Pabandeep Singh
1
The day began with a deceptive calm as the Singh family gathered at the ancestral haveli, its sprawling courtyard decorated with marigold garlands and incense smoke curling into the late afternoon sky. The occasion was meant to be one of prayer and ritual, a havan arranged by Harjit Kaur to mark a prosperous harvest season and to offer blessings for the family’s future, but beneath the fragrance of camphor and the rhythmic chanting of the priest lay a storm of unspoken tensions. Gurpreet Singh, the eldest son, stood near the head of the courtyard, his arms crossed as though he were already the master of the haveli, while his younger brother Karamveer kept mostly to the shadows, his face downcast, unwilling to invite conflict. Manpreet Kaur, Gurpreet’s wife, managed the trays of offerings with a stiff smile, her eyes darting more often toward her husband than toward the rituals themselves. The villagers who had been invited to witness the ceremony whispered amongst themselves, not just about the wealth of the Singh family but also about the sudden reappearance of Simran, Baldev’s estranged daughter, who after years of silence had returned, her eyes heavy with the weight of an absence too long endured. Though she stood in the back, her presence was like a flame drawing moths—every curious glance, every hushed speculation seemed to find its way back to her. Baldev Singh himself, tall even in his age, with his white turban and weathered face, presided over the gathering with his customary authority, his deep voice reciting lines from the prayer when needed, his stern gaze falling upon his children like a judge reminding them of their place.
Once the rituals ended, the mood shifted to that of a family feast, the kitchen erupting with the aroma of ghee, spices, and roasted wheat bread. Plates were set, villagers were served, and the haveli’s courtyards rang with laughter that sounded just a little too forced, as if every smile carried barbs behind it. Gurpreet boasted loudly of the new land he was negotiating to lease, a subject that made Karamveer quietly set down his glass. Manpreet, though gracious in her duties, could not hide the sharpness of her tone when speaking to her in-laws. Simran, carefully avoiding her brother’s eyes, spoke instead with the women of the village who questioned her about her years away, her life after elopement, and the misfortunes that had brought her back. Harjit Kaur remained mostly silent, her hands folded in prayer-like calm, though the crease between her brows betrayed her inner turmoil. In the midst of this strained festivity, glasses of chilled lassi were carried out on a brass tray, frothy with cream and sprinkled with saffron strands. The servant Jaswinder moved between family and guests, distributing the sweet drink, the clink of glass against glass momentarily drowning the undercurrent of family discord. Baldev, seated at the head of the gathering with an air of superiority, accepted his glass with a satisfied nod, sipping deeply, his stern expression softening for a brief instant as though even he could not resist the comfort of something sweet and cool after hours of ritual and formality.
But then the moment fractured. As conversations carried on and more glasses were lifted in casual cheer, Baldev’s hand faltered, his glass slipping and spilling across the white kurta that had always seemed to hold him in regal authority. A low gasp escaped him, followed by a violent clutching at his chest, his breath rattling as his eyes bulged with sudden shock. Chairs scraped against the floor as family members rushed to his side, Harjit’s cry piercing through the courtyard, while Gurpreet shouted for someone to fetch water. Manpreet froze, her hand still clutching a half-empty glass, while Karamveer, pale and trembling, held onto his father’s arm as though sheer willpower might anchor him to life. Simran, caught between grief and disbelief, stood unmoving as villagers murmured their prayers and suspicions in equal measure. Within moments, Baldev collapsed entirely, his weight sagging against Karamveer as the last of his breath escaped in a shallow wheeze. The courtyard that moments before had been filled with the fragrance of saffron and the warmth of festivity now felt cold, the silence punctuated only by the whispers rising like smoke: the mighty Baldev Singh had fallen, and the glass of lassi that had touched his lips was no ordinary drink. In the stunned faces and nervous glances that followed, it was clear—this was no act of fate, but the beginning of a reckoning that would consume the haveli and everyone bound to it.
2
The courtyard of the haveli descended into chaos the moment Baldev Singh’s body went limp, the weight of his collapse reverberating like thunder through the gathered family and villagers. Harjit Kaur threw herself at her husband’s side, her cries echoing against the haveli’s high walls, the kind of wail that strips the air of all pretense and leaves only grief and terror. Gurpreet barked orders and accusations in the same breath, shouting at Jaswinder for being careless with the lassi, demanding to know who had prepared it, and threatening to beat the truth out of anyone who stood in his way. The villagers, drawn in by the noise, crowded at the gates and spilled into the courtyard, their murmurs weaving together into a low, buzzing hum of speculation and superstition. Some clutched their heads in disbelief, whispering that the old man’s time had come, while others nodded knowingly, claiming such suddenness could not be natural. In the corner, Manpreet, her face pale but her voice sharp, urged that the police must be called before the situation worsened, for the whispers were already thick with accusations that would stain the family’s name if left unchecked. Karamveer, trembling, tried in vain to calm his mother, while Simran stood apart, her face shadowed by a strange mixture of grief and detachment, as though her return to the haveli had been destined for this very moment.
