Alok Mukherjee
I
The Mallick mansion stood like a fading relic on one of South Kolkata’s quieter streets, its grandeur worn down by decades of neglect, yet still capable of stirring awe in those who crossed its threshold. Rajat Mallick, the current custodian of this ancestral home, walked through its corridors with a nervous air, his mind fixed on the night ahead. The music room, once the pride of his forefathers, had not seen such a gathering in years. High ceilings lined with fading frescoes, Belgian chandeliers that flickered with uneven light, and carved wooden panels heavy with dust spoke of a past when the Mallicks were patrons of art and culture. Now Rajat clung to this mehfil like a lifeline, hoping to breathe relevance back into his dwindling legacy. At the heart of this event was Pandit Harinath Choudhury, a man whose name still carried weight in the classical music circles of the country, a maestro returning to the city after years of seclusion. Securing him was not just a stroke of luck—it was Rajat’s last desperate attempt to assert that the Mallick name still meant something in Kolkata’s cultural sphere.
As dusk settled, carriages, sleek cars, and modest taxis alike began pulling into the mansion’s courtyard, the eclectic mix of vehicles reflecting the diversity of the guests. Inside, servants hurried about with trays of sherbet and brass bowls of sandalwood paste to greet the attendees, while Rajat stationed himself near the carved teak doors of the music room, greeting each guest with a careful blend of courtesy and pride. The crowd was a tapestry of personalities—disciples eager to bow before the maestro, rivals arriving with polite smiles and veiled envy, aristocrats clutching at the nostalgia of Kolkata’s golden past, and curious younger faces unfamiliar with the traditions but keen on spectacle. Among them was Ananya Basu, the young protégé whose rising fame had begun to outshine the very man she was meant to revere. There too was Kavita Roy, her eyes fixed with unwavering devotion on the door where she expected her ustad to appear at any moment, her posture tense as if guarding him from unseen threats. The murmurs of polite conversation floated like smoke in the air, but beneath the surface, rivalries and unspoken resentments flickered as surely as the candles in the chandeliers.
When Pandit Harinath Choudhury finally arrived, the room seemed to pause. Dressed in a deep maroon silk kurta with a green embroidered shawl draped across his shoulder, he carried the authority of a man who had lived long in the shadow of both adoration and criticism. His hair had thinned, his frame had weakened, but his eyes still held the fire of a performer, and his mere presence drew a hush from the gathering. Some bent low to touch his feet, others offered stiff nods, while a few exchanged glances heavy with unsaid judgments. Behind him entered his estranged wife, Meera, elegant in a plain blue sari, her presence unexpected and immediately felt. The tension in her gaze towards Harinath was unmistakable, layered with years of bitterness, betrayal, and perhaps an unspoken longing. The air seemed to tighten as she took her seat near the front, her jaw set, her fingers clutching her handbag with restrained fury. Rajat, ever the watchful host, noticed these undercurrents with unease but pressed on, gesturing the ustad towards the stage where the tanpuras were already tuned and waiting. The echoes of the past seemed to return as the maestro lowered himself before the gathering, the music room reclaiming a fragment of its lost glory.
As the evening settled into rhythm, the music room became more than a setting; it became a crucible where ambitions, memories, and hidden grievances collided. For Rajat, it was an attempt to anchor his family’s relevance; for Ananya, a stage where the unspoken struggle between disciple and guru simmered; for Meera, a bitter return to the world she had abandoned; and for Kavita, a sacred vigil beside the man she worshipped. The others—aristocrats clinging to nostalgia, rivals measuring every note, friends and acquaintances whispering of curses attached to forgotten ragas—were more than just witnesses; they were threads in the fabric of a night that would not end in mere applause. Pandit Harinath Choudhury adjusted his shawl, cleared his throat, and prepared to summon the first note, unaware—or perhaps faintly aware—that this mehfil would not simply mark a return to music, but a prelude to death. The music room, lit in gold and shadow, awaited its transformation from a stage of art to a stage of crime.
II
The music room, bathed in the warm glow of flickering candles, seemed to awaken from slumber as the mehfil began. Heavy drapes softened the sounds of the city outside, leaving only the resonance of tanpuras humming in perfect unison. The sitar players, seated cross-legged on the floor, tuned their instruments with meticulous care, their fingers grazing the strings until the notes melted into a seamless drone. A faint smell of jasmine mingled with the sharp tang of brass lamps burning ghee, creating an atmosphere steeped in both solemnity and expectation. Guests leaned forward in anticipation as Pandit Harinath Choudhury adjusted himself on the low dais, his shawl falling across his shoulder, his aged hands pressing against his knees with authority. His eyes swept the room once, pausing briefly on familiar faces—some warm, others bristling with rivalry—before closing with a meditative calm. With a single nod, he signaled the tabla player, and the mehfil’s heartbeat began.
