“Ooh, hurry. Come out of the rain, ladies!” a woman’s voice cried from the crack in the front door. From the dark beyond it peeped a hefty, middle-aged woman with a sweet smile. She opened the door for them and gestured for them to hurry.
“Agatha Purdue?” she asked.
“Aye, and this is my friend, Nina,” Agatha replied. She omitted Nina’s title as not to alert the hostess to how important a document it was that she needed analyzed. Agatha intended to pretend that it was just some old page from a distant relative that came into her possession. If it merited the sum she was paid to locate it, it was not something that should be advertised.
“Hello, Nina. Rachel Clarke. Lovely to meet you ladies. Now, shall we go to my office?” the cheery graphologist smiled.
They left the dark, cozy section of the house to enter a small room, brightly lit by daylight that seeped through the sliding doors that led out to the small swimming pool. Nina looked at the pretty circles that pulsed from the plunge of rain drops on the pool’s surface and admired the ferns and foliage planted around the pool so as to dip into the water. It was aesthetically stunning, sharp green in the gray of the wet weather.
“You like that, Nina?” Rachel asked as Agatha handed her the papers.
“Aye, quite striking how it looks so wild and natural,” Nina answered politely.
“My hubby is a landscaper. The bug bit him while he made a living digging through all kinds of jungles and woodlands and he started gardening to alleviate that bad old case of the nerves. You know, stress is a horrid thing that nobody seems to notice these days, as if we are supposed to have the jitters from stressing too much, eh?” Rachel rambled as she opened the document under her magnifying lamp.
“Indeed,” Nina agreed. “Stress kills more people than anyone leads on.”
“Aye, that is why hubby took up prettifying people’s gardens instead. More like hobby-type work. Much like my job. Right, Miss Purdue, let’s have a look at this scribble of yours,” Rachel said, putting on her work face.
Nina was skeptical as to the whole idea, but she did enjoy getting out of the house, away from Purdue and Sam. She sat down on the small couch by the sliding door, looking at the bright ornaments among the leaves and branches. Rachel was silent, for once. Agatha watched her intently and it became so quiet that Nina and Agatha exchanged a series of expressions, both very curious why Rachel took so long to scrutinize one page.
Finally Rachel looked up, “Where did you get this, dear?” Her tone was serious and a little unsettled.
“Oh, mum had some old stuff from her great gran and she shoved it all on me,” Agatha lied expertly. “Found this among some rubbish bills and thought it was interesting.”
Nina perked up, “Why? Can you see what it says?”
“Ladies, I’m no ex… well, I am an expert,” she chuckled dryly, taking off her glasses, “but if I am not mistaken, by this photograph…”
“Yes?” both Nina and Agatha exclaimed.
“It looks like this was written on…” she looked up, thoroughly bewildered, “papyrus?”
Agatha put on her most ignorant expression while Nina just gasped.
“Is that good?” Nina asked, playing dumb for the benefit of information.
“Why yes, my dear. It means this paper is very valuable. Miss Purdue, do you have the original per chance?” Rachel asked. She placed her hand on Agatha’s with an elated inquisitiveness.
“I’m afraid I don’t, no. But I was just curious about the photo. Now we know it must have been an interesting book, then, that it came from. I suppose I knew that all along,” Agatha acted naïvely, “because that is why I was so hell bent to figure out what it said. You could perhaps help us make out what it says?”
“I can try. I mean, I see a lot of handwriting samples and I must boast to having somewhat of a trained eye for it,” Rachel smiled.
Agatha shot her eyes to Nina, as if to say “I told you so” and Nina had to smile as she turned her head to look out at the garden and pool where the rain had now started to splash.
“Give me a few minutes, let me see if… I… can…” Rachel’s words drifted off as she adjusted the magnifying lamp to see better. “Whoever photographed this made his own little note, I see. The ink on this section is fresher and the hand of the writer is considerably different. Hang on.”
It felt like an eternity, waiting for Rachel to write word for word as she deciphered the writing bit by bit, here and there leaving a dotted line where she could not discern. Agatha looked around the room. Everywhere she could see samples of pictures, posters of different slants and pressure, indicating psychological predispositions and character traits. It was a fascinating vocation, in her opinion. Perhaps, as a librarian, the love for words and meanings behind structure and such appealed to Agatha.
“It looks like a poem of sorts,” Rachel mumbled, “that is divided by two hands. I wager two different people wrote this poem — one the first part and the other the last bit. First lines are in French, the rest in German, if my knowledge serves me. Oh, and here at the bottom it is signed by what looks like… this first part of the signature is difficult, but the last part clearly looks like ‘Wenen’ or ‘Wener.’ You know anyone in your family by that name, Miss Purdue?”
“No, unfortunately not,” Agatha replied with an inkling of regret, playing her role so well that Nina smiled and shook her head furtively.
“Agatha, you must follow up with this, my dear. I will even venture to say the material, the papyrus this is written on, is downright… ancient,” Rachel frowned.
“Like 1800s ancient?” Nina asked.
“No, my sweetheart. Like a thousand odd years before the 1800s — ancient,” Rachel revealed, her eyes wide with wonder and sincerity. “This is the kind of papyrus you’d find in world history museums, like the Cairo Museum!”
Uncomfortable with Rachel’s interest in the document, Agatha diverted her attention.
“And the poem on it is equally old?” she asked.
“No, not at all. The ink is not half as faded as it would have been had it been written that long ago. Someone went and wrote on paper they had no idea of the value of, my dear. Where they got it is a mystery, because these types of papyrus would be boxed up in museums or…” she laughed at the absurdity of what she was about to say, “it would be preserved somewhere since the days of the Library of Alexandria.” Holding back her urge to laugh out loud at the ludicrous statement, Rachel just shrugged.
“What words did you get from it?” Nina asked.
“It’s in French, I think. Now, I don’t speak French…”
“That’s all right, I do,” Agatha said quickly. She looked at her watch. “My goodness, look at the time. Nina, we’re going to be late for the luncheon at Aunt Milly’s housewarming!”
Nina had no idea what Agatha was on about, but she construed it as bullshit she had to play along with to get out of the growing tension of the discussion. She assumed correctly.
“Oh, shit, you’re right! And we still have to get the cake! Rachel, know any good confectionary placed around here?” Nina asked.
“That was a close call,” Agatha said as they drove down the main road back to Thurso.
“No shit! I have to admit I was wrong. Getting a graphologist was a very good idea,” Nina said. “You’ll be able to translate what she wrote from the wording?”
“Yep,” Agatha said. “You don’t speak French?”
“Very little. Was always more of a Germanic language lover,” the historian sniggered. “Liked the men better.”