The House That Let No One In - The Family of Shadows - Part 3

 

If a house could mourn, Shantiniket House did so with discipline.

Breakfast was served at eight. Curtains were drawn back at eight-ten. The grandfather clock in the hall was wound at eight-fifteen. Even death, it seemed, had been instructed not to disturb routine.

Devendra Sen believed that households reveal themselves not in tragedy, but in habit. So he asked that every resident remain available for questioning.

They gathered in the morning room—a chamber too elegant to feel warm.

First came Naina Malhotra.

She was twenty years younger than her late husband, dressed in plain white, composed without appearing cold. Her grief was so perfectly measured that Anil distrusted it at once.

“You were married twelve years?” asked Devendra.

“Eleven years and eight months.”

“A precise memory.”

“My husband valued accuracy.”

“Did he value affection?”

Her eyes lifted for the first time.

“My husband valued usefulness.”

She admitted their marriage had long become ceremonial. They occupied separate rooms, separate routines, separate silences.

“Did he make a will?”

“I assume so. He trusted documents more than people.”

“Where were you between eight-thirty and nine-thirty?”

“In my room. Reading.”

“Can anyone confirm?”

“No.”

She did not flinch once.

Next came Arjun Malhotra.

Thirty-two, handsome, impatient, carrying the faint exhaustion of a man who sleeps badly and spends freely.

He lit a cigarette with shaking fingers until Inspector Harish Mehta ordered him to put it out.

“You argued with your father yesterday?” asked Devendra.

“Everyone argued with him.”

“Answer the question.”

“Yes.”

“About money?”

“About control.”

Arjun confessed that his father had frozen access to family accounts and threatened to remove him from the company board.

“Where were you last night?”

“At the gym room downstairs till nine. Then on the terrace.”

“Anyone see you?”

“The trainer left at eight. After that, no.”

Devendra noticed a reddened scrape across Arjun’s knuckles.

“How did you injure your hand?”

“Punching a bag.”

“Or a wall?”

Arjun’s jaw tightened.

Then came Kamini, the housekeeper of sixteen years.

She trembled before speaking.

“Sir was strict,” she said. “But he paid on time.”

“Did he fear anyone?” asked Devendra.

“Fear? No. But lately he locked drawers. And he dismissed two servants last month for touching papers.”

“Did he receive visitors secretly?”

She hesitated.

Inspector Mehta barked, “Speak!”

“Sometimes one gentleman came in the afternoon when madam was out. They spoke loudly in the study.”

“Name?”

“I only heard ‘Mr. Suri.’”

The inspector made a note.

Finally came Mohan Lal.

He had served the house longer than any family member had lived there.

“You found the body,” said Devendra. “Describe everything exactly.”

Mohan did so carefully: the silence, the locked door, the breaking of the panel, the chair, the dead eyes.

“Did anything strike you as unusual?”

Mohan swallowed.

“Yes, sahib.”

“What?”

“The smell.”

“What smell?”

“Like bitter almonds… but very faint.”

Inspector Mehta looked up sharply.

“Why did you not say this earlier?”

“I was frightened.”

Devendra’s gaze sharpened.

“Interesting.”

When all had gone, Anil whispered, “Poison?”

“Possibly,” said Devendra.

“But then why blood at the mouth? Why the locked room? Why stage a pen?”

Devendra moved to the window and looked at the trimmed garden below.

“Because people do not commit one crime,” he said. “They commit several. Murder is only the center. Around it lie fear, vanity, inheritance, hatred, panic.”

Inspector Mehta snorted. “And which of them did it?”

Devendra answered quietly:

“All of them wanted him dead.”

At that moment a constable entered with a recovered item from the deceased’s bedroom safe.

A sealed envelope marked in Raghav’s handwriting:

To Be Opened If Anything Happens To Me

The room fell still.

Inspector Mehta reached for it eagerly.

But Devendra’s eyes had gone elsewhere—to the cuff of Arjun Malhotra’s forgotten blazer hanging on a chair.

There, almost invisible in daylight, was a dusting of white powder.

The same powder found beneath the study chair.