He chose to open with a light evening raga, one meant to draw the gathering into his orbit without overwhelming them. His voice, though weathered with years, carried a richness that only deepened with age, and as he let the alaap unfurl, the notes hung in the air like silk threads weaving an invisible tapestry. The room collectively leaned closer, caught in the gravity of his presence. Some closed their eyes, swaying gently to the rise and fall of his melody, while others sat stiff, measuring each phrase against their own silent judgments. Rajat Mallick, seated near the front, allowed himself a rare smile, proud that his family’s music room was once again the nucleus of such magic. Yet not all eyes glowed with admiration. Across the room, Ananya Basu sat poised, her back straight, her hands resting elegantly in her lap, her youthful energy restrained only by formality. When the moment came for her to respond in a jugalbandi-style exchange, her voice rang out, fresh and precise, with a clarity that made some guests glance from guru to protégé as though witnessing a subtle duel disguised as harmony.
There was a tension to their exchange, barely perceptible yet unmistakable to the sensitive ear. Where Harinath’s delivery was seasoned, commanding, layered with decades of experience, Ananya’s was bold, unflinching, eager to claim its own space in the hall. Their eyes met briefly during the performance, the fleeting look heavy with unspoken words—a clash between guidance and rebellion, pride and challenge. Whispers stirred among the guests. Some older connoisseurs frowned at her audacity, muttering that disciples must not overshadow their gurus, while others, particularly the younger attendees, smiled with quiet admiration at her courage. The music itself seemed to embody the tension, Harinath’s phrases pulling tradition tightly, Ananya’s responses stretching against it, the dialogue between them shimmering with both beauty and unease. Meera Choudhury, seated near the front, watched in silence, her lips pressed into a thin line, her gaze alternating between the man she had once loved and the young woman who now occupied the place she had abandoned long ago.
Around the periphery of the room, the undercurrents of rivalry and suspicion simmered in hushed tones. Subir Mallick, Rajat’s younger brother, sipped from a silver goblet, muttering to a fellow guest that he heard “strange dissonance” in tonight’s music, as if the raga itself was resisting the singer. Kavita Roy, the ever-loyal disciple, sat with her eyes fixed on the ustad, her face pale, her lips moving as though silently singing every phrase along with him, her intensity unsettling those nearby. Dr. Arindam Sen observed with clinical detachment, though his brow furrowed when Harinath took frequent sips of water from a glass at his side, a detail no one else seemed to notice. The mehfil carried on with elegance, yet beneath the delicate interplay of ragas and rhythms lay a deeper disquiet—resentments carefully veiled, ambitions cloaked in deference, and grudges that found echo in each drawn-out note. As the candles flickered, their shadows danced across the carved walls, and it seemed for a moment that the music room itself was listening, storing every glance, every whisper, every strained harmony for the revelations yet to come.
III
The hour grew heavy as midnight crept closer, the once-vibrant air of the mehfil beginning to shift into something more solemn. The candles had burned lower, their flames fluttering as if disturbed by an unseen breath, casting restless shadows across the frescoed ceiling of the music room. Pandit Harinath Choudhury, after a brief pause, lifted his hand to silence the accompanying instruments. A hush spread instantly, the kind of silence born not of politeness but of anticipation and unease. He cleared his throat, his voice steady though his face seemed drawn with fatigue, and announced that he would now attempt “Raga Marva.” At the mention of the raga, several among the audience shifted uncomfortably. Old connoisseurs glanced at each other with furrowed brows, younger guests exchanged curious glances, and even the tabla player hesitated, his fingers hovering above the skin of his instrument as if uncertain whether to begin. For centuries, “Marva” had carried with it a reputation of ill omen when sung at the wrong time—an austere, twilight raga meant to evoke restlessness, a raga that unsettled rather than soothed. To choose it at such an hour was not only unconventional but, to some, dangerously provocative.
Meera Choudhury’s reaction was immediate and sharp. Dressed in her understated blue sari, she stiffened in her chair, her eyes narrowing in outrage. She had known him too long not to recognize this as a deliberate gesture—a taunt meant for her as much as for the gathering. Rising with suddenness, she pushed back her chair, the scrape of its legs cutting across the hush like a blade, and left the music room without a word. A murmur followed in her wake, whispers swelling like ripples across the audience, some guests craning their necks to watch her leave. Rajat Mallick, anxious host that he was, tried to steady the room with forced composure, but even he could not hide the worry in his eyes. The maestro ignored the disturbance, his gaze distant, as though he were already journeying inward to summon the raga’s forbidding notes. When he began, his voice, though weary, carried a haunting sharpness. The first phrases of “Marva” unfurled into the midnight air like strands of smoke, thin and piercing, coiling through the room with a strange, unsettling beauty that made even the untrained listener shift uneasily in their seat.
