We all know about this game called Chinese Whispers in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. We at Write Tribe are doing just that but with stories on our blog. One person tells a short story on his/her blog, the next Blogger will continue the story, till it finishes on Blogger no 9..
This is part 5 of the story series. You could read the beginnings here ..... Part1 at Akhils, Part2 at Pins, Part3 by Laxmi, Part4 by Leo.......
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“Sorry sir! We have not had much luck with getting any leads
on this case” reported Vishal Jain in a dejected voice. “The only people who
even know of Qashif’s existence seem to be his housekeeper and the book dealer.
The housekeeper maintains that he had retired to his outhouse early in the
evening and had rushed in when he heard cries coming from the bungalow's living
room. He has helped in developing a rough sketch of the murderer. But otherwise
we haven’t been able to trace out any family, friends or enemies of Qashif”. Jamal
hung up the phone in dismay.
The only lead Jamal's team has had after a month long
investigation is the absurd report he had received a few days back from
Dr.Paul's office. The report stated that the scimitar used to murder Qashif was supposedly made from meteorite iron and forged at least a century ago!
This had flabbergasted Jamal so much that he didn’t even know how to pursue
this lead…..
At
his wits end, Jamal went into the storeroom and once again reviewed all
the artifacts collected from the crime site hoping to see some clue he had
missed earlier. Impulsively, his eyes fell on the scimitar. He had always
thought that this was such an uncommon choice of weapon to use for murder. As he
turned it around, his gaze fell on what looked like an inscription on the rear
side of its handle! Jamal brought out his magnifying glass and carefully studied
the inscription. He clicked photos from all possible angles.
But not wanting to leave any loose ends, Jamal went in
search of Shastri, their in-house language and history expert. Shastri’s eyes
popped out in surprise as soon as he laid his eyes on the photograph and he stuttered
“Where did you find this?? This inscription is in the ancient language of Egyptian hieroglyphs which is now extinct! ”.
Jamal quickly bought him up to speed on this crime and pulled out the manuscript
and other photos of crime site from his suitcase.
As Jamal drove back home that night, his mind kept going
back to the case – was he going on a wild goose chase after this scimitar! But why
was an odd scimitar engraved with ancient Egyptian characters used? His scientific mind failed to draw any
connection between the murder of an author based out of Bangalore
and Egypt.
Was it simply a co-incidence or was there more to it than a simple crime?
Next day as soon as Jamal entered the office, he saw
Shastri waiting for him with a big fat file. Without any preamble, Shastri said “The
tattoo on Qashif Ayhils tailbone I saw in one of the pics, isn’t simply a
meaningless modern art but is the emblem that every male descendant of the
royal family of Rouls of Egypt carries”. As Jamal struggled to come to terms
with this information Shastri added “Now before you go running to Egyptian embassy,
let me tell you this royal family and its descendants had mysteriously
disappeared from the face of the Earth a long time ago. It beats me how one
of them turned up in Bangalore
of all places! ”. And almost nonchalantly Shastri adds “The manuscript your deceased
author has written doesn’t seem to be a piece of sci-fi to me. Well at least the
characters of Triton, Aiyana, Kruson belonged to the Kingdom of Roul.
Of course am assuming the names of “Singh” and few others were used to protect character
identities”!
As a gaping Jamal struggled to come to terms with this
stranger than fiction story, Shastri drops the big fat file titled “Story of
Triton – Last of the Rouls in Egypt” and marches away……
To be contd.... Over to Kalpana's Space for the next part.......
