The Spiritualist's Dilemma

Midnight Visitor

House No 345 on the Mill Street had been ringing with ominous clamor of pillage for some time, but it was only when two street dogs, displeased at being disturbed in slumber, emerged in front of the door and began to bark, that the owner of the house, Prof. Mortemius Chinew, finally stirred in his bed. The old man rubbed his eyes slowly and tried to control his swelling temper. There were few things that Prof. Chinew hated more than being disturbed in bed. He jerked up finally, failing to keep calm, and cursed the people in his house with the unbridled passion of a frustrated university professor for causing the midnight pandemonium which woke him up. It took him some moments to remember that there was no one else in the house. 

His only servant Moin had taken a leave to attend to his dead mother while Nora, his mastiff, was with his sister in Cahira. House No 345, which the professor had shifted into earlier that day, was supposed to be all to himself. 

Prof. Chinew shook his head like a wet dog and slapped his cheeks to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. His regular use of Morphine to help him sleep peacefully sometimes materialized in the form of visual and auditory disturbances. He saw things in empty rooms and heard sounds in silence. But the old man distinctly remembered not consuming the drug today. He had felt no need. Shifting to his new abode had proved to be a sufficient inebriant. 

Prof. Mortemius Chinew was a spiritualist and paranormal researcher and had traveled half the world in search of ancient wisdom about spirits and the undead. He had trekked through inaccessible mountain passes to reach the ruins of distant civilizations and forded through the Sahara desert in search of Bedouin tribes. But all those arduous journeys paled in comparison to the exercise of shifting his household. The old man had spent the whole day running after the five porters that he had employed to lug his belongings from the mule cart parked on the street to his big ancient house. So tiring had been the effort that even in the absence of morphine he had been able to sleep reasonably well. That is until the hubbub in the house had breached his slumber and stirred him awake.

Prof. Chinew shrugged this lethargic state off and fumbled at his bedside table for a lantern. He turned the knob to increase the intensity of the light so that his small bedroom swam into view. For a moment the professor was surprised by the strange surroundings. He missed the large rack of books at his right, as well as the giant carved granite face, an artifact he had acquired in Mongolia, which hung on the wall at the foot of the bed and watched over him at night. How did he reach here? He then remembered the events of the day and the new house that he was in. The noise of his house being ransacked rung through the room again. Was there an intruder in the house? The professor slipped out of his bed and tiptoed out of the room. For a moment he felt confused in the darkness of the big house. Which way was the sound coming from? He figured it was wafting from the room at the end of the lobby, adjacent to the living room. He had decided to make this room his study and experiment hall, a place where he could read and write about spirits and conduct experiments with the aid of a lifetime of occult artifacts that he had collected from his travels all over the world and which he kept in a large wooden cabinet in the same room. There was someone inside, trying to destroy the artifacts that he had painstakingly collected during his lifetime. He could not let it happen. With quick silent steps, he reached the room and tried to push the door open. 

It was locked from outside.

The professor hesitated, could the intruder be armed? Nervously, he felt his waist. The silver araijan chain, his safety against ill-luck still hung there. He felt prepared to deal with the intruder now. Fumbling for the hoop of keys in the pocket of his dressing-gown, he tried to fit one in but realized that his hands were shivering. That wasn't a good sign. He kept the lantern upon the floor, took a deep breath, and tried again. This time the key found the hole. He turned the key and the lock clicked. Suddenly the sound inside stopped. Almost simultaneously through the gap between the door and the floor emerged a thick cloud of crisp white smoke. Pungent and cold. The professor stepped back as the smoke drifted past him and towards the main door on the right, then through the crevice out into the street. The professor struggled to keep his frame from shaking. He had a strange feeling that the smoke had not floated around him as normal smoke should but instead passed right through him, freezing his insides on the way. 

Fingers trembling more severely now, Prof. Mortemius Chinew opened the door slowly and peeked inside. It was utter dark. He picked up the lantern and stepped inside the room. The sudden chillness of the place and the lingering pungency made him feel like he was in a cavern. His eyes were quick to find the source of the noise. The wooden cabinet on one side of the room had been ransacked thoroughly, its door was ajar and its contents spilled around. The floor was littered with priceless relics which the professor had collected throughout his lifetime. Pieces of pottery, chunks of meteorites, pouches of arcane spices, and small figurines of clay and bronze lay on the thick Persian rug which covered the floor. The old man forded through the litter, casting his lantern on his ill-treated collection. Fortunately, the thick carpet had prevented any damage to the artifacts. 

Prof. Chinew reached the end of the room where sat an old mahogany table under the only window of the room. It was empty baring a tall white porcelain vase with a blue enameled illustration of a horned Devil upon its spotless surface. It had tumbled to one side, its lid askew.

Mortemius Chinew stopped short, drops of sweat quivering upon his forehead. The vase was a recent acquisition from an Armenian trader in Calcutta. The old merchant had claimed that it was actually a spirit catcher, and inside its long belly lurked the spirits of a thousand men and women captured more than a century ago by a celebrated medium. The professor stepped away from the table, wary of the maleficent vase and his eyes went to the only window in the room. Prof. Chinew fell back startled, for a fleeting moment he had seen a pair of eyes upon the pane. Shivering with fright he cast the lantern once more upon the window, the eyes returned but they were his own. But that was not all. Looming above his hazy face on the window were large mysterious symbols, drawn with white chalk by a shabby hand. Professor Chinew searched his pockets for his pair of spectacles but failed, so he stuttered forward and squinted his eyes trying to see properly. The symbols changed form like unstable shape-shifters, blurring and going crisp rapidly. But even in the lack of lucidity, it was clear that they were in a language that he did not understand. Someone was trying to convey a message to him?

Mortemius Chinew looked around to see if the person who had drawn the symbols was still in the room, crouching in the corners. But his eyes found no one. Apart from the residue of the crisp white smoke, which hung near the ceiling like a predator in wait, the room was empty. Prof. Chinew tried to brush aside his fear and clear his mind. The room was locked. The door was bolted from the outside, and the window jammed shut. There was no way a man could sneak into a closed room, ransack his cupboard and draw strange symbols upon the window. The spiritualist's eyes fell again upon the fallen spirit catcher. He extended his fingers to touch the vase but stopped short incredulous. The old man gulped hard. But then, was this the work of a man at all?