The Missing Coins - The Detectives Boys - Short Story 3

 Bhuno da was a happy man of late. His Paan shop had earned quite a name in a short period time. Located near the Dhakuria Railway station, it had always been Bhuno da’s dream to open a paan shop as was the tradition of their family. Bhunolprasad Mukherjee, whom people lovingly referred to as Bhuno da was a resident of a distant suburb of Kolkata until he shifted his base to south Kolkata. Often travelling by train, he would get down at the Dhakuria Railway station along the hundreds of others and walk down the Babu Bagan Lane to go towards the city. He particularly loved the hustle around the Dhakuria Railway station. Bulky in appearance with curly oiled hair, Bhuno da would often be seen in his favorite dress of a cream kurta and white pajama. Still single, he planned to get married by the end of 1997.

For long he was in search of a small little space to open a small little Paan shop. Inquiring all around the city, finally he had got a small pace near the Dhakuria Railway station on the bus depot side. It was a small little shop without a cover in the summers and with an umbrella during monsoon. Slowly, the shop earned good name due to its variation in various Paan flavors. People getting down from the local trains would approach Bhuno da’s paan shop before they would continue towards their destinations. Lunch time and dinner time would see the maximum rush during which Bhuno da would be exceedingly busy to concentrate on anything other than serving the various Paan variants.

It was one such afternoon of the winter of 1997. Bhuno da was busy serving his Paan dishes. Once he would collect the money from the customers, he would immediately put the money in the drawer, however if there were coins, the same would be put in a wooden bowl which was kept on slab behind him. At the end of the day, he would count the collections and tally it with the number of Paan’s sold. To the surprise of Bhuno da that night the collections didn’t tally as there was a gap of some thirteen rupees. “Did I miss taking money from someone?” thought Bhuno da to himself.

That night Bhuno da kept recollecting the events of the entire day but couldn’t link anything to the gap in collections. Next day he promised himself to be careful. He ensured that the customers handed over the money to him before he would hand over the Paan. He carefully kept the money received from the customers. However, to his surprise, that night again there had been a gap of some eleven rupees.  Bhuno da was surprised again to no ends. In spite of bring so careful he couldn’t understand the reasons for the gap in collection. 

That night again he sat down the stairs that led to the platform to Dhakuria Railway station and continued to look towards the Babu Bagan Lane. From the Babu Bagan Lane side two young boys walking down towards the station, observed Bhuno da sitting silently immersed in some thoughts. Ritwick and Deep Das were regular at Bhuno da’s shop and knew him very well.

“What’s the matter Bhuno da?” asked Deep Das.

Bhuno da explained everything to Ritwick and Deep Das. Even Ritwick was surprised.

“Don’t worry Bhuno da. Tomorrow we will come to your shop and observe whether there are people who just run away without giving you the money?”

Next morning, Ritwick and Deep Das reached Bhuno da’s shop early and got themselves a comfortable place to sit near the shop to watch over the customers.

“Today we will get hold of the bugger who would run without giving the money.” Commented Deep Das in heavy excitement.

The entire day had passed and Ritwick and Deep Das had actually counted all the customers who had come. Everyone had handed over the money. But to the surprise of all three, there was a shortage of seventeen rupees that night. Ritwick and Deep Das were left dumbstruck.

That night Ritwick was immersed in deep thoughts. He recollected the entire events of the day. It seemed as if they had missed something. He looked at his favorite white ceiling which would often give him ideas. That night was no different. There surely had to be something else than a mere gap, thought Ritwick.

Next morning, Ritwick met Deep Das at his house.

“Are we again going to the shop today?” asked an excited Deep Das.

“Of course, we are, and today our modus operandi would be different.”

It was sometime around ten in the morning. Bhuno da had already opened his shop and customers had started to come in.

Ritwick and Deep Das today took a different place to sit. A position which was exactly opposite to the shop. Ritwick had carried with himself a small little mini-binocular which his grandfather had gifted him.

“Are we going to follow the customers today?” asked a confused Deep Das.

Ritwick didn’t answer. He continued to look at the shop with his binocular. There was nothing to be excited until lunch time arrived.

Suddenly, Ritwick had a smile on his face.

“Oh my god, look look what is happening?”

“Koi (where) I am not able to see anything?” questioned Deep Das.

Ritwick handed over the binocular to Deep Das. Deep Das snatched the binocular from Ritwick’s hand and immediately focused on the shop.

As Deep Das looked at the shop, he was indeed dumbstruck. It was an act of genius.

Ritwick and Deep Das had confronted the culprit after about fifteen along with Bhuno da. It surely was something unthinkable.

While Ritwick was observing with his binoculars, he had observed a thick thread coming from the top towards the shop and exactly above the bowl where Bhuno da had kept the coins. The thread held a magnet at the end. The magnet would attract the coins from the bowl to itself. Once some coins were attached to the magnet, the thread would be picked up and after some time it would again come down and take more coins away.

