seymoure

Echoes from Antiquity

“History is filled with the sound of silken slippers
going downstairs,
and wooden shoes coming up.”
-Voltaire

Taking a handkerchief from my pocket I picked up the horse. “Hugo, take this back to Gerald and tell him where we found it.”

He looked at me a bit dumbfounded, as if to say, “And . . .?”

“Get him to look it over,” I said, without, I’m afraid, a great deal of charity. “Maybe he can get a fingerprint or find something he can use as a clue to where it came from. He does that sort of thing.”

He took it from me and hesitated just a second, to which I answered, “I’m going to see if anybody saw it delivered.”

There were a couple of kids who were sitting on a bench under a tree less than 100 feet from there who were my prime target. To be honest, I thought Hugo might scare them off. I know him to be a sweet guy, but he is an imposing presence, and most people move away as he comes nearer. Not a good quality for gathering witness statements.

The kids could barely bring themselves to look up as I came over, much less have noticed anything else. Neither of them was over 14 and their hormones were all that were of any import to them.

The next person I encountered could have given me an in-depth description if the subject had been under 20, female and wearing a mini-skirt. He gave me detailed, and often off-color descriptions of every female who had walked within 40 feet of the bench upon which he had leered.

Even he was more valid a witness than the young female Political Science instructor I spoke with next. She was furiously grading the pop quiz from the day before.

“I shouldn’t have gone out last night,” she confessed, “but even I have to have some kind of private life.”

“You could give everyone an ‘A’ and be a hero,” I joked.

She didn’t find that in the least funny, “Half my students are just here to get a deferment. They don’t care about anything beyond a passing grade. And the rest of the students, the ones who are really here to learn would not be excited to see the grading curve muddled.”

She dove back into her grading with even more commitment, and I looked around for anybody else that might have seen anything.

A janitor was emptying trash cans a bit farther away.

“Yeah, I think I saw somebody,” he told me, trying hard to act like a “witness.” “But I don’t think I remember much about him,” he decided after that.

“Well, you knew it was a man,” I said, prompting him to see that he might know more than he thought he did, “Try to think back; maybe you saw more than you thought.”

He scrunched up his face in consideration, and then he relaxed his eyes and mouth and shook his head.

“Nothing beyond that,” he was embarrassed to admit. “A man in a blue shirt and grey suit. Average size, about 150 pounds and 5 foot 6 inches tall, with blonde curly hair. Nothing really worth noticing.”

He turned to pick up his broom and dustpan, and then he turned back with something.

“He did have a limp!” he realized.

“Thanks!” My stunned reply was stepped on when he added, “Did I mention that he had an eye patch?”

I took it all down on my note pad, and thanked him again.

I wonder what he would have seen if he had been paying attention.