Subir Mallick, his senses blurred with drink, muttered aloud from his corner that something was wrong in the sound, that there was a dissonance not belonging to the raga. His words, though slurred, carried just enough conviction to draw uneasy glances from nearby guests. Was it simply the imagination of a drunken aristocrat, or was there truly something amiss in the music? Ananya Basu, seated upright, listened with tightly pursed lips, her eyes darting from her guru to the glass of water he sipped between notes. Kavita Roy clutched her dupatta with trembling hands, mouthing the phrases with him, as if her devotion might shield him from some unseen threat. Dr. Arindam Sen’s gaze sharpened, his medical instinct awakened by the flush in Harinath’s face, though he said nothing, unwilling to disrupt the sanctity of performance. The audience sat as if bound in invisible cords, their nerves stretched thin by the raga’s austerity, the sense of doom that clung to each ascending phrase. The air seemed denser, heavier, as if the very walls of the music room absorbed the dread and pressed it back upon its occupants.
As the performance deepened, the raga ceased to be mere sound and became atmosphere itself. Each note scraped against the silence, resonating with a sharpness that unsettled the heart, stirring anxieties that had no name. The chandeliers flickered again, their crystals scattering fractured light that danced restlessly across the carved wooden panels, shadows shifting like ghostly spectators at the edges of the room. Guests sat frozen, reluctant to breathe too loudly, lest they disturb the fragile yet oppressive spell that had taken hold. What had begun as art was transforming into an invocation, a calling forth of something darker, something whispered about in legends of cursed compositions. And at the center of it all was Pandit Harinath Choudhury, his voice both masterful and fraying, his body swaying with the strain of summoning music that carried with it not just tradition but threat. In that midnight hour, as “Marva” unfolded in all its austerity, the music room felt less like a place of performance and more like a stage where destiny had begun to gather its shadows, waiting for its final cue.
IV
The final notes of Raga Marva hung in the air like a frayed thread, quivering and then snapping into silence. For a heartbeat, the music room remained suspended in an unnatural stillness, the audience caught between awe and unease. Pandit Harinath Choudhury’s face, flushed and gleaming with sweat, seemed to tighten as he struggled for breath, his hand gripping the edge of the dais. Then, without warning, his shawl slipped from his shoulder, and his body slumped forward with a dull, dreadful thud against the carpeted stage. A collective gasp tore through the gathering, shattering the fragile silence. The tabla player dropped his hands in shock, the tanpuras continued their drone as if mocking the stillness of their master, and for a moment, no one moved—unable or unwilling to accept what their eyes had just witnessed. It was Rajat Mallick, his host’s instincts colliding with his rising terror, who leapt to his feet and cried out for assistance, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. But his cry met only stunned faces and whispers beginning to coil like smoke.
Guests surged forward, but their movements were clumsy, hesitant, restrained by the weight of disbelief. Kavita Roy fell to her knees beside the fallen ustad, her trembling hands reaching for his wrist, searching desperately for a pulse. “No… no, this cannot be,” she murmured, her voice breaking, her devotion refusing to accept the truth. Ananya Basu stood rooted, her face drained of color, her lips quivering as though she might say something, but no sound came. Subir Mallick, glass still in hand, stared wide-eyed at the scene, the haze of alcohol clearing just enough to let fear take its place. At the front, Dr. Arindam Sen finally pushed his way through the crowd and bent over the maestro’s body, his fingers coldly efficient as they pressed against the throat, the chest, the veins at the temple. After a few tense seconds, he looked up, his face grim, his verdict plain without words. A cry rose from somewhere in the audience—half shock, half lament—and the murmur of panic swelled. Harinath Choudhury, the legendary voice that had commanded silence and reverence, lay still and silent forever.
The panic might have spilled outward into chaos, but it was soon contained by a more chilling realization. When Rajat rushed to the great wooden doors of the music room to fetch help, he found them unyielding. The heavy iron bolt was secured from the inside. Servants, responding to the commotion, tried the windows from the outside, only to discover them sealed tight, locked with rusted latches that had not been touched in years. Gasps of unease rippled through the gathering as the implications settled in. They were all trapped in the music room with the body of a dead man, and no one had entered or left. The whispers began then, at first cautious and half-formed: perhaps it was a heart attack, perhaps the curse of Marva had finally claimed its victim. But darker questions followed swiftly, whispered behind trembling hands—was this death truly natural? Or had someone within the room played their hand? The locked doors transformed the atmosphere from grief to dread, every shadow suddenly suspect, every guest a potential conspirator.