Ritwick was astonished with the brains of the culprit. The culprit was new to the area and sensed an opportunity when he had seen Bhuno da’s shop and especially a shop without a cover. There was six feet wall behind the shop and the culprit would hide behind the wall and slowly release the thread down towards the shop.

Once confronted, Bhuno da recovered all the money from him. He was warned by Bhuno da of not to indulge in such activities in future.

“Thank You, Ritwick, for all your help. It really wouldn’t have been possible without you and Deep Das.”

“But how did you guess that the problem was with the coins and not the printed notes?” asked a curious Bhuno da

“The amount of gap which you had repeatedly observed had been thirteen on day one, eleven on day two and seventeen on day three. All had been odd numbers and I had observed on the third day that everyone had either given coins or notes and the notes didn’t include the one rupee note or two rupees note. So, the gap was due to the coins.”

Deep Das like always had been left speechless with his friend’s sharpness.

 

A Place called Home

 

The year 1850 was one of the best monsoon’s Kent had had in the recent few years. Unlike the other towns of Great Britain, Kent had become one of the many sought after places to live for. The beautiful natural lush green enclave around the town gave a never-ending beauty to the eyes of its inhabitants. The morning was misty with fog due to the continuous drizzling all along the night. The grandfather clock alarm did its routine every morning at the strike of seven, though it hardly affected the occupants of the large house. It was two years since the family was residing at the big house at the corner of the street near the Kent market and the place was a heavenly abode for the family to reside into. With two floors and four bedrooms on each floor, a separate kitchen and a separate dining hall room, it was the first of its kind experience for the members of the family. Two children, a husband and a wife, comprised the beautiful small family.

 Routines of the day would start with the wife getting up from her never ending sleep to wake-up her husband and children for the day. It was followed by the individual commitments each one of them had for the day. The husband was a writer and often used one of the bedrooms as his study in the absence of the occupants. Entire day of the wife passed by cleaning her beautiful home. The children being small, often passed the day in the house under the care of their mother, both would be four next year. This was how time had passed for them for the last two years. A small happy family in their dream home spending quality time and making memories.

 That morning, while the husband was at the window and the wife in the bedroom on the ground floor near the wardrobe cupboard, there was a knock on the front door on the ground floor. Subsequent to which, the bell which hung outside the door was also struck. It seemed as though someone had come to visit them and was at the door. The husband and wife both came out in the dining hall room. The children were in one of the bedrooms. The knock got louder. The wife looked at her husband as the husband looked tensed. The husband walked towards one of the windows which faced the front of the house. Through the transparent pink curtain, the husband looked out. Two gentlemen in black coats, round hats and polished black shoes looked expectantly towards the front door. After some time, the knocks stopped.  The husband could see that the two people after looking around walked away from the house. The rest of the day passed by in routine work. That night, the wife spoke to her husband about the morning visitor. The husband continuously looked at the ceiling without muttering any word.

Next morning, as the wife woke up from sleep, she heard some sound at the dining hall room, a sound of as if, someone turning around the house entry door latch. She ran out. As she came out into the dining room, the door latch opened and four people entered the house. A woman, a man and two children. The wife was shocked to see them. She ran inside and woke her husband up. They both came out and saw the four people that had entered the house while their children were sleeping in the bedroom. They immediately ran towards the ground floor bedroom and got their children out with them. 

“Must be the house owners!” said the husband.

The wife looked perplexed.

“So, we have to find a new house to stay again,” said the wife.

“There’s no other option dear, it seems that they would be staying here.”

The four people who had just entered, sat on the sofa in the dining room. The female among them went into the kitchen and got some water from the kitchen sink area. The four of them looked around at the house.

“It’s in the same condition as we had left it two years ago,” said one of them.

The female looked around the room, “I am unable to remember the exact position of the things, but surely everything seems fine.”

The husband, wife and the children who were standing in the corner looking at the four people, who seemed to be the original owners of the house, looked at each other. It was time for them to leave the house and look for a new one, a house which would be closed and empty but furnished.

This house was one of the best they had resided, big, luxurious and peaceful as it was away from the maddening crowd of the city.

The wife looked at the four people sitting on the sofa and said “Can’t we continue to live here with them?”

The husband looked at her and then at the four of them on the sofa “hmm, yeah, surely we can give it a try, but won’t we be breaking the rules of our world, the world of the dead ones?”

The husband, wife and the children all looked at the four people sitting on the sofa. All had a smirk on their face, a smirk of happiness, happiness of not leaving this beloved house.

The husband often carried in his pocket a local newspaper paper clipping of a three-year-old newspaper which had a small news in a corner of the front page which read “A family of four died after being hit by a truck on the road near the Kent market.”

They all lived happily thereafter, in their own space and in their own worlds, in that very same house!

 

The Forgery - The Detective Boys - Short Story 2

 

Vimal Babu was an ecstatic man when he returned home that evening. It was the first Monday of 1998 and winter was at its peak. Light evening fog had engulfed the lanes of Dhakuria. But all these didn’t matter to Vimal Babu. “What happened grandfather?” asked Ritwick with utmost interest. Vimal Babu had a wooden box in his hand which had a royal appearance.

