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