Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

Three stray dogs joined in the chase. Scrambling after the fleeing man, they snarled and snapped at his heels. One of them got hold of his trouser leg, and for a moment, it looked as if the cur might stop him. But then another shot rang out and the animal yelped and collapsed in a bloody heap.

Whimpering, the other two canines hightailed it in opposite directions.

Tubelight and Shashi briefly took cover behind a parked car.

“That’s five shots,” said Tubelight, who was out of breath. “He should only have one more.”

The killer crossed Jhulelal Mandir Marg, causing a couple of cars to come to a screeching halt, and climbed over the railings surrounding the old Mughal Shalimar Bagh Gardens.

Half a minute later, his pursuers followed him inside.

The killer sprinted down a path that passed the forlorn ornamental fountains and fruit trees once so beloved of the Emperor Shah Jahan. He reached the crumbling central pavilion and disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, a sixth bullet whizzed past Tubelight and Shashi. Instinctively they dropped to the ground.

“That should be his last,” panted Tubelight. “There’s only one way in and out of there. Wait here and make sure he doesn’t double back.”

Tubelight crept toward the small building.

“There’s no escape!” he called out in Hindi, mounting the steps. “The police will be here soon. Give yourself up!”

His words echoed off the bare walls. They went unanswered. He inched past the columns at the entrance. Moonlight filtered through a window in the domed roof, illuminating the dusty interior. Tubelight almost gagged on the stench of bat droppings that littered the floor. There was no one inside.

Confused, he crept back to the entrance.

“Did he double back?” he hissed to Shashi over his shoulder.

“No, chief.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“But… that’s impossible. There’s no other way out of this place.”

They both made another search, but the figure had vanished.

Cautiously Puri searched the back rooms on the ground floor of Professor Pandey’s house.

He passed through the kitchen and into a small yard, where he noticed a couple of rubber mats, like the ones found in cars, draped over the top of the back wall.

The detective returned inside and mounted the stairs.

He found a bloodstain on the third step. Another on the fifth. He hurried up the landing and turned the corner around the banisters.

There he found another man lying facedown in a pool of blood.

Puri knew who it was without having to turn the body over.

He checked for a pulse, hoping vainly that perhaps the man could still be saved. Finding none, he slumped down on the top stair with his face in his hands.

This was where the doctor found him ten minutes later.

“I’m afraid this one’s dead as well,” he said after examining the body. “Did you know him?”

Puri didn’t answer. His eyes were creased with sadness.

“Sir, do you know the name of the deceased?”

The detective let out a long, anguished sigh.

“Yes, I knew him,” he replied. “His name was Dr. Suresh Jha.”

“What the hell is going on here, sir?” demanded Inspector Singh when he reached the murder scene. “I thought Dr. Jha was dead. How can he be dead – again?”

“One thing at a time, Inspector,” replied Puri calmly. “Just I’m attempting to retrace the killer’s steps.”

He was in the sitting room standing on a chair examining a bullet hole in the ceiling.

“Most probably it was a double-action revolver,” the detective said half to himself, a sad resignation to his voice. He got down off the chair, squinting in the flashing blue light cast by the emergency beacon on top of Singh’s Jeep, which had pulled up outside only moments earlier.

“Inspector, by chance, you could switch that disco thing off?” asked Puri, holding his hand over his eyes.

Singh went to the window and shouted through the broken pane angrily at his driver, “Off karo!”

“Most kind of you,” said the detective as the order was promptly acted upon.

They walked through the kitchen to the yard behind the house. The murderer, Puri explained, had come in over the wall, having first laid a couple of rubber car mats on top of the shards of glass jutting out of the top. Finding the kitchen door open, he had proceeded to the sitting room. The professor had been sitting at his workbench – his smoking pipe was lying there, still warm.

“The murderer was already present when I rang the bell. Most probably the sound distracted him. Thus he and Pan-dey took to struggling and the weapon was discharged upward, the bullet getting lodged in the ceiling.”

As the scuffle had continued, one of Pandey’s gutted TV sets was sent crashing to the ground. The professor had been shoved hard against the window, breaking the glass. When the revolver was discharged for the second time, it had been in close proximity to his belly. This suggested that both he and the murderer had been fighting for possession of it at the time.

“See the powder burns on his shirt and fingers, also.”

Puri added as an aside in a less perfunctory tone: “Inspector, when I came across the unfortunate fellow, he was laughing.”

“Laughing?” echoed Singh.

“Naturally it crossed my mind maybe he was faking. Just as Dr. Jha did on Rajpath.”

“Hang on a minute, sir. Are you telling me Jha faked his own death?” interjected Singh, who was growing impatient with the inordinate details about the shooting.

Puri ignored his question and continued with his reconstruction, making his way out into the hallway to the foot of the stairs.

“Dr. Jha was upstairs. Upon hearing commotion and gunshots, he came to investigate. The murderer shot at him but missed. See the round here in the wall? Dr. Jha turned and retreated upstairs. But shot number four reached him in the back.”

Puri and Singh went up to the landing, where the Guru Buster had managed to crawl before breathing his last. A blanket had been placed over his body.

“Were these killings premeditated, sir?” asked Singh.

“Seems the murderer did not intend to kill Pandey. He had ample opportunity to do so the moment he entered the house. As for Dr. Jha, must be he came down and saw the murderer. Thus his fate was sealed.”

“Did you know Jha was alive – before he was killed?” asked Singh, radiating anxiety.

“I came to know this morning only during a game of cha-turanga at the Gym.”

“What does chaturanga have to do with it?”

“Point is it allowed me to make the connection. Suddenly I understood who it was exactly who knocked me for six. Until that moment, I had been fooled along with all and sundry to believe Dr. Jha was deceased. Thus I was unable to place his voice.”

“You mean it was Dr. Jha who knocked you out?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“But why?”

“Must be he imagined I was an intruder. It was an accident.”

“But what was he doing there?”

“Most probably putting some papers and affairs in order. His secretary, Ms. Ruchi, will tell me for sure. She was an accomplice, also.”

“So everything on Rajpath was – ”

“An illusion within another illusion. Sword, blood, everything was fake. The death, also.”

“But I saw the wound myself, sir! The medical officer certified Dr. Jha was dead!”

“Today I came to know the medical officer in question is one of Dr. Jha’s oldest friends. A committed rationalist, also. I traced him to his home this evening, only. He admitted to falsely issuing the death certificate. Seems the wound you saw was a fake one.”