“You know what this is, Ritwick?” Vimal Babu showed the box in his hand to Ritwick

“Ahh, don’t bother thinking. I will tell you”

“These are vintage Indian One-rupee coins. I got it from an antique collector. I had been looking out for these for a long time.” Vimal Babu opened the box and showed them to Ritwick. They seemed extremely antique and historical. A mere look at those gave goose bumps to Ritwick.

“Can I touch them?” asked Ritwick.

Ritwick took some of the coins in his own hand and observed carefully. He observed that the coins were made of Silver. The reverse of the coins had “East India Company” engraved upon them.

“To which period do these belong, grandfather?”

Vimal Babu took out a piece of paper and looked into it.

“In between 1835 and 1862.”

Ritwick was in awe of the coins. For the next few days, Ritwick would often ask Vimal Babu for the coins to see them. He had even invited Deep Das to his house to show the collection.

“These are terrific, Ritwick!”  Deep Das had remarked upon first seeing them.

 Ritwick  asked his grandfather about the person who had sold him the antiques. Vimal Babu informed that the person had been an antique trader who had a shop in the nearby Gol Park locality.

His name was Roy. People often referred to him as Mr. Roy. Roy was quite famous in and around the Gol Park, Dhakuria and Gariahaat localities for his antique collection as he had regular customers from these areas.

Ritwick couldn’t resist his excitement. He along with Deep Das visited Mr Roy that evening. On arrival at the shop, Ritwick was fascinated looking at Roy’s collections at his small shop.

“Do you have more ancient Indian coins like the ones which you had given to Vimal Babu?”

“Yes, I surely have.” Roy had been happy as it seemed he had more customers.

He showed them some. Ritwick and Deep Das looked at them with outmost of interest.

“To which period do these belong, uncle?” asked Deep Das.

“These belong to the period 1936 to 1938.”

“Ohh, and whose face’s image is engraved on the reverse of this coin?”

Roy looked at it. “Ahh, this is King Edward VIII.”

Ritwick looked at it closely.

“Interesting!” remarked Ritwick casually.

That evening when back home, Ritwick looked at Vimal Babu's coins again. He looked closely at them with the help of his grandfather’s reading lens.

In the night he performed an experiment on the coin which brought Ritwick’s suspicion to reality. He informed about it to Vimal Babu after which Vimal Babu himself was surprised.

Next morning, Vimal Babu, Ritwick and Deep Das went to Mr Roy’s shop.

“I want to return these coins” remarked Vimal Babu to Roy.

“May I ask you, sir, what made you conclude upon this action?”

“These are all fake. These are not the actual antique ones. These are only the forged ones.” Answered Vimal Babu.

“And what makes you say that sir?”

Ritwick couldn’t control more. “I will let you know, uncle.” All this while Deep Das couldn’t really understand anything that had been taking place.

“You see, first of all, the coins which you gave to my grandfather are not the actual ones. Now you would want to know how? You had informed my grandfather that these coins belonged to the period in between 1835 and 1862. Right?”

“Right!” answered Roy.

“It cannot be, Uncle. Do you know about the coinage act of 1835 that was brought in by the East India Company?”

“I have some idea about it,” said Roy.

“Then you will also know that the coins which had been minted from 1835 onwards weighed approximately 11.66 grams.”

Roy was stumped out.

“And your coin weighs 13.50 grams, Mr Roy.”

Deep Das looked at Ritwick in shock. He couldn’t actually believe that the coins were fake ones.

Roy knew he was caught.

All this while, a stranger was standing near Ritwick in the disguise of looking at the collections. He was actually one among the local police. Vimal Babu returned the coins and took back his money. The local police representative took over the questioning as Vimal Babu, Ritwick and Deep Das left. They had brought the local police representative along with them to the shop.

As they walked back, Deep Das looked at Ritwick in confusion.

“How did you know that he was fake?”

Ritwick looked back at Deep Das. “Remember that day when we had gone to that shop and Mr Roy had shown us some coins.”

“Yes, but everything was fine that day, wasn’t it?”

“Mr Roy had said that the face which was engraved on reverse of that coin was of King Edward VIII.”

“Yeah, so?”

“My dear innocent Deep, unlike others, King Edward VIII had never been engraved on any Indian coins minted by British. He had bluffed and thank God I had done my homework before I went to his shop. That bluff made me cautious against Mr Roy, that’s why I checked the coins that night.”

As they walked by the Dhakuria Bridge, Deep Das, like always was  awe struck by his friend, Ritwick.

The Act

 

The odds were always that way, at least in between the two and that’s what the neighbors had always said. “An Unusual Family,” a regular remark which the neighbors often associated the two with. They were always seen as a busy family and never the one to be participating in the colony’s cultural events. Only one of them would once in a blue moon be present, but never together.

