5 - Crime and punishment

Back to 4 - Magic or murder?

September 22 2013, 10:00 AM  – Office of GCA Builders Enterprise

I was saying - ‘It took us this entire week to put together whatever findings we could have. Killer’s plan was good with complications thrown in as special effects. Alka ji had shown us the file prepared by your BIT about each detective in the town. File is alphabetically arranged but our portfolio is on the top while our name begins with “K”. The killer put us on the top of the file so that Alka ji does not traverse the whole file and easily pick no one else but us. Later he forgot to remove our portfolio from the top of the file.’

GC and Alka were present there on our request. GC nodded. 

‘We managed to get a copy of Wilmington police’s postmortem report of the tanker driver thanks to Kunal’s resourcefulness. It says that he did not die of drowning. He was poisoned. The symptoms of the dead body are same as those of Mr. Mukul. I bet the symptoms of the cat which died after eating your pudding that day were no different?’

Silence.

‘Narayan that day had overheard your conversation when you were deciding the detectives. He actually suspected Alka for these poisoning cases so he approached us discreetly.’

Both Kunal and GC nodded.

‘Cat died instantly of poisoned pudding. Tanker driver in Wilmington too but luckily’ – I stressed on “luckily” – ‘you and Narayan are still breathing. The vintage wine had just enough poison to hospitalise Narayan, not to kill him....'

'But,' GC interrupted in a puzzled voice. 'Bottle was sealed.'

'A red hot syringe pierces through the glass like it goes through butter and after its withdrawal, pinhole closes impossible to detect except under microscopic examination,' I explained and continued. 'It was not a coincidence that you escaped your death after these three attempts. Discounting that accident, you were actually never supposed to die. Killer’s target was always Mukul. Killer never had made a single mistake since the beginning except unnecessarily trying to add special effect by calling in Khoji Khargosh Investigates. Killer underestimated us Mr. Girish.’

Silence was in the air.

I continued – ‘Mr. Girish, that night, Alka ji took Mr. Mukul’s drink from your right hand. You did not put poison in Mr. Mukul’s drink. The poison was in your drink Mr. Girish and you gave that to Alka, your left hand drink. That time even I was confused and didn’t believe what I saw.’

GC’s face changed colours.

‘… but that was not strange, what I felt strange was that Alka ji also kept the glass meant for Mukul in her hand and passed on her glass to Mr. Mukul and that glass killed him! I have two questions, Mr. Girish why did you want to kill your partner and Alka ji, why did you kill his partner?’

‘Do you have any proof of this?’ – Alka chewed her teeth.

In fact I had none.

I continued – ‘Alka ji we tried to find out from where you have been adopted by Mr. Girish. We failed. You know why? Because, you were never adopted.’ – I kept the papers in my hand on the table – ‘Fact is, Shefali gave you birth secretly in a nursing home. These are the copies of that delivery record. Shefali is your real mother. But….but….Mr. Girish is not your real father.’

‘You are lying.’ – a jolted, almost crying Alka blurted.

I looked at GC  

Baritone of GC’s voice was gone, he spoke in a weak voice - ‘I was a 42 years old lonely rich man. I was so madly in love with Shefali, then 28, that I accepted her pregnant with three months child Alka without enquiring about the father. To save her face after Alka’s birth I spread the news that I have adopted her and thought of revealing the truth when right time would come. Meanwhile Shefali started looking after business in North Carolina and spent most of the time there. Mukul was a small time builder then, struggling. I helped Mukul progress with my business and become my closest friend. Then I discovered the filthy conspiracy. Mukul now wanted to finalise the plan by killing me and living with his beloved Shefali, his daughter Alka and with my huge property.’

Alka started crying bitterly. GC put a soothing hand on her head and said – ‘I filed suit for divorce but they tried to kill me. Luckily I survived the accident. I was semi-concious for a few days but my brain was alert. I could listen. Both of them were discussing the failure of their plan on my hospital bedside thinking that I can’t hear and understand. After recovery I acted fast. I killed tanker driver so that police should not reach them since I wanted to punish them myself. I faked my poisoning attempts three times and tactfully sent Alka to you, which was my biggest mistake.

I wanted to create an impression that accidentally Mukul had died and since you were watching me all the time you could not suspect me. I had asked Rajan earlier to call my name to demonstrate the mentalism. He was very happy. Luckily Kunal phoned me and stopped me from participating otherwise I myself would have made some excuse and anyway called Mukul in my place. This was just to confuse people and police later that poisoning was done by drinking water during the magic show somehow.’

‘I think Rajan had already told the secret of that magic to you and Mr. Mukul’

‘Yes. It was simple that’s why Mukul was happy to be the part of it’

‘Alka ji, how did you come to know about Mr. Girish’s plan?’

‘I’ – wiping her tears she replied in a hoarse voice– ‘overheard his telephonic conversation once with Shefali telling her that he will definitely divorce her and the three poisoning attempts made me suspicious. I kept an eye on papa and found that he had poisoned his sugar free pills to put in the drinks. I didn’t want him to commit the crime. For his sake I decided to execute papa’s plan. I poisoned my drink too the same way and passed it onto papa…I mean Mukul that night.’ 

‘But’ – GC said – ‘how are you going to prove this in court of law?’

Kunal broke the silence – ‘Mr. Girish, your crimes have brought you its punishment too. Live with that. Love the girl who is your enemies’ daughter. She will live with the fact that she killed her real father. You were an angel for Shefali and Mukul. You loved them and they betrayed you. They got what they deserved. But when angels conspire for a crime, earthly laws do not suffice for the punishment. God punishes them.’

‘What about Shefali?’ – I asked

‘Kunal smiled and added – ‘She has lost her lover. She knows very well who killed him. Now she can never tell the truth to her daughter and go jail. This is more of a punishment for her. She has lost her daughter forever.’

GC opened the drawer, produced a cheque book, wrote a cheque for us and quietly pushed it towards me. This was the sign for us to leave.

We did.

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September 22 2013, 11:30 AM  – On road

‘How did he do it?’

‘Who did what?’ – I asked with my eyes on the road while driving. Kunal was in passenger seat.

‘Rajan. Mind reading.’

‘It was no mind reading just a simple trick’

‘Whatever, but how could he identify the glasses of water?’

‘There was no need. There was no acid in any of the four glasses.’

‘What?’

‘It was all water in both the jugs. When he spilled little water over the foams in the tub, it burnt. There is one substance that burns when it comes in contact with water but since it was stuffed in foam we didn’t see the flames, only the fumes.’

‘There is something that burns with water? What is it?’

‘Sodium.’

‘Where did you learn this from?’

‘High school’

‘Where did you learn this deductive reasoning from?’

‘From you.’

Kunal gave me a strange look and we both laughed.

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