There was an old newspaper account that reported and warned the readers of unexplained ancient occurrences, and one of the worst of the detailed accounts told of travelers that had come upon the mutilated remains of gypsies left in pieces in the region by some hideous occurrence, with their remains scattered throughout a wood nearby, and others of people being attacked and chased by things with fearful sounds.
Upon reading it with fascination my eyes fell upon something in corridor, which I had seen but had ignored, as I was engrossed in it, and I stared at it for almost a minute trying to recognize it but was unable to form an image of what was there, and what I was looking at, as it had no real form, and the darkness and my tiredness never allowed my mind to come to a conclusion.
It was the woman’s appearance there that brought me to, and she stood behind the door, out in the hallway, and I could say little, and she quickly entered my room and closed the door, and turned on the light.
After questioning her again about it, with me this time realizing that there was something there, I asked what she had been doing before its appearance, and if she had done something that could have caused its appearance, and she considered everything and was at a loss.
I then asked her if she had done anything anywhere that she had not done before!
For a long time she thought it over and came up with something!
The only thing she had been doing, which she could recall, was she had been using a metal detector, which she had borrowed off a friend, who had given it to her as she had lost her old wedding ring, and she could not find it anywhere.
While using it, searching for it, she had found a small hole in the floor and carpet, and she had taken up the floorboards under the carpet and had used it to examine all the heaps of rubble, dirt, and building remains below for it, and she had found the ring, but the metal detector stopped working, but was working again the next day.
I asked her when the occurrences had started and she eventually told me that it had appeared there that night.
So I asked her if she still had the metal detector and she took me into her living room and removed it from a box, behind her sofa, and I examined it and I realized how expensive it was, and that it was powerful!
It was then that I was sure the thing in the hall could be affected by it, and that I could solve the case by using it on it, and perhaps get rid of it, as I was sure ghosts might be affected by such forces.
Once I found out how to use it and its controls I went out into the hall with it, and prepared myself, and waited for the woman to turn it on at the mains, and I was so fascinated with the ghost or whatever it was I marched towards it trying grasp any detail in it that I could recognize, but I could not get anything, and up close it looked like a mass of red energy being generated by something, and to my amazement it exploded into a frenzy of activity, and I realized the metal detector had been switched on, and at that point I collapsed across the floor, unconscious.
Chapter 4
Everything seemed to look weird and somehow unbelievable, and I studied everywhere trying to grasp what, and I kept recalling the moments before I collapsed and awakened in bed in the morning, wondering what the hell happened.
I was sure it damaged my brain and I had a bad time recalling things. I could not think of what to do and if I should try to help the woman further, but it was ridicules as I had never heard of such an occurrence, and never mind what the solution was, and I wondered if I had blown my first case, and I decided to ignore it and hope the woman never asked Marple for further help.
I wanted to join the Home Guard, even though I could not recall wanting to do it before, after I saw an advert looking for part time Home Guard soldiers, and realized I could fit it into my schedule.
I had immediately gone there, and sat bored in the Home Guard office waiting room, sitting on my own, with some faint sounds behind the office door in front of me, where I assumed I was to be interviewed, and I started wondering what I was about to do and how deadly this war could become, as if the Germans invaded it would equivalent to being on the frontline, and I was also getting desperate for answers and wondering repeatedly if I had received damage to his mind, and realized that I would be checked by an army doctor at some point and realized I could have him properly check me out.
I felt different somehow and I could not grasp what and stood and started checking myself, and feeling my head for damage where I collapsed and hit the floor, and realized the woman could have covered up me hitting something when I collapsed, as she would have felt responsible for it, and I started examining my whole body, trying to see how it functioned to me doing things, and I started jumping up and down and waving my arms about, and examined my legs, and they responded, and I did a handstand and noticed my body was weak and seemed to move differently than I intended, and I partially looked upwards and saw a large shadow shift across the floor, and saw someone standing over me, in front of me.
An officer was standing staring at me crazily.
“What in the hell are you doing?” the sergeant shouted, and I collapsed over the floor.
“I’m starting to get out of shape sitting in here!” I moaned.
He stood staring insanely, and not believing anything, and clearly thinking I was someone else.
“God help us!” he shouted. “If this is all we get…”
“This is the Home Guard?” I swiftly replied, trying to look normal.
“Well it surely isn’t the boy Scouts!” he moaned. “Yes! We’re the Local Defence Volunteers!”
He ordered me into the front office, and I knew I was in the army, and I sat in a seat at the desk and waited for an officer to come. Then I wondered what the hell I was doing there!
An officer entered, looked through a form about me, which I had filled in and handed in at the entrance office.
“Captain Godfrey!” he announced. “And that’s Sergeant Clooney my deputy officer.”
Clooney sat in the seat beside me, in front of the captain’s desk, and watched us both, and the captain shuffle through his stuff.
“We’re putting together a group of soldiers because of the war and you look suitable…” he announced, examining information on him. “So you’re a private investigator?”
Clooney looked sideways in surprise, and examined me over again, differently.
Suddenly the phone blared out and the captain picked it up and instantly realized who it was and launched into an argument with the person, and shouted not to phone him there unless it was an emergency, and thumped the phone down.
He glanced over and gasped, stopped what he was doing and examined me up close and looked straight into my face as if he suddenly saw something he did not want to see and could not fully grasp, and continued studying me.
“Your face it’s familiar!” he moaned, and he started tapping his finger hard against the desk, and tried to grasp something.
“I want to ask you a few questions!” he finally asked.
I sat upright and waited.
“Why do you want to join the army, Malone?” he asked firmly, studying me with confusion, and he started sipping tea from a cup.
“I can’t remember!”
“What?” he loudly gasped, also coughing up the tea in his mouth. “What can’t you remember?”
“I have had an accident recently and have had some memory loss!” I confessed, and suddenly wondered why I had done it, and sat depressed.
The captain seemed to alter somehow, and he suddenly grew interested in me, and seemed to want me.
“Okay! You’ve had a recent misfortune! Perhaps caused by this blasted war! But surely you can make a rough guess as to why?”