Everybody in the room were silent, Parag looked to all the faces, found Sudhir a bit anxious but others looked interested to the theory. He continued – “The first and obvious man was Sudhir. He had everything against him. He had a terrible terms with Arnab, they had some open fights inside this building. He had problems with Arnab in college, he was drug addict earlier. He is hot tempered and acutely alcoholic. An ideal guy to be a killer. Moreover, the bottle of poison was found in his room”.
Sudhir stirred a bit in his sit – “But I already said I don’t know about the poison, Parag”.
– “Yes, yes, but just let me continue. Moreover, Sudhir was very unhappy for the partition of the property where Suchitra and Arnab was supposed to get an extra portion of the property. Sudhir needs money, actually lots of money to marry and start a family. We all know that he is a good commercial artist but does not earn very much. Is it correct Sudhir?”
Sudhir smiled – “I don’t earn much is true. I didn’t like Arnab earn some undue money from my dad, also true. But for that, do I need to kill Arnab? Bull shit….!”
– “Keep calm Sudhir. I told you were our prime suspect and let me explain more. Let us talk about Subir. He said ‘he is an administrator’. True but he actually works in a famous pharmaceutical corporate, Cadilla. He can easily get the poison through his laboratory connection and passing it to the house is simple. What, Subir?”
Subir was sipping his coffee, coughed a bit and said – “What nonsense, why shall I kill somebody? What motive?”
Parag smiled – “I do agree you have a descent income. But what if I say you recently lost a large sum of money in gambling? People does not know about your deep addiction of horse racing but that actually happened. Recently you lost lakhs, is it not?”
Subir’s face ashened a bit, he shook his head – “I …. I put money on wrong horses…”.
– “Yes, I know. But this gambling part has come from your father, is it not Sabyasachi sir?”
Sabyasachi laughed in a low voice without any remorse, sipped his coffee and said – “yes, I must admit. In my life, I earned a lot and every evening, I used to spend my money with some of my exclusive friends playing cards and also weekends in horse racing field. I used to take Subir with me sometimes. I lost some, win some but my sons only lose money.”
Parag continued – “But anyway, the truth is Subir also needed good amount of money to maintain his life style and that too, fairly quickly. He depended on his dad’s property. But kabab me haddi is Arnab, who is supposed to get a large extra sum. Who will not get angry with that? Moreover, Subir can easily arrange poison. He only needed somebody to mix it with wine. And we know, Subir has a friend within this house.”
Parag stopped, allowed the stress wave in the room to settle down a bit. Then continued – “We have intercepted the transcripts of some calls from Subir to this house, to Monika….”. What, Monika, any explanation?”
Monika is a smart lady, did not blush too much, replied casually – “I did not like Arnab at all. He is a bit rascal from a rich family, a completely spoilt child. I told all of this also to Sabyasachi. Subir had some discussion with me about his opposition to this guy getting more money but that’s all, he never suggested anything more. May be how to stop the marriage….that’s all”.
– “Yes, yes, but we had some more call script as well, where he discussed about a fake car accident to eliminate somebody. By the way, Arnad used to go to Delhi occasionally for his profession. Those discussions actually have some dangerous intent. I did not say he asked you to kill him but that is also a possibility, we have to keep every possibility in mind to develop our theory. Moving on, next is, Say Habib. An old convict that too by a wrong judgment from none other than Sabyasachi. Fifteen years of his life simply gone to drain in jail. So, trying to take revenge is a very common human intension, I would say.”
Parag looked towards Habib, he did not reply … simply looked straight to Parag. Parag shook his head with appreciation and continued – “He has every opportunity to mix poison to wine glass, but how he can acquire poison?”
Vijay entered into the discussion – “But Parag, Subir could use Habib as well, isn’t it?”