The Nakamura’s at Flat no 302 were always like that, at least since the time they had shifted to the small four building colony located on a silent street of the Japanese city of Kyoto. Hiroto Nakamura and Akira Nakamura, that was the name which were written on majority of the documents and even on the name plate of their flat. Never had anyone been inside their flat as both of them were working and were very busy. One had a day job and the other one had a night job and hence would never be together. Other residents perhaps suspected that they were not on talking terms and were living together to avoid unnecessary living costs.   

People who interacted with either one of them never had any complaints but did sense some emotional confusion when interacting with each one at different moments of time.  Both were similar in height and, surprisingly their looks were almost similar, except to the fact that one was a male and the other one was a female. Genetic resemblance or perhaps twins, that’s what was concluded by other residents.

But that day was indeed an unlucky one.  was away on his night shift and in his flat, there took place an accident. It was only two days to the new year and the firecrackers were in full swing. It was one of those rockets that landed inside Hiroto’s house that caused the fire and spread all over the apartment within a short period of time. By the time the fire authorities arrived, the house was burnt down. When Hiroto was informed about the accident, he rushed to the colony and was devastated.

The firemen recovered the fully burnt body of Akira. No one could have looked at the body for more than a second. It would send shivers to even the most courageous ones. The local Investigators had arrived and routine enquiry into the fire casualty begun. The local investigating team sought all the details about Hiroto and Akira and also recorded the statements of the witness to the event that night. It seemed to be a straight and simple case. A rocket accidently causing fire leading to the death of the only resident of the house. The only question that remained to be answered was why didn’t the girl try to escape? Why didn’t she just open the door and run out? Perhaps some part of the clothes must have caught fire which spread to the body. But still going by the statements of the witness they didn’t hear any screaming of any female from that floor. “Someone on fire can only do one thing. Scream!” said one of the investigators.

The post mortem of the dead body was completed subsequently and the investigators reviewed the report to find any inconsistencies which could be assumed as abnormal. The body was burnt and the cause of death was due to burning. There was nothing to be looked into other than only one information. The DNA Match.

Hiroto Nakamura was contacted by the investigators subsequently. There were tests required to be done on Hiroto as procedural formalities to close the case.  But three days later, investigators had a shocking revelation up their sleeve. The DNA of Hiroto and Akira didn’t match and now the case was hung.

It was during that time when a case of a missing dead body was lodged with the local investigators by a local hospital morgue. As per the complainant, the corpse of a girl had gone missing since last one week. The investigators didn’t want to take a chance. Was there a link between the missing dead body case and girl burnt in the fire exactly seven days ago?

Exactly seven days ago, the girl’s dead body had gone missing on that morning and that night in the same area a girl died due to burning and the body wasn’t recognizable.  The Investigators did a DNA matching of the complainant’s family members with the one that was mentioned in Akira’s report. The twist came when the reports matched and the revelation complicated the case to the next level. The investigating team which was about to close the Akira Nakamura accident case suddenly could sense something amiss in the entire story and events.

Hiroto was mapped to locations and was being tailed but there was nothing on him. Every day was the same, Hiroto would start for office, board a rickshaw and then get down in front of the office gate. In the evening he would return in the same manner. On a weekend, when Hiroto had an off, the local investigating team interrogated the security team of Hiroto’s office. This was when it was revealed that no one by the name of Hiroto Nakamura worked at that office. It was high time that Hiroto Nakamura was picked up but the investigators didn’t want to jump the gun. They decided to play the waiting game.

One day when Hiroto was not at home, the investigating team made a forced entry to his new flat which he had taken on rent in the same colony. They inspected each and every thing. Just when things were going nowhere, they found something which they could never have imagined.

Hiroto was contacted and taken into custody. It was indeed a complicated case but joining the various points of the puzzle was the only way forward to solve the case.

Neither was the man Hiroto and nor did he have any sister by the name of Akira. In fact, he didn’t have a sister and there was no actual female in the story. It was all about a wannabe actor. He didn’t have a name because he didn’t have one as he couldn’t recollect who he was. The only thing which he knew was the fact that he was performing. Since childhood, the only thing he did was act. Frustrated that the world couldn’t recognize his talent, he had decided to play the act with the world itself.

Thus, was born Hiroto and Akira. Same person with different personalities. The entire get up and make up was done by Hiroto himself.  He rented a flat and enjoyed his story in the colony in which he resided.

Every time people interacted with him as Hiroto or Akira he enjoyed the moment. It was the triumph for him as an actor. Then he had decided that it was perhaps time to change the story, so he decided to finish off Akira’s character. He needed a dead body and this was when he planned to contact a local hospital clerk who would help him get a dead body and keep it in his flat. Of course, he was the only one who had thrown the rocket in his own house. He made sure that no one was aware of his existence.

The investigating team was shocked. They sensed that it couldn’t have been the first one. Surely the guy must have committed more of such psychopathic acts, guessed the investigators.

