Mystery of the Disappearing DOS

by Ignatius Filchworthy

On Thursay, our Director of Studies, Mr Richard Keyhorn, was nowhere to be found. In the beginning, this was of little cause for concern, as Rick's well-known nocturnal activities, benignly overlooked by the school directors (owing no doubt to his sometime burning of midnight oil to help them with written work) often kept him away from his seat of power when he was supposed to be on the job. Most of us teachers overlooked these lapses, as well, since we could carry on doing the jobs we well enough knew how to do without  any special comment or directives from the DOS. Actually, old Rick was not a bad sort, but you may be certain that no one in the Our Lady of Ubiquitous Tears Secondary School was going to go seek him out, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. It just wasn't wise, unless one were a glutton for additional work, which the school had no plan, nor indeed any intention, to pay us for.

Come the following Monday, however, with the DOS still not turning up, a feeling of panic began to churn up everywhere, rather like one's manic father (if you had one like that) not beating the daylights out of you for so many days you actually thought you were missing it! Anyway, one by one, we teachers were called in on our breaks to see Sister Srisuda, who was trying to find out who knew what about Rick's disappearance. On the way to my own appointment, I passed two of our school's three famous statues of the Virgin Mary, and was reminded instantly of the aptness of our school's name, as one of them was again bleeding its red liquid copiously. "Our Lady of Ubiquitous Tears", indeed. Funny, though. This now famous "bleeding" seemed to have started only about three years ago, at about the same time we had more teachers resigning than usual, and now the phenomenon tended to resume only at times when other teachers turned over, as well. Seeing this steady oozing of "blood", as it's called, I was wondering foolishly enough if this might be an "omen" somehow about our DOS, Rick, when from among the horde of suddenly freed Thai student interns, emerged "Bik", who was one of my third-hour level two students.

Now, "Bik", as he likes to be called, is normally the self-appointed "clown of the class" type, bright enough, but who'd rather ring up a laugh than take anything seriously from a doddering old Westerner like me (I'm all of 37)! On this occasion, though, I was startled at his rather nervous expression, and by the fact that he suddenly grabbed hold of both my legs to impede my progress and pulled my head down to his level, whereupon he proceeded towhisper to me as though his very life were in danger.

"Acharn, Iggie, I have to talk to you now! It is really important. I afraid. I know... teacher, please come with me now. I must talk."

Totally distracted by all this, and fearful myself of arriving late to see the Sister, I was not at all impressed with this new antic on my class clown's part.  In this state of mind, I'm afraid I was a bit short with him as I said, "Bik, let go of my legs! I'm in a hurry! If you want to talk, I'll see you for a few minutes before the class starts tomorrow. Now let go!"

I then struggled to free myself, and he, startled himself at my sudden vehemence, let me go, though I would have sworn he was about ready to cry. Momentarily puzzed, I nonetheless hurried on to the Sister's office, and soon forgot about everything except my concern regarding the whereabouts of Rick, while wondering what antics of his own that lofty one might be up to.

Sister Srisuda's office was about as one might imagine, fairly large, with course papers, files and exam sets cluttering her desk and class schedules and other bits and pieces she must have thought important pasted or pinned on all the walls of the room. She was, we supposed, in her early fifties, of medium height and slightly overweight build, and had a few gray streaks in her short, but never styled, hair. Her face, nonetheless was kindly, deceptively so, as was her cultivated and smooth speech, which also, one may be sure, incorporated a tone of authority that implied dire consequences should one foolishly fail to heed her instructions or meaning.

"Sit down, Mr Filchworthy," she said, taking, it seemed, a near-smiling relish in lingering on the tones of my unfortunate surname. "We'd like you to tell us what you know, or what you think might have happened, regarding the matter of Mr Keyhorn not coming to work." Saying this, she waved to one of her office staff to bring me a glass of ice water. This was the treatment reserved only for special guests, or for very special occasions only. Somehow, it didn't make me feel that important, though, at least not then.

While the girl was pouring my water and I was collecting my thoughts, my ever-sharp powers of observation revealed that Father Bernardo was also present in the room, having been seated in back of the Sister. He now turned to face me, while also moving as nearly alongside the Sister as he could, so as to enable himself, one could think, to communcate something speechless with her if he wished to.

