Samsaara : Devadoot

To the Moon and Back

My conversation with the old man and the others made me realise the gravity of the task I was about to take on. Such a task would need preparedness, which I did not have the time for. Since I had until the next day to relax, I decided to explore before we set out.

I went to the room Guardians had assigned permanently for me and found out that this place was near Omar's quarters so that I would have some company. Not that it would matter, with the teleportation and all. I unpacked in that place and decided to make a short visit to Earth to check up on how my business was running.

"Hey Jerry, how's everything going?" I asked.

"Where'd you come from?" he asked as he stopped arranging paper on the desk.

"The door," I replied.

"But there was no sound of you entering," he said.

"Yes, I'm very silent. You need to be if you have to tail someone. So, anything new?" I asked to change the topic. I can't tell him about the teleportation after all.

"Yes, I got a call from the international school up north. They have a case for us. Three hundred tablets that were issued for the children went missing overnight. They found a receipt from a moving company. That's the only clue. Because the reputation of the school is at stake, they have come to us instead of the police," he said.

"Show me the papers," I said.

He passed the papers to me.

"The supervisor did it," I said.

"What? How'd you know?" he asked.

"The supervisor's signature in the advance cheque is done with an ink pen. The sign on the receipt is fake, but also done in ink pen. The pigment of the ink is also matching, both dry more violet in comparison to regular ink," I said.

"Well. That's true, but we can't use this as a definite proof that it was her," he said.

"Their budget is sizeable. We can spend a bit on this. You have some legwork if you are up for it," I said.

"Anything, just tell me," he said.

"Get a new phone number. Give it to the principal. Then get the supervisors address from him and go to her door-step early morning and see what newspaper she gets," I said.

"Alright, that's easy. Then?" he asked.

"Go to the newspaper's website and print a week long advertisement in the classifieds titled 'wholesale buyers and sellers of computers, tablets and mobile phones'. Put the number you gave the principal as the contact number. Once she gets in touch with him. Our work is done," I said.

"Excellent, then I will make the number today itself. I'm also going to keep the bills for all the things we purchase and get the principal to pay for the expenses. We should not dig into our payment for solving the case," he said as he turned around to wear his shoes.