Epilogue

By the time Rakhalbabu arrived at the hospital with Byomkesh, it was ten o’clock. The waiting room had emptied out by then. In one corner, a young woman sat on a bench, rigid as a statue. An old manservant huddled at her feet looking despondent. The young woman’s eyes were eloquent with imagined horrors.

A nurse noticed Byomkesh and came forward. Rakhalbabu announced, ‘We are from the police.’

‘Please follow me.’ The nurse led them to a room inside, sat them down with the words, ‘Please wait here. Dr Gupta is expecting you,’ and left.

A little later, Dr Gupta entered. He was a middle-aged man of average build and seemed to be blessed with inexhaustible reserves of energy despite the battle he had been waging against death on behalf of his patients for the last twenty years. In fact, he looked the stronger for it. When Rakhalbabu introduced himself and Byomkesh, the doctor laughed pleasantly and remarked, ‘Well, well! It’s a day marked out for miracles, it would appear. Or I wouldn’t have got to meet Byomkeshbabu in this way. Do sit down.’

All three of them took their seats. Rakhalbabu said, ‘So tell us, what is the matter?’

‘How do I go about it? It’s a miracle, a truly amazing phenomenon!’ the doctor exclaimed. ‘In my twenty years of practice, I have yet to come across something of this kind. Yes, I have read about a few such cases in medical textbooks, but to experience it at first hand! In my estimate, there couldn’t be more than a handful of such cases in a few billion.’

Byomkesh smiled, ‘Well, we deal with miracles all the time, but it seems you’re in a position to surprise me as well. Looks like we have a mystery at last that’s after my own heart. Do start at the very beginning, Doctor.’

Dr Gupta began. ‘Right. Around eight-thirty this evening, three young men arrived here in a taxi. With them was another young man. He was unconscious. The three had gone for a stroll to Rabindra Sarobar and found the stranger lying unconscious on a bench under a tree. They had struck a match to have a better look and noticed a porcupine quill protruding from the left side of his chest. But the man wasn’t dead. He was merely unconscious. One of the three men recognized the victim. He was his employer, Debashish Bhatta, the owner of the factory where he worked. So they brought him to the hospital.

‘I had the unconscious man laid out on the table and examined him. Everyone knows by now of the porcupine-quill murders. I surmised, at first, that the quill had probably missed the man’s heart in this case. But when I tried to check his heartbeat—wonder of wonders! I couldn’t find it! Then I discovered that his heart was located on the right side of his chest! By some freak of nature, the man had been born thus.

‘Although the porcupine quill had left his heart untouched, it had got his left lung. However, that is no less serious a matter. As long as the quill remains in the wound, there is no haemorrhage. But the moment the quill is removed from it, the bleeding that ensues could prove fatal.

‘Anyway, I extracted the quill from his back with the utmost caution. It was six inches long and four inches of it had gone straight into the lung. See, this is the culprit.’

The doctor took out a porcupine quill from his pocket and handed it to Byomkesh. Most of you have probably seen a porcupine quill and a detailed description of it would be unnecessary. The quill in question was pointed, as resistant as a glass wand and sharp like a surgeon’s scalpel. Byomkesh turned over the murder weapon in his hand, examined it carefully and returned it to the doctor. ‘Please go on,’ he urged.

‘I removed the quill,’ the doctor continued. ‘The young man is fortunate that there was no bleeding in his lung. In a short while, he had regained consciousness, given us his address and phone number and had asked us to notify his wife. Then we sedated him. When his wife arrived, he was asleep.’

Byomkesh said, ‘There’s a lady sitting outside … is she …?’

‘That’s right,’ Dr Gupta confirmed, ‘that’s his wife. She wants to sit by him, but right now, that can’t be permitted. I advised her to go back home, but she refuses to leave.’

‘Has she been allowed to see her husband?’

‘Yes, once. We have assured her that there is no cause for concern, that she should go home now and come back again tomorrow. But she is adamant about staying on.’

Byomkesh made to get up. ‘Let me see if I can persuade her.’

‘Certainly,’ the doctor replied, ‘please do try. But remember one thing: She has not been told that her husband was the target of attempted murder. All we have disclosed is that he hurt his chest in an accident. Please stick to the story. She is in shock and the truth will distress her further.’

‘Right.’

Rakhalbabu said, ‘I shall keep the porcupine quill. This makes it four in all.’

Dipa was sitting on the bench, as ramrod-straight as ever. She rose to her feet when Byomkesh and Rakhalbabu approached her. ‘I am from the police,’ Rakhalbabu told her. ‘And this is Byomkesh Bakshi.’

The latter’s name rang no bell in Dipa’s mind. Her terrified eyes travelled from one face to the other.

Byomkesh spoke gently. ‘Please don’t be afraid. Your husband was seriously injured all right, but he’s in no danger.’

Dipa bit her lip in an attempt to keep a hold on herself. Then she said hoarsely, ‘Why won’t they let me stay with him?’

Byomkesh replied, ‘See, your husband has been sedated. Of what use would you be to him right now? Instead …’

‘No,’ Dipa insisted, ‘if they don’t let me stay