Once he had informed about all his misdeeds which he had committed, he had only one thing to say as his final statement on which he signed:

“I am an actor, sir. An actor with no name. I don’t exist anywhere. No one knows me. I always act and everything I say is already written by me, rehearsed by me and then I perform it. I enjoy it.”

“I am an actor, sir!”  

The world never heard of him after that.

Gossip circles said that perhaps he was kept under a close guard in a remote location away from the maddening world…… but many years later someone also said that perhaps, he is still performing somewhere and his best act is yet to come, on the silver screen or outside it, that only time will tell!

 

The above story is a complete work of Fiction.

The Name : The Detective boys - Short story 1

 

It was late at night, may be around two in the night when they heard some sounds from outside. A commotion of some people perhaps trying to take away something. When Vimal Babu got suspicious, he had immediately got up and walked near to the window to peak outside. He could see shadows of two people and one person in body. By the time he raised an alarm, the two shadows ran while the third person could be seen taking away the particular steal for which they had come.

The only thing which Vimal Babu could hear was a voice, “Golok, chol palaa. (Golok, Come on Run)”. Vimal Babu couldn’t have a better view of that person. The only thing which he had known was perhaps a name “Golok”. They had taken away Vimal Babu’s most precious asset, his Bicycle.

Vimal Babu who was a resident of Kolkata since his birth, stayed in one of the houses which was located at Babu Bagan Lane, Dhakuria. He had been a teacher in one of the local schools. Now retired, he took tuition classes at his home. All his life, to commute to the school he had used a Bicycle which his wife had gifted him. The Bicycle was very special to him as not only did it last a life long but he felt an emotional attachment of nostalgic memory whenever he would ride it Though lately, the bicycle was not used much, but the Bicycle had seen better days and Vimal Babu never forgot to clean the bicycle every Sunday morning to make it look as fresh as it had been many years ago. Locals would tell Vimal Babu to sell off the antique so that they could use the space used for accommodating the bicycle for some other purpose. Once news about the theft of the Bicycle reached the neighbours, they visited Vimal babu to console him on his loss. Apart from his son, and daughter in law, Vimal babu also had a Grandson, who was referred to as “Poltu” He was fifteen years old and was studying in the final year of school.

Poltu was sad for the loss of the Bicycle. Priceless memories of his growing up years were attached with it. Though Poltu had consoled Vimal Babu, but he himself was not among the ones to keep quiet on the same. He knew his locality very well and would try to find out the culprit behind it, but the only clue which he had was a name, “Golok”.

Poltu since his growing up years cherished challenges, and if it was in the nature of a puzzle then it would turn out to be the cream over the cake. Poltu loved puzzles and his sharp mind had been tested with unlimited number of puzzles. Though what he was out to achieve was nowhere near a puzzle, but it challenged his investigative mind. Poltu loved asking questions. He was thought by his grandfather that you can learn the best by asking questions and subsequently introspecting the answers.

The year was 1994. There were numerous complains about theft and robbery in the nearby areas and also at Babu Bagan Lane, but those had been about money, jewellery and household accessories. The theft of a bicycle was the first of its kind.

The first thing that a medium heighted and rather healthy Poltu did was that he took a close look at the place of theft to identify any clue or belongings which the robbers may have dropped off. Standing at the spot where the Bicycle once stood, Poltu looked up towards his grandfather’s room’s window. Their house was surrounded by three more houses which had big gates. So, there was a chance that anyone from those houses may have seen anything. Poltu inquired with those houses but couldn’t get any more information. 

Poltu had a childhood friend who resided in the by lane behind their house. His name was Deep Das. They were friends since fifth standard. Though it couldn’t be said that Deep Das had any quality of being an intelligent boy, but he tried his best to match his friend Poltu.

“What would anyone achieve by stealing an old Bicycle which not even a scrap dealer would purchase?” This one question had kept Poltu busy over the next evening.

He wrote down the possible reasons for which a robbery takes place. Money, Jewellery, household items or personal envy. An old bicycle cannot fetch any good money. So, he wrote off all other motives and circled the personal envy point. Poltu didn’t want his grandfather to know that he was silently investigating the theft of the Bicycle.

Poltu was aware of Vimal Babu’s schedule for the last many years. Vimal Babu was majorly busy with his tuition classes and a walk in the park in the morning and in the evening. Apart from this, he hardly went out of the house. So, if there was any personal envy, then it had to be somewhere in the park or, in the tuition classes, thought Poltu.

Over the next few days, Poltu closely watched all the students who came for tuition classes to Vimal Babu. None of them matched the description which Vimal babu had given, though the description had been very sketchy. He had already inquired at the park whether there had been any scuffle involving his grandfather with anyone. So, his last option came down to the students at the tuition classes.

“Perhaps, one of them may have arranged for the robbery,” said a confident Deep Das to Poltu.

“Or perhaps, three of them may have personally carried out the robbery?” said a more confident Poltu.

In the meantime, Poltu gave Deep Das a task of inquiring with the scrap dealers in and around the Dhakuria area about a Bicycle.

