The discovery of the fast clock unsettled the entire household.
Until then, everyone had relied upon routine as though it were evidence. Now routine itself had become suspect.
Devendra Sen asked for a complete architectural plan of Shantiniket House.
Inspector Harish Mehta scoffed.
“What next? Shall we interrogate the bricks?”
“Often more honest than people,” said Devendra.
The old plans were found in a metal cabinet downstairs, yellowed and brittle with age. The mansion had been built in 1931 by a merchant who distrusted both thieves and relatives.
Devendra spread the sheets across the dining table.
The study occupied the northeast corner of the first floor. One door opened to the corridor. One large window faced the garden. A ventilator sat above it. The fireplace had indeed been sealed decades earlier.
Nothing unusual.
Then Devendra noticed a penciled notation erased long ago and later overwritten.
Service Flue Access
“Where is this?” he asked.
No one knew.
They returned to the study.
The sealed fireplace stood beneath the mantel, neatly plastered and painted. Devendra tapped the masonry with his knuckles.
Solid in the center.
Hollow at the left edge.
Inspector Mehta straightened.
“Break it.”
Within minutes a mason chipped away a narrow section. Behind the plaster lay an old iron hatch no wider than a suitcase.
Kamini gasped aloud.
“It has never been opened in my time!”
The hatch was rusted but movable. When forced back, it revealed a vertical shaft rising between walls—an abandoned service flue once used to pass documents or parcels discreetly between floors in the colonial era.
Anil stared. “Could someone climb through it?”
Devendra shone a torch upward.
“Not an adult. Too narrow. But objects may travel.”
At the bottom of the shaft lay fresh scratches in the dust.
And something else.
A length of thin black cord.
Inspector Mehta picked it up carefully.
“Fishing line?”
“Stronger,” said Devendra. “Nylon utility cord.”
They traced the shaft upward to a concealed panel in a linen closet on the second floor, rarely used and locked from outside.
The key hung unnoticed among dozens in the pantry.
Inside the closet panel, they found matching scratches—and one tiny metal hook screwed recently into the wood.
Anil’s eyes widened.
“Then something was lowered into the study!”
“Or raised from it,” said Devendra.
Inspector Mehta’s voice hardened. “A poison delivery mechanism?”
“Possibly.”
They descended again.
Devendra sat in the dead man’s chair and measured the shaft’s position relative to the desk.
The hidden hatch opened behind the side shelf, unseen from the doorway unless one moved the carpet runner.
Conveniently near where the victim sat each night.
Too convenient.
He then examined the study window.
The latch was bolted from inside exactly as reported. Yet the paint around the frame bore faint disturbance.
He scraped it gently with a blade.
Recent marks.
The inspector frowned. “Tampered with?”
“No. Tested.”
“For what?”
“To see whether we would notice.”
He opened the window with effort. Outside, the drop to the garden was fifteen feet. No balcony, no ledge, no pipe within reach.
“No entry here,” said Mehta.
“Agreed.”
“Then why mark the frame?”
“To suggest mystery.”
Devendra closed it again.
“Someone wants us fascinated by impossible entrances.”
Mohan Lal was summoned once more.
The servant looked ready to faint.
“Who knew of this flue?” asked the detective.
“My grandfather spoke of old hidden passages, sahib. But I thought stories only.”
“Did Mr. Malhotra know?”
“Yes. Sir knew every inch of this house.”
“Did anyone else?”
Mohan hesitated.
“Master Arjun once asked me, years ago, whether such places still existed.”
Inspector Mehta smiled sharply.
“There is our son again.”
But Devendra remained thoughtful.
“If Arjun knew years ago, then so may others.”
As they prepared to leave, Anil pointed into the shaft.
“There is paper caught up there!”
A constable used tongs to retrieve it.
It was a torn corner of an envelope.
Only two words remained visible in ink:
…Trust Naina
The room fell silent.
Inspector Mehta looked immediately toward the wife’s quarters.
But Devendra’s expression did not change.
“No,” he said softly. “This was placed for us too.”