As the crowd pressed together, fear and suspicion tightening its grip on the air, the music room itself seemed to shrink. Chandeliers flickered overhead, their once-golden light now cold and accusatory, glinting off anxious eyes and pale faces. Rajat, his voice hoarse, pleaded for calm, though his own hands shook as he tried in vain to open the bolt again and again. Ananya moved closer to her guru’s body, silent tears slipping down her cheeks, yet in her gaze lingered something heavier than grief—an awareness, perhaps, of the tension that had passed between them earlier. Kavita remained crouched beside Harinath, rocking slightly, murmuring ragas under her breath like mantras to ward off the darkness. Subir muttered that he had warned them of dissonance in the raga, that the very music itself had been poisoned. And from somewhere in the crowd came the first sharp, accusatory question: If no one entered, and no one left, then how did death find its way inside? The music room, once a sanctuary of art, had become a locked chamber of suspicion, its every guest now unwilling participant in a mystery that had only just begun.
V
The arrival of Inspector Abhijit Chatterjee brought a sudden, bracing order to the chaos that had consumed the music room. Tall, broad-shouldered, and with a voice that carried the authority of someone accustomed to both obedience and deceit, he strode into the mansion flanked by constables. Rajat Mallick, pale and shaken, rushed to meet him at the threshold, words tumbling from his lips in frantic half-explanations. The inspector raised a hand, silencing him with a calm that seemed almost unnerving in the charged atmosphere. “No one leaves this room,” Chatterjee declared, his tone clipped and final. He ordered the doors bolted again and stationed constables at every possible exit. Guests shifted uncomfortably, the reality pressing upon them like a tightening net: they were all witnesses, and perhaps even suspects, in what was no longer a mere accident. Chatterjee’s sharp gaze scanned the room, lingering on the body of Pandit Harinath Choudhury still sprawled on the dais, and then moving slowly across each face, as though reading the flickers of fear and guilt etched in the candlelight.
Dr. Arindam Sen remained crouched by the body, his brow furrowed. When asked for a preliminary opinion, he spoke with deliberate caution. “It may well be heart failure,” he said, his hand resting uneasily on his medical bag. “The maestro was elderly, the performance was taxing, and… this raga, it was known to stir unease. His heart may not have endured the strain.” Yet the words lacked conviction, and Chatterjee picked up on the hesitation immediately. He stepped closer, his keen eyes missing nothing. A silver glass of water stood near the fallen singer, its rim still wet, and he bent to examine it carefully, sniffing it before gesturing for a constable to seal it as evidence. There, on the shawl that had slipped from Harinath’s shoulder, was a faint dusting of residue that seemed out of place—no more than a hint of powder, clinging like a whisper to the fabric. The inspector straightened slowly, his face unreadable, but his instincts already stirred. “Heart failure does not leave powder on a man’s clothes,” he remarked dryly, loud enough for the gathering to hear. A ripple of unease coursed through the room; whispers spread like the rustling of dry leaves.
The position of the body added further disquiet. Choudhury had not fallen backward, as one might expect from fainting, but forward, face-first, as though pulled by something heavier than exhaustion. His hand, frozen in its final spasm, was curled not toward his heart but toward the floor, grazing the very edge of the dais where the glass of water had stood. Chatterjee crouched to study it, his fingertips tracing the carpet without touching the body. He had investigated enough suspicious deaths to recognize patterns invisible to the untrained eye, and this tableau spoke of more than a failing heart. He turned back to the gathering, his gaze now sharpened into interrogation. “Each of you was present. Each of you heard him, saw him, shared this space. Until proven otherwise, each of you could have placed something in that glass, brushed that powder upon his shawl, or watched him falter without raising an alarm.” The words struck the room like a cold wind, drawing sharp breaths, defensive murmurs, and indignant protests. Fear had already taken root, but now it flowered into suspicion.
Chatterjee wasted no time in drawing the circle tighter. He ordered the constables to take down the names of every guest, their relation to the victim, and where exactly they had been seated during the performance. Rajat, sweating profusely, protested that these were respectable guests, patrons of art, and friends of his family. The inspector silenced him with a glance. “Respectability does not shield one from guilt, Mr. Mallick. Not tonight.” His eyes moved from Ananya Basu, pale and trembling, to Kavita Roy, still tearful but clutching her dupatta too tightly, to Subir Mallick, whose drunken mutterings seemed suddenly too loud, too rehearsed. Meera Choudhury’s absence did not go unnoticed either, and Chatterjee made a mental note of her stormy exit just before the fatal raga. To the inspector, every glance, every whisper, every half-explained movement was a clue waiting to unravel. And as the room grew quieter under his command, the truth became inescapable: Pandit Harinath Choudhury had not died in the service of his art, but under the shadow of something darker, deliberate, and concealed within the locked chamber of music and memory.