It was then that Rani, the village healer, pushed her way through the crowd, her presence commanding both fear and respect. A woman with eyes sharp as needles and hands roughened by years of midwifery and herbal cures, she bent over Baldev’s body with an air of grim certainty. Her fingers traced the veins of his neck, her eyes lingered on the spilled lassi staining his kurta, and her nostrils flared as if catching some trace invisible to others. Straightening slowly, she muttered just loud enough for the nearest ears to hear—“This is no ordinary death. The body fights like this when poison enters.” Her words spread through the gathering like wildfire, passed from one whisper to another, growing more sinister with each retelling. The once-orderly courtyard dissolved into panic: women pulled their children close, men exchanged sharp glances of suspicion, and servants trembled under Gurpreet’s wrath. Jaswinder swore by the Guru he had done nothing wrong, that he had only carried the tray, but his protests were drowned out by the rising tide of fear. Even the priest who had conducted the havan earlier shook his head gravely, mumbling that when greed festers in a household, the gods often punish with untimely death. No voice carried more weight, however, than Rani’s, and once she had spoken of poison, the villagers were no longer content to believe in fate.
By nightfall, the rumor had spread beyond the haveli walls, carried across the mustard fields and whispered at every well and chai stall in the village. Baldev Singh, the great landowner, had been poisoned by someone from his own household—this became the tale, reshaped and retold until even those who had not seen the body spoke of it as though they had witnessed his last gasp. Within the haveli, attempts to control the situation only deepened the fractures. Gurpreet, red-faced and restless, paced the halls, declaring that the police must punish whoever dared bring shame to the Singh family. Manpreet supported him outwardly, though her sharp eyes lingered too long on her brother-in-law Karamveer, as if daring him to challenge her husband’s authority. Harjit Kaur sat in the prayer room, rocking back and forth with her rosary beads, her tears spilling into whispered prayers that alternated between mourning and pleas for justice. Simran, meanwhile, sat silently by the window, the shadows cloaking her face as she watched the fields outside, as though searching for an escape route or perhaps recalling the reasons she had once left this house behind. Suspicion settled like dust upon every corner of the haveli, and though the night air was cool, the house itself seemed to throb with heat, each glance between family members weighted with accusation. The truth was not yet known, but already the seed of mistrust had been planted, and it would grow into something far darker in the days to come.
3
Constable Arjan Singh arrived at the haveli just as the sun began to dip behind the fields, painting the sky with strokes of orange and crimson, the colors of dusk carrying both serenity and foreboding. His bicycle leaned awkwardly against the gate as he stepped inside, his khaki uniform slightly wrinkled, his turban tied with more care than authority, his gait unhurried in a place where everyone else seemed to move in agitation. The villagers who had gathered outside the haveli chuckled among themselves, muttering that the government had sent only a “paper constable” to handle a case that clearly demanded more. Some laughed openly, nudging each other and predicting that Arjan would take statements, write a few lines in his notebook, and leave the mystery unresolved as always. Yet while the laughter hung in the air, Arjan remained unfazed. He had lived with these jibes his entire career, labeled slow, simple-minded, and too soft for police work. But behind his calm, unassuming eyes was a patience most underestimated, a patience that saw things others overlooked. As he entered the courtyard, his gaze swept across the scene with quiet precision—the half-cleared plates on the charpoys, the smudged footprint near the brass tray, the faint line of spilt lassi staining the stone floor where Baldev Singh had collapsed. Each detail settled into his memory as if he were filing away pieces of a puzzle no one else knew existed.
