Facing Worlds - Chapter 1

Chapter 4

"Several hours after we found the statuette, a fire started at our campsite. It destroyed several of our tents and one of the trucks, no one was exactly sure how it started. Normally, I wouldn't think much of a fire, considering we had some old machinery and several flammable substances, except for the fact that our bad luck continued. The next morning, I went to cook up some of our food for breakfast, only to find that our coolers had been infested with scorpions. Weird thing is, the coolers were completely sealed, and there were no visible tears that the scorpions could have entered through. Things only got weirder from there. I sent out several of our assistants to head to the nearest town in one of the trucks and pick up some food, you know the basics, fruit, vegetables and some meat. They never returned. We found them about 5 kilometres down the trail, sitting at the side of the road. They'd been choked to death. The truck was nowhere to be found. We stayed for another day, digging up some more of the site, but found nothing of interest. At that point, an earthquake struck. Earthquakes don't often happen in this area, the last hit in 1942 and it was only about 3.4 on the Richter scale, very minimal. This one was 7.1, with an epicenter only a few hundred metres from the site. All our tunnels, collapsed killing all but me and Jules. At that point, we decided to leave."

"Has anything weird happened since?"

"No, not really, but I have a really bad feeling. It's not typical of Jules to just disappear like this."

"Well, this sounds interesting, unfortunately, I don't have much to go on, so I can't guarantee I'll be of any help."

"Anything you can do will be appreciated."

We shook hands and Chester left. I watched him as he walked down the street. He stood at the bus stop. I went and poured myself a bourbon to help me to think and looked back at the bus stop. Chester was gone. Weird thing is, the next bus isn't supposed to arrive until 11:30PM. It was only 11:20. The bourbon glass still in my hand, I stormed out of my office and practically slid down the stairs. No sign of Chester Smith anywhere. Mmmmmm...

Before I could go further in my thoughts, Chelsee caught my attention: "Tex, come here!"

I walked to her, half of my thoughts still on Smith's sudden disappearance.

"That new client of yours, he left something for you."

Now, she had my full attention: "What is it?"

She plunged her hand under the counter and re-emerged it, holding a manila envelope. "He gave me that right after he got out of your office. 'Would you be kind enough to give this to Mr. Murphy, please?' he told me. Then he walked to the bus sign."

"He's gone, now. Did the bus pass?"

"You know as well as I do that the bus don't pass here before 11:30. I suppose he decided to walk instead and left. I didn't see anything."

"Oh well, thank you, Chelsee."

"You're welcome."

I opened the envelope right there. It continued a few interesting things pertinent to the case. The first one was a photograph of a weird African statuette carved in red wood. Hello Red Warrior! It was a nudie, alright! In fact, every body parts, except for the torso, were blown out of proportion. Needless to say I won't show that picture to one of my nieces.

"Nice picture!" Chelsee said. "May I have one copy?"

There was a second photograph in there, depicting Smith and another guy outside under a bright sun, in front of a tent. They were posing in a very chummy way, arms to shoulders, one foot each on something out of the frame, big smile on their faces. Mr. Jules Franklin, I presume.

The rest was pieces of papers giving me Smith's and Franklin's coordinates in America, Smith's museum's in San Francisco and also of a certain miss Anita Simmons. Now, who might this miss be?

"Oh my!" Chelsee said out of the blue. "Now I remember!"

"What do you remember?"

"I have seen this guy before. It was in the newspaper last week. Something about stolen art in... Egypt? I don't quite remember. The Bay City Mirror covered it in a minor way. But I remember his face in the photos. Did he hire you to find the stolen goods?"

"Yes, he did. Do you still have the newspaper?"

"Well, no. I can't keep that stuff for so long. You'll have to go directly to the BCM if you want to consult it."

"Yeah, I'll see about that. Thanks for your help, Chelsee."

"If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask."

"Sure, I will."

I walked back to my office, finishing in one gulp of that bourbon I had carried out with me. Now, why would Chester leave the info to Chelsee? Why didn't he just turn back and give it to me? And how did he perform a disappearance act like that?