The Suicide
By K.V.Gokula Krishnan (DeThSoUl)
It was a dark room lit only by a small table lamp, the time was 2330 hrs. It was winter and it was chilly outside. A man, aged around 25, lean had messed up hair, was wearing a black t-shirt which was probably a little big for him and a loose low waist jean. He was lost in his own thoughts, suddenly the phone bell rang.
“Hello” he said
“I am calling from Delhi Police, South Zone, Detective K, there’s been a suicide here at N-113, Safderjung Residential Area, we would like to seek your help in confirming it.” answered the man on the other side of the line.
The calmness in the officer’s voice irked him. This was not the first time he was called to drop in on a case handled by the police. Despite being young he was called the genius of instantaneous deduction, he had solved a number of cases by plainly laying out bare hypothesis and then proving it by providing facts based on evidence he had collected.
“I’ll be there in a while, please do not move or touch any article before I reach there, officer.”
He wore his back pack and his sweatshirt and left for the N-113.
K reached the crime scene, he started observing every minute detail which he thought was important. N-113 was a house that consisted of only one floor. The outside environment seemed rather calm considering that there was a death in that area just some time ago. The police were doing the usual, interrogating the neighbours, etc. He went inside the house; there were four rooms in all. The victim used to live alone, and he had a servant who lived in one of the rooms in the victim’s house. He reached the room where the victim lay. The room was 10 feet by 6 feet in area and 8 feet in height. The room had only one window, which was approximately ½ feet by 2 feet and had vertical iron bars placed about 5 inches apart. There was a small ventilation hole in the room on the lower left side of the room. There was something strange about the room, it wasn’t a conventional bedroom, generally you would find dressing tables, mirrors, coat hangers, a bed!!! But there was nothing in that room, the victim was sleeping on a mattress which was kept on the floor, apart from that the room was practically empty. The victim was probably in his mid 30’s, was wearing his night pyjamas and kurta, there were no visible signs of blood or struggle on him and in the room. There was an expression of fear on his face, K moved in for a closer look at the body, but there was something bothering him since the time he had entered the room. There was this odour, like of burning rubber. It was starting to irritate him, he looked up and noticed something strange, the bulb holder was darkened as if it was burnt. He screamed out for a stool, he climbed onto it pulled out an air tight plastic envelope, he reached out for the right pocket of his back pack and took out a pair of forceps. He carefully removed the burnt material from the bulb holder, it seemed to be some kind of elastic sheet, but he couldn’t be sure. He kept it inside his back pack. He wore his examining gloves and returned to the body, he started from the upper body and then reached out to the lower body. There were no signs of wounds, scratches, or anything for that matter. But he was not in a position in which one would normally sleep. His legs were stretched apart both of his hands were also stretched in the opposite direction, something like the famous Vinci drawing ‘The Vitruvian Man’. Something was not right, this can’t be a scene of a suicide. He went on to take a closer look at the only entrance to the room, the door, it had a door knob with a lock and had a latch on the inner side of the door. The lock was alright but the latch was broken he had seen enough, he called out for the officer who had placed the call to him. The officer came and stood before K. He was well built, about 6 feet in height, was well dressed. But there was a smirk of confidence on his face, which K did not like.
“So tell me officer, was the door open or tampered in any way when you came inside?” asked K
“No, we had the key to the door knob, but we had to break the latch, by ramming the door.” answered the officer. He went on to add ” there’s no way someone could have entered the room, we have shortlisted every possibility. The window is too small for an average human to sneek through. We have sent for the forensics team we will have their report by tomorrow. So, you see Detective K murder is out of the question!”
“ Let us not draw any conclusions before the results come officer, you should know better” there was a certain degree of coldness in K’s voice.
The officer retreated with a stupid grin on his face n told him he’ll phone him when he has the reports with him. K moved on to ask some questions to the servant.
“When did u last see the victim?”
“ I last saw master when I served him dinner and took out his plates for washing, and then like every day I took a glass of hot milk for him but even after fifteen minutes of knocking and screaming he didn’t open the door, I got worried and called the police.”
“ Did people visit your master often?”
“No, Master did not like being visited by people, he was the kind of person who used to like his space a lot. He used to paint for a living, he used to lock himself in his work space and paint the whole day and used to come out rarely. His schedule was fixed, so I knew when he had his meals”
“Can you think of a person who would want to kill him?”
“No, Sir, my master was not a sociable man, he did not interact with anyone, so I don’t think he would have any enemies.”