Inside the haveli, the atmosphere was heavy with silence, broken only by the occasional muffled sob from Harjit Kaur in the prayer room and Gurpreet’s sharp commands to the servants. Arjan did not confront anyone directly at first; instead, he walked slowly through the courtyard where the feast had taken place, his eyes catching the row of lassi glasses still resting on the side table. Some were empty, others only half-touched, and two stood completely untouched, their rims still wet with condensation. He bent over them briefly, noting their placement, then shifted his attention to the utensils hurriedly stacked in a corner, their hurried washing leaving tell-tale streaks of milk and saffron clinging to the brass. He asked no accusatory questions but simply jotted notes in his battered diary, an act that made Gurpreet snort with impatience and mutter about “wasting time.” Arjan, however, noticed something more than stains or glass marks—he noticed the eyes of the family as they followed his movements. Manpreet’s darted nervously toward her husband whenever Arjan looked her way; Karamveer avoided meeting his gaze altogether, busying himself with adjusting a chair that needed no adjusting; Simran, quiet and distant, watched him from the corner with the intensity of someone who feared both truth and discovery. Even Jaswinder, the servant, seemed restless, his hands twitching against the folds of his kurta as though holding back words. Arjan tucked these observations away, saying little, knowing that silence often loosened tongues far more effectively than threats.
By the time he gathered everyone in the courtyard, the murmurs of the villagers outside had grown into a restless hum, demanding answers that Arjan knew he could not yet provide. He looked around at the family seated before him, each face etched with a different blend of grief, fear, and calculation, and for the first time spoke in his measured, steady voice. He did not accuse anyone directly, nor did he make promises he could not keep. Instead, he told them plainly what he had concluded—that Baldev Singh had not died by chance, and the poison had not come from any wandering enemy or spiteful villager. No, the truth was sharper and closer: the poisoner was someone within these very walls, someone who had sat at the same table, shared the same prayers, and watched Baldev drink from the very glass that carried death. The words landed like stones in still water, sending ripples through every face, each pair of eyes shifting uneasily under the weight of suspicion. Outside, the villagers strained to hear, their laughter fading into silence, for even they understood that Constable Arjan Singh, the man they mocked, had just turned the haveli into a sealed chamber of secrets where no one could escape the circle of blame. And as Arjan closed his notebook with deliberate calm, the message was clear: the investigation had only begun, and every silence, every glance, every whispered word in this haveli would now matter.
4
Gurpreet Singh met Constable Arjan’s questions with the kind of arrogance that came not just from being the eldest son of a powerful landowner but from years of believing himself untouchable. Seated in the haveli’s main hall beneath portraits of stern ancestors, Gurpreet leaned back on the cushioned divan, his turban slightly askew from the day’s chaos, his voice dripping with impatience. “I am the rightful heir,” he declared, his tone echoing through the hall, “and instead of mourning my father, I am forced to endure your petty interrogations.” His words were sharp, his eyes restless, and yet beneath the bluster, Arjan noticed something else—a quickness to anger that betrayed nerves stretched thin. The constable let the arrogance wash over him without challenge, noting the way Gurpreet’s hand drummed against the armrest, the way his wife Manpreet, seated nearby, kept glancing toward him as though measuring whether his temper might boil over into danger. Arjan asked simple questions, deliberately mild: where Gurpreet had been when the lassi was served, whether he noticed anything unusual in his father’s behavior, what arguments had filled the household recently. Gurpreet answered curtly at first, but soon, in trying too hard to dismiss suspicion, he revealed more than he intended.
Through the conversation, Arjan pieced together the tensions that had long simmered between father and son. Villagers had whispered before of Gurpreet’s growing taste for cards and dice, his gambling debts mounting quietly but steadily, his nights often spent in makeshift dens where fortunes turned and vanished in hours. Baldev Singh, a man who prided himself on discipline and reputation, had not only condemned this behavior but had threatened to cut Gurpreet out of the will entirely if he did not mend his ways. More than once, heated arguments had erupted in the haveli, echoing down its wide halls—Baldev calling his son reckless, unfit to manage the lands; Gurpreet shouting back that as the eldest, the inheritance was his by right. Now, as Arjan listened to Gurpreet defend himself with too much force, the constable also learned that Baldev had been preparing to meet with a lawyer in the city, a man who had helped draft wills before, and there was talk that changes were imminent. For Gurpreet, this meant his authority, his position, perhaps even his dignity in the village, hung by a thread. The opportunity, the motive, the temper—everything pointed toward him as the most obvious suspect. And Gurpreet’s arrogance did little to disguise it; if anything, it drew the circle of suspicion tighter around him, making the villagers who eavesdropped at the gates whisper his name with growing certainty.