VI
Inspector Abhijit Chatterjee chose to begin his questioning with the one figure whose composure seemed most fragile: Ananya Basu, the protégé who had both the closest proximity to Pandit Harinath Choudhury and the most complicated relationship with him. She sat rigid on a high-backed chair, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap, eyes glistening under the weight of both grief and fear. The inspector’s voice was calm, but its measured tone left no room for evasion. “You were his disciple,” he began. “You knew his habits, his moods. Tell me, when did you last speak with him before his death?” Ananya swallowed hard, her voice unsteady as she confessed to a quarrel that had erupted only days earlier. She had been offered a lucrative contract with a well-known music producer who wished her to explore fusion music—a blend of classical with modern instruments and global styles. To Ananya, it was an opportunity to bring her art to new audiences; to her guru, it was nothing less than betrayal. “He forbade me,” she said quietly, eyes lowered. “He said I was abandoning the purity of the tradition. We… we argued. He even threatened to end our association if I pursued it.” The revelation rippled through the room, a murmur rising from the other guests as suspicion began to latch itself onto the young singer.
Chatterjee leaned forward, his gaze sharp, testing the edges of her composure. “So, you had motive. He threatened your future, your career, the very thing you had built under him. Did you resent him enough to—” He did not finish the sentence, but the implication hung heavily in the air. Ananya shook her head vehemently, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I loved him,” she insisted. “He was harsh, yes, but he was my guru. Without him, I am nothing. Do you think I would…?” Her words trailed off, the protest weak in the face of the inspector’s steady stare. It was then that a constable entered, carrying a small bundle of papers discovered in the maestro’s study. Letters, unsigned and scrawled in urgent strokes, warning Pandit Choudhury against singing Raga Marva. The language was ominous: The raga will bring your ruin. Do not tempt fate. This is your last warning. When placed before Ananya, her face drained of color. The handwriting bore striking resemblance to hers, the flourishes of her pen unmistakable. The room seemed to tighten, the suspicion now tangible, like smoke curling around her.
Under the inspector’s pressing questions, Ananya admitted what might otherwise have damned her: the letters were indeed written in her hand. Yet her explanation was strange, bordering on implausible. According to her, the warnings were dictated by Pandit Choudhury himself, and she had merely copied them as part of a practice exercise in handwriting. “He said calligraphy sharpens the disciple’s concentration,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “He would give me passages, sometimes even strange phrases, to copy again and again. Those warnings… I didn’t write them of my own will. He asked me to.” Her account left the room in a confused hush. Some faces registered disbelief, others doubt. Why would the great maestro dictate such ominous notes to his disciple? Was it some eccentric teaching method? A private ritual connected to his belief in the raga’s curse? Or was she attempting to shield herself behind a story too elaborate to be credible? Chatterjee said nothing for a long moment, his eyes boring into her as if he might pierce through the thin veil of her words to the truth beneath.
The inspector finally leaned back, his silence heavier than any accusation. “You understand,” he said slowly, “that from where I stand, this looks less like practice and more like intent. You argued with him, you feared for your career, and now we find warnings in your handwriting, warnings that came true.” Ananya sobbed openly, clutching the edge of her dupatta as though it might anchor her to innocence. “I swear on my music,” she pleaded, “I had no hand in his death. If those words condemn me, then condemn him too, for he was the one who asked me to write them.” But her protest, sincere or not, only deepened the shadows around her. To Chatterjee, every denial was as useful as a confession, for lies and truths alike revealed fractures in the façade of innocence. The guests watched in uneasy silence, each mind turning over the puzzle: was Ananya a grieving protégé wrongly ensnared by circumstance, or a disciple whose secret resentments had finally found expression in the most permanent of betrayals? In that dim, suffocating music room, her tears did little to clear the doubt. If anything, they only added to the growing suspicion that truth itself was hiding in plain sight, just beyond reach.
VII
When Inspector Abhijit Chatterjee turned his gaze toward Meera Choudhury, the atmosphere in the music room seemed to shift again, thickening with an older, heavier bitterness. She had returned after her dramatic exit, her posture stiff, her lips pressed into a thin line that betrayed both pride and rage. Unlike Ananya’s tears, Meera’s emotions carried the weight of years, a reservoir of wounds never healed. Chatterjee began gently, almost respectfully, as though aware he was prying into a storm long contained. “You left before the raga ended. You seemed… disturbed. Why?” he asked. Meera’s laugh was brittle, cutting across the hushed space like broken glass. “Disturbed?” she repeated. “Do you know what it is to watch a thief wear your crown? That raga—Marva—it was mine. My creation. My devotion. And he took it, polished it with his fame, and called it his own. For years, I listened to him bask in the applause, while I was erased, silenced.” The words poured out of her with venom sharpened by grief, her eyes blazing not with sorrow but with vindication. The guests shifted uncomfortably; they had heard whispers of discord between the couple, but this was an accusation of theft, betrayal, and artistic erasure—sins that struck at the very heart of the sanctity they all revered.