– “Well, actually that is a strong possibility. But let us see. I will exclude Suchitra for the time being, we didn’t find any motive for her to kill Arnab, at least theoretically. Now, I will bring something to attention, the selection of house maids in this house, Pratima and Lily. I had a discussion with Sabyasachi, the house needed some more helpers. So he arranged some inquiries in a local company and found Lily. But anyone knows here the interesting thing here? Sabyasachi was looking for somebody who can read and write English, can do small banking or postal works plus control the house, somebody we call as governess of a house. Sabyasachi and Monica discussed with their family friend, Kumar and he suggested the company for hiring a house governess. Sabyasachi had an interview with some girls but Lily was almost a automatic choice for her smartness and other qualities which Monica, especially wanted.”
Parag stopped a bit, lighted a cigarette and continued – “Sabyasachi recruited Pratima also from a nearby agency, that was different from the previous. Sabyasachi sir, may I ask, why?”.
Sabyasachi smoked his cigar and said – “Actually this agency was nearer, just by the side of this road junction. Got the info from Suchitra, I just needed a cook, that’s all. But for Lily, I needed a far smarter lady who can handle my personal letters as well. The later agency did not provide such personnel, so I asked some guys earlier, Kumar was one of them”.
– “Fair enough. Now, these are the scenario, we had a unnatural death within a family party and some people were present there and we identified some probable culprit. But, actually who was the murderer? We researched a lot about everybody present in the party. I took the help of some of the veteran officers in Lalbazar cyber cell to look into the back ground of almost everybody. Some interesting things came up by the investigation but still, Sudhir remained in the top of the list. Now I will show a picture to all of you.”
Parag opened the cover file in front of him and took an enlarged paper cutting and showed to everybody in the room by passing to their hands. Everybody looked at the picture and finally returned to him. He smiled and started – “What does this picture signify?”
“I have seen this one in my father’s photo collection, I mean paper cutting”, Suchitra said in a somber voice.
– “Exactly. This is the picture of the final day when Sabyasachi gave his verdict in the murder case where Habib had been convicted”. Parag stopped a bit to have a dramatic effect, and then said – “But what actually happened?”
Habib coughed a few times but did not say anything. Sabyasachi cleared his voice – “Hmm … that is a bad day for me”.
Parag continued – “On that day nothing happened. But after twelve years later, one NGO started investigating about the common violence in Muslim house-holds in Kolkata. They found that what Habib originally said was correct. He was innocent and his wife actually committed suicide by taking poison. By the way, she was a patient of severe depression. Perhaps some you know that as family member. Habib, without any fault of him spent fifteen years in jail. But Sabyasachi tried to help him rebuild his life by giving him a job in his own house.”
Parag took a little break, took a sip from water bottle and started – “But most of you probably don’t know that there are other players in this murder case. Sabyasachi sir, can you remember anybody?”
Sabyasachi shook his head – “I remember about a doctor who actually treated Habib’s wife Jamaima. Police proved that he gave wrong death certificate in that case, he did not even seen the dead body on that day, he was so drunk”.
Parag smiled – “Again, that was proved wrong later. Actually, the doctor, B. K. Dutta Roy wrote in his certificate that it was probably a unnatural death like suicide but not murder. Police investigated the case because Habib and his wife had a violent relationship for long, which Habib accepted. The neighbors knew the family violence and after sudden death of Jamaima on that rainy night, they called the police. Police later proved that Dr. Dutta Roy was intoxicated on that night and he wrote the certificate without going through all the procedure. The fact is, Dr. Dutta Roy was the long time physician for Jamaima and he knew the mental condition of her.
He said during interrogation that he informed Habib about her bad mental condition and a serious possibility of suicide of Jamaima time and again. Anyway, according to the judgement, Habib went to jail and the unfortunate doctor also got a serious punishment. His diagnosis was absolutely accurate, despite that…. he lost his license to practice medicine anywhere in India by the medical board of India.”
