Three

The next morning, at around nine o’clock, a motorcar arrived and stopped in front of our house. Byomkesh, lifting his face from the newspaper, furrowed his brow. “Pandeyji—so early!”

A moment later, Pandeyji entered our baithak-khana. Dressed in police uniform, his face grave. In response to Byomkesh’s questioning gaze, he said, “Dipnarayan Singh has died.”

We stared at him, dumbfounded, as if the words had not quite sunk in.

“Died?”

“Ratikanta just telephoned. This morning, Dr. Palit had come to give Dipnarayan Singh an injection. The moment the injection was administered, he died. I am going there now. Will you come?”

Without a word, Byomkesh threw his shawl over his shoulder. I too rose.

“Let’s go.”

As the motorcar rattled along, the scenes of last night replayed in my mind. I had seen Dipnarayan Singh only once, but had taken a liking to him; a courteous, smiling gentleman, who seemed to be recovering from his illness. What had happened, so suddenly? And Shakuntala—

Shakuntala was now a widow... Somehow, I could not bring myself to accept this cruel truth.

We reached our destination. Three or so cars stood parked by the gate. Pandeyji halted the car and got down. Passing through the gateway, we arrived at the main entrance of the house. The garden was deserted; a tense hush seemed to hang over everything.

At the main door, Inspector Ratikanta saluted Pandeyji with a grave face. Seeing us, his eyebrows rose slightly, but without a word, he led us all inside.

Before the door of the hall, the divan-like seat stood as before, and upon it lay the body of Dipnarayan Singh. Seated beside the corpse, Dr. Palit stared fixedly at the dead man’s face. There was no one else in the room; only the furniture remained arranged as it had been the previous night.

We tiptoed to the side of the divan. Dipnarayan Singh looked just as he had last night; death’s touch had wrought no change in his form. Eyes closed, the muscles of his face relaxed; as if he had simply fallen asleep.

Dr. Palit was so absorbed in gazing at the dead man’s face that he did not seem to notice our arrival. It was only at Pandeyji’s gentle touch that he started from his reverie. Rising, he looked at each of us in turn, then said, “A post-mortem is necessary. And—keep this vial.” Near his hand was a small brown bottle with a rubber stopper; he handed it to Pandeyji. Pandeyji held the vial up to the light—there was still about half of the liquid left inside. He handed the vial to Ratikanta and said quietly to the doctor, “Come, let’s go sit over there.”

Dr. Palit picked up his handbag from the divan. We all went and sat on a nearby sofa set. Ratikanta remained standing. Pandeyji asked—

Byomkesh Samagra

He asked, “Where is everyone else in the house?”

Ratikanta replied, “I’ve sent them all upstairs. Miss Manna is with Shakuntala Devi.”

“Miss Manna? The lady doctor?”

Palit said, “Yes. She’s the regular doctor for this house as well. Seeing Shakuntala’s condition, I telephoned her and had her brought over.”

“You did the right thing. Any news of Debnarayan?”

“Debnarayan is an idiot—he’s bawling like a child. Dewan Gangadhar Banshi is with him. Poor Chandni is the one in real trouble, she’s weeping herself, running to her husband one moment, then rushing to Shakuntala the next.” He sighed deeply.

Pandeyji remained silent for a while, then said, “Doctor Palit, please tell us everything from the beginning.”

The doctor set his bag down from his lap and said, “There isn’t much to tell. Around eight o’clock, I arrived and found Dipnarayan Babu sitting on that couch, waiting for me. Seeing me, he smiled and said—‘Didn’t expect you to come so early in this cold, have some tea.’ I said—‘Alright, but let me give you the injection first.’ Chandni was present, Shakuntala wasn’t there today. I checked Dipnarayan Babu’s pulse—it was quite good. Then I filled the syringe with liver extract and gave him the injection in his arm. It was an intramuscular injection, nothing complicated. But Dipnarayan Babu slowly slumped over. I saw his eyelids growing heavy, closing; he tried to speak but couldn’t. Immediately, I gave him adrenaline, then began artificial respiration. But it was no use—within three or four minutes, his lungs ceased to function.”

The doctor ran his fingers over his chest and fell silent. He was an experienced physician; sudden death was nothing new to him. Yet the shock he had suffered within broke through his stern composure.

Pandeyji asked, “You couldn’t determine the cause of death?”

The doctor replied, “From the symptoms, I thought—anaphylactic shock. But now I see that’s not it.”

“Then what could it be?”

“I can’t say for sure. Perhaps some kind of poison.”

Pandeyji turned his gaze to Byomkesh. Byomkesh said, “Could it have been curare poison?”

The doctor stared at him, eyes wide, then, half to himself, muttered, “Curare! It’s possible. But until there’s a post-mortem, nothing can be said for certain.”

“If he died from curare poisoning, will the post-mortem reveal it?”

“It will. It can be detected in the kidneys.”

Byomkesh asked, “Doctor, the vial you just handed to Pandeyji—what is it?”

The doctor replied, “That’s the liver extract vial. It contains ten doses of the medicine, the mouth of the vial is sealed with rubber. The syringe needle is inserted through the rubber to draw out as much medicine as needed. Today, I took the dose from that very vial and gave the injection.”

Byomkesh said, “Since death occurred immediately after the injection, it can be assumed that—”

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“It’s possible that the injection itself was the cause of death. So, was there poison in that vial?”

The doctor replied, “What else could it be? Yet—just yesterday evening, I gave an injection to a patient from that very vial, and he’s perfectly fine.”

“Does the vial always stay