Father Bernardo was himself quite an enigma, being fast of speech and rarely the good listener it seemed one would normally expect a priest to be, at least on hearing confessions. A bit red-complexioned and always presenting a rather surly "poker face" regardless of circumstances or emotion, Father Bernardo was of full, but not overly full, build, slightly taller than average, and carried a miniature bible around with him in his coat or shirt pocket at all times, or so it appeared. He also had a reputation among us teachers that he wouldn't be proud to learn about, I'm sure: namely that of thief. Well, maybe "thief's" too strong a word, but not to hear some of the city's better language schools tell it, who supplied their own teachers to us only to lose the best ones to Father Bernado's "better offer" (and Sunday School approach, if I might express it that way). Indeed, lawsuits were going on now, and this pattern had been repeated far too often to be a matter of chance, though few of our less-informed teachers actually felt any sympathy for the supplying schools, as they usually looked on these contemptuously as being "agents" preying on helpless teachers – something we "veterans" knew was very far from being the case, generally.
In any event, Father Bernardo now cleared his throat officiously, and said to me, "We understand you were out with Mr Keyhorn the night before his disappearance. Is that true?" (No beating about the bush, here!)

"No, Father," I replied. "We had in fact discussed going bowling with a couple of ladies we knew, and I had even brought in my own bowling ball the day before. It's still in the bottom of my locker. However, at just before 2.30 on that Wednesday, he stopped by my classroom to tell me an emergency had come up and he had to call off the date. He didn't say what it was, and I just went in and taught my class, and never thought much more about it until later on."

Father Bernardo's and Sister Srisuda's resulting solemnity seemed to suggest that they might be somewhat sceptical of my response, but they did not challenge it, nor did they pursue the matter any further. "Do you think Rick" (she now used his informal name) "Do you think Rick was unhappy with me or any of our priests, staff or teachers? We are really beginning to miss him." I reckoned she probably was, and I assured her and the Father that as far as I knew he was quite happy at our school. Having then answered a few more rather innocent seeming questions, I was preparing to take my leave and return to my students when Father Bernardo ordered me point blank, "Unless you have any objection, Filchworthy, I would like you and another teacher to pay a visit to Mr Keyhorn's apartment this evening, and see what you can find out." I readily agreed, you may be sure, as my friend Bill Wakely and I had already discussed doing exactly that.

After finally locating Rick's apartment building that evening, Bill and I entered almost guiltily, as one might wisely do when calling on one's boss without an appointment. Climbing the stairs, we found ourselves nearing the second level of the building when something that sounded like a gunshot sounded and echoed, and after that we heard a door slam, hard. A Thai girl cursed in a loud voice. Bill and I nonetheless continued up the stairs, but rather cautiously and quietly, as anyone might, I think.

When we reached the third level of the building (Rick lived in apartment 305), all in the building was silent, except that as we were approaching Rick's door, a Thai girl in apartment number 302 opposite came rushing out speaking almost incoherently. "Rick not in!" she said. "Rick go out, never come back. I think he meet girl. He good man. I like very much. He help me English. You go away now. Him go out."

As we continued to approach Rick's apartment despite her entreaty, she grew almost frantic. "Him out!" she yelled. "You not bother room him. Him not home. Him out."

Naturally, we knocked on Rick's door anyway, while she stared angrily at us. "What is your name?" Bill asked her. "My name Wan. Who you?" "We're teachers, too," I said, "We are worried about Rick and we're trying to find him." "Him not here," she said, almost in tears, and suddenly went back inside her apartment.  The door did not slam, though.

After that, from somewhere in the building, it was impossible to tell where, we heard the sound of what seemed to be a child, or maybe a woman, crying very softly. Not, unsurprisingly, we received no answer to our knock, and though not expecting to find Rick's door unlocked, I nonetheless reached my hand forward to see if the door knob would turn. Seeing this, however, Bill, a former New York City cop, immediately grabbed my arm firmly and ordered, "Use a handkerchief. We don't know what has happened and we must not mess up anything for the police." Good thought, I acknowledged, so using my handkerchief I tried the knob and, lo and behold, it actually starting turning! The door seemed enormously heavy as I pushed against it with the knob, however, and through the blackness something that smelled very bad began to make us feel ill, very ill indeed.

That is all I remember until I woke up in a hospital bed the next morning.