Teihotu, royal priest to the Shark Throne, wept bitterly. He spat name after name until he had surrendered twelve names in all.
When he was done, Chiun nodded. The priest had spoken true. Abject fear was in his voice. Chiun passed his long-nailed fingers over the man's quaking head. On the third pass, there came a sound like the coconut shell cracking. Where the priest's hair had been was the open bowl of his skull.
Holding the corpse by the back of its neck, Chiun bent the head forward so that the High Moo could see the yellowish curd of the traitor's brain. The High Moo nodded silently.
Chiun let the body collapse at the High Moo's feet and stepped back proudly. Remo joined him.
"Lucky guess," Remo whispered in English.
"No," Chiun replied. "I remember smelling octopus on his hands when he blessed us."
Remo thought. "Now that you mention it, I do remember his hands smelled kinda fishy."
"Not fish. Octopus."
"Same difference. I don't know why everyone's so petrified. I once watched a National Geographic TV special on octopi. They're actually gentle, harmless creatures."
"You will know the error of your ways by dawn." The High Moo spoke up.
"You have done well, Master of Sinanchu," he said, his voice full of respect. "But dare you enter the Grove of Ghosts to complete what you have begun?"
"My servant and I depart now. Await us at first light."
"If you do not return, you will long be remembered for your feats of magic this night."
"Come, Remo," Chiun said.
Remo made a point of waving to the native girls as he left.
"Catch you later," he told them. They giggled, thinking that he meant he was going fishing.
Chapter 16
Harold Smith pulled his car into an available space in the County Registry of Deeds office. He carried his worn leather briefcase with him through the glass doors and into the dim oak-paneled service area. He would not need his briefcase, but it contained his portable computer link and White House hot-line telephone. He never went anywhere without it, just as he was seldom seen wearing anything but a gray three-piece suit. Smith was a creature of rigid habits.
The prim woman in the white blouse, severe black skirt, and librarian's string tie pretended not to notice Smith's entrance. Smith walked up to the counter, straightening his Dartmouth tie. The close atmosphere reminded him of the Vermont elementary school he had attended. Municipal buildings always evoked a nostalgic reaction in Smith.
"Excuse me," Smith said, clearing his throat. "I would like to look up a deed. It's a recent sale, and I'm not sure how to go about this. Do I need to know the plot number?"
"No," the woman said. "This is, unless you don't know the name of either the grantee or grantor."
"Which is which?" Smith asked.
"The seller is called the grantor. The buyer is referred to as the grantee." Her voice was bored. The woman looked down her glasses as if to ask: who was this man who didn't know the most commonplace facts?
"I have the name of the grantor," said Smith.
"Come this way," said the woman, stepping out behind the flip-top counter. She led Smith to a book-lined alcove. "These," she said sternly, running her fingers along a line of black-bound books, "are the Grantor Indexes. And these are the Grantee Indexes." She pointed to an opposite shelf of similar books. They were dated by year, Smith saw with relief. He had had visions of having to comb through countless volumes.
"You look up the name you know in either set," she concluded.
"I only know the grantor's name," Smith repeated.
"I am explaining the entire procedure in case you ever have to do this again. Now, do you understand the difference between the indexes?"
"Indices. "
"I beg your pardon?"
"The plural of 'index' is 'indices,' not 'indexes.'"
"Sir, have you ever heard the expression 'close enough for government work'?"
"Of course."
"Well, it applies in this case." She went on in a lecturing like tone, "Now, if you will let me continue. You will find a reference number next to the name. It will probably be a four-digit number, unless of course you are searching records prior to 1889, in which case it will be a three- or possibly two-digit number. It will correspond to the number of one of these books." She indicated a bookshelf filled with worn black spines. They bore numbers written by hand in white ink.
"Select the correct book and look up the deed by the page number, which you will find next to the two-, three-, or four-digit number separated by an oblique stroke. These books contain sequential photocopies of all deeds within each serial."
"I see," Smith said.
"Good. Do you have any other questions?"
"Yes. Is there a photocopy machine on the premises?"
"Around the corner by the water cooler. Copies are fifteen cents. And I do not make change."
"Of course. Thank you," said Dr. Harold W. Smith. The woman walked off without another word and Smith made a mental note to see if there was a nameplate at the counter. The woman was very efficient, no-nonsense. Smith liked that in a worker. He resolved, if he should ever lose his current secretary, to offer the position to this woman. Smith went to the Grantor Index, found the name of his former next-door neighbor, and made a mental note of the serial and page number. The book was on a lower shelf. It was new. There was a red-stamped bindery date on the flyleaf that was barely two weeks old.
Smith flipped through the pages of photocopied deeds until he found the one he wanted. He gave it a quick scan. The name of the grantee was James Churchward.
The name sounded familiar. Smith tried to place it. He could not.
Hurriedly he went to the photocopy machine and put in a quarter. He made a copy, and when his change did not come, he hit the change plunger several times without result. And so concerned was Harold Smith over the familiar name that he did something unprecedented for the frugal bureaucrat.
He did not stop at the counter on his way out to demand restitution.
In his car, Smith slid in on the passenger side and opened the briefcase on his lap. He dialed the Folcroft computer number and placed the receiver in the modem receptacle. Then Smith input the name of James Churchward and requested a global search of all CURE-sensitive files pertaining to past operations.
It was ten minutes and six seconds by Smith's wristwatch before the on-screen message showed. It said, "NOT FOUND."
Smith frowned. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps the name was not CURE-linked. He lifted the receiver and dialed his home.
"Dear," Smith said when his wife answered. "That man you saw leaving the house next door-the one whose name you couldn't recall?"
"Yes?"
"Was his name James Churchward?"
"No, I've never heard that name. Who is James Churchward?"
"I don't know," Smith said slowly. "It is probably riothing," he added. "Just a hunch. Excuse me. I must get back to work."
"On your way home, why don't you pick up another box of those nice potato flakes you like so much? The supermarket is having a two-for-one sale."
"If I can," said Smith, hanging up.
He stared unseeingly out the windshield for several minutes, trying to make the puzzle parts come together. His wife recognized the face of a man coming from the house. And Smith recognized the name. The name did not match the face. Unless, Smith thought suddenly, Mrs. Smith never knew the man's name in the first place. Or this could mean that there were two of them. The man Mrs. Smith saw and this James Churchward.
Tight-lipped, Smith closed his briefcase and slid behind the wheel. He sent his car in the direction of Folcroft Sanitarium. The sun was going down, but there was much more work to do today. The Folcroft computers might not contain any reference to a James Churchward, but somewhere, he knew, there was a computer that did. And Dr. Harold W. Smith knew that his computers would find that computer and extract the information.