Nine

We returned home late. From half past three in the night till half past eight in the morning, I had no sense of how the hours slipped by. As soon as we got back, Byomkesh sat down with the newspaper. I tried several times to bring up the subject of Anadi, but he paid me no mind. Once, distracted, he glanced up and asked, “Does the sky really have a tangy smell?” I fell silent, annoyed. In an ill-fated moment, I had bought Khoka a book of nonsense rhymes. Byomkesh had memorized it and now recited lines at the most inopportune moments. Last night’s sleep had been cut short, so I made up for it in the afternoon. Over evening tea, Byomkesh himself broached the topic, “Kestobabu still hasn’t shown up. Seems everyone has gone to ground.” I said, “When Kestobabu had a fishbone stuck in his throat, he came running. Now that it’s out, perhaps he’s gone into hiding.” “That must be it. But if they don’t come, what can I do? The case is quite mysterious—” “Haven’t you figured out who the murderer is yet?” “No. But whoever it is, they planned it thoroughly, left nothing to chance. Kali Puja night, the sound of bombs bursting everywhere, and amidst that, a single gunshot. Such coordination doesn’t happen unless the murder was meticulously planned.” “Who could plan something like that?” “Who couldn’t? Everyone has a motive, everyone had the opportunity.” “Who do you mean by everyone?” “Let’s take them one by one. First, Nimai and Nitai. If the uncle’s foster sons inherit, the uncle’s property is lost to them—”

Byomkesh Samagra

So, before Khuro could formally adopt the boy, he had to be removed. One of the Nimai-Nitai twins took up position on the roof of the Srikanta Hotel, lying in wait with a rifle. On the night of Kali Puja, between ten and eleven, a shot rang out. Khuro was finished—job done.

“So, the nephews committed the murder. There’s no reason to suspect anyone else.”

“There’s plenty of reason. Where did the bullet fired from the Srikanta Hotel’s third-floor room come from? It’s only an assumption that the shot was fired from that room, not an unavoidable conclusion. Think about it: where Anadi Haldar stood on the balcony, there was a door right behind him. If someone crept up from behind and shot him, the bullet would pass through his body, enter the third-floor room of the Srikanta Hotel through the window, and lodge in the wall.”

“That’s possible. But there’s a flaw at the very start. There was no one else in Anadi Haldar’s house, and the door was locked from the inside. Besides, another thing—did the bullet enter Anadi Haldar’s chest and exit through his back, or did it enter from the back and exit through the chest?”

“That won’t be known until the post-mortem is done. But whichever way the bullet entered, it wasn’t found on the balcony. From that, it’s not unreasonable to infer that Anadi Haldar was shot from inside the house.”

“All right, for the sake of argument, let’s accept that someone fired from inside the house. But who was it?”

“That’s the real question. Let’s see who had a motive. At first glance, Kesto Das doesn’t seem to have any. But the man is extremely cunning and sly—perhaps he rushed to me late at night just to cover his tracks. So he can’t be ruled out. The second is Nanibala Devi.”

“Nanibala!”

“Nanibala Devi is a formidable woman. Her affection for her adopted son is in no way less than true maternal love. She didn’t know there was a legal flaw in Prabhat’s adoption. So she might have thought that if Anadi Haldar could be removed, Prabhat would inherit the property, and no one else would try to harm him. I don’t know if you remember, but when Nanibala came to see me for the second time, I said that many would benefit from Anadi Haldar’s death. Perhaps that very thought took root in Nanibala’s heart.”

“But—a woman, firing a gun?”

“Why not? What’s so difficult about firing a gun? Just as pressing a harmonium key produces a note, pressing a trigger fires a bullet. Cooking kumro-chenchki is far more complicated.”

“But Nanibala was watching ‘Jai Ma Kali’.”

“She went to see ‘Jai Ma Kali’, but what proof is there that she was in the theatre the whole time? She didn’t know anyone there; perhaps after the film started, she slipped out of the dark hall, did what she had to do, and returned to her seat.”

“Where did she get a gun?”

“Oh, you fool! When people like Bontul Sardar are running around smuggling stolen guns, is there any shortage of firearms? For five rupees, you can rent a gun.”

Adimriphu 469

“Hm. And then?”

“And then, Prabhat. Prabhat, of course, knew he was not Anadi Halder’s foster son, but he might have had other motives. He owns his own shop; even if Anadi Halder died, he would not lack for food or clothing. He might have thought that after Anadi Halder’s death, his nephews would no longer try to harm him. Perhaps, to save his own life from the nephews, he killed Anadi Halder.”

“You consider that a strong motive?”

“It may not be a very strong motive, but a mountain can grow from a molehill. Prabhat wanted to marry a girl, and Anadi Halder broke off the match. That’s no small motive either.”

I smiled. Byomkesh said, “Don’t laugh. What seems trivial to you may be a mountain to someone else. You’ve never been in love, you don’t know what love is. For love, a man can kill, can go to the gallows, can lose everything—”

“All right, all right, I admit, Prabhat could be the murderer too.”

“But there’s one thing. Prabhat was in his shop the whole time, and there was a Gurkha guard at the door. If his alibi is solid—”

“It’s likely to