Sigegard Ainsworth, Chapter 2

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A mystery serial presented as an homage to Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

Chapter Two: In which we make the acquaintance of my friend Sige, who has taken up the vocation of private detective in the morose corner of the world known as Western New York.

Excerpt

I said. “Your hosts have good taste in furniture. It’s all properly sized, proportioned, and made of solid wood, none of this cheap laminate that passes for home furnishing these days. I particularly like the maple end table, which contrasts with all the darker-colored wood and upholstery. I’ll bet it shines like the sun when the lamp is lit.”

“I haven’t noticed,” he said. The door to his apartment was ajar, so he pushed it open. Before I saw anything else, I saw maps. Maps adorned the walls. Atlases were piled on top of each other. Maps were in various states of furl, strewn everywhere. He turned.

“Holy moly,” I said. I felt my mouth gape.

“You’re judging.”

I replied, “Well, I should think so. Who couldn’t? I guess you like maps.”

“I’m in the middle of a research project,” he said. “But, yes, I like maps. Do come in.”

It became apparent immediately that he had arranged the maps on the wall so that the observer perceived that he was inside a world globe looking out.[1] “These are old National Geographic maps!” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” he said, pleased with himself. “My father subscribed to National Geographic for as long as I can remember, and since the 1970s, I have pinched every map they published.”

I turned around and around, marveling at the intricacies of his arrangement of the maps, dozens of them, cut and aligned just so, to bring forward the effect of internationalism and isolation simultaneously. The Pacific Ocean occupied most of the dinette.

“Fascinating,” I said. “So you decorate with maps, but do you have to clutter with maps as well?”

“Ah,” he said. “We come to it at last. You’ll observe that every map is either of Niagara County or of France. More specifically, Niagara County, beginning during its early settlement, particularly along the Niagara Escarpment, continuing down through the ages, and maps of France, contemporary to the time of this region’s early settlement.”

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[1] Not quite. Such an arrangement would have everything reversed from the way we’re used to observing, which would throw the observer into an intolerably disorienting condition—SA

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