“Ah . . . Ghost hunters, are you?”
“I take that to mean you believe he’s dead,” Remi said.
“Oh, I do not know. Of course I’ve heard the stories about his periodic manifestations, but I have never seen him, or any genuine pictures of him. At least, not in the last forty years or so. I’d like to think if he were alive, he would have come to see me.”
Sam pulled a manila folder from his valise, pulled out a copy of the Devanagari parchment, and slid it across the table to Kaalrami. “Do you recognize this?”
She studied it for a moment. “I do. That is my signature. I translated this for Bully in . . .” Kaalrami pursed her lips, thinking, “Nineteen seventy-two.”
“What can you tell us about it?” Sam asked. “Did Lewis tell you where he found it?”
“He did not.”
Remi said, “To me, it looks like Devanagari.”
“Very good, my dear. Close, but incorrect. It is written in Lowa. While not quite a dead language, it is fairly rare. At last estimate, there are only four thousand native Lowa speakers alive today. They are mostly found in the north of the country, up near the Chinese border, in what used to be—”
“Mustang,” Sam guessed.
“Yes, that’s right. And you pronounced it correctly. Good for you. Most Lowa speakers live in and around Lo Monthang. Did you know that about Mustang or was it a good guess?”
“A guess. The only current lead we have on Lewis King’s whereabouts is a photograph in which he supposedly appears. It was taken a year ago in Lo Monthang. We found that parchment at Lewis’s home.”
“Do you have this picture with you?”
“No,” Remi said, then glanced at Sam. Their shared expression said, Why didn’t we ask for a copy of the picture? Rookie mistake. “I’m sure we can get it, though.”
“If it is not too much trouble. I like to think I would recognize Bully if it were truly him.”
“Has anyone else come to see you recently about King?”
Kaalrami hesitated again, tapping an index finger on her lip. “A year ago, perhaps a bit longer than that, a pair of kids were here. Strange-looking pair—”
“Twins? Blond hair, blue eyes, Asian features?”
“Yes! I did not particularly like them. I know that is not a charitable thing to say, but I must be honest. There was just something about them . . .” Kaalrami shrugged.
“Do you remember what they asked you?”
“Just general questions about Bully—if I had any old letters from him or remember him talking about his work in the region. I could not help them.”
“They didn’t have a copy of this parchment?”
“No.”
Sam asked, “We never found the original translation. Would you mind?”
“I can give you the essence of it, but a written translation will take a while. I could do that tonight, if you’d like.”
“Thank you,” said Remi. “We’d be most grateful.”
Professor Kaalrami adjusted her glasses and centered the parchment before her. Slowly she began tracing her finger down the lines of text, her lips moving soundlessly.
After five minutes, she looked up. She cleared her throat.
“It is a royal edict of sorts. The Lowa phrase does not translate well to English, but it is an official order. Of that, I’m certain.”
“Is there a date?”