Chatterjee let the silence stretch, allowing the weight of her confession to settle over the room. Then he asked the question that trembled on every tongue: “So tonight, when he chose to sing Marva, did you see it as mockery? Or did you see your chance for revenge?” Meera’s eyes snapped toward him, unflinching. “Revenge?” she echoed. “What is revenge to a woman who has already lost everything? Do you think I needed his death to prove what was mine? His genius lay not in creation, but in appropriation. And tonight, as he sang, I heard the dissonance too. Not in the notes, Inspector, but in his soul. Perhaps the curse of Marva claimed him, as it should have years ago.” Her voice cracked, but her fury did not falter. Yet Chatterjee was not swayed by passion. He noted her exit from the hall just before the collapse, the opportunity it had given her to tamper with something unseen—perhaps the glass of water, perhaps the stage itself. The locked room mystery loomed over his deductions: how could she have acted if every exit was barred from within? Still, the coincidence of her timing gnawed at him, refusing to be dismissed.
The inspector pressed further, his words sharp now. “You had motive. You had anger. You had opportunity when you left the room. The doors were secured, yes, but you alone had a reason to slip away unnoticed. Did you return before the end, Meera? Did you place something where it could do its work when the time came?” Meera’s composure wavered for the first time, her breath quickening, her fingers tightening around the folds of her sari. For a moment, it seemed she might break into outright denial, but instead she straightened her shoulders and stared him down. “If you wish to paint me as his murderer, then do so boldly, Inspector,” she said. “But understand this: the chains that bound me were forged by him, and if tonight those chains broke, it was not by my hand but by fate’s. You speak of powder and water as if death can be reduced to chemistry. But sometimes, death comes by song, by memory, by the curses men bring upon themselves. I did not kill him. He killed himself the moment he stole what was mine.” Her words struck the guests like a dirge, half accusation, half prophecy, leaving them unsettled and fearful.
Chatterjee, however, was not swayed by metaphors. He scribbled notes, marking her bitterness, her claim of authorship over the raga, and her opportunity during the performance. He knew well that guilt could disguise itself as wounded pride, and that old grievances often bloomed into deadly intent. Yet the locked room continued to defy explanation: every window latched, every door barred, and no trace of forced entry. How could she—or anyone—have managed such a deed unseen? The puzzle remained maddeningly incomplete, but one truth was undeniable: Meera Choudhury’s pain was real, and pain was as dangerous a motive as greed or ambition. As she fell silent, retreating into a defiant stillness, the inspector turned his gaze back to the rest of the room. The circle of suspects was tightening, each confession exposing a deeper vein of resentment. But still the central riddle endured, unbroken: not merely who wished Harinath Choudhury dead, but how death itself had slipped silently into a room locked against the world.
VIII
Kavita Roy had been sitting silently in the corner until Inspector Abhijit Chatterjee’s sharp eyes landed on her. Unlike the others, she hadn’t spoken, hadn’t argued, hadn’t even wept much. But her silence was not born of composure; it was the silence of a pot boiling over, its lid rattling under pressure. When the inspector asked her to step forward, she obeyed quickly, almost reverently, as though the questioning itself were part of her service to her late guru. Her hands trembled as she folded them, her voice breaking before the first sentence had even left her lips. “I loved him more than life itself,” she began, her words carrying an intensity that silenced the restless whispers of the others. “Not as a wife, not as a woman — but as a disciple. He was my god, my reason for breathing. Do you think I could hurt him?” The declaration was both powerful and unnerving, the kind of obsessive loyalty that could inspire either fierce protection or, if twisted, destructive control. The inspector nodded slowly, then reminded her of what some had already whispered: that she was seen lingering near the glass of water Pandit Choudhury had sipped from before collapsing. Kavita’s eyes widened, and her hands clutched at her chest, as though pierced by the accusation.
Through tears, she tried to explain. Yes, she had been near the glass. Yes, she often hovered around him, adjusting his cushions, ensuring his tanpura was in tune, guarding him from what she believed were constant threats to his greatness. “People were always trying to harm him,” she said, her voice gaining a manic urgency. “They envied him, they plotted against him. I saw it in their eyes. Even tonight, there were whispers, doubts, curses. I only wanted to protect him!” Her breakdown was raw, and for a moment, her sincerity seemed unshakable. Yet, in that sincerity lay a troubling paradox. Obsession, Chatterjee knew, could kill as easily as hatred. Protectiveness could smother; loyalty could destroy the very object it worshipped. He asked again about the water, pressing her to clarify: had she touched it, tampered with it, tried to ensure no one else could? She nodded faintly. “I held it for him. I kept it close, so no one could slip anything into it. When he asked, I gave it to him myself. But I swear, Inspector, I would rather die than poison it.” The inspector’s pen paused mid-scratch, for the implications were chilling: if Kavita had indeed guarded the glass, then only she could say with certainty what had been poured into it.