Yet, as Arjan closed his notebook, he did not allow the weight of these suspicions to harden into a conclusion. The constable’s instinct, shaped less by formal training than by years of listening to human frailty in its smallest gestures, told him that the truth was rarely so direct. Gurpreet was reckless, greedy, even desperate perhaps, but his rage was the kind that burned openly, not the kind that measured saffron strands and stirred poison into milk with a steady hand. When Arjan asked one final question—whether Gurpreet had noticed who had handed Baldev the fatal glass of lassi—the eldest son hesitated just a moment too long before deflecting with an angry wave of his hand, as though the detail were beneath him. That hesitation lingered with Arjan more than all the arrogance that had come before. He left the hall with villagers already convinced of Gurpreet’s guilt, but in his own mind, the constable carried a quieter thought: Gurpreet might have had motive and opportunity, yet the shadow cast by his anger felt too broad, too visible. Somewhere within the haveli’s walls, a subtler hand was at work, and Arjan knew he would have to look beyond the obvious if he was to uncover the truth.
5
Simran’s sudden reappearance at the haveli was like a storm that no one had prepared for, shaking the very foundation of Baldev Singh’s household and rippling through the village like wildfire. It had been years since anyone had seen her face, years since she had run away in defiance of her father’s authority, eloping with a man the villagers still referred to as an outsider. Back then, Baldev’s fury was so great that he disowned her publicly in the village square, his voice thundering that she was no longer his daughter and her name would never again be spoken under his roof. For the proud patriarch, her betrayal was not only personal but a wound to his honor, one that hardened into bitterness with time. Now, with her standing quietly at the doorway of the haveli, her dupatta drawn close and her eyes lowered, the air was thick with suspicion. Whispers spread like dry grass catching fire—some said she had been abandoned by the man she had chosen, others claimed she had returned only because she had no place else to go. Yet Simran’s voice trembled as she addressed the gathering, her words carrying both humility and desperation: she had not come for wealth or land, she insisted, but only for her father’s forgiveness. Still, her presence was unsettling, like a forgotten song echoing at the wrong hour of the night.
That evening, when the family and neighbors gathered for lassi in the courtyard, Arjan watched her carefully. Every gesture, every pause seemed weighed down by meanings unspoken. The villagers sat with curious eyes fixed upon her, whispering into their glasses as she folded her hands and kept to herself. A tray of cool, frothing lassi was passed around by the servant boy, each glass clinking as it changed hands. When it was placed before Simran, however, she hesitated, her fingers tightening on the rim before she quietly pushed it aside. A silence, subtle but sharp, cut through the chatter. Some dismissed it as shame or nervousness, but Arjan noticed the flicker of fear in her eyes, the way she avoided looking at anyone too long. It was as though she knew something they did not, or was guarding herself against some unseen threat. His mind turned quickly to the poisoning that had plagued the haveli—could her refusal to drink be simple caution, or was it an admission in disguise? He could almost hear the undercurrent of thought in the crowd: a daughter who once defied her father’s will could very well be capable of bringing further disgrace. Yet, she maintained her silence, her lips pressed firmly together as though words might betray her if she let them slip.
Later, when the night air grew cooler and most of the villagers had dispersed, Arjan lingered in the courtyard, the unease clinging to him like damp mist. He thought of Baldev, seated stiffly on his carved chair, his eyes never once softening despite his daughter’s pleas. To forgive, for him, was weakness; to relent, dishonor. And yet, in Simran’s trembling voice and her deliberate avoidance of the lassi, there was something more than mere guilt—there was knowledge. Arjan felt certain she carried within her an answer to the mystery that had begun to unravel around the haveli, something she dared not reveal outright. Perhaps she feared the wrath of her father more than death itself, or perhaps she was protecting someone else hidden within her story. Her sudden return, timed so precisely with the poisoning, was no coincidence. As he walked past her chamber later that night, he caught sight of her kneeling by the window, her shoulders shaking silently. Was it grief? Was it remorse? Or was it the weight of secrets too dangerous to confess? One thing was clear to Arjan: Simran had returned not only as a daughter seeking forgiveness but also as a shadow tied to the haveli’s darkening fate, and until her truth was spoken, suspicion would follow her every step.
6
The haveli at night seemed to breathe differently—its walls, so grand and proud by day, became shadowed sentinels that listened and remembered. Constable Arjan moved quietly through its courtyards, his steps careful against the cool stone, the faint glow of lanterns guiding him through corners where voices carried more easily than in daylight. It was here, in the stillness of midnight, that secrets began to seep out. From the main hall, muffled at first, came the rising tones of Manpreet and Gurpreet. Their quarrel was sharp, a clash of bitterness and bruised pride. Manpreet’s voice, usually measured, now spilled with anger as she lashed out at her husband. “Your father never saw me as anything but a burden,” she hissed, her words trembling with years of repressed insult. “All his talk of family honor—yet he never missed a chance to remind me I brought no dowry worth speaking of.” Gurpreet tried to silence her, his tone both weary and defensive, but Manpreet would not be subdued. Her resentment had brewed too long, hardened into a blade that cut through the silence of the night. Arjan, listening from the shadows, noted not only her venom but her pain. Baldev’s harsh tongue had not spared her, and though she had worn the mask of dutiful daughter-in-law by day, the mask cracked in the safety of darkness. To her, Baldev’s death might not have been a tragedy but a release.
