The Five Fakirs of Faizabad by P. B. Kerr
“I haven’t noticed anything unusual,” said Nimrod.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m certain of it.”
Moo sighed.
“Look, Nimrod, I’m sorry to press you on this, but it was my understanding that the djinn are the self-appointed guardians of luck in the universe. That there are three good tribes who try to influence luck for the good and that there are three bad ones who try to do the reverse. And that there exists a balance of power that you call the Homeostasis, wherein there is neither too much good luck nor too much bad. Also, that there is a machine, a kind of clock called the tuchemeter, that constantly indicates the state of the Homeostasis. Am I correct?”
Nimrod nodded. “You state the matter perfectly, dear lady.”
“Then might I also inquire when you last looked at this tuchemeter?”
“In point of fact, there is not one, but several. I have one here in London, and I glanced at it this morning. I have another one at my other house in Cairo. If the one here in London were ever to stop working, then I could rely upon the one in Cairo to give a true indication of the current state of luck.”
Moo took off her glasses and began to clean them with her handkerchief. “And if the one here wasn’t working, then how would you know what the one in Cairo was saying?”
“Supposing that there appeared to be an excess of bad luck around,” said Nimrod, “then my servant Creemy would raise the alarm. Also, there is a larger, more sensitive tuchemeter in Berlin, but I’m afraid security forbids me to tell you more about that.”
“I quite understand,” said Moo. “And yet, at the same time, I don’t. Understand. You say you’ve noticed nothing unusual on the tuchemeter. Perhaps. But is it possible you cannot have noticed that the newspapers are full of so much doom and gloom?”
“That’s true,” said Nimrod. “However, just because something is in the newspapers doesn’t make it true. I tend to believe what’s on the tuchemeter rather more than what I see in the newspapers or on TV.”
Moo nodded. “Very wise.”
“Equally,” added Nimrod, “just because there is an excess of doom and gloom here in Britain and America does not mean that there is doom and gloom in Patagonia or Timbuktu. The world is a large place, Moo. Luck has a way of evening itself out. One man’s cloud is another’s silver lining.”
“Might it be possible to see this tuchemeter of yours?” asked Moo.
“Of course.”
Nimrod led Moo through to the back of the house. For a moment he remembered his young nephew and why he had gone to Bumby. Was it possible that what was happening in Bumby was connected with Moo’s visit?
He opened a door and showed her into a room where there were only two objects: a large, round clocklike instrument that was hanging on the wall, and facing it, an ornate-looking chair. The tuchemeter was made of gold and was about six feet in diameter. Three words were painted in large letters on the tuchemeter’s silver face: GOOD, BAD, and HOMEOSTASIS. The single hand, shaped like a muscular human arm with a human index finger, was pointing slightly to the BAD side of the word HOMEOSTASIS.
“It’s an exact replica of the larger one in Berlin,” explained Nimrod. “That one records the official amount of luck around the globe and gives the so-called BML: Berlin Meridian Luck.”
“Fascinating,” said Moo. “How does it work?”
“It may not look like it,” said Nimrod, “but it’s actually very scientific. Every day people all over the world get up and go through their day in one of two ways: They either smile or they don’t. If they’re feeling lucky they smile, and if they’re feeling unlucky they don’t. Their smiles, or frowns create tiny changes in the earth’s atmosphere that lead to larger-scale alterations of events, for good or bad. If someone smiles it affects the trajectory of the system one way, and if they frown it affects the system in another way. Luck isn’t quite as random as most people think.”
“How are those changes in atmosphere measured, and where?” asked Moo.
“There are several dozen locations all over the world where that happens,” said Nimrod. “Even I don’t know where they are. The measurements are taken by a special djinn binding called an animadverto, which brings the results to the tuchemeter every fifteen minutes. It’s the animadverto that decides where to go for its observations. Like a sort of telepathic opinion poll.”
“And how do you know if it’s working all right?”
Nimrod tapped the face of the tuchemeter with his fingernail, as if he had been correcting a barometer.
“Well, if this one wasn’t,” said Nimrod, “if it was giving a false reading, one of the other ones would show up the difference and —”
“Yes, I understand that,” said Moo. “I meant, suppose it was the measurements that were wrong, or the animadverto that was at fault. How would you know?”
“Quite simple,” said Nimrod. “To give a reading on this tuchemeter any animadverto has to travel through the atmosphere of this room. I should ask a mundane to simply throw a die a hundred times and see how many sixes he or she obtained. So close to the tuchemeter itself, I might expect to see any manifestation of good or bad luck — no matter how small — have an effect on the tuchemeter.”
“Do it,” said Moo.
“Dear lady, I can assure you that —”
“Please,” said Moo. “Indulge me, Nimrod.”
“Very well,” said Nimrod. He went to a special drawer under the seat of the chair and removed a cigar box containing just one die, and, handing Moo the die, he added, “I keep a die here for just this purpose, although I must confess it’s some time since I thought to measure the tuchemeter’s accuracy.”
“Can you memorize the results of all my throws?” Moo asked Nimrod.
“Easily,” said Nimrod.