Over the next week, Poltu personally spoke to many students from the tuition class on the pretext of some academic subject and tried to get some information. It was only during one of such session, when Poltu came to know that three students had stopped coming to the class.

“Since when?” asked an excited Poltu.

The boy informed that it was since some days that those three students had stopped coming. The boy further informed that Vimal Babu was not happy with their academic performance and had complained to their parents.

Poltu had a sweet smile on his face. He noted down the names of the students. Hiren Kumar Roy, Ashish Chaudhary and Omung Gupta. To his disappointment, there was no Golok in those names.

That night Poltu looked at the ceiling and was in deep thought. After continuously thinking deeply, suddenly he sat up and had a smile on his face.

Next day, Poltu and Deep Das went to the local school which was located near Dhakuria Railway station. The three boys studied at that school in the tenth standard. Both of them waited near an ice cream selling shop. As the last class got over, the school bell rang. This alerted Poltu and Deep Das. As they waited, the three students came out. It seemed that the three of them were good friends. As they started to walk, Poltu and Deep Das started to follow them. It was afternoon around 3.30 and in the by lane where they were walking was almost deserted.

Poltu asked Deep Das to do one act while he hid behind the nearby building pillar.

Deep Das shouted in a loud voice “Ae Golok,”. As he shouted, Hiren Kumar Roy turned around to find Deep Das. Poltu finally had a smile on face. So that night the third person who took the Bicycle away was Hiren Kumar Roy and two others were his friends.

Poltu didn’t go to the police. Rather he straight went to Hiren’s house and told the entire chain of events to Hiren’s parents. Hiren’s parents were enraged. Hiren finally revealed where he had hidden the Bicycle.

 That Night the old Bicycle stood its ground and Vimal Babu was a happy man.

“How did you guess that those three were behind the act?” asked a confused Deep Das.

“Initially when I came to know their names, I was disappointed as there was no Golok. But after giving a thought, I actually took me own example. Everyone knows me by my “daak naam” (unofficial) name, Poltu, while my actual name is Shoumik. So, it wasn’t difficult for me to guess that Golok was a pet name and not the actual name. In Kolkata everyone has two names, one is the “daak naam” i.e... unofficial name and the other one their actual registered named.”

Deep Das could only look at Poltu with wide open eyes.

Poltu looked at Deep and said “Stop staring with those bog eyes, we have more cases to solve dear.”

The Gifted House

 

Nothing had changed for Viktor Lascorsi for the last twenty years since his birth except for the fact that he had grown up.  He resided at the same house and in the same town following the same daily routine for many years.  His parents, Alonzo and Merina, were very vocal about their intentions of not moving out of their ancestral house of Alonzo, which his ancestors had got as a gift from a king of Medieval Hungary, Matthias Cornivinus of Hungarian dynasty.  It was a very well-known fact that Alonzo’s ancestors had worked for the Royal Kings’ palace. Post the death of the King in the year 1490, his ancestors had moved out of the palace to this house which the king had gifted them. It was since then that the Lascorsi family were residing at this place. Viktor had often heard stories from his grandmother that the female ancestors of his family had been very close to the queen and it was through the queen’s request that they had managed to get this house in which he was born and continued living. But what also intrigued Viktor was the fact that often in the stories narrated by his grandmother, there were certain mysteries surrounding the house hinting towards some special reason for which the house was gifted.

 Viktor had analysed that it was a long time since the house was erected and handed over to the Lascorsi family, so it wasn’t really best of the times to investigate any aspect of the house which could lead to the actual reason for this house being made.  The year was 1750 and it turned out to be one of the coldest in Hungary that made Viktor take cover in his woolen garments especially during the nights. Budapest was the largest city of the country of Hungary since ages and living in this county was the gift which was passed on by generations after generations of the Lascorsi family. Though Viktor wanted to travel the world and live at different places, his home at Budapest which consisted of two floors and a beautiful green lush garden was his world. His friends would often suggest him to move out of the city with them, but his family would often tell him that the ancestors had said that till they all live in this house they would never face any problems in their lives. So, it was a wish which couldn’t be overruled.

 Viktor was not much fond of the climatic environment of the country.  Showers would spell its cast without any warning and summer would bring in heat but without humidity though. Also, the fact that apart from the summers, the city received very little sunshine did not actually impress Viktor.  To kill his time, he would often spend his time in the city library which was known as the Bibliotheca Corviniana library which housed Europe’s greatest collection of historical chronicles, philosophic and scientific works. Co- incidentally one of the reasons for Viktor frequenting the library was the fact that the same Library was once the personal library of the last great King Matthias Cornivinus, the same king who had donated the house to his ancestors in which he currently lived. 

 The library turned out to be a soul stirrer for Viktor. Once he entered the building for the first time he was awestruck. The mammoth collection of books and historical chronicles actually made him fall in love with the library. Since his first visit he would spend at least an hour every evening in the library reading through whatever he could get his hands over.