Parag stopped a bit, then said – “The only wrong side of Dr. Dutta Roy was that he was intoxicated on that night and he should have been careful about his language. But for that error, he paid a heavy price because the entire judgment of that case was wrong. Normally he should have been given a three to six months ban from practicing, but paid an ultimate price in this particular case. Very honestly, he was actually the victim in this case because Habid later reprieved but Dr. Dutta Roy left to rot throughout his life. There was another soul who was also left heartbroken throughout her life, but I will come to that person a bit later. Now, Sabyasachi sir, do you know where is that Dr. Dutta Roy now?”
Sabyasachi took a while and said – “No, unfortunately not. I was so sorry about Habib when I came to know about all the facts that I promised to take care of him, I completely forgot about the physician”.
Parag smiled – “I see. Fortunately, we have tracked him. I will try to describe his harassment and ordeal in life in short.”
Just at this point, lunch packets were served by a caterer. Parag and Vijay, with Bishnu took a break with others as it was already half past one.
Six
It was all snacks in the packet, hot pattis, a veg burger and chips. From kitchen, hot coffee was served. Due to food, fifteen minutes break was allowed and Parag, with hot coffee in front of him, started – “Dr. Dutta Roy got a real bad deal. He lost his permission to medical practice, so to avoid public humiliation, he left West Bengal for Uttar Pradesh. There, in a remote village, he started again, I mean medical practice, secretly. But that was after a few months later. Before that, something more sinister happened. At that point, he had a lover, Lolita Roy. We have searched the news papers during that era from the National Library and found some information. Lolita was a rising actress and she was planning a family with Dr. Dutta Roy. The Habib murder case put a bolt from the blue on their future plan. Before vanishing from Kolkata, Dr. Dutta Roy had a long drive with Lolita. He was alocoholic and drunk on that day too. He was driving with high alcohol percentage in his blood. He was initially under control but as the night progressed and as they passed the city premises and entered in a desolate area, he started speeding. With alcohol more than normal in his blood, Dr. Dutta Roy lost control and met with an ghastly accident. The incident did not come in West Bengal papers as it happened inside Bihar, we got some paper clips from the local Patna newspaper. That accident made Lolita’s face with serious injury marks, and Dutta Roy lost almost eighty percent vision in his right eye.”
Parag took a break, then continued – “Both of them stayed weeks in hospital in a remote place in Bihar and then got separated. Lolita was still around thirty and she had to come back to Kolkata. Mr. Dutta Roy bade adieu to Lolita and left for his secrete life. We assume that he went to another remote village in Uttar Pradesh, started giving medical advice to villagers and somehow managed a low life. But again a bad luck struck for him. A simple dowry case emerged, one lady got severely burnt in her in-laws house. In that remote part, she had almost no chance of survival. But because of Mr. Dutta Roy and his medical expertise, she survived miraculously without any advanced nursing home.
Police case followed and Dutta Roy exposed again. It is natural, how come a lay man can know such a detail care of a severe burn patient? Not natural by any standard, so police interrogated him and finally he had to leave again. Again, we had to put a few men in the national library and all police stations of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab etc to find the activities of Dr. Dutta Roy. Police, probably out of sympathy or otherwise did not file any case against him and he fled. But we have to remember, father of Mr. Dutta Roy, Mr. Bikas Kumar Dutta Roy was well connected to the higher echelons of the society due to his big flower and medicinal herbst business, his influence to these cases cannot be ruled out. We also found that Dr. Dutta Roy had contacts with his father for supply of money, actually that was his security in his hidden life. Anyway, he left Uttar Pradesh but his further whereabouts is not clearly known, probably he did not risk to become doctor again. But much later, he surfaced again in Kolkata due to the aging and ill health of his father. We got some information from the bank transactions, and rest is assumed with educated guess. Anyway, after coming back, around seven years earlier, he was placed in north Bengal while his father was still holding his place in Kolkata, with occasional visit from his only son. It is around five years earlier, Mr. Binod Kumar died with natural age related causes and Dr. B. K. Dutta Roy placed himself in Kolkata as the business owner.”
