by RV Raman
‘We do now,’ Sebastian growled. ‘We know him by a different name.’
‘What name?’
‘Phillip.’
‘Can’t be, there must be some mistake, Sebastian. Phillip is a good man.’
‘Remember how much interest he has been showing in your wheelchair lately? Especially the console. Your wheelchair is missing. It’s been taken from the charging point to the chapel.’
‘Good Lord!’ Bhaskar struggled out of his bed and stood up unsteadily. He tottered to a nearby chair and lowered himself into it. ‘Tell me from the beginning. What happened?’
‘After settling you in, I was in my room, reading. I heard a click that sounded like the back door, but I didn’t give it much thought. There were so many people about; any one of them could be going out. Or Murugan could be coming in. I dismissed it from my mind and continued reading.
‘A minute later, I heard the whir of the wheelchair. That is a distinct sound, one which I can’t mistake for anything else. The funny thing was that it seemed to be coming from the window, and not the corridor. It was as if you were on the walkway outside.
‘I went to my window and peered out. It was murky and dark, and I could see nothing. But the whirring continued, although softly. It seemed to be fading away towards the chapel.
‘I came out of my room and went to the charging point. The wheelchair was missing and the back door was open a crack. I opened the door to your room and peered in. I was shocked to see that you were in bed, sleeping. I came in and peered at you closely. You were snoring softly.
‘So, someone else was using the wheelchair. I stood there undecided for a long while. Could it have been Manu or Dora who had borrowed the wheelchair? Perhaps they were pulling a prank on someone. If that was so, I didn’t want to spoil their fun.
‘Slowly, another thought dawned on me. Whoever had taken the wheelchair had taken it to the chapel. If it was not Manu or Dora, and if the intent was more serious than playing a prank, the consequences could be profound. As I thought about it, the combination of the wheelchair and the chapel set off alarm bells in my mind. I hurried back to my room and pulled on a pair of pants and a t-shirt. I went to the back door and made my way to the chapel.
‘When I reached the chapel, I saw a faint glow inside. I pushed open the door and stepped in. Near the altar was a dim glow from some kind of a torch. What I saw made my blood run cold. There was Phillip, at the altar with the slab raised and rotated. On the first row of pews were two canvases. He was pulling out the third from its tube in the altar.
‘I crept up slowly, making no noise. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear me. He put the third canvas beside the first two and began pulling out the fourth. By now, I was within a couple of yards from him. I crouched, trying to decide my course of action.
‘The only person who could have known that the Balsano landscapes were with you was Jacob Lopez. The agent who had bought the paintings on Fessler’s behalf wouldn’t have known that you had them.
‘As I thought about it, I realized that Phillip had turned up in the valley seven years ago. Where he had come from, nobody knew. He had shown tremendous interest in your painting collection and subsequently in your wheelchair. Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
‘Phillip was Jacob Lopez. That was the only possible answer. He had tracked you down to Greybrooke Manor, and had bid his time. Eventually, he had figured out where the paintings were and how to reach them.’
‘How?’ Bhaskar asked, his face set in grim lines. ‘How did he figure it out?’
‘Remember the deluge we had two months ago?’ Sebastian asked, his gaze fiery. ‘When the chapel was in danger of getting flooded from the water flowing down into the vale from the hills?’
‘Yes,’ said Bhaskar, nodding. ‘The water was rising, and we had to bring the paintings into the mansion for a few days.’
‘Phillip was staying here then,’ Sebastian hissed. ‘He must have seen us go to the chapel in the pouring rain. He must have wondered why. And he must have seen me transporting the tubes containing the paintings to the mansion.’
‘Yes…yes. I fell ill after that drenching and was confined to bed. After the water receded a few days later, you put the paintings back in the chapel. Phillip must have wondered why you were wheeling the empty wheelchair to the chapel and back. That too in such bad weather.’
‘Not just an empty wheelchair,’ Sebastian corrected him. ‘Four aluminium tubes too. He must have scrutinized the chapel and the altar thereafter. He must have figured out that the paintings were hidden in the altar, and that the wheelchair unlocked the altar.’
