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Despite all my anxious goading, the sun was beginning to set as we sped north, passing Pattaya to our left. My brain was like a big pan of eggs by this time, all mixed up with thoughts and emotions; I was pissed off at myself for wasting my time down south, angry at having let Jerry spot me, but also excited over figuring out the list. I crawled around in the back seat like a damned monkey the whole way. My driver seemed a little disappointed when I told him not to stop at Pattaya, and instead, continue up Suhkumvit for Chon Buri. I got the distinct feeling he would be glad to get rid of me before I pissed myself in his cab. Besides, he had a door lock to fix thanks to me.

The courtyard of the third victim’s apartment building was covered in long shadows as we arrived. The crowds from the previous night were gone and an eerie silence enveloped the place. My driver started to babble about ghosts and bad spirits so I paid him and let him go. I’d get a ride back with Sorkan when he arrived.

As the taxi sped away, a little chill ran through me. I suddenly felt very alone. Down in the street, passers-by peered fearfully up at the cavernous concrete eyesore, but up there in the courtyard, I was the only soul. I got the creepy sense that I was being watched. Probably just a resident junkie peering down at me from one of the balconies, I told myself. But this was little comfort.

I mustered my courage and picked my way around the pile to where Sorkan and I had found the pay-stub. I curled and twisted the peek of my cap furiously. The sky darkened, the shadows lengthened, and I found myself in a dim corner between the rubbish pile and the building. I quickly found what I had come for. The books. They still lay where we had abandoned them during the riot.

I was certain now that they must have belonged to the third victim. My instincts told me that Sorkan had been right. This poor fellow had been a man with some smarts. He was well read anyway.

“Probably too poor to get proper schoolin’,” I muttered, “Reason enough right there for the poor wretch to turn to drugs.”

My mood grew heavy as I went through them. I could tell this fella probably had more smarts than me. There were plays by that Shakespeare guy, poetry by somebody named Poe and histories of both Europe and ancient Greece. As well, there were volumes on science: chemistry, geology, biology, and one book (to my delight) on gemmology! -- A word whose meaning I had recently come to know. Gemmology! The science of gem stones!

I was suddenly so consumed by my discoveries that I had become oblivious to the dark gloom engulfing me. For this is what I had come for. I stood and hastily started leafing through it to discover what it could tell me about its former owner. One page was dog-eared. In the dimness I struggled to make out the words. It was something about southern ! I turned to capture the dim moonlight.

And there it was. One word jumped out at me from the page: geuda.

A flash of spinning death spun past my face! With a terrifying ‘thunk’ a dagger sunk itself into some discarded wood behind me.

“Holy shit!” I yelled.

Dropping the book, I turned as a shadow started toward me. The glint of a second dagger was all I could distinguish. If it were indeed mortal man that stalked me (and not some vengeful phantom from the afterlife) he was bigger than me, and he had a fucking knife!

I turned and scrambled for safety. I ran breathlessly, stumbling and tripping over sodden bags of trash all the way. I could here the blood pumping in my ears. Strewn amid the stench of garbage, an oddly sweet pungency tickled my senses. Looking back, I saw the shadow break into a run after me. I plunged deeper into the recess between rubbish and building.

Dear God, let there be a way to get around the pile!

The path got narrower. The sound of footsteps behind me was relentless. A wall of garbage rose to my right, the unforgiving concrete wall of the apartment block to my left. The way was blocked by an infested old couch. I thought I heard distant shouting. I dove headlong over the couch and rolled through a squalid mass of rubbish.

“Mr. Spanner!” came a familiar voice.

I looked up at the puzzled face of Captain Sorkan.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“A man with a knife!” I gasped jumping to my feet. “He was right behind me! Just missed me with a throwing knife! Came after me with another one! He was going to kill me!”

But Sorkan was already charging, pistol drawn, into the darkness. He hurdled the old couch and I reluctantly followed him back behind the pile. We ran all the way back round to where the books lay.

“No sign of the scoundrel,” muttered Sorkan. “Must have heard me calling to you.”

I finally got to take a full breath. “Thank God for that! If you hadn’t showed up, he might have had me!” I glanced at the spot where the throwing knife had landed. “It’s gone!”

“What’s gone, Mr. Spanner?”

“The knife he threw at me. It struck this piece of wood and sunk in a good inch! I’m not shitting you!”

“Unfortunate. It would have borne fingerprints, as well as other clues. He must have retrieved it in his retreat.”

“Oh my God! The book is gone too!” I gasped.

“What book?”

“A book on gemmology. I found it among these others. It had belonged to the victim! I’m sure of it now!”

“Gemmology?”

“Yes!” Hastily I pulled the crumpled list from my pocket. “This list! Like I said on the phone, I think they’re all Bangkok gem dealers. Some of these are just the names of the proprietor, others are company names, but my bet is that they’re all gem dealers.” I handed him the list.

“I’ll get on these first thing in the morning,” said Sorkan. “If your suspicions are true, they shouldn’t be that hard to track them all down. I thank you Mr. Spanner. A fine piece of detective work there.”

“On the phone you said you had news of the leper,” I said.

“Indeed, I have. In fact I saw him myself!”

“You’re kidding!”

“Last night after I dropped you off, I couldn’t resist swinging past the Laem Chebang custom’s yard on my way home. There he was. Once again set up across the street where he could keep a watchful eye on the goings on within.”

“Last night?”

“Yes, Mr. Spanner. I too thought that three o’clock in the morning was an odd time for a beggar to be out trying to earn his keep, so I stopped to question him.”

“What did you find out?”

“That he’s no leper. Or if he is, he's an extraordinarily fast one! At the sight of me, he bolted across a vacant lot, bounded over a chain link fence like a gymnast, and disappeared into the night.”

“Wow!”

“Yes. It would seem that his business there had more to do with watching the customs officers at work than with begging.”

“Has your search of the customs records turned anything up yet?” I asked.

“Perhaps it has. As I have mentioned, there was no single importer or exporter who’s shipments (in the specific custom’s yards where the respective victims worked) coincided with all of the murders. However, I noted the records of out-bound shipments with the notation: ‘extremely fragile – glass’ that did all fall into the correct time frames. They included the shipments of seventeen different exporters. I tracked down all of them and obtained detailed lists of the products that they shipped on those days. Given the vast variety of nick-nacks and baubles that they all shipped, there were several items that were common to at least a half dozen of these exports. There was only one item however, shipped by three completely unrelated exporters, that corresponded to the three time windows. …And, I might add, were also present in the customs yard shipments last night at Laem Chebang!” He pulled out a glass orb exactly like the one I’d found in the Chantiburi shop.

“Shit man!” I yelled. “Those fucking glass baseballs!”

“Not quite baseballs,” continued Sorkan, “But decorative glass orbs. Not bad sellers in American gift and novelty shops they tell me.”

Adventure of the Blue Carbuncles will continue next week.