Parag again took a pause, sipped a gulp of water and then said – “I am talking so much about Dr. B. K. Dutta Roy because he played a serious role in this murder case, though by this time, he assumed a slightly different identity, his appearance also changed due to age. Anyway, in the meantime, he lost all contacts with Lolita as she vanished completely in the crowd. It was not possible for her to continue in her acting profession with the injury marks in her face, so she lived silently a very lonely life as a drama and art teacher in a small school outside Kolkata. Now, after coming back, Dr, Dutta Roy started looking for Lolita whom he loved so much. As usual, he used the digital medium, Facebook and found her. His activities in social medium facilitated greatly in our search, of course Lalbazar cyber cells helped a lot.”
At this moment, Kumar Dutta raised his hand and asked silently to go to the toilet, a police officer escorted him to the rest room. All the other audience took this opportunity to change their posture or stood up to get rid of muscle fatigue. In a few minutes, Kumar returned back and Parag started – “At this point, I would ask a few question. First to Mr. Kumar Dutta. Sir, why did you actually miss the birthday party of Mr. Sabyasachi?”
Kumar coughed a bit, kept a bit silent and said – “I already informed Sabyasachi, I had an accident in my right foot.”
– “How and how serious?”
– “This is also I already informed. The injury happened during my daily gardening. It was quite painful.”
– “If it was so serious and as you had already said to me that there were bandage then when I went to your house, why there was no sign of any injury? At least I did not see anything, why?”
– “Look, all injuries don’t stay for long. It is just individual human body….”.
– “I will take as it is, sir. I only said that when I visited, there was even no sign of injury in your gait, I would have expected at least a banded. I visited you only three days after the incident. Now ladies and gentlemen, there will be a small game. I will give a small write up, you have to read by your right eye only, closing your left eye and write me back what is written. Ok?”
Kumar stood up, seriously agitated – “What the hell is this? Is it an investigation or a big joke?”
Parag smiled – “Calm down Mr. Dutta. These are all to detect the culprit. Don’t you like to find him?”
Kumar sat on the chair unwillingly. Parag brought out some small card like papers from the file, distributed to everybody each with a written and white paper to repeat the line. After distribution, he said – “Remember, all of you got different lines, so just read your own. For some reason, I will draw down the window curtains to make the room sufficiently dark.”
Everybody complied, writing down simple words with left eye closed using handkerchief. Within five minutes everybody returned the papers. Parag read the papers and smiled a bit – “Things are going well gentlemen. We are close, bear with me some more time. Now, see this photograph, can you recognize him, Sabyasachi sir?”
Parag showed a printed photo, enlarged a bit, a guy with age around mid thirty, with a large scar mark on his left chic. Sabyasachi looked for a bit and then shook his head – “I am not sure Parag, but it seems I had seen him in Habib’s case once or twice in the court, long time ago though”.
Parag looked towards Habib – “What, Habib, can you remember this guy?
Habib nodded – “Yes sir, Dr. Dutta Roy saab. Bahot acchha lok the saab”.
Parag laughed – “Bingo. I searched a lot for an old photograph, finally got it from … you know from where?”
Sabyasachi inquired – “Where from?”
– “From somebody’s bank account. Of course, being a police officer helped a lot. Thanks a lot Habib, for clear confirmation”.
Sabyasachi laughed – “Very clever. But Parag, how are we getting any closure to find the Arnab’s killer?”.
Parag smiled – “We are coming very close, sir and you are the epicenter of that crime. I am coming to that. But before that, I will try to highlight another thing. Sudhir, can you remember the lady who came to your room to evaluate your progress of painting?”
Sudhir was a bit embarrassed – “Vaguely yes”.
“That will do”, Parag gave a signal to a police officer standing besides the door, he left and returned with a lady, dressed with salwar and kameez. Her head and part face is covered with colored handkerchief. She hold a black side bag and looked terribly agitated. Her face was shining with heavy makeup and lipstick.
