Five

When we reached Anadi Haldar’s residence, it was half past four in the night. Calcutta, after its raucous revelry until midnight, now slumbered in the depths of the late hours.

The main door downstairs was open. There was no one in the stairwell. Sasthi Babu, it seemed, had retired to bed, exhausted. Ascending the stairs, we found the latch on the door broken; the door itself was intact, but the latch had been snapped off and flung aside. We entered the room with Byomkesh leading the way.

At our entrance, a commotion seemed to ripple through the room. Yet there were only three people present: Nonibala, Prabhat, and Napa. All three sprang up in alarm. Napa cried out, ‘Who? Who is it? What do you want?’ Then, catching sight of Kesto Babu behind us, she fell silent. Nonibala, her fleshy face agape, involuntarily exclaimed in a loud voice, ‘Ah, Byomkesh Babu.’ She did not seem particularly pleased to see us. Prabhat stared on, vacant as a simpleton.

Byomkesh cast his gaze around the room and addressed Nonibala, ‘Kesto Babu brought me here. The police haven’t arrived yet?’

Nonibala shook her head. When Byomkesh turned his eyes to Napa, she stammered in confusion, ‘You—Byomkesh Babu, that is—’

Byomkesh said, ‘Yes. This is my friend Ajit Bandyopadhyay. Perhaps you remember we came the other day. You went to call the police, didn’t you? What happened?’

Napa seemed bewildered, then startled, she replied, ‘The police—yes, I went to the thana. There was no one there, just a constable with his feet up on the table, fast asleep. When I told him, he got angry and said, “Go, go, a Hindu has died, what’s all this fuss about? Throw the body out on the street.” I was leaving when he called me back and said, “Leave the address, when the inspector comes in the morning, we’ll let him know.” So I gave Anadi Babu’s name and address and came back.’

There was nothing new in the police’s habitual indifference in some cases and excessive zeal in others; in fact, out of habit, I had hoped the police would come running as soon as they heard the news. Byomkesh stood for a moment, brows furrowed, then looked up and said, ‘You all suspect Kesto Babu of murdering Anadi Babu. On his behalf, I wish to investigate this matter. Does anyone object?’

No one replied; all averted their eyes, avoiding Byomkesh’s gaze. Then Byomkesh asked, ‘The body is on the balcony—has anyone touched it?’

Everyone shook their heads in denial.

We then entered the balcony. An electric lamp glowed against the wall, and in its unwavering light we saw Anadi Haldar’s corpse lying on its side on the floor, face turned toward the street. He wore a white thermal vest, over which was a dressing gown. Across his chest—

Adimriphu 451

The quilt had slipped off; there was a hole in the vest, and through that hole, dark blood had oozed out and dripped onto the floor. Upon the dead man’s face, a grotesque distortion had settled, like the mockery of a demonic smile.

Byomkesh bent down and pulled the quilt away from the back. I saw that on this side too, there was a neat, round hole in the vest. Here, the blood had not flowed as much—only the area around the hole was damp. The bullet had passed clean through the body.

Leaving the corpse, Byomkesh stood up and gazed absentmindedly out toward the street. In a low voice, I asked, “What do you think?”

Byomkesh replied, distracted, “This is the same man who behaved so rudely with me the other day, isn’t it strange?... The body is beginning to stiffen... Perhaps Anadi Halder was standing by the railing, watching the fireworks on the street—” Byomkesh looked toward the large house across the road. “But where did the bullet go? It isn’t in the body, it passed right through—”

If Byomkesh’s assumption was correct, the bullet should have lodged in the balcony wall. But we found no sign of a bullet or bullet mark on the balcony wall, the ceiling, or the floor. Sometimes, when a bullet exits, it takes an oblique path; or perhaps Anadi Halder was standing at an angle, and the bullet went out through a gap at the side of the balcony. But from the way the body had fallen, it seemed Anadi Halder had been facing the street, took the bullet in his chest and sat down right there, then slumped to the side.

Directly across the street stood that house. In between, a gap of seventy or eighty feet. Perhaps the shot had come from a window on the second or third floor of that house.

Finding no trace of the bullet on the balcony, Byomkesh bent down again to examine the corpse. When the quilt was pulled away, I saw that the knot of the dhoti at the waist had loosened, and around the waist was a thick black thread, like a waistband. Hanging from the thread was a key.

Byomkesh fiddled with the key, then carefully removed it and, covering the corpse again with the quilt, said, “Come, we’re done here.”

Outside, the darkness of night had not yet lifted. Along the road, lorries loaded with greens and vegetables had begun to roll by. The city of Calcutta was preparing to satisfy its enormous hunger.

Returning to the room, we found the four people who had been inside still standing just as before, none had moved. Byomkesh held up the key and said, “This was at the dead man’s waist. Whose key is it?”

I looked at each of their faces in turn. All stared fixedly at the key, except for the napha, whose face was shadowed with fear. At last, Nanibala said, “There’s an iron safe in Anadi Babu’s bedroom, that’s its key.”

“What’s in the iron safe? Money?”

They all shook their heads; no one knew. Nanibala said, “How would we know? Did