The House That Let No One In - A Voice From the Study - Part 8

 By now, Inspector Harish Mehta had developed a theory every two hours.

At breakfast he suspected Naina Malhotra.

By noon, Arjun Malhotra.

By evening, the mysterious Vikram Suri.

And after the burned insurance fragment, he returned cheerfully to Naina.

Devendra Sen had only one theory: someone in this house was feeding them evidence.

He said so to Anil while standing in the garden below the study window.

“Then why not arrest them all?” asked Anil.

“Because liars are common,” replied Devendra. “Useful liars are rare.”

That night he requested every servant be questioned separately about sounds heard during the fatal hour.

Most remembered nothing beyond shouting after the locked door failed to open.

Then the cook, Bhaskar, mentioned something casually.

“I heard sahib speaking in the study around nine-twenty.”

Devendra turned sharply.

“You are certain?”

“Yes. I was carrying trays from pantry to dining room. His voice was loud.”

“What words?”

“I could not hear clearly… only anger.”

Inspector Mehta thumped the table.

“There! He was alive then. Someone argued with him inside.”

But Mohan Lal immediately contradicted this.

“No one entered, sahib.”

The corridor camera supported him.

No one had entered.

Yet someone heard the dead man speaking.

Devendra asked each servant again.

Kamini hesitated.

“I also heard something,” she admitted. “Like sir saying, ‘Get out.’”

“From where?”

“From upstairs.”

The inspector smiled broadly.

“So he was alive at nine-twenty, arguing with the unseen killer.”

Devendra asked quietly, “Did either of you hear a second voice?”

“No.”

“Any footsteps after?”

“No.”

He thanked them and went directly to the study.

Inside, he closed the broken replacement door and stood in darkness.

Then he switched on the desk lamp.

Its yellow pool of light fell across shelves, papers, chair, and silence.

He examined the room inch by inch again.

At last he moved toward a side cabinet containing records and stationery. Behind stacked files he found a small rectangular device coated in dust except for one recently cleaned patch.

He lifted it.

A portable voice recorder.

Inspector Mehta blinked.

“What is that doing here?”

“Waiting,” said Devendra.

The batteries were nearly dead, but not empty. He pressed play.

A burst of static.

Then the unmistakable voice of Raghav Malhotra:

“I said no, Suri. You cannot threaten me now.”

Static.

Then again:

“Get out.”

Static.

Then a thump.

Then silence.

Anil stared.

“The call! The argument! It was all recorded.”

Inspector Mehta grabbed the device.

“Then he recorded his own threat call.”

“Perhaps,” said Devendra.

“Or the killer played it after death.”

The inspector stopped smiling.

Devendra nodded.

“A voice from the study after the victim was already dying would preserve the illusion of life.”

He looked around the room.

“The servants heard sound, not reality.”

Anil was astonished. “Then the killer needed only to place the recorder on timer?”

“Or remote start. Simpler devices can be set beforehand.”

Inspector Mehta frowned. “But why stage life after death?”

“To shift the time of death later.”

“And why do that?”

“So attention stays fixed on the locked door between nine and nine-thirty… instead of events before nine-fifteen.”

The inspector paced angrily.

“Then the argument with Suri was fake too?”

“Not entirely,” said Devendra. “Real voices can be used dishonestly.”

He rewound the recorder and listened again.

Then he smiled faintly.

“There is our next clue.”

“What now?” asked Anil.

“In the background,” said Devendra, “between the two sentences.”

They listened harder.

Beneath the static came a soft repeating metallic sound.

Tick… tick… tick…

Inspector Mehta shrugged. “A clock.”

“No,” said Devendra. “A gym machine timer.”

Everyone turned at once toward the basement staircase.

Where Arjun Malhotra claimed he had been alone that evening.