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By Root 1072 0

Down Under. This was nearly convincing to the corporal, as a matter of fact, but in the end he did not believe the captain would make good on the promise, so he jumped him in preemptive self-defence. In the struggle, the captain shot the corporal just as the corporal stabbed the captain, and they both fell, quite dead. Bandits stole their uniforms, motorcycle, and belongings. Are you getting all this in your notes? Should I speak more slowly? Jackals dragged the bodies off to a cave and ate them. Metal identity disks are not digestible or valuable and were left in the desert. More, Ferrell, my dwarf red monkey? Number four: the captain, in his counterintelligence work, discovered that the corporal was passing secrets to the Turks. Confronting the corporal with this shocking discovery, the captain moved to arrest him, when all at once a British aeroplane flying overhead, mistaking the altercation for a—”

And on and on he blathered, and at least six more fanciful tales followed. I tried to interrupt, but he wouldn’t allow anything to disrupt his performance: “Wait a moment, Detective. I am only getting started. You see, all of these possibilities, none verifiable or controvertible, fit your little document, and I am only beginning to stretch my muscles. Textual evidence can contain a vast quantity of pits and distortions, like a gramophone disk left in the sun. There’s hardly a written report on any past event that can explain anything. We know nothing of the past, not truly, from any single document, but you have travelled the world, Ferrell, learning nothing, raping my reputation in certain corners, and attempting to squire my fiancée, based on that piece of paper!?” But, Macy! He’d made his fatal error! Did you see it? If he truly knew nothing of the missing men, if he’d truly come back to camp a month after their disappearance, then how did he—in his array of truth-obscuring hypotheses—guess that young Paul Caldwell was “a would-be archaeologist”? Nothing in the military record would’ve shown that; I only knew it from my interviews in Australia. Oh yes, our Mr. Trilipush was caught. I pounced, and we had our moment in the sun, Macy, to make our dramatic declaration and watch the wall of lies crumble:

“The truth, Trilipush, in my experience is very simple and often hidden in plain view, marked by the usual signposts of motivation: lust, greed, hatred, envy. So I suggest you calm down now and listen to what I know. To what I know, Professor, not to what I can imagine. In early November 1918, perhaps earlier, Captain Marlowe’s invert lover and treasure-hunting partner, the impoverished gentleman Captain Trilipush, returns to Egypt from a battle in Turkey, in which he was presumed killed. He doesn’t report himself to his superiors but merely lurks about, letting the British command think he’s dead. In his lurking, he discovers that, during his Turkish absence, his fancy man has taken a young Australian corporal to be his archaeological research assistant, and how did you guess that, Professor? Well, the spurned and angry Trilipush assumes, wrongly, that Marlowe and Caldwell are also lovers, and he secretly follows the two men south to the desert when they take a four-day leave to go looking for archaeological treasure, guided by the mysterious Fragment C. Oh yes, I know all about your treasure map, Professor, don’t interrupt. The two innocent men arrive unawares at the spot near the treasure they seek, but before they can even begin their digging, who should appear but the ghostly Trilipush? ‘What? Are you here?’ stammers Marlowe to the surprising returnee. ‘Silence, you unfaithful wretch!’ shrieks the wailing, weeping Trilipush, maddened by jealousy and greed and heartbreak. Using his own Webley, he kills them both, captain and corporal, the ex-lover and the innocent Australian boy. He buries the bodies but accidentally drops their identity disks and the Aussie’s rifle, then simply drives off on their motorcycle, stealing their treasure map, this Fragment C that would tell him where to return when the heat had let up and