Soon after, Mr. Delbis and Mr. Richardson came up to me near my seat. I was filled with joy. I was seeing my brother, Ionen after so many days. I just stood up and gave Ionen a hug. Ionen hugged me back. We finally released ourselves after a minute or so.
'You look much fitter and finer than before Mr. Nora.' said Mr. Richardson.
'Yes Mr. Richardson, the treatment was pretty good. But one second! Ionen, you look different.'
'Yes Mark. You're correct.'
Ionen had a new moustache, which firstly driven down, up to his chin and then from that point it rose up from there, through the sides and then it was a bit rolled, or twitched. I don't know the perfect word for that, but I hope the reader can understand the thing. Rest of his face was same. It was like a ball, fully rounded, the chubby cheeks and nose, and the double chin. In his normal outfit too, there was a change. He wore a black blazer, blazer pants and black polished boots. His hat was black, and made of cotton and it had a beautiful blue feather attached to it. He was looking heroic in one word, and totally like a modern detective.
'I thought,' said Ionen 'that while solving a case, I must do this type of a getup. It affects my psychology, and my deducing skills work much faster and better. When I said these words to Mr. Richardson, he took me to a luxury salon and after that to a typical men's wears' shop and this was done. He forcefully did the entire payment.'
'Hey, that's great. You're looking too good. But General, why did you pay so much money, just for this reason.'
'Actually Mr. Nora, it is very important to solve this case. If my money went just behind improving Mr. Delbis' skills, I wouldn't call that a waste.'
'So nice of you Mr. Richardson.'
'Pray, now come with us to the jeep, Mr. Nora,'
In got up and went out with the General to the jeep. Ionen stayed back to pay the bill. The moment The General saw Ionen going to pay the bill, he rushed there and quickly paid the bill. We soon started our journey.
'Why did you never come to meet me this whole time in hospital, Ionen?' I asked.
He answered: 'We were busy investigating the house of the Macadam brothers.'
'Did you find out anything?'
'Sadly no. It was just like a normal house, just having all the normal household stuff. We didn't find any way to find out Cruisons' location.'
'Have you searched every angle of the house?'
'I think, yes. But now I am going to again search this house in spite of all my failures. Something is telling me that there is a big clue hiding in that house. I am going to find it out anyhow. And we are going there now. Shall we drop you in the house, or will you come with us?'
'Of course I will come with you guys.'
'Great.'
'And a question, are my industries still alive? All the important documents were burnt by that James Beard.'
'Yes the industries are still all right. It is working normally, except for the conference room which is under repair now.'
'How the hell is our company still alive after the destructions of those documents?'
'Well, it was an incident of about two years earlier that you told me that you didn't trust your Boss and Mr. Hammond to keep those documents safe. Thus one day you secretly went up to your Boss' desk, stole that document, took out its photo copy through the printer and kept the original papers back to that desk. You came home, hiding the papers in your bag. You took it out and kept it safely in the drawer under my study table. You might have forgotten that but I still remember.'
'Oh yes! I remember! Oh, you reminded me of Mr. Hammond. He was an old man who was a very good family friend of my father and later on my colleague. He used to smoke a lot! He died of throat cancer and after that Fred came in to service.'
We soon reached that house and got off the car. I and Ionen went together inside the house. It was a dirty one-floored house.
The ground floor, as mentioned earlier was just a stingy hall with those sofas. We went upstairs.
'Hmm,' uttered Ionen as he was scanning the floor for an hour or so.
He sat with depression on the chair. It was quite a shocking situation, when I saw Ionen's eyes glittering. I never saw his tears before.
'Why, why, why?' he cried 'Something is telling me that I am missing out a big thing. But what is that? I searched every angle of the house. Nothing to be found out.' He rubbed his eyes. I just stood there numb, unable to understand what to say. Ionen stood up and went up to the window.
'WHAT!!???' he cried.
He ran at full pace through my side. I followed him. He went down the stairs and then to the backyard of the house. That portion was indeed very mysterious.
In a portion of the grasses, there were two parallel rows in which the grasses were shorter compared to the others. There were a pair of cut ropes which were kept beside these two rows. In one side of these rows was the main building and in the other side there was the campus wall. The portion of the building just beside and a bit above the rows had a scratch. The campus wall just a bit front of these rows was a bit broken at the top and a small piece of metal was beneath that small breakage.
'Very interesting.' murmured Ionen.
He observed the place carefully by keeping on rotating around it. He observed every angle of the scene. He sat on his toe at some places and observed it carefully.
'Mark,' he finally spoke out 'what do you make of this abnormal phenomenon of these two parallel portions containing grass, which is shorter than the rest.'
