Part 3
The Inspector immediately spun around on the heel of his boot towards the bed behind him. Seeing that horrific sight, even the Inspector, who considered himself a daring man, was shaken to his core.
The massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling had fallen directly onto Raja exactly at one o'clock. The weight of the chandelier and the shattered glass had immediately put Raja into the sleep of death. The blood flowing from Raja's torn stomach and chest began to drip onto the floor below. Judging by the condition of the corpse, it could be estimated that death must not have given Raja even a chance to writhe in pain.
Just then, towards the front wall, a swinging iron hinge tied with a thin but strong thread succeeded in attracting everyone's attention. In the blink of an eye, every single person present in the room was drawn like a magnet towards that swinging iron hinge.
Immediately gesturing to the three constables, the Inspector said— "The killer is still here somewhere near us— see where this thread is going outside this room— hurry up!" In the blink of an eye, the three constables opened the back door and rushed out from the front.
Just an inch behind the hinge, a piece of paper folded into the thread was visible. The paper was folded so neatly that it had not even occupied as much space as a small glass marble.
While trying to remove that paper from the thread, the Inspector said— "I see that electrical fitting work is going on in your house— and there seems to be a high probability that the electrician himself has arranged to drop the chandelier—" "That mechanic must have unscrewed the nuts from the front of the hinge—" "Then, after tying a strong thin thread to the hinge, he concealed the thread behind the false ceiling on the roof and took it out of this room through the ventilator— as soon as it struck one on the clock, he must have pulled this thread hard while standing outside the room— he had already unscrewed the nuts on the other side of the hinge placed in the roof hook— therefore, as soon as the thread was pulled, the hinge moved from its place and the chandelier fell down with a loud thud— meaning that the killer is also present somewhere nearby—" and saying this much, the Inspector freed that glass-marble-like paper from the thread and unfolded its layers to read it. The paper was typed and it was written:
"Undoubtedly, Raja must have said goodbye to this world. But now it is Prakash's turn to die. Inspector, look at the time on the clock, hopefully it must be exactly one o'clock and four minutes."
Moving his attention from the letter, the Inspector immediately checked the time on his mobile, and indeed, it was exactly one o'clock and four minutes. Just then, a WhatsApp message arrived on the Inspector's mobile from that same number, and the Inspector opened it in the blink of an eye.
The Inspector read that message aloud:
"Before it strikes one o'clock and eight minutes. That is, within the seventh minute itself, the Yamdoots (messengers of death) are going to take Prakash's soul away from here. If you have the strength, try and stop it."
— 'The Enigma'
When the Inspector fell silent after reading the message, he saw that all the people there had immediately formed a circle around an eighteen-year-old boy. The Inspector understood that the youth standing in that circle was Prakash.
And as soon as that youth's face became visible to the Inspector, he screamed at the top of his lungs— "As soon as you entered the room, you drank something, didn't you?"
He wanted to answer the Inspector's question, but due to breathlessness, he was unable to speak anything.
Read further in Part 4