decide on any course of action, “I thought you were with your aunt.”

  Who told him that? Maya had given different reasons for her absence to different people and she did not remember which person she had given this ‘going to my aunt’ reason to.

  “Who is this handsome young man, Nadia?” asked Helena winking and Maya wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury herself.

  “Nadia?” Ernst asked, “Why is she calling you Nadia?”

  “Because her name is Nadia,” Helena said.

  Ernst glared at Maya, who could not think of anything to say and was extremely grateful to the large man with tattoos all over his face, when he marched aggressively towards the group and demanded to hand over the man who had now crawled behind them.