The Rose Behind the Verdict - The Knocking Within - Part 3

 For one suspended second, no one moved.

Mira’s face lost all color. Niraj stepped backward so quickly that he struck the dressing table and nearly sent the silver comb to the floor.

Again came the sound.

Three measured knocks.

From inside the wardrobe.

Arindam raised one hand, signaling silence. Then he approached the tall teak wardrobe with the caution of a man who knew that fear often entered rooms before danger did.

He examined the lock.

Untouched.

No scratches.

No sign that it had been forced.

He turned the brass handle and opened the doors at once.

Inside hung rows of saris, shawls, and neatly folded garments scented faintly with sandalwood. Nothing else.

No hidden person.

No crouching intruder.

No secret compartment visible.

Niraj swallowed hard.

“I distinctly heard—”

“So did I,” said Arindam.

He reached in and pressed the rear wooden panel. Solid.

He tapped the side walls. Hollow on the left.

Mira clutched the edge of the bed.

“There is no hidden chamber in this room.”

“There is now,” Arindam replied.

He removed the garments and found, behind them, a narrow inner panel nearly seamless with the woodwork. A clever latch lay concealed beneath a carved flower motif.

He pressed it.

The panel sprang inward.

Beyond it was a cramped cavity between two walls, scarcely large enough for a person to hide. Inside lay only a brass water flask, a burnt candle stub, and a folded paper.

Arindam opened the note.

It contained one sentence:

Do not trust the woman in blue.

Mira staggered back.

“This is madness! I called you here!”

“Which is precisely why this note interests me,” said Arindam.

Niraj peered into the cavity.

“No one inside. Then who knocked?”

Arindam looked downward.

At the base of the hidden compartment ran a narrow wooden slit no wider than a finger.

He crouched.

From the adjacent room, a string had been threaded through the gap and tied to the rear panel.

Someone next door could pull it.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

A performance.

“A ghost with practical skills,” said Niraj weakly.

Arindam smiled faintly.

“Or a living fool with confidence.”

He stepped into the corridor and tried the next door. Locked.

“Whose room is this?” he asked.

Mira hesitated again.

“It belonged to my cousin, Dev. He returned last week from London.”

“And where is Dev now?”

“No one has seen him since noon.”

Arindam’s eyes sharpened.

“Then we shall begin with the missing bride… and continue with the missing cousin.”

As they descended toward the drawing room, the singing below had ceased.

In its place came another sound.

A man shouting.

Then the crash of breaking glass.