The murder at the Agarwal house-hold

                               

It was a calm and peaceful Sunday morning. Circle inspector Arman Jaffer was having his morning cup of tea.

“Oh! Nothing can ruin this calm morning for me”, he said.

That was where he was wrong. A sudden phone call set him dressing.

“What are you up to? Why are you dressing up in your uniform?” demanded his wife.

“You know, my dear, there is a murder at a house hold in the city. I need to attend to it immediately”

“Humph! Even on Sundays! You never spend time with me. You had promised me to go shopping together today” his wife grumbled.

“Some other day, dear, some other day”

Soon, he was at the scene of the murder. He asked his comrade, Harinder Singh, the Inspector to explain the matter clearly to him.

Harinder began, “You know, Mr Agarwal, the man who lived in this mansion, was murdered around 9PM when he was about to take his night walk.  A servant stated that he saw a man running away from the gate. When he went down to check the matter, he saw his master lying dead. Right before you lays the body.”

Arman saw the body of an old but energetic-looking man, lying with his face down. His body was surrounded by a pool of blood. A knife has sunk hilt-deep into his neck. There were footsteps leading to the gate.

“Has anything been changed since this murder occurred?” he enquired.

“Nothing, sir, except for the footsteps of the police officers who came here” Harinder replied.

“I want to interview the servant who witnessed the murderer running away. Please lead me to him” he requested.

The servant was a tall man who was consoling Mrs.Agarwal while she was sobbing in despair at the loss of her husband.

“Can you please come with me for a moment?”Arman asked the servant.

“Of course”, he replied.

“May I know your name?”

“My name is Pandey Sir, Desh Pandey”.

“So you see, Pandey, it is said that you had seen a man running away from the gate at the time your master was murdered.  Can you describe what you saw?”

“I was upstairs and heard some sound from the portico. I checked through the balcony and found a man around five feet running very fast from the gate. I could not see his face, Sir”

“Is anything missing from the house?”

“Only a knife from his collection of antiques, which was used to murder him”

“Well, thank you, Pandey. Let’s hope we can catch the criminal soon”

“Now, for the observations. Come on, Harinder!”

He went to the ground and bent down to examine the footprints. He ran around, staring carefully at them. Sometimes he looked puzzled and at time he gave a cry of satisfaction. After a while, he had a look at the body.

He got into the house and asked Mrs.Agarwal, “Can I meet all the people who were here when the tragedy occurred?”

“Why, of course”, she said shakily.

There were the three servants, Rajiv, Alice and Pandey apart from Mrs Agarwal and her daughter Deepika Agarwal.

At the end of the interrogation Arman declared, “The mystery is solved. The killer is … Pandey.”

Everyone turned to look at him. His face was a mixture of anger and guilt.

“One question Pandey”, Arman said “Why did you kill him in the first place?”

“Master was wicked to me” Pandey said. “My poor mother was very ill and about to die, so I requested master for some extra money other than my salary, to treat her. The wicked man did not bother and let my mother die. So I took my revenge on him”

“You shouldn’t have acted so harshly.” Arman said. Turning to the inspector, he said, “Take him”

Everyone stared with awe at Arman while the inspector handcuffed the criminal.

“How did you find the criminal, Sir” asked someone

“It was a rather simple case. On hearing that Pandey saw a short man running away, I was sure that the footprints would be quite close to each other, since a short man takes short strides. However, I observed that the foot prints were quite far from each other, meaning that there was some flaw in Pandey’s description. If the killer had been only five feet tall, he could not have struck the old man on the neck, who was a lot taller than five feet. The third point is that Pandey told us that the man was running away quickly, so the footprints had to be deep, while foot prints aren’t so deep. The next point is that the strike had been from behind which is impossible unless the criminal was inside the house.  The lat point is that the knife which is used to kill the man is taken from the house, which strengthens the point that the criminal lies in the house.”

“All these could mean only one thing. The killer is Pendey. He had come running up from behind and stabbed his master on the neck. He then created the false footsteps to mislead the police, but forgot that he was imitating a short man who was running away. He then got into the house through the backside fields, so that he doesn’t create another set of footprints.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed everyone.

Thus ended the case. Pandey was sentenced to jail for 6 years for his crime, while Arman was congratulated by everyone on having another feather on his cap.