“Now then,” said Moo. “You would expect each number from one to six to come up one time in six, plus or minus √(2n/6). If we throw a die one hundred times and get more than twenty-two sixes, or less than eleven sixes, then you can judge me either lucky or unlucky, yes?”
“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Nimrod. “And I must confess, I’m impressed with your knowledge of mathematics and probability.”
“You forget. I’m head of the King’s Gambling Board,” said Moo. “Gambling, luck, odds, probability all fall within my department’s scrutiny.”
Nimrod held the cigar box open for Moo and watched carefully as she began to throw the die. After a hundred throws it was clear to them both that Moo wasn’t enjoying much in the way of good luck.
“You threw only five sixes,” said Nimrod. “Half as many as the least number that might have been expected. It’s not your lucky day.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “It’s not looking good for my horse this afternoon if I can only manage five sixes. Why don’t I keep going and see if my luck improves?”
Nimrod, who could remember a thousand different numbers just as easily as a hundred, agreed.
But more than an hour later, after Moo had thrown the die another nine hundred times, it was clear her luck could never have been described as good: In a thousand throws she might have expected between 148 and 185 sixes. Instead, she had managed less than a hundred.
“Such a run of singularly bad luck so close to the tuchemeter,” said Nimrod, “ought to show up here, any moment now.”
He looked closely at the tuchemeter expecting to see some movement of the finger at the end of the arm, but there was nothing, not even a tremor. He waited for several minutes during which time Moo said nothing. Finally, Nimrod said, “That’s odd. There’s nothing at all. Not so much as a flicker.” And then he added, “Excuse me for a moment.”
Nimrod left the room and was gone for several minutes; when he came back he was carrying a hand mirror that was the size of a table-tennis paddle.
“Many people believe that breaking a mirror means seven years’ bad luck,” said Nimrod. “With us djinn, it has to be the right kind of mirror. Each of u
Moo nodded. “You’re not asking me to break a mirror deliberately?” she said.
“I’m afraid I am,” said Nimrod.
“You ask a great deal,” said Moo, “of someone as superstitious as me.”
“It’s the only way to know for sure if something is wrong with the results we’re getting on this tuchemeter. Perhaps on all of them.”
“I suppose it was me who started this inquiry,” said Moo. “I suppose it had better be me who answers it.”
She took the mirror and looked at it for several seconds before she shrugged and then dropped the mirror onto the floor, where it shattered into a hundred small pieces. Even as Moo did it she let out a large sigh of self-reproach and told herself that in the light of what she had just done it now seemed so unlikely that her horse stood any chance of winning its race that she was thinking of telephoning her trainer and telling him to leave the animal in its stable.
Nimrod scrutinized the silver face of the tuchemeter for some sign that the almost-palpable bad luck that now seemed to affect the room would show up in some small movement of the finger at the end of the instrument’s arm.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Most peculiar. I really thought that you breaking a mirror would do it. But this seems to put it beyond argument. You were right. There is something wrong here.”
“I do wish I wasn’t,” said Moo. “And I wish I hadn’t had to break that mirror.”
“Can’t help you with the first wish,” announced Nimrod. “But I can grant the second. And indeed a third. QWERTYUIOP!”
Immediately after he spoke his focus word, the tiny shards of glass lifted themselves up off the ground and began to reassemble themselves like some celestial jigsaw puzzle. For a moment a little galaxy of glass seemed to rotate in the air like a spiral nebula, and then became a mirror that was in Moo’s hand once more.
Moo was so surprised that she almost dropped the mirror again.
“Oh, I say,” she exclaimed. “How wonderful. Does this mean I won’t have seven years’ bad luck after all?”
“Yes, it does,” said Nimrod. “You might also place an extra-large bet on that horse you’ve entered in the Gold Cup this afternoon. I’ve a very strong feeling it’s going to win. In fact, I can guarantee it.”
“Capital.” Moo chuckled loudly. “Capital.”
“Now then,” said Nimrod. “Let’s go and finish our tea and you can tell me exactly what made you think there was something wrong with the Homeostasis in the first place.”
CHAPTER 6
THE MENDICANT FAKIRS OF BENGAL
No sooner had Nimrod and Moo returned to the drawing room than there was a loud knock at Nimrod’s front door.
“Who can that be?” said Nimrod.
Opening the door, he was delighted to find his young niece, Philippa, standing on the doorstep and carrying a suitcase. She was looking sunburnt and was wearing a T-shirt that read WHEN IN ROME.
“Excellent,” said Nimrod. “You’ve arrived back at a most opportune time. I suspect another adventure is afoot.”
“Afoot,” said Philippa. “Oh. And I was hoping to put my feet up for a little while. I’m kind of tired after my flight.”
“No time for being tired at a time like this, child,” said Nimrod, as he hurried her inside. “I fear that there’s important work to be done.”
“Don’t you want to hear how it went?” she asked him. “My taranushi?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” said Nimrod. “There’s someone here I want you to come and meet. Someone who has just brought me important news.”
He explained that something seemed to be wrong with the tuchemeter and then introduced Philippa to Moo.
