“But sacrifice is a great honor,” said Geena.
“A great honor,” echoed Leena.
Leo gibbered. Bob patted him again and said to Berthold, “Okay, okay, look. I’m not saying you’re right. But what makes you so sure it was one of them and not both of them?”
“Only one of the twins was ever seen.”
“What,” I asked, “if they took turns?” I was pretty pleased with myself for coming up with this.
“Absurd,” said Berthold. “If both were involved, they would have worked together at making the deaths seem the result of a lion attack. Two people would have been able to claw the bodies, falsify those tracks more quickly. And both twins, in that case, would have been seen afterward. But in fact, only one was seen.”
He turned to Bob. “The question is, which one? And I believe I know of a simple method by which that might be determined.”
“What’s that?”
“You need merely place both of them in a locked room for a period of twenty-four hours, under close supervision. You see, I believe—”
“We can’t do that,” Bob told him.
Berthold blinked in surprise. “Why not?”
“They’re sacred, man. Chosen by the thunder god. We can’t do that. Lock them up. Supervise them. Not unless they break a rule.”
“One of them has broken a rule. She’s killed three of your people.”
“That’s what you say. You don’t have any proof.”
Leo gibbered loudly, almost a growl. Bob snapped something in Outlandish.
Berthold looked across the table at the two young females. They looked calmly back. If one of them were secretly gloating, she gave no sign of it.
Still staring at the women, Berthold said, “Bob, the villagers with whom I spoke told me that the sacredness of Leena and Geena resides entirely in their twinhood. Is that true?”
“Sure. If they weren’t twins, identical and all, they’d just be normal women.”
“I should think then, that the two of them, both honored to be chosen for sacrifice, would make an effort to remain identical.”
“Naturally. Didn’t you see the way they ate? If one of them takes a bite of fish, then the other takes exactly the same sized bite. If one of them eats two cookies, so does the other.”
“Ah.” Suddenly Berthold smiled at the females. “You both claim to be innocent, is that correct?”
“Absolutely,” said the two of them in unison.
“Then neither of you would object to a small experiment that will serve to establish that innocence.”
The females looked at each other, looked back at him. “Not me,” said Leena. “Not me,” said Geena.
“Excellent. Let us all retire then to Bill’s house.”
A few minutes later, we all stood outside Bill’s house. Along the way, Bob had explained the situation to Leo, who was now gibbering angrily and waving his arms. Bob was trying to quiet him.
The sight of the twins, or maybe the sight of Berthold and me in their presence, had drawn a small crowd. They gathered in a semicircle around us, muttering in gibberish.
Berthold walked over to the large set of scales set up beside the front door. “Geena. Please step on one side of the scale.”
Geena looked at her sister and then walked forward. The scales held two wooden plates, each suspended on ropes. Geena grasped the ropes on one side, lowered the plate they held, and stepped gingerly onto it. The plate sank to the ground.
“Leena,” said Berthold. “Please step on the other.”
Leena hesitated. She glanced around at the crowd.
Berthold smiled. “This will take only a moment.”
Leena walked over, grabbed the second set of ropes, and stepped onto the second plate. As she sank slightly, her sister was lifted from the ground. For a moment or two, swaying slightly back and forth, the two females rose and fell in turn.
Between the two plates was an upright wooden rod that swung back and forth before a curved beam. Along the beam, at regular intervals, were lines carefully painted on the wood, to indicate by how much the items being measured might differ in weight. It was a clever piece of equipment. But, as I’ve said, the Outlanders were very clever fellows.
We watched as the two females bobbed for a bit, one going up as the other went down. The rod swung left and right.
No one spoke now. Bob had somehow managed to silence Leo.
At last the females, and the rod, stopped moving. The rod pointed very slightly to the left of center.
Leena weighed a fraction more than her sister.
Before any of us, except Berthold, realized what this meant, Leena leaped from her plate. Her sister shot to the ground, her knees buckling beneath her, as Leena sprang toward the street.
Bob grabbed her. She swung a fist at him. He caught that and twisted it up behind her back. Wrapping his left arm around her neck, he said to Berthold, “What? What is it?”
Geena had gotten up from the ground. She ran now to her father, who was beginning to gibber again.
“There was one thing that could ruin Leena’s plan,” said Berthold. “One thing that, if found, would instantly reveal her guilt.”
“What?”
“The last figurine. The one she took from Art’s house this morning. If the figurine were found on her person, she would be lost.”
“She swallowed it,” I said.
Berthold looked at me, surprised. And then he smiled. “Very good, Doder.” He turned back to Bob. “She did, indeed, swallow it. If you will place her in confinement for a day or so, sooner or later the figurine—”
“I get you,” said Bob, struggling to hold on to Leena. “The figurine will, uh, show up.”
“Exactly.”
And it did, too, as Berthold told me the next day.
The figurine, as it happened, was in the shape of a lion.
Berthold got a big kick out of that. He thought it was very ironic. He liked irony, Berthold.
But for me, the best part of the story was that it had a happy ending. Not for Leena, of course. Because she was beheaded and buried before breakfast the next morning. But for Geena. With Leena gone, she was no longer a twin, and the Outlanders had to forget about sacrificing her.
No, I don’t know what happened to her. Within a few months, my poor wife, Ursula, was dead and I was on my way to—
But that’s another story.
On your way out, now, don’t forget those donations.
Death of a Mentor
by Susan Oleksiw
Anita Ray scuffed along in her rubber sandals. The long shadow that overlapped hers kept a steady ten feet behind her until she came to the police substation, its door and windows still shuttered in the early morning light. Sunrise was sudden in South India and was only minutes away. Anita swung around. An old man jumped away from her, his hands grabbing the ends of his dirty lungi.
“Is it you, Panditji?” Anita threw back her shoulders and stuck her hands on her hips. Her camera bounced against her chest, her plans for an early morning shoot forgotten. “You have been following me since I left Hotel Delite a half hour ago. What are you up to? Didn’t you know it was me?”
“Of course I knew,” the old man said, shrugging. “But doubt is in my mind. Your aunt hates me. I am worrying she has turned you against me.”
“You are a foolish old man!” Anita grinned at him. “Come, let us find a place for coffee.” They walked until they came to a tea stall just opening up. “You must have a serious problem, Panditji, if you have come all this way to see me.”
“I am going to prison for murder! Murder, memsahib, murder!”
Anita could hardly believe her ears. Panditji had always been the most inoffensive of palm readers — he was so frail and brittle looking that a dissatisfied customer could just pick him up and snap him in two if he or she felt like it. “Murder? Really, Panditji, if the police meant to arrest you for murder, would they have let you travel all the way down here to see me?”