'Mm… I guess that it is a scientific phenomenon only. You see, if a portion of any grassland, does not get enough sunlight, the grasses in that particular area face difficulty to grow and stay healthy. But I don't see any such way by which this portion won't get any sunlight.'
'Hey, I think I learnt that in school. But Mark, you are thinking the thing in a wrong way. There is indeed no way by which the grass won't get sunlight, but what if there was such a way.'
'Hmm, it is surely probable, but it looks to me very odd that there was a shed here in the past.'
'No, a shed is not necessary.'
'What do you mean?'
'You see, why will sunlight be blocked by a shed only? Think out of the box Mark. You see, light is blocked by an opaque substances, and a shed is an opaque substance, right? That is what you say.'
'Yes, of course. That's what I say.'
'But is a shed only an opaque substance in this diverse world? What if I say that two long poles or something like that was kept in this region for a long time?'
'Yes! You're correct! I didn't thought of it only. So next what?'
'Now if I say that an object with two long parallel stands was kept here?'
'Like?'
'A helicopter?? What do you think?'
'Yes, of course! There can be nothing else. But how did you find this thing so fast?'
'Do you see those scratches at the wall of the house, and do you see those cut ropes?'
'Hmm. What do you make of them Mr. Genius?'
Ionen didn't speak for some time. His face was down. I looked at his face and discovered that he was blushing a bit. But he finally revived himself and spoke out:
'You see, when finally the helicopter took its flight after long years, its blades stroke with that wall. It made that scratch. Now due to hitting that wall, the helicopter would continuously lose its balance and wouldn't take off. Thus, those ropes were used to prevent the plane for losing its balance.'
'Great deduction. Now what do you make of that broken portion of the campus wall and that small piece of iron just beneath it?'
'Whoever the pilot of the helicopter was, took a turn just after taking off and this left that small breakage. No one should turn a helicopter just after taking off. The stands of the helicopter collided with the wall. This made both the stand and the wall break a bit. Wait a minute!'
'What happened?'
'I think this is only the helicopter through which Mr. Macadam escaped with his gang. As the helicopter took off, it immediately turned north-west and flew straight up, as per the angles of the two rows and the breakage. Wait a second! From Moscow towards North-west, leads straight to the Finland border, if I remember the world map correctly.'
'Yes, you're correct. Do you mean that the gang is in the Finland border?'
'Yes! Remember what Hugo Macadam said? - "He doesn't have a passport. He won't try to escape Russia." Of course he tried to protect his brother. Moreover, the network in that region is good. Cruisons can easily have contact with Hugo. The number of igloos is also high and parents need to often leave their children alone. The gang can easily kidnap those children. The police forces in that region is also pretty low. The people are also poor and can't afford to buy devices to communicate with polices of other regions. C'mon, let's say this whole thing to the General.'
We quickly made our way to the dingy hall, where the General was investigating. We said the entire thing to The General. Firstly he did a lot of appreciation of Ionen's words. Then he was back to business in his professional way.
'We must communicate with the few forces of Finland to check out the border.' said The General.
'Yeah you're correct. Right away!' said Ionen.
We quickly went to the police station in the jeep. On our way, I asked Ionen:
'Ionen, how're you so sure that Cruisons is in the border?'
'It is mainly for my Geography knowledge. On the inner parts of this Finland, the population is pretty high, so kidnapping would be harder, and the police forces are also high.'
'Okay, okay, I see.'
We soon reached the police station and got down the jeep. The General quickly went towards the telephone.
'What was the number of the Finland's forces? Oh I forgot. Wait I guess it was written in the almanac.' The General quickly went towards the bookshelf and took out a dusty almanac.
'For god's sake,' said Ionen 'how can you remember these sort of numbers while you are so busy? Use your common sense my friend.'
'Mm….' murmured The General 'here it is, let me dial.'
The General dialed the number in the telephone.
'General, can you please set the phone in speaker mode?' said I.
He did that. We heard the phone ringing.
'Hello?' came the voice from within the phone. It was a very rough voice.
'Hello. Is it Comrade Nicolas?'
'Yes sir. You who?'
'It's me, General Richardson, head of the police forces of Moscow, Russia.'
'Oh, it's a pleasure to talk to you. How can I help you sir?'
'We have got an information that a dangerous criminal, Cruisons Macadam is hiding in the Finland-Russia border with his whole gang. We want you to check up the border once.'
'Yeah sure sir. We will surely arrest the criminal along with his entire gang.'
'Very good. Thank you sir. Good luck.' said the General and he hung up.
'Come on Mes Amis, let me take you back to your home.'
The General dropped us in our home. My parents ran up to me the moment I got inside.
'I'm happy to see you recover so finely my son.'
'Hey, thanks. I am glad I completely recovered myself.'
We had some light food that day in dinner. My heart filled with pleasure as I tasted the deliciousness of my mother's cooking after so many days.