The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
body the qualities he most expected to find rather than unlikely ones, would
he not? Why would a seasoned coroner make dubious but easily disprovable
claims?”
Good point, and I didn’t have an answer. Neither did Joe.
“Item seven,” the professor continued, “a sheet of paper with a handwritten
list of fifteen arcane objects: an alembic, a castle, a golden ney, a silver ney,
an Ethiopian triptych, Xinjiang’s ivory, the Crying Queen of Hoxton, a
sheng, rainbow dust, the Kaghan’s Cages, the White and Red Medikos, al-
Idrisi’s kamal, Ardabil’s Yellow and Rising Sun, and the Shadow of the Sun.”
“Rainbow dust?” sneered Joe, drawing out each syllable until it snapped
from the weight of his contempt.
“What’s a mediko?” I asked.
Professor Jadid smiled and looked at us indulgently. “I’m not certain what
rainbow dust is either, but I would guess it has more significance than your
tone affords it. And you should recall, Joseph, Mediko Tshvalianidze, that
lovely Georgian woman who sang with the choir at St. Cyril’s.”
“Never went to church, Uncle Abe, remember? I bat for the other side.”
“Of course, of course. The confusion of an old man. In any event, I would
guess that these were antiquities of some sort that had recently come into Jaan’s
possession. Notice the check mark next to each item in many different colors
and styles of pen, probably because he acquired them at many different times.”
“Jeez, Abie, you should have been a cop.”
“You flatter me, Joseph, please.” Again he reached into the leather box
and pulled out six leather-bound checkbooks. “Items eight through thirteen:
bankbooks. Citibank, Barclays, ABN AMRO, as well as banks in Switzerland,
the Cayman Islands, and Liechtenstein. Tucked inside each bankbook
are deposit instructions. In the latter three books, you will notice that there
are no checks. They probably require that you present yourself in person in
order to make withdrawals, but I may be wrong about that. In any event, all
three of those countries are known for banks friendly to those wishing to
either conceal or launder large sums of money.
“Now we come to something interesting. Item fourteen is, as you can see,
another sheet of paper. I will read what Jaan has written on it. By the way, I
know the handwriting to be Jaan’s:
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