Parag looked to Sudhir – “What, Sudhir, can you see any familiarity of this lady with your visitor?”
Sudhir looked a bit baffled, but shook his head – “Yes, she looked similar but her clothing are of different color”.
– “True. But there was another guy, can I have the security guy here?”
Security man Arijit came in a few minutes, looked to the lady and said – “Yes, I saw madam coming in our house, she came with a taxi and asked for Sudhir sir at the gate. I called sir to verify about her and let her go inside”.
Parag looked happy – “Very good. We have a definite witness. Now, there will be a bit of awkward work.”
Parag looked towards the lady – “Madam, I want you kindly go to the wash room and wash your makeup and remove your head scarf”.
The lady got furious – “What kind of scoundrel are you? Why do I need to remove makeup?”
Parag looked patient but adamant – “Look, I know and you also know why. I want to move on and clear all the mist of this mystery. Please do what I said or I will ask lady police. They are waiting just outside”.
She did not protest and went to the washroom next to the room. Everybody in the room remained silent with some expectation. After around ten minutes, the lady returned but what a spectacular transformation. One almost unknown lady transformed to somebody who belongs to this house in ten minutes with long stylish hair, her facial injury marks are now very prominent in day light. Everybody in the room shed a big sigh looking such a miracle … “Oh my god”.
Seven
Parag showed her the chair next to Kumar Dutta and continued – “So, we now get the only missing member of this family, Ms. Lily Roy, I better explain a bit more. Now, we know from the security that she came to meet Sudhir by a taxi. But why? Have anyone in this room ever heard that somebody from a reputed international corporate house visit somebody using a taxi? When number of official cars being used every day for that corporate?”
Sabyasachi said in a somber tone – “Nowadays even local biscuit company brings their product in a van”.
– “Right. When I interrogated Sudhir, I heard that from him and later confirmed by the security, immediately I had suspicion, though I did not know who the lady was. The same day I talked to Sabyasachi to get some info and I collected the duty chart of all the households. Remember, on the day of the accident, apart from Habib, Lily, Pratima and Monica entered the kitchen, along with Sudhir of course. Now, I always had some apprehension that Sudhir may be alcoholic and hot headed but not stupid enough to keep the bottle full of poison in his room. Even more so when I heard from Sudhir that the lady had a big handkerchief around her head and she had hand gloves in this warm Kolkata weather. Now, why is that? Obviously, not normal. I asked Sabyasachi and found Lily had a half day holiday just two days before the accident and no other helper took any break. Now the break of Lily was exactly as the same day when the mysterious lady came to visit Sudhir. So I had to take some background check. The lady gave Sudhir a mobile number, I employed some informant and found the shop from where the sim card had been purchased. By the way, it is just opposite to the apartment house where Lily lives. Now , here are some error she made, one is, it is very easy to check with the corporate house which I did and found that they sometimes send people to check the work progress but they did not send anybody on that day to Sudhir. Two, buying the sim card very near to her house and third, the number is always unavailable. In my opinion she should not have given any number to Sudhir but probably she wanted to be convincing.”
Lily shouted – “Is that sufficient to implicate me with this crime? Complete nonsense”.
Parag took a gulp of water and said – “No madam, not yet. But I am not finished. Before I go anywhere I must mention here that on the question of this wonderful deception, Lily had some experience in drama and she is a teacher of drama in a school, so you can connect the dot. Also, she used the handkerchief to hide her facial injury marks and hand gloves to hide her finger print on the bottle. But at some later time she made another grave mistake. We all know that on the day of the accident, one wine glass had been broken and that was of Arnab. Our forensic team took all broken glasses from the garbage bin. One big surprise was, with the broken glasses of wine glass, we found some other glasses. Now of what? Some very fine broken glasses such as what we get with homeopathy medicine. Did you get the catch? Sabyasachi used to take homeopathic medicine everyday and on that day, somebody must have given him through his wine. Now, with that broken fine glasses, we get somebody’s finger print this time. Somebody who work in the kitchen brought the poison and mixed with the wine, and later broke the small bottle and threw it with all the garbage. Of course these are all very unprofessional but we must understand here that we are not dealing with any professional killer, we are facing some mentally broken and immensely frustrated guys”.