The time was 0200 hrs, K was leaving N-113, he saw the large trash bin outside the house. The best place to look for evidence is the trash, he remembered it. He lifted the lid and looked frantically inside, after a while of digging, he saw pieces of a vinyl sheet which were cut using some kind of blade, he took out a piece of it and kept it in his backpack. He also saw a broken small electric air compressor, but the body looked new to him. He went inside the house again and asked the servant about the piece of vinyl sheet and showed it to him, there was a look of shock on his face.
“ Do you know anything about this.” K pointed to the vinyl sheet.
“Ah... eh.. I think master was using it for some work, I guess he wanted to paint the balloon, but I can’t be sure, he didn’t allow anyone to enter his work place.”
“ Balloon, I don’t think I ever mentioned a balloon?”
There was a look of horror on the servant’s face.
“Don’t worry, I just thought of mentioning it”
There was this unfriendly beam on K’s face, which made the servant terrified of K’s attitude. K grew suspicious of the servant’s behaviour. But still he could not answer the most important question of all. How could someone commit a murder in a room and then come out after latching the door from the inside. He hopped on to this bike and made his way back to his place. He was lost in his thoughts, he kept thinking of a way to solve the mystery of the closed room. He reached his home, he lay on his bed recalling the events of the day, he searched for every detail in his head but he could not think of any motive for the servant to kill the victim. He decided to visit the servant’s native village, once he gets his sleep. He got up at 0800, he took out his bike, sat onto it. He pulled out his mobile, placed a call to the officer, and enquired about the forensics report and asked the officer to make sure that the servant does not leave the city. He rode some 85 kms to the outskirts of Delhi, he reached the servant’s village, it was called Ballarpur, it had a lot of small scale industries. He went to the servant’s house in the village, but it was locked. So he asked the neighbours about the servant’s history, he got some significant clues from the interrogation. He was just about to leave for the city, his attention was seized by a small scale industry, it was a place which made balloons of vinyl. These balloons were used as publicity hoardings for numerous events that took place in the city. He went inside, he took a closer look at the material, it was extremely elastic, but was strong. At this moment K believed that he had bagged the case. He knew exactly what had happened. He rushed to N-113, and called the officer to come there with the forensic report. He reached there around 1400 hrs, the officer had already reached the place. The servant greeted K, K looked at him, said nothing, asked for the report, he scanned through the report, it seemed as though the report was supporting K’s theory. Now every piece of this puzzle was fitting into its place automatically.
He turned towards the officer and started speaking.
“Officer this is a case of murder, the victim was murdered in cold blood!”
“How can u be so sure? I guess I made it pretty clear that nobody could have entered that room, the door was unharmed, and there was no other way to enter that room.
“Let me give you an example, this will make the understanding part pretty simple”
K pulled out a small cage from his back pack, which had a butterfly inside it.
“How do you kill this butterfly officer?”
“I have no clue!”
K pulled out a balloon from his pocket, he inserted it through the bars of the cage, and started blowing air into it, soon it filled up the space inside the cage and the butterfly died.
“You see, this is how it’s done, the mystery of the closed room is solved”
He turned towards the servant.
“Isn’t this how you did it, you put a large vinyl balloon through the window and you used an air compressor to blow air into it till your master suffocated and died, the burnt vinyl on the bulb holder is a proof of your doing, the bulb was still on wasn’t it and when you realized that something was wrong, the bulb was broken by the balloon and the filament had burnt the upper surface of the balloon. Then you deflated the balloon and conveniently sliced it into pieces and put it trash. There is no point in hiding the truth now, I know about your son, and the vinyl factory from where you got the vinyl balloon, I paid a little visit to your village.”
The servant started cracking, and admitted that he had committed the crime, he needed money, his son had passed away a few weeks back, he had to perform the following rituals so that his son could have a peaceful afterlife. The victim was a painter, his only source of income was the sale of his paintings, he didn’t have much money with him either. The servant had asked the victim for some money as he had to go back to the village to complete the formalities. The victim said no, as he himself had just the right amount of cash with him. This triggered the dark side of the servant, he wanted to get the money at any cost, even if he had to kill his master, he would do it.
He made a plan the one that was supposed to be fool proof. But.............
“I had no other option what would have you done... eh....... “ screamed the servant.
“There is nothing more for me to live for in this world”
After saying these words, the servant ran to the kitchen, the officer tried to stop him, but it was too late, he took a 14 inch knife and stabbed himself with it.