The others shifted uneasily, casting furtive glances at Kavita as her confession unfolded. Ananya’s eyes darted nervously, remembering her own accusations; Meera’s lips curled with disdain, as though Kavita’s blind worship disgusted her. Rajat Mallick muttered something under his breath about obsession turning to madness. The inspector noted all of this, then returned to his subject. “You say you protected him from others, but who protected him from you, Kavita? You admit you sabotaged others, that you stood in the way of rivals, that you believed only you were worthy to serve him. What happens when protection becomes possession?” Kavita’s face crumpled, her sobs bursting forth like a dam breaking. She confessed, in a torrent of guilt, to countless small acts — hiding letters from other disciples, misplacing invitations, spreading rumors about younger singers whom she feared would steal his attention. “But it was only to keep him safe!” she wailed. “They didn’t understand him, they didn’t love him as I did. He needed me. I was the only one who truly cared.” Her words left the room in an uneasy silence, for while she had not admitted to murder, the picture she painted was no less disturbing.
Inspector Chatterjee studied her carefully, the sobbing figure before him embodying both devotion and danger. She was perhaps the most faithful of all his disciples, but faith, when absolute, could blur the line between worship and destruction. Had she poisoned his water, believing it would make him stronger or protect him from unseen harm? Had her obsessive acts escalated beyond sabotage into something irreversible? Or was she merely a tragic figure, condemned by her own extreme loyalty, guilty of nothing but a suffocating love? The locked room mystery deepened, for Kavita’s proximity to the fatal glass could not be ignored, yet her sincerity seemed almost untouchable. Chatterjee knew he could not dismiss her as innocent nor condemn her as guilty — not yet. As the night stretched deeper into unease, one truth crystallized in his mind: in this music room, love was as dangerous as hatred, and loyalty could prove as lethal as betrayal.
IX
Inspector Abhijit Chatterjee knew from the moment he stepped into the Mallick mansion that the house itself held as many secrets as the people within it. The grand music room, with its high ceilings, fading chandeliers, and dark teakwood panels, seemed almost alive in its silence after the tragedy. Now, with the guests restless and under watch, he turned his attention to the architecture. Old aristocratic houses in Kolkata were notorious for their labyrinthine layouts — concealed doors, forgotten staircases, tunnels built for servants or secrecy. Rajat Mallick, the desperate host, had mentioned nothing of the sort, but it was Subir Mallick, his inebriated cousin, who loosened his tongue under the inspector’s sharp gaze. Half-drunk on Scotch and half-drunk on memories, Subir smirked. “You think you know this house, Inspector? You don’t. Our ancestors built it for survival, for hiding… for pleasures not spoken of. There are passages here you won’t find on any map, unless you know where to look.” His words, slurred though they were, struck a chord of unease. If Subir spoke true, the locked-room puzzle might not be as impenetrable as it first appeared.
Chatterjee demanded specifics, but Subir, reveling in his small power, only leaned back and muttered about “blueprints in the study” and “a shaft where the music travels as much as the air.” The inspector wasted no time. With Rajat’s reluctant permission, he entered the Mallick family study, a room lined with dusty ledgers, ivory-inlaid cabinets, and portraits of unsmiling ancestors. After a painstaking search, his persistence was rewarded: a brittle roll of yellowed blueprints tucked away in a cracked leather folder. Spreading them across the desk, he traced the fine lines with his finger. The diagrams revealed something extraordinary — a concealed ventilation shaft running behind the music room’s wall, connecting discreetly to a small chamber above. It was likely designed for acoustics, allowing sound to carry through the mansion. But could it have also carried something more sinister? His mind raced with possibilities: a puff of powdered poison blown through the shaft, invisible to the eye, descending upon the unsuspecting singer as he performed; or perhaps a hand reaching in to tamper with something in the room while the audience was distracted. Suddenly, the impossible locked-room murder seemed to sprout cracks through which reality might seep in.
