OPENING THE RIGHT DOOR

Reading the prompt made me think of the famous novel LADY OR THE TIGER By Stockton: A certain king to punish crimes would place the offender in an arena with two doors. Behind one of them is a hungry tiger, behind the other a beautiful maiden. The offender would take his chance to wed or be devoured by the tiger depending on which door he chose to open signifying  happiness or ruin. We face many dilemmas in life: Which property do I buy? Which woman do I marry and so on. In the process some face the hungry tiger. I will tell you about the case of John, a young stock broker. He had the option to buy the old mansion KENILWORTH. It was a spacious structure built nearly a century ago and was dilapidated. Buying itself would mean investing a lot of money. It would wipe out whatever liquidity he could command. Then would come the investment on demolition of the structure, and building on it. He thought long and hard. Would he be able to convince banks to advance money for the construction of a multi-storey complex on the site where KENILWORTH stood? If not, it would mean total ruin as far as he was concerned.

John thought that no risk would mean no gain. On the other hand with the money he had he could get married to his fiancée Rita and they could go on an extended honeymoon in a foreign country. John was courageous and decided to take the risk. He would buy KENILWORTH with his money. And find the money for construction on the site. Before deciding he consulted the realty investor Abdulla.

Abdulla was seated in his office on the 6^th floor of the building he had constructed. He welcomed John and after a little personal talk John said “Abdulla, I’m thinking of buying KENILWORTH.”

Abdulla tugged at his beard and said “It was offered to me but I decided against it as it is located outside the city and may take time to develop. Also to build on such a big area you would need a lot of money.”

“Do you know how that mansion came to be built?”

“I’ve only heard about it. An Englishman named Col.Hamilton is said to have built it. Apparently he had faced many problems in life and had left India in desperation leaving the property  to one of his descendants. The successor or successors had lived in the mansion for a while. Then it was allowed to lie abandoned. They say it’s ghost ridden.” He laughed and added “That is nonsense. Make holes in the ground and bury pig’s meat and ghosts will vanish.”

John merely smiled at the simple Islamic solution. He then sought Abdulla’s opinion about the purchase when he was told “I don’t advise it. It would only spell ruin.”

John immediately had second thoughts about buying the property. He consoled himself thinking that even if he lost on the deal he had his job and could survive. No risk no gain he reminded himself. With paper work formalities completed, KENILWORTH was his.

He toured the mansion and got one of the bedrooms operational as he wanted to see how Hamilton had lived here. The first night he spent sleeping peacefully. The next day he brought his fiancée Rita and her brother Desmond a house demolition expert to see the place. Desmond said “The structure is old and can easily be brought down as cement hasn’t been used.”

Rita said “I wish this house is renovated as I love the layout.”

John laughed. Only he knew the risk he was taking!

The next night as John lay dreaming he thought he saw an underground cavern with dead bodies in it and was surprised. He knew he was buying a very old mansion and who knows, there could be bodies buried within it! He consulted Desmond who said “John old buildings have their secrets. I demolished an old house near the harbour and found buried inside 3 bodies, a man, a woman and a child. I reported to police who took no notice as we had only found skeletons and the house had changed hands several times in its probably century old existence. You don’t have to worry if you find skeletons underneath.”

Surveying the place John felt there could be something underground below the ballroom. He spoke to Desmond and the next Sunday Desmond came with equipment. The ballroom floor was excavated but nothing was found.

John gave the demolition work to Desmond. The work started with demolition of outhouses and other peripheral structures. The ballroom was then demolished. When the green room was being dug up the workers found an underground chamber. Desmond said “This could’ve been the place where the owners had perhaps buried their valuables for safety.”

Further digging under the green room found nothing except an old casket. Desmond opened it and saw it contained something made of stone. John said “Desmond don’t throw it away. I’ll keep it as a souvenir of KENILWORTH.”

Desmond said “I wonder why this piece was stored in a casket. The casket has been nicely made probably of ivory.”

“Well, it could be a museum piece.”

John cleaned the casket and the carving and made  photographs of the piece. He wondered if it could be a museum piece and sent the pictures to Sothebys, the art dealers.

Thr firm replied: ‘Dr.Warner our consultant is now in Bhutan and will be in India a a week. You could get him to examine the piece. He has been told about your find.’

Dr.Warner came as per his schedule. He had with him an illuminated magnifier and certain other gadgets. He surveyed the stone article.

Warner said “This is a part of an Egyptian sarcophagus and was probably gold covered. The gold has obviously been removed. It was probably from Tutankhamen’s tomb excavated by Howard Carter. It is possible this is the gold covered piece which was stolen from the artefacts shipped by Carter from Egypt to his home in England. It could be a valuable piece as shown by the way it was contained in the ornate casket.”

John asked “How much do you think it would fetch in an auction?”

Warner laughed and said “I’m unable to answer, but pieces like these from King Tut’s tomb are now more than a million dollars.”

John called Desmond and Rita and told them about the piece from King Tut’s tomb and its value. John said “I was wondering how to raise money to build on the site of KENILWORTH. I’ve the answer.”

He later told Rita about the story LADY OR TIGER and said “I can’t believe it. I haven’t opened the door to the tiger! My decision was right. We could surely go on a holiday I had planned.”

She was happy.

END