In the meantime, I could see the drawing room filling up from my vantage point near the door.

The first person to enter was Panugopal. He made his way to a corner of the room as inconspicuously as possible and took a seat. He was followed by Nepalbabu and his daughter. They took seats towards the front of the room. The scorched side of Nepalbabu’s face was turned towards me, so I couldn’t decipher his expression, but Mukul had nervousness written all over hers. She looked around a little, then muttered something under her breath to her father.

The last one to enter was Bonolokhhi. Her face looked crushed by fatigue, drained of all vitality. She was probably handling the kitchen chores all by herself. When her eyes fell on Bonolokhhi, Mukul frowned with deep distaste and looked away. Bonolokhhi faltered a little. Then slowly, she moved to the open window and stood before it, clutching the bars and staring out into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Bijoy had returned. He sank into the chair vacated by Damayanti Devi. Wiping the sweat off his brow with the edge of his shawl, he said, ‘You may as well get my statement over with too.’

‘That would be fine,’ Byomkesh replied, ‘I have very little to ask you.’

I noticed that Bijoy had recovered somewhat from his earlier discomfiture during Damayanti Devi’s interrogation. But the very first question Byomkesh directed at him caught him unawares.

‘Some time ago, there was talk of marriage between you and Nepalbabu’s daughter Mukul,’ Byomkesh stated. ‘You were open to the idea at first, but then you changed your mind. Why was that?’

‘I … my … that is my own affair,’ Bijoy stammered. ‘It has nothing to do with Kaka’s death.’

Byomkesh fixed him with a brief stare before posing a different question. ‘After returning from the city the evening before last, why did you make a second trip to Calcutta right away?’ he inquired.

‘I had some work to do,’ Bijoy replied.

‘You don’t wish to disclose what it was?’

‘That too is my own business.’

‘Bijoybabu, I have no interest in matters pertaining to your private life. You have brought us here to inquire into your uncle’s death. Now if you of all people start keeping secrets from us, what’s the point of an investigation?’

‘But I’m telling you it has nothing to do with Kaka’s death!’

‘Wouldn’t it be better,’ Byomkesh countered, ‘if we were allowed to be the judge of that?’

I could see a conflict raging in Bijoy’s mind. Finally, he conceded defeat. He said, rather unhappily, ‘Fine, then hear me out. The evening before last, I returned from Calcutta to find a letter addressed to me—an anonymous letter. It said, “You are in deep trouble. If you don’t want to come to a sorry end, wait at the tea shop in Hogg Sahib’s market tonight at ten o’clock. You will come to know much about a certain person.” This was the note