‘He then inveigled himself into your confidence, and found out how to operate the wheelchair and its console. He must have obtained your access code by pinching the pocket notebook in which you had written it. He then pretended to find it and returned it—all within ten minutes of your missing it.’
‘The snake!’ Bhaskar hissed. ‘Continue with what happened tonight, Sebastian. You were telling me about how you had crept up to Phillip at the altar. What happened then?’
‘As I watched him, I realized that if I let him go, we would never see the paintings again.
‘My mind went back to 1995, to when the thugs had mangled your legs forever. It went back to how you lay broken, within an inch from death that morning. The Künzi Brothers had done it to you for their own selfish ends. They had done it to a good man, an innocent man. They had done it to the only father I had known.
‘After a long struggle, your father and your wife had helped me finally convince you to keep the paintings. Now, Jacob Lopez, the snake in human form, posing as your friend Phillip, was stealing them from you. I had to stop him.
‘By now, Jacob had pulled out the fourth painting and they all lay together on the pew. Beside them was something long and slender, glinting in the soft glow from Jacob’s torch. It was the dagger the mongrel had dropped. Phillip had taken it from the drawer in the hall. His intent could not have been honourable.
‘As Jacob returned to the wheelchair to close the altar, I reached for the dagger. My blood was boiling. I knew what I had to do.’
‘Sebastian!’ Bhaskar hissed in horror, half rising from his chair. Blood had drained from his face, and his eyes were open wide in alarm. ‘What did you do?’
‘I slit his throat.’
Chapter 21
Twelve people sat in the drawing room once more. This time in uneasy silence, not knowing what to expect from the gathering Athreya had called. The five members of the Fernandez family sat together. The four neighbours were there in Abbas, Ganesh, Jilsy and Father Tobias. Two outsiders—Varadan and Athreya—made the count eleven, and the twelfth was a surprise. Murthy had been prevailed upon to join the group.
Athreya waited for a few minutes, and when it was precisely 7 p.m., he rose.
‘We were here less than seventy-two hours ago,’ he began. ‘The people were much the same then, with a few exceptions, but the mood was very different. A lot has happened since then, and many illusions have been shattered. I’ve called you all together now to conclude this sordid chapter in your lives.
‘Some of you, especially those from the Fernandez family, have a shadow hanging over you. When you will walk out of here later this evening, the shadow will be gone. That was the assignment Mr. Fernandez gave me: to lift the shadow of suspicion from the innocent. I intend to do exactly that over the next fifteen minutes.
‘Let me begin with Mr. Fernandez’s first will, which he wrote a year ago. It bequeathed certain assets to some of you unconditionally. By unconditionally, I mean that the assets would come to you irrespective of how Mr Fernandez died.
‘But once he wrote that will, strange things began happening. His car’s brakes failed; a venomous snake materialized in his bed; he was almost run over in Coonoor. And, to top it all, an intruder broke in and tried to kill him. Someone was trying to hasten Mr. Fernandez
’s death.
‘Let’s look at it from a motive perspective. It was at once apparent that multiple people potentially had motives. It was not only Mr. Fernandez’s relatives who would want him dead, but others too, including his neighbours. Phillip, Father Tobias and Abbas stood to gain from his death.
‘It didn’t take much for Mr. Fernandez to realize that someone had hired an outsider to kill him. And so he decided to scrap his earlier will and write two new ones. The first would take effect if he died naturally, and the second, if he was killed. The attacks stopped after that, but it was not clear if they had stopped because of the new wills, or because the wounded intruder was lying low.
‘It so turned out that he was lying low and was planning to return. And return he did, on the night
Phillip was killed. For those of you who don’t know, the intruder’s nickname is “the mongrel”. We know now that it was Phillip who had let the mongrel into the mansion that night three months ago. It was amply clear that someone here had hired the mongrel to kill Mr. Fernandez.
‘So Phillip’s death begged the obvious question: Did the mongrel kill Phillip by mistake? Did he think Phillip was Mr. Fernandez?