Sabyasachi shouted – “Cut the crap out Parag. I don’t get it, why Arnab was killed? What was his fault?”
Parag smiled – “I am coming to that.”
Just at that moment, the room clock chimed four o’clock and some catering guys entered with hot coffee and some chips on the tray. It was a long speech, so people needed a break. Some guys in the room stood up and went to the wash room.
*****
People gathered in the room after another ten minutes and again settled down in their seat. People started to sip their hot coffee and just at that point Parag started – “Gentlemen, I have to start again. I will start with the question what Sabyasachi sir asked. Why Arnab? He was an outsider in this family, I mean not yet anybody in this family. So why he was killed? Answer is there. I request you to remember why I said quite a bit about one old court case of Habib, and miscued justice of Dr. Dutta Roy. Now consider, somebody who was a son of a reasonably well off businessman, good student and a promising doctor. Somebody who was planning to get married soon to a good looking young woman, who on her own right was planning to be a recognizable actress….!”
Sabyasachi again said loudly – “Yes, yes Parag. I admit, I made a big mistake on that day. I admit and I took all responsibility of Habib, what is to do with Arnab’s death, damn it?”
Parag smiled again with a fake patience – “Coming to that sir, coming to that. Now, I will show you a blow up of a sketch. Extremely important in our investigation, and drawn by some professional police criminal artist from Lalbazar. Just have a look….”.
Parag took a A4 paper from the blue file and lifted the photo to show to everybody. There was a complete silence inside the room and then some repressed agony from some of the guys present there. Sabyasachi took a furtive look to the person sitting to his right side.
Parag then put the previous photo with a big scar of the chic, side by side – “I showed this picture, now the second one. Compare and say”.
“Is there any common thing between them? Obviously the second one with lots of beard is known to all of us….!”, Sabyasachi told in a anxious tone.
– “Yes sir, actually they are same person. Only the appearances are more than twenty years apart”.
– “My god! Horrible….! But I still don’t get why ….!”
– “I know, why Arnab? Is it not? I will answer. Firstly, I make it clear that the killing is a revenge act. Now, let us go back to the day of the accident. The food consumption is complete and everybody was ready for drinks. The wine glasses were ready in the kitchen and just at that moment, you got a business call. Isn’t it, Sabyasachi sir?”
– “That’s correct. A call from Mumbai, an old associate about a corporate consultancy”.
– “Absolutely, we confirmed it. Now, you left the room to your office. The people in the party waited for a while and then decided to start drinking. At this point, I remind you all that there is a custom in this house. The wine glasses will be served according to the sitting arrangement, first to Monica, then Sabyasachi and then according to the sitting arrangement. Right, Sabyasachi sir?”
– “Yes, I started that custom in my family”.
– “That’s it and on that day, that was followed exactly. Lily knew about this rule but Pratima, being a new maid, didn’t. The wine glasses were placed in the tray according to the sitting arrangement, of course the glass with poison. Pratima came inside the dining room with the tray and served. Obviously she served the first wine glass to Monica, the second chair was yours and was vacant so she served the second glass to Arnab and so on. So, now you probably realized why or how Arnab died. Had She known the house custom, she would have placed the wine glass with poison besides the vacant place of Sabyasachi.”
The room got completely silent.
Sabyasachi coughed a bit, took some long breath and said in a feeble voice – “What the hell, they actually targeted me? Why on earth…”
Parag sipped the coffee and said with a smile – “Cool down sir, I will explain. As I said earlier, it was a case of rage and revenge. With apology to Sabyasachi sir, you ruined the life of Dr. Dutta Roy and Lolita.”
Sabyasachi barked with a great deal of agitation – “What I have to do with this Lolita? I don’t even know where is she right now….”.
