The Spiritualist's Dilemma

Breakthrough

As a principle, her colleagues did not talk to Maya directly, preferring instead to discuss her amongst themselves, as if she was a piece of news in a newspaper. That was partly due to her own lack of interest in talking to people. She struggled to be a part of a conversation. With no talent for idle chatter, it was just too much effort. Even those who tried to socialize with her out of sympathy tended to give up quickly, tired of her snappish replies and awkward silences. It felt like traveling on a road with potholes.

Maya did not particularly mind being left alone. That gave her peace of mind. But she would have preferred if her colleagues truly left her alone – not discuss her in soft voices among themselves, or pass remarks behind her back. That was too distracting. Now they looked at the ink spluttered paper and the broken pen in front of her and nodded understandably. Such things happened regularly with Maya.

Maya ignored their stares, crumpled the paper into a ball, wiped the table of ink, and threw the ball in the dustbin under the table. She looked outside the large window to see the street outside and take her mind off the symbols. It was a quiet afternoon, St. Sebastian Square was lounging lethargically. Forlorn hansoms waited under tamarind trees, stray dogs loomed near the drains, and pedestrians moved in and out of the shops with languidness peculiar to the afternoon. Maya's gaze suddenly went to a shop on the far side of the street. It was a spice shop and a fat man in an absurd dress had just ventured out lugging a sack of turmeric upon his shoulders. It wasn't the man, though, who had piqued Maya's interest. It was the shop itself, in fact, the glass door of the shop.

"World's Best Spices and Condiments" was written in large gold letters upon the door.

That was it! Maya realized jumping with excitement, she had been reading the symbols wrong. They were not meant to be seen by the professor, they were supposed to be seen by someone on the street. Bubbling with her newfound knowledge, Maya perched back upon her chair and tried to redraw the symbols as they would seem from outside the window. A mirror would be of aid. She searched futilely for one in her bag knowing fairly well that she had never invested in anything faintly related to cosmetics. She had never felt the need to look at herself in a mirror and adjust her appearance. But the lady who sat in front of her often sunk her hand into her leather purse and produced a small mirror with which she checked herself at regular intervals. The woman had now ventured over to chat with a friend on the other side of the hall. Maya slyly extended her hand across the table and took out the mirror. It was a beautiful round piece with a wood carved frame. Maya held the mirror to the symbols and copied as they looked in the mirror.

It was clear. The symbols were in English. They were alpha-numerals. That is why she felt that she knew that she had seen the symbols before but just couldn't figure them out. But even though the characters now made sense, they still did not mean anything explicitly clear. It was obvious that they were some sort of code, to be deciphered by whoever the code was meant for. The intruder had found a code from somewhere inside the professor's house and written it on the window. But what did the code mean and where did he find the code from? There was nothing that Maya could hypothesize without the benefit of some more information.

She needed more facts and data. But from where? She had examined the room thoroughly, there were just three other people who had anything to do with the professor, one was the servant Moin who was in his village and the other two were the twin daughters who were away in Bombay. She doubted they had anything to do with the symbols. She knew that the footsteps in the room were of five and a half feet tall person but nothing else. There was no other lead. It was frustrating.

Maya looked up to find the people around staring at her again. She realized she had been muttering quite audibly. Abruptly, Maya got up and started towards the bathroom. It was hard to focus on work in this office.