Returning to the music room with this knowledge, Chatterjee examined the far wall with renewed scrutiny. He tapped along the paneling until a faint hollow sound responded. Removing a section of carved wood revealed what the blueprint promised: a narrow passage, no wider than a man’s shoulders, running like a vein behind the wall. Dust lay thick within it, but there were smudges along the stone, faint trails where someone’s hands had brushed recently. The inspector crouched low, his torchlight cutting through the stale air. The shaft led upward, toward the concealed chamber, a space that could indeed allow someone to observe — or act — without being seen. His pulse quickened as he imagined the scenario: the murderer slips in through some forgotten entry, creeps to the shaft, delivers poison into the air or the water, and retreats without disturbing a single door or window. It was ingenious, and terrifyingly plausible. But the question remained: who among the suspects knew of this secret? Subir had bragged drunkenly, but his knowledge seemed more anecdotal than practical. Rajat, preoccupied with restoring his family’s prestige, had reason to keep the house’s decaying secrets hidden. And perhaps one of the others — a wife, a disciple, an opportunist — had stumbled upon the passage in their own explorations of the mansion.
Standing in the silence of the hidden shaft, Inspector Chatterjee felt the house itself pressing against him, its weight of history suffocating. The idea of the curse suddenly seemed less mystical, more a clever veil for human malice. A raga might not kill, but poison delivered under its cover could. As he sealed the shaft again and returned to the watchful eyes in the music room, his mind churned. The curse of Marva had been invoked as a story, a distraction, a smokescreen — but behind it lay calculation. Still, he could not ignore the symbolic resonance: the music that should have carried beauty through these walls might also have carried death. Gathering the suspects once more, his voice was cold and steady. “This house keeps secrets,” he told them, his eyes sweeping across their guilty faces. “But those secrets leave traces. And someone here knows how to use them. The curse is not to blame. One of you is.” With that, the music room, once a place of reverence, now felt like a trap waiting to reveal its most dangerous truth.
X
The Final Note unfolded with a tense atmosphere in the music room, where every suspect had been summoned under the scrutinizing eyes of Inspector Chatterjee. The grandeur of the Mallick mansion’s music room, once a sanctuary for melodies and forgotten ragas, now felt like a courtroom where every shadow seemed to echo the past. Chandeliers swayed gently as if in anticipation, and the polished floor reflected not only the faces of the gathered suspects but also the weight of their secrets. Chatterjee began methodically, asking each person to recount their movements during the fateful night. The soft creak of the wooden panels and the subtle smell of old varnish mingled with the tension in the air. As voices intertwined, recalling fleeting glimpses, hurried footsteps, and hushed whispers, it became evident that the room itself had been a silent witness to the events that led to the death, preserving clues invisible to the untrained eye but crystal clear to the inspector.
The inspector’s approach was both analytical and psychological, drawing out inconsistencies and subtle hesitations in each testimony. Subir Mallick’s earlier drunken confessions about hidden passageways and secret ventilation shafts seemed increasingly significant. Chatterjee skillfully pieced together how these ancestral features of the mansion could have been exploited, not by supernatural forces, but by a human mind seeking vengeance. Every gesture, every pause, and every glance contributed to a tapestry of suspicion, creating a delicate balance between accusation and deduction. Old rivalries resurfaced, and whispered resentments became audible in the tense hush of the room. Chatterjee highlighted the importance of music, noting how the deceased’s mastery over certain ragas had both inspired admiration and sown seeds of jealousy. The night’s fatal turn, he explained, was choreographed around both the soundscape of the mansion and the emotional turbulence among those present.
As the reconstruction continued, Chatterjee meticulously demonstrated how a particular sequence of musical notes and the strategic positioning of objects in the room facilitated the murder. The theory of a “curse” quickly dissolved under his scrutiny. Every detail, from the placement of the tabla to the slight misalignment of the piano stool, contributed to a narrative of calculated malice rather than superstition. Each suspect’s reaction was carefully observed; flickers of relief, sudden tension, and subtle shifts in posture betrayed their inner turmoil. The inspector revealed the motive, deeply rooted in past betrayals, professional rivalries, and unresolved grudges, showing how music had become both the medium and the mask for the crime. In this moment, the room felt suffused with a chilling clarity: the harmony of the ragas had been manipulated, not for artistry, but to execute a deadly vendetta.
Finally, the revelation struck like a dissonant chord, resonating with each person in the room. The murderer’s identity was unveiled with incontrovertible evidence and a detailed account of the night’s orchestration. Shock rippled through the group as old wounds, long buried, were exposed in a mixture of disbelief and reluctant acknowledgment. The inspector emphasized how silence, often considered benign in music and life, had been weaponized; a single unspoken gesture or overlooked pause had become an instrument of death. The room, once a haven of creativity, now bore the weight of confession and consequence. In the aftermath, the surviving members were left to confront their own entanglements with jealousy, ambition, and loyalty. Chatterjee’s methodical unraveling had transformed suspicion into truth, proving that even in a world defined by melodies and rhythm, human intentions—hidden, patient, and precise—could render silence deadlier than any overt act of aggression, leaving an indelible mark on the legacy of the Mallick mansion.
End
