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