‘That was certainly a possibility, as some of you have suggested except that it didn’t answer one all-important question: What was Phillip doing in the chapel in the wheelchair?
‘That meant that there was more than one crime playing out at Greybrooke Manor. The first was the attempted murder of Mr. Fernandez, but there was at least one other plot that needed to be unearthed. To do that, I went into the past, and to Vienna.
‘Soon, I discovered two things. First, it was very likely that Mr. Fernandez possessed four very valuable paintings: the Balsano landscapes. Enrico confirmed that Mr. Fernandez had spoken to him about them. Second, there was an art thief called Jacob Lopez, who might have come to India under an assumed name. Not just to India, but to this valley. Lopez was the son of Indian parents who had emigrated to Europe when he was a boy.
‘When I looked at the chronology of events that unfolded in Vienna, I discovered that Jacob Lopez had been released from jail late in 2007. And Phillip, who was a newcomer to Vienna, appeared in early 2008. Then, had Jacob reappeared as Phillip?
‘Simultaneously, I was investigating the chapel here, and it became apparent that the altar was the most important piece of the puzzle—all roads seemed to lead to it. On closer examination, I found that the altar was a hiding place. Something of great value had been hidden there. The obvious candidates were the Balsano landscapes.
‘It didn’t take much to put two and two together. Phillip had somehow found out that the paintings had been hidden inside the altar, and that the mechanism to open it was operated by the console of the wheelchair. That is why he had gone to the chapel that night in the wheelchair—to steal the paintings.
‘But someone surprised him that night and slit his throat.
‘Meanwhile, a third development had taken place: the mongrel was caught. It didn’t take long to break him. Within half an hour of making him a proposal, I had his story.
‘He had been skulking around the chapel the night Phillip was killed, and had seen enough to confirm my suspicions. Some of you had been in the garden when you claimed to be in your rooms. Some of you had stayed out longer, and some had gone out after retiring.
‘The mongrel has given a complete confession in writing. He was hired by Ismail—one of the staff members of the Misty Valley Resort—to kill Mr Fernandez. But Ismail was only an agent. He was working on someone’s behalf. We have the name of the person Ismail was representing. Ismail is already in custody.’
Murthy, who had been growing paler by the minute, threw a terrified glance at Abbas. Abbas himself might have turned to stone. Dora was glaring at Abbas, while Bhaskar kept his eyes on Athreya.
‘The mongrel overheard several conversations that murky night,’ Athreya continued. ‘Hiding in the mist, he snuck up close to people as they talked. He narrated a particularly interesting discussion that took place between 1 and 1:45 a.m. that night at the rock garden. There is no doubt now as to who had commissioned the mongrel to kill Mr Fernandez.’
By now, Murthy was visibly trembling. He stole glances at his wife, who sat staring at the carpet with her lips compressed into a hard, straight line. Dora, sitting beside her, slipped a hand through Michelle’s, trying to comfort her.
‘That was not all,’ Athreya went on. ‘We also found out enough to crack a case that the anti-drug team had been working on for some time. There was a drug-trafficking network operating across here, Kodai and Coorg.’
Athreya paused and looked at his watch. It was 7:10 p.m. He glanced out of one of the French windows. Muthu was standing just outside. The inspector nodded.
‘This is the reason I waited till 7 p.m. to begin,’ Athreya said slowly. ‘As we speak, the anti-drug team is raiding several places, including the Misty Valley Resort. They have jammed mobiles, so no calls can go out or come in. Of particular interest is a hidden cellar at the resort.’
Abbas looked as if he was in a trance. He sat still and silent, hardly breathing. Bhaskar threw a quick glance at Michelle.
‘So,’ Athreya said, ‘there were three crimes playing out at Greybrooke Manor: the attempted murder of Mr Fernandez, Phillip’s murder and drug trafficking. Abbas is the mastermind behind the first and the third. Murthy is involved in the first. While he didn’t have the resources to hire the mongrel, he certainly was a part of the planning to kill Mr Fernandez. I believe he also actively abetted the mongrel, just as Phillip had. Whether that is indeed so is for the courts to decide.’