– “Calm down sir, we have all guys in this room. As I said, the life of Dutta Roy was ruined and so also for his girl friend Lolita. But you know her in the name of Lily, just a small replacement of actual name with her pet name. We tracked everything through our cyber cell in Lalbazar. Dr. Dutta Roy settled as the owner of the vast business started by his father. He was lonely and started looking for his old soul mate. It was almost impossible with more than a decade of isolation and solitude. He is an intelligent guy, he started his own social media account and looked for Lolita in facebook. And in a short time he got her as well. Lolita was a broken lady, kept a very low profile and lived a life of despair in a very small place outside Kolkata as a school teacher of drama. Mr. Dutta Roy was initially in a different name and tried to contact Lily but she did not trust him and refused his friend request. But he sent some very personal information that had happened almost twenty years ago, she trusted him and accepted a face to face meeting.”
Parag stopped a bit and then continued – “We have both facebook and mobile phone transcripts. They met after some months of facebook interaction. That was a completely innocent meeting, just some friendly discussions about past years. But situation changed when Dutta Roy came to the “Bannerjee Vila” as a flower supplier and met Sabyasachi sir. His old anger surged and he hatched a plan to eliminate his old enemy.”
Sabyasachi shouted – “You mean to eliminate ‘me’?
– “Yes sir, you are Dr. Dutta Roy’s only one enemy. He was a doctor, so he had plenty of options. But he opted for something which is within his grasp and very normal from his point of view. I would say this is also a bit of error, but I will explain later. He had a big business of flowers and orchids, so found a poison that comes from orchids. He had a deep connection with the north Bengal and north east India where most of the orchids are found. He planned a highly potent poison Aconite that comes from an orchid.”
Sabyasachi again looked towards his right side, the person is sitting like a stone statue. Parag started again – “The plan was to bring the poison inside the house and mix it with some kind of food. The birthday celebration was a perfect opportunity. He arranged it with his old girl friend Lolita. But before that there was a big problem….how to get Lolita into the “Bannerjee Vila”. Both of them waited for months, and that opportunity also came. Sabyasachi sir was looking for a governess for the house who has a bit of education to handle postal and banking works. Dr. Dutta Roy took his chance and fixed with a company to force his own person….Lolita as a governess to “Bannerjee Vila”. These background works were conducted months back, may be five to six months back when Lily started working in this house. Dr. Dutta Roy was waiting for a perfect timing and that came a few days back, the birthday party. The plan was hatched, the poison will come into the house, the job will be done and a scape goat will be fixed. Things were done as perfectly as possible. Lolita, by now she is Lily in this house, came in disguise to Sudhir to place poison bottle in his room. Poor Sudhir with his untidy habit, could not realize a thing. But they made three mistakes, one is of course taxi. But two other mistakes were there, using a big handkerchief to hide her head and face in summer and using hand gloves. Anybody with a sane mind will suspect that. Of course the reasons are very clear, Lily wanted to hide her facial injury marks and not to put her finger print on the bottle that contains poison.”
Parag stopped after a long speech, took a while and started – “The plan worked perfectly. On that day, Monica went to the kitchen to enquire about the medicine and other foods to Pratima. Sudhir also went there to talk to Pratima about something on homeopathy medicine. Of course Lily was waiting for all these, she asked Pratima about the medicine and cleverly change the homeopathy medicine bottle with that of poison. Pratima, with her innocent trust put that poison into the wine. Later Lily changed the small poison bottle with original homeopathy bottle….threw away the broken wine glasses and the broken poison bottle to the garbage bin. That was also a mistake because we found the broken glasses as well. But the fundamental drama was played later when Pratima took the tray and went to serve the wine to all the guests. There also, without knowing the house rules she put the second glass to Arnab instead of the vacant place of Sabyasachi sir and saved him. This last bit, I mean the mistake that Pratima made to deliver poison to Arnab was not under Lily’s control. I believe she was seriously frustrated for that ”
Sabyasachi said with a stifled voice – “How diabolical …. God!”