 Since childhood itself, Viktor loved questioning. He questioned everyone about everything and didn’t stop when he got the answer because he would then question the logic of the answer itself. His parents would often link this habit of questioning to one of their ancestors whose stories they had heard from their grandparents.  So, whenever Viktor would read books, he would come home and ask questions about the same to his parents. His parents had by now become an expert in making stories about any of the question which Viktor would ask. So, what Viktor did was, he rechecked what his parents informed him with the books in the library.

 It had always intrigued Viktor that the King had donated this house to his family and why not to the other families. Though his mother had repeatedly made him understand that their ancestors had been very close to the queen through whom the request was sent to the king for construction of this house, the reply actually never did convince Victor.

 He could hardly find any reference of his family in any of the ancient books which he read about the king or the queen and the royal family. Days passed in months. Viktor continued with his daily life but would often come back to the library. 1750 turned into 1751 and Viktor grew one more year unaware that his twenty first year would finally reveal him his one-year-old cherished question about the house.

 During one of the reading sessions in the library, Viktor chanced upon a book which was written back in the year 1475 by a local scholar named Isaac. It was an untitled book but it had a sub title going by some ancient Hungarian language which was later interpreted by Viktor to mean “The Royal palace”. It took Viktor more than three months to translate the ancient language into the one which he was more conversant with.  It was during this read where he had pounced upon certain pages that described about the mammoth proportions of jewels hidden by the king in separate small houses which the king had created and gifted to his most trusted staff members. The relevant paragraphs mentioned that there were more than hundred such houses which were erected in between 1450 and 1470 underneath which huge volumes of jewels were hidden. Viktor learned that the King feared that the ottoman kingdom would invade Hungary and hence before they would fall, he wanted to disperse all the treasure into different locations which could be used for the kingdom at a later date. Viktor felt intrigued and amazed at this discovery. He read the book in detail over the next two months and discovered that each house was constructed over a very big pit that was made to hide those treasures subsequent to which the pits were covered by voluminous concentrations of cement and muds upon which one storey and two storey houses were constructed. It had taken more than twenty years to hide all of the treasures.  What also surprised Viktor was the fact that all of the hundred houses had a secret underground pathway to the palace through an underground tunnel that was constructed at the time of the erection of the houses. He looked at a hand drawn map which was printed inside the book. It gave away the points where such safe houses were constructed.  Viktor found it difficult to locate his own house, but he was sure that unlike as informed, his was not the only house which was gifted by the king, and there were ninety-nine others like his house.

 That night as Viktor went home and stood inside his room, he could imagine under his feet, thousands of feet under, a mammoth proportion of treasure which was hidden from the Ottomans but which could never be put to use or discovered and the secret to which lay in a book that was preserved in the library that was created by the king himself. Of course, Viktor was not going to search for the treasure.  He felt that the knowledge of the treasure under his house and under the other ninety-nine ones were in itself a discovery which should be preserved for the future.  Sometime later in life, Viktor thought that he would surely try to search for the treasure and until then the knowledge of the same itself was enough for him.

 Alonzo and Merina, over the next few weeks observed that Viktor had stopped asking questions about the house. Why would he? He had got his answer !

The King and The Cannon

 

It wouldn’t be entirely wrong, if it was said that there was no one happier and jollier than Alejendro Martinez in Tenochititlan after the Crown of Spain took over and changed its name to Mexico City, and made it the capital of New Spain in 1521. Mexico City had had a long history before, which was more evident when considered that the name of the city was also changed by the Spaniards. Before that time, the Aztecs were ruling them until they were defeated by the Spaniards. New Crown meant new rules and new way of life. But everything that took place hardly impacted Alejendro Martinez, the only king who agreed to go with the Spaniards.

Alejendro Martinez who had passed forty-five years of his life in Tenochtitlan as a ruler of a small province, was gearing up with the new Crown to change things in his province. Unlike the other kings and rulers, Alejendro was loved by the people of his province which comprised of a mix of indigenous and local natives. His popularity was one of the reasons for the Crown of Spain to offer him a small kingdom in their rule. The truth was that even the Spaniards didn’t consider Alejendro dangerous or harmful to their rule. The positive and jolly nature of the king went along very glowingly with everyone.  It also didn’t come as a surprise when people were told that King Alejendro Martinez was the only one who hadn’t fought even a single war or fight with any other ruler or crown. Like anyone else, the Spaniards knew very little of Alejendro’s family history. Only the people visiting his small palace would be the evidence to the hand drawn portraits of his ancestors. Alejendro had always been a lover of nature and this aspect of his made him make early morning rounds of his province. He could be heard complimenting to his royal entourage   about the beauty of the nature during the early morning rounds. The locals welcomed the royal entourage, which was followed by an interaction in between the king and the people of the province. Though Alejendro had the power to make decisions but the Crown of Spain had to be intimated about all the interactions and the promises made by the king. However, this aspect hardly bothered the good-hearted king.