Michelle was now shuddering as she took deep breaths. Her world had just collapsed around her, but she was dry-eyed. Dora clutched one hand as Manu held the other. At least her cousins were with her.
‘When it came to drug trafficking,’ Athreya went on, ‘the police were in for a surprise. One of the main distributors was a man they had never suspected. He was the one who handled the distribution of drugs to the Coorg area, including Madikeri. He was none other than Jacob Lopez, operating under a different name.
‘Jacob had come to the valley in 2009 and had taken on the identity of a man who had died two years earlier. He took the name of the dead man, and claimed the dead man’s relatives to be his. Unfortunately, Jacob’s adopted vocation was such that nobody questioned him.
‘It was he, Jacob Lopez, who killed Sebastian last night.’
‘What!’ Bhaskar exclaimed. ‘That can’t be. Phillip was already dead; Jacob Lopez was already dead.’
‘No, Mr. Fernandez…that is the mistake you made. You assumed that Phillip was Jacob Lopez. He wasn’t. Jacob has been in front of you all this time under a different name, hidden in plain sight. In a garb that defies suspicion. He is in this room now.’
‘Who?’ Bhaskar thundered.
Athreya paused and slowly turned to the robed figure near the French windows.
‘Father Tobias.’
A stunned silence enveloped the room. All heads snapped to the priest, who sat motionless, staring into the distance.
‘The proof?’ Athreya continued. ‘His fingerprints. Under the pretext of getting him to identify some items, I got him to handle a silver cigar case and a glass paperweight. I took his prints from them and sent them to Vienna, where they matched with the police records. There is no doubt about his real identity.’
Inspector Muthu walked in through the French windows, carrying a black bag.
‘This is from Father Tobias’s room in the annex,’ the inspector said. ‘It has a false bottom. Inside, we found an Italian handgun.’
‘And I found this,’ Athreya added, pulling out the flat leather pouch that he had picked up in the chapel beside Sebastian’s body. ‘It is a set of lock picks that Sebastian’s murderer dropped when Sebastian ripped his jacket. I haven’t opened the pouch yet, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the picks will have Father Tobias’s
fingerprints. Lock picks are notoriously difficult to use with gloved hands.
‘Phillip and Jacob Lopez knew each other from Vienna, where Phillip used to copy paintings for Jacob, which the latter then sold at a huge profit. They renewed their relationship here, after which Jacob must have told Phillip about the Balsano landscapes.
‘On Friday night, Phillip and Father Tobias were working together. Their original plan was that Phillip would steal the paintings and Father Tobias would take them away early in the morning, probably in cardboard tubes. The mongrel saw a person “dressed in a gown” lurking around the chapel, but didn’t realize that it was Father Tobias in his cassock.
‘Unfortunately for them, Sebastian intervened and killed the thief.’
Several gasps sounded and shock sprang to all the gathered around, faces except Bhaskar’s and Father Tobias’.
‘Sebastian!’ Manu exclaimed. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Alas, we’ll never know,’ Athreya lied. ‘Both of them are dead now. But let me continue with what I was saying.
‘As a result, Father Tobias had to go back to Phillip’s house to return the cardboard tubes he was carrying. With Phillip dead, he had no idea what had happened to the paintings. Even at the risk of being found out, he had to return to the chapel last night to check the altar, but the vigilant Sebastian intervened again.’
Suddenly, the man who had been unmasked as Jacob Lopez leapt up. From inside his cassock, he drew another pistol. Athreya and Muthu were taken completely by surprise. They had not expected him to have a second gun. Having confiscated the weapon under the false bottom of his bag, they had become complacent.
Jacob lined up the pistol to fire at Athreya. Jilsy screamed, her high-pitched shriek piercing the air. For a moment, Jacob’s aim wavered between Athreya and Bhaskar. Before he could decide, a gun boomed twice. Jacob was thrown off his feet. His pistol clattered to the floor.
Athreya turned in astonishment towards where the gunshot had come from. There sat Bhaskar in his wheelchair, his face set in humourless lines. A thin strand of grey smoke curled up from the barrel of his gun.