"Correct. Now since that is the only place in this godforsaken tunnel that is different, is it not reasonable to expect that there is a reason for its being different? A reason such as that plaque being on the wall?"
"I guess that's logical," Remo allowed.
"But that's not all," Chiun said.
"It never is," Remo said.
"Why would that plaque being there ..." Chiun pointed to the wall where Terri Pomfret, oblivious
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to both of them, had finished scrubbing the encaked dirt from the golden plaque, "... Cause any change in the amount of powder there?" Chiun pointed to the floor at Terri's feet.
"Little Father?" Remo said.
"What?"
"Damned if I know," said Remo. "Or care."
"You are hopeless," Chiun said and walked away down the tunnel.
And because he didn't want Chiun to think he was hopeless, Remo tried to think, really think, about the significance of less powder on the floor. What could it mean? Had someone removed the powder? But why had they removed it in that spot? If they had, didn't it mean that someone knew the plaque was there?
He tried to think about it but his mind kept drifting away. Even in the semidarkness of the tunnel, he could see clearly because his eyes opened wide, like a cat's, to pull in every mote of available light. It was a matter of simple muscular control to one of Sinanju, a thing that even cheap cameras and binoculars were able to do, but that most people, whose eyes contained the most brilliantly devised lenses ever seen on earth, found impossible to imitate.
With his light-absorbing vision, he watched Terri Pomfret's rear end jiggle as she scrubbed away at the plaque and he soon forgot to think about the plaque and pleasantly thought about Terri's rear end.
He felt no guilt. It had often been his experience that when he tried to think about things, he could never think his way through them, but when he
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allowed himself to forget them, then the answer to the problem often jumped into his mind of its own accord. As if it were just waiting there, ready to solve itself, but it just wouldn't do it until he stopped bothering jt'.
Maybe that would happen now and he would impress Chiun. But it wouldn't happen if he kept staring at Terri Pomfret's rear end, clad tightly in faded blue denims whose softness seemed only to hint at the softness under them, whose velvet texture he could almost feel under his fingers, whose. . . .
He concentrated on the limestone powder on the floor. He saw Chiun coming back down the tunnel toward them. And he heard Terri say, "Oooohhhh." It was a long, sad, disappointed sound and when she turned to face Reino, her face was sitting Shiva.
"What's the matter?" he said.
"It isn't here," she said.
"What's new?" Remo said. "It hasn't been anywhere we've gone."
"This is new," Terri said. "It's not here and it's not anywhere."
Bullfights were really rather dull. Oh, perhaps they were all right for Spanish heathen who liked to see miniature men in tights and ballet shoes dancing around in front of a dumb beast, but somehow it left Spencer's blood unmoved.
"Ole, indeed," he muttered to himself. The crowd hushed as the matador drew the short curved sword from under the muleta. Slowly, holding the small cape at waist height and peering down the length of the sword which he held near his shoulder, the
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torero advanced on the poor confused bull, which stood in the middle of the arena, bleeding, sweating, tormented. If the beast had had a brain to wonder with, he would be wondering why he was being taunted by this young jackrabbit, Spencer thought, even as the bull, with the bravery born of stupidity, charged the red cape one more time and the matador plunged the curved blade down behind the bull's neck, and rolled off to the left to escape the bull's right horn. The blade curved down, severing the spinal cord and piercing a lung before cutting into the beast's giant heart.
The bull stopped leadenly in its tracks, and then, like a newsreel film of an exploded building collapsing, seemed to come apart in sections. First it dropped to its knees and then its rear legs collapsed and then it coughed, a hacking spray of blood that spotted the sand for fifteen feet in front of his body, and then it pitched onto its side and quietly, heroically, stupidly died.
The crowd leaped to its feet cheering for the torero who now strutted around the ring, looking up at the spectators, waving his hat to the ladies, curiously mincing in his walk, as the fans shouted their approval of his bravery in the face of death.
And Commander Hilton Marmaduke Spencer, O.G., K.L.M., D.S.C., thought it was all kind of disgusting and pointless, fit only for the brutish unwashed, and got up from his chair and started downstairs to kill people.
Tern looked away from Remo to Chiun. "It says there's no gold," she said. She turned back
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toward the plaque and illuminated it with the flash light in her hand. "It says "
Chiun spoke softly. "It says 'Look no further. The gold is no more. You will not find it.' "
Terri wheeled around. "How did you know?"
"It was many years ago," Chiun said, "in the time of the Master Hup To. He came to Hamidia to do something for the chief of the golden people there. That master learned the language of the people and masters pass these things along." He looked at Remo. "Except some masters who are so unfortunate as to have no one to pass wisdom along to. The life of some is spent in having to shout into cracks in mountains, wishing they were ears."
"I've got it," Remo yelled.
"Keep it," Chiun said.
Terri asked Chiun, "Why didn't you tell me you read ancient Hamidian?"
"Because it was not necessary. You have translated all correctly and have missed nothing. Until now," Chiun said.
"No, I've really got it," Remo yelled again. He got to his feet.
"Be quiet," Terri said. She asked Chiun, "What have I missed?"
Do you not notice something strange about the carvings that made these letters?" Chiun asked.
"No," Terri answered slowly. "They're all the same. Wait."
"That's it," Remo said, "they're all the same." He talked fast so no one would interrupt. "They're all the same because they were all written by the same person. That's why there's less powder on
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the ground under the plaque. Because somebody disturbed it when he came here to hang the plaque. That's why. It was probably the same guy who hung the plaques all over. That's how it was. I figured it out. Me." He looked at Chiun, who ignored him and looked at Terri. Then Remo looked at Terri, who ignored him to look at Chiun.
Terri said, "The writing's exactly the same. That shouldn't be. There should be differences if the plaques were engraved by different people at different times. They were all written by just one person."
"Exactly," Chiun said.