Alejendro was good looking, tall and handsome. He had a reasonably good built that was natural rather than artificial. His handsome looks were creamed by his polite nature. Britishers would surely have termed him as a Gentleman. The king was very popular among the females of his Palace and the province. But unlike other kings, Alejendro always knew the limits, which was the result of the teachings by his grandmother. Alejendro was unmarried as he believed that until you find your match you cannot get settled with any female just by mere compromise or arrangement.

Though under the other provinces, the indigenous people did not live a satisfied life, Alejendro made sure that there were no complaints on their part in his province.  During that time there were far heard events of the local population being tuned into forced labour for various infrastructure monolithic constructions. Alejendro made it clear to the people that if people worked, they would be paid handsomely. As the word of mouth about the good-hearted nature of King Alejandro spread, more and more natives from far off regions came to Alejendro’s province to take accommodations. Over a period of time King Alejendro maintained a good relation with both the Crown and his own people. The goodness of the king made the lives of his people reasonable enough to live off.

It was during this period that the Crown of Spain had made quite a number of deliveries of Cannons for the protection of the cities and palaces. The Cannons which were transported by the sea over a period of many months from various destinations had finally reached the port. From there, those were transported to Mexico City.  Few cannons were allocated for Alejendro as well, though considering the size of his province those would have fallen short in case there was a war. The cannons, four in all, which arrived at King Alejendro’s palace, were a set of monstrous equipment for the people who never had seen anything like it. Not surprisingly, even Alejendro was excited to see the cannons. It was decided that each of the cannons would be pulled up on one side each of the palace thereby covering all the four sides which meant that one cannon would be placed at each corner of the palace. It intrigued Alejendro when one of the cannons was placed on the palace terrace corner which faced a sea. He wondered how he would eventually use the cannon on the sea. Perhaps, if there was an attack through the sea, he thought. The monstrous sized cannons had taken more than one month to be pulled up at their expected locations on the palace terrace. Alejendro was proud of himself. He had four cannons in his Palace which he could use, but often asked his royal advisors when they would use them as his province had never gone into war with anyone. Perhaps, the Spaniards had some plan, the kind king thought.

Over the next few days. Alejendro’s sleep was disturbed. Most of the time he kept thinking about the cannons. Sometimes he just walked out of the Palace and looked at the cannons by standing outside the palace boundary. Some fortnights later, Alejendro grew impatient. The problem which was finally figured out was that the King was eager to know how to the use the cannon. It was his curious nature to know new things.  The fact that some monstrous equipment had arrived in his palace and he was unaware about its method of use was making him restless and impatient like a ten-year-old boy. The cannons had become an attraction even for the people staying around the Palace area. They would often stand outside their houses and look at the monstrous cannons. The gunpowder blocks which were to be used in the cannon was kept in steel buckets near each of the cannons.

One early morning when the King’s assistants went into his room to wake him up, they were surprised to not find him there. They searched the room but to no avail. The king wasn’t even found on the floor. The assistants informed the King’s advisor and other members of the Palace. Everyone started a search for their beloved king. Some of the assistants could be heard saying about some curse which made people disappear. The entire search team which consisted of the royal advisors, courtesans, assistants and soldiers searched the entire Palace and the rooms. By mid-morning, news had spread to the people in the province that the King was not within confines of the palace. The locals started to look out in the province for their beloved king.

It was not until evening when a young man by the name of Marques Alamilla arrived at the gate of the Royal Palace. The entire search team arrived at the gate by then. Marques informed that last night when it must have crossed one hour after mid night, he had come out of his hut to feel the cold air and it was at that time that he heard a noise coming from the top of the Palace. At that moment when the sound was heard, Marques informed that he had seen some smoke from the east side top corner of the Palace. One of the Royal advisors ran towards the Palace terrace upon which others followed. Marques stood at the gate unable to understand the confusion. The entire team reached the Palace terrace and went to the east side corner.

As all reached there, everyone looked at the Cannon and the gun powder which was scattered all around it. It seemed as though someone had fidgeted with the cannon and its placement. One of the advisors found one of the Diamond rings at the spot which the King would often wear before his sleep in one of the fingers in his right hand to keep evil away during the night. The senior Royal advisor, Cardozo, looked all around and then towards the round oval ground which was in front of the Palace. Looking back at the Cannon, he observed some foot marks in front of the Cannon. Gun powder was spread all over the Cannon too. By this time, Cardozo had guessed the reason for the King’s sudden disappearance.

Cardozo looked towards the sky and then again on the terrace. He imagined it to be sometime during post mid night. He could imagine King Alejendro walking from his room to the terrace and towards this cannon with a fire light in his hand. Cardozo imagined the king picking up the gun powder blocks and putting it into the cannon. He guessed that King Alejendro must have stood in front of the cannon and put the fire stick into the cannon and with that King Alejendro disappeared from this world as the Cannon shot took him off into eternity. Knowing Alejendro, Cardozo correctly imagined that the King must have assumed that the shot would come out from the gap at the middle of Cannon and not from the point where he was standing.