“I think,” said Nimrod, prompting the KGB section head, “that you were about to tell me what made you think that there’s an abnormally large amount of bad luck around at the moment.”
“I don’t just mean the stock market,” said Moo, “although things have been bad there. For business in general. I mean everything.”
“Everything?” Nimrod sounded surprised.
“I don’t know how much you pay attention to these things, Nimrod,” explained Moo, “but recently it was Friday the thirteenth. It’s not unusual for a few superstitious people to stay at home on a day like that, but this year employers reported a twenty percent increase in the numbers of employees reporting sick on Friday the thirteenth. Not just here in Great Britain, but in America and Canada as well. It wasn’t just individual employees who were reacting to a perception that there is more bad luck around, either. NASA refused to launch a new satellite on Friday the thirteenth. And the president of the United States postponed a visit to Dallas, Texas, that was due to have taken place on Friday the thirteenth.”
“Probably very wise,” said Nimrod. “After all, you never know with Dallas. Fascinating. A certain amount of paraskavedekatriaphobia is not, as you say, unusual. But it seldom manifests itself at such a high level.”
“Para, what?” exclaimed Philippa.
“Paraskavedekatriaphobia,” said Nimrod without so much as a stammer. “An abnormal fear of Friday the thirteenth. A specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, which is a simple fear of the number thirteen. Also sometimes known as friggatriskaidekaphobia.”
“Precisely,” said Moo.
Philippa nodded and decided that if ever she decided to change her focus word, paraskavedekatriaphobia might just be the word she would choose.
“Meanwhile,” continued Moo, “the cities of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Macao, and Monte Carlo are reporting that the number of people entering casinos is down by almost thirty percent. And the sales of lottery tickets are in steep decline. In other words, people just don’t feel lucky. Also, the sales of cars that are the color green — traditionally a color that some people find unlucky — have dropped through the floor. People are even missing doctor’s appointments for fear of being told bad news, or canceling flights, worried that the plane might crash.”
“It’s true,” confirmed Philippa. “The flight from Rome to London was half empty. And you’re right. No one was wearing green.”
“For this reason the British government has been monitoring the situation carefully.” Moo opened her briefcase and took out a buff-colored file. “This is top secret.”
“You can speak freely in front of Philippa,” said Nimrod.
“Just last week,” said Moo, “we arrested three men in London. One was in possession of a large quantity of fake railway timetable books. It’s thought he intended to distribute them throughout the country with the intention of making everyone miss their trains and be late for work. The other two had recently opened a self-improvement center for company employees, to teach people personal growth through fire walking.”
“You mean barefoot?” said Philippa.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Moo. “Many people manage it quite successfully, too. Only these two suspects were planning something rather more sinister. They planned on encouraging people to do it without first offering them any kind of psychological preparation on how to do it. We narrowly managed to save about a hundred people from badly burning their feet.”
“Ouch,” said Philippa.
“An idea mundanes got from us, Philippa,” explained Nimrod. “In previous times, your taranushi would also have involved walking across live coals.”
“These are the three men we arrested.” Moo opened the file and showed Nimrod the pictures of three miserable-looking men holding numbers underneath their chins. “Mr. Puri, Mr. Parvata, and Mr. Sagara,” she said. “Of course they deny being part of some larger conspiracy. In fact, they refuse to say anything at all. All we know for sure is that they seemed bent on creating mischief.”
“Interesting,” said Nimrod.
“I wondered if you might be able to get anything out of them,” said Moo. ?
“You mean a quaesitor?” Nimrod shook his head. “No, I don’t think that would work at all. Not with these three. You see, those three names. They’re significant. One name I might hardly have noticed. But those three together. Well, it rings a bell, so to speak.”
“You mean you know them?”
“No, I don’t know them. But I know those names.”
“You’re being cryptic, Nimrod,” said Moo. “Like the Times crossword.”
“I don’t mean to be,” said Nimrod. “Those names belonged to three of the ten great fakirs. Long dead, of course. Which makes it all the more probable that these men are mendicant fakirs.”
He sprang up off his chair and went over to his bookshelves.
“What, pray, is a mendicant fakir?” asked Moo.
“I was wondering the same thing myself,” admitted Philippa.
“Centuries ago in India,” said Nimrod, “fakirs were religious mystics who sought to imitate the powers of djinn by gaining great control over their own bodies. Walking through fire, lying on a bed of nails, going without food or water for many months were common physical hardships endured by these fakirs in search of true enlightenment. Over the years, however, fakirs became more interested in making money than in a wish to be closer to God. As common street beggars, or mendicants, they were little more than a nuisance. We might call them frauds or con men today, or even fake fakirs. Anyway, as they grew in number they became more and more lawless. Indeed, they became virtual bandits until, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, they were suppressed by the British.
“Ah, here it is.” Nimrod pulled a thin green volume out of his library. “Sannyasi and Fakir Raiders in Bengal, compiled by the Bengal Civil Service in 1930.” He opened the book’s cover and read the inscription written inside. “‘The Kent Walton Prize for Wrestling with the School Puma awarded to Nimrod Plantagenet, Charterhouse, 1949.’“ Nimrod smiled. “Happy days.”