Footsteps
Jayanta said, “Strange! How did the letter reach my first-floor room at all?”
Manik said, “Surely it didn’t fly in; a human hand must have borne it here.”
-“That goes without saying. But Manik, I can swear to it that the letter was not there when we left the house for our walk.”
-“Then the letter must have been delivered after we went out.”
Jayanta hollered, “Madhu!”
Enter Madhusudan.
Madhu said, “Yes sir.”
-“Did anyone call on you after we went out?”
-“No, not at all!”
-“No one handed you a letter?”
-“No Babu, no one.”
-“Then who left this letter in my first-floor room?”
Madhu stared, dumbfounded, at the letter in Jayanta’s hand. Then he scratched his head and said, “This is a strange thing, Babu, I can’t make head not tail of it!”
-“Have a good think, Madhu.”
-“I can swear on it, Babu – no one has been inside the house today. And why will the guard let in a stranger through the gate either?”
-“Achhchha, go and ask the guard once as well.”
Madhu went outside. Jayanta examined the bars on the window minutely and said, “The bars are all right; and the letter couldn’t have pierced the curtains like a bullet to enter the room.”
He ran his eye over the carpet as he walked towards the door. Then he knelt on the floor to inspect something or the other.
Madhu returned and stood at the door.
-“What did the guard say, Madhu?”
-“He said no outside person has entered the room.”
-“We were out for an hour and twenty minutes, where were you during that time?”
Madhu said, “I first swept and mopped the second-floor rooms and then came down here.”
-“Did you see the letter on my sofa then?”
-“No, there was no letter or anything there.”
-“And then?”
-“I sat in the mezzanine room next to the stairs and chatted with the cook.”
-“You went nowhere else?”
-“No.”
-“During that time, any outsider heading to the first floor would have been visible to you, yes?”
-“Yes sir.”
-“Fine, you may go. Manik, although this room’s doorway isn’t visible from the mezzanine room, even then anyone who enters must go past it. Yet Madhu says he has seen no one come in from outside.”
Manik said, “The guard has seen no one, Madhu’s seen no one, yet this letter is proof that someone did come in.”
-“Not just this one proof Manik, there is another.”
-“Another proof?” said Manik incredulously.
-“Yes. Come towards the door. The white marble floor is visible where the carpet ends. Look there.”
Manik leaned forward and said, “Isn’t that a barely visible muddy footprint?”
-“Yes. Why would there be a footprint on this hard marble floor? Firstly, because he came barefoot; and secondly, because his feet were not just dusty, but wet as well. Clearly, this is the imprint of a wet, dusty foot - that is why it looks like a very light muddy footprint. But Manik, there’s an obstacle here as well.”
-“How so?”
-“Let us assume that the stranger shunned footwear in order to move around in silence. But how did he get his feet wet? It didn’t rain either yesterday or today, the earth is bone dry around my house. How did the stranger still get water on his feet? Come, let us try and answer this riddle.”
*
(to be continued)
#HemenRoy #hemenroy #detective #crime #thriller #adventure #pulp #Bengalibooks #translation
Would you like to read my translation of another Hemen Roy adventure in print? Click Here :
Amazon.in
Hello! Translating is extremely fulfilling and takes hours of dedication every day. Buy me a coffee : 150 Or a sandwich : 250 Or an entire breakfast : 500 Or, surprise me pleasantly!
Write a comment ...