Parag continued – “Dr. Dutta Roy put another trick. He sent a message that he was injured and missed the party. Myself and Vijay went to his house, of course now we know, Dr. Dutta Roy is Kumar Dutta. But I found his legs are alright, no sign of any injury. Since we went after just two days of the incident, any serious cut needs more than that to hill. I also noticed on the same day that he has a vision problem, that also corroborate with the news of accident that occurred more than a decade ago. Today also I checked it a few minutes earlier. Everybody in the room wrote the given line correctly but Mr. Kumar Dutta wrote only two words correctly, rest is outright wrong.”
Sabyasachi shouted – “But how do you prove the Kumar is same as Dr. B. K. Dutta Roy? Only the sketch from the police department? Will court accept that?”
– “No Mr. Bannerjee. We have something more. As I told you, we did a thorough background check. His bank account has the full name. His full name is Binod Kumar Dutta Roy, his father’s name was Bikas Kumar Dutta Roy, I mean both of them are B. K. Dutta Roy. But after coming in this house he immediately recognized Sabyasachi sir, so cleverly he simply used a shorter form his name because his shorter name will not disturb his business activities in this house. But I do agree that Mr. Dutta Roy put his plan in such a clever way that putting him in actual place of activities are difficult, most of the work has been done by Lily. But gentlemen, we do have more things for you. I will show a small video for all of you which will put Kumar Roy directly into the picture”.
Parag put a pen drive into a laptop in front of him and double clicked …
A video started …..initially some grainy picture, but slowly it becomes a bit clearer. A big market place …. Lots of racks….a part of a big super market ….. people are moving around from one place to another, picking up household things into the trolley tray. Now camera zooms into a place….some racks with various bottles like zams, pickles etc….one lady with a trolley stopped there to look for something. At this moment a tall guy came around with grey beard and hair with a plastic hand carry tray. He stopped besides the lady, lady looked towards him silently. The tall man took a bottle from his plastic tray and transferred it to the trolley of the lady, paused, nodded towards her and slowly walked away from the camera, no further words. The lady immediately put the bottle in her vanity bag. The clip ended.
Parag cleared his throat and said – “Now, the picture quality is not very good. But we have in Lalbazar some software that can enhance the picture quality. Let us see that version….”.
Again the same clip started but this time the enhanced version. It was magical, immediately the identity of the two persons became clear, it was Lily and Kumar. Using the image enhancement and zooming technique the bottle from Kumar was identified, it was a unlabelled bottle that was found in Sudhir’s room with its distinct shape of an empty foreign branded perfume.
Clip ended, Parag noticed that Kumar was sitting calmly, head is a bit down, Lily just one place away but just normal.
Parag continued – “Now, you all see, this clip will prove how the poison transferred from Kumar to Lily or shall we say to Lolita. This is the only incident where we can place Kumar directly with the crime. But of course, after all these, there is hardly any doubt of their involvement. Also, we have our good interrogators who will handle both of them through some hard questions. I tried my best to put logically and rationally all the hidden incidents of this case, still any other question?”
Sabyasachi jumped – “But why me? I just made a wrong judgement…”
Kumar looked towards Sabyasachi – “That’s it Sabyasachi, that is all it needed to ruin my and Lolita’s life. You enjoyed fine wine and good company throughout even after your mistake but both of us, we suffered for the last twenty years. Honestly, you deserved to die but unfortunately that telephone call saved you. Arnab died for no fault of him, I apologize to his family.”
Parag bowed infront of Kumar and Lolita – “I feel sorry for both of you. I just did my job as a police officer, we don’t take side …. Not against you nor in favour of Sabyasachi sir. I will make sure both of you be treated well onwards with police personnel.”
Sabyasachi stood up from his chair, bowed in front of Kumar and Lolita – “Forgive me”.
–END–