Elsewhere, on the edge of the courtyard, Arjan caught another fragment of confession—this one spoken with sorrow rather than rage. Karamveer, the younger son, sat on a charpoy with a close friend from the village, his voice low but weighted. He spoke of a love once nurtured in secret, a woman he had wished to marry, only to have his father tear the dream apart with a command. “He said she was beneath us,” Karamveer whispered, his fingers tightening around the edge of his shawl. “That I was to forget her, that I owed my duty to the land and the family name. But how does one forget love?” His friend listened quietly, offering no answers, for what comfort could there be in a wound that had never healed? Arjan lingered long enough to hear the grief behind Karamveer’s words, the kind that turned to bitterness over time. To be denied love, to be shackled by a father’s unyielding pride—such things left scars not easily hidden. Arjan marked this too in his mind: another thread in the tangled weave of Baldev Singh’s legacy of cruelty. Each child, each relation, seemed to carry a private wound carved by the man’s authority.
Even in the servants’ quarters, where loyalty was expected without question, resentment festered. Jaswinder, Baldev’s old servant, sat cross-legged in the dim light of an oil lamp, his hands restless as they worked at the hem of his kurta. To the other servants, he muttered half-formed sentences, bitter sighs that spoke of decades of humiliation. “He treated me like an animal,” Jaswinder spat under his breath. “Not a man, not even a servant with dignity—just a dog to fetch and carry.” His words carried the weight of years spent swallowing insults, his pride chipped away until only bitterness remained. When another servant tried to calm him, reminding him that Baldev was gone, Jaswinder only laughed bitterly, the sound hollow and sharp. “Gone, yes. But he still sits on my chest. Even dead, he makes it hard to breathe.” Arjan, hidden in the shadows, listened closely. The haveli was like a vessel overflowing with resentment, every person within its walls bearing some bruise, some insult, some reason to curse the patriarch who now lay lifeless. The constable felt the enormity of the task settle upon him—not in the absence of motives but in their abundance. Baldev Singh had been feared, respected, even obeyed, but never loved. And now, in death, his legacy was not reverence but suspicion, a storm of grudges that could have driven any one of them to mix poison into his lassi.
7
Arjan walked through the narrow lanes of the village as the late afternoon sun dipped into a burnt orange haze. His destination was the modest home of Rani, the village midwife, whose reputation stretched far beyond childbirth. To the villagers, she was a healer, a woman who understood the subtle properties of roots, leaves, and tinctures in a way no one else did. But to Arjan, on this day, she was a keeper of secrets. Her small mud house, tucked at the edge of the fields, smelled strongly of dried neem, turmeric, and smoke. Inside, rows of jars lined the shelves, each containing powders, oils, and bundles of herbs—objects of everyday life but also, in the wrong hands, of potential destruction. Rani welcomed him with a steady gaze, her voice soft and deliberate, as though every word carried both care and caution. “You ask about Baldev,” she murmured, motioning him to sit. “But what you seek is not the man everyone thinks they knew. He carried shadows that his wealth could not wash away.” The words stirred Arjan’s curiosity, and he leaned in closer. Rani spoke of whispers long buried: that Baldev had once fathered a child outside his marriage, a child no one in his proud household dared acknowledge. The midwife’s eyes did not betray judgment, only a tired resignation, as though she had seen too many lives tangled in secrets like vines. For the first time, Arjan realized that Baldev’s influence might have stretched into places far more intimate, dangerous, and personal than land disputes or money quarrels.
Yet beneath Rani’s steady tone, Arjan sensed a quiet undercurrent of bitterness. Her knowledge of Baldev’s scandal seemed too specific, her recollections too vivid, as if she had been closer to those shadows than she admitted. He pressed her gently, asking how she knew so much. She busied herself with crushing herbs in a mortar, letting the silence stretch before finally replying, “A healer hears what others try to hide. Pain has a way of finding me—whether through childbirth, sickness, or secrets whispered in fear.” Her answer sounded wise, but Arjan could not ignore the faint defensiveness in her voice. He scanned the jars around her and felt the weight of their unspoken possibilities. The same hands that brought children safely into the world also wielded the knowledge to end life quietly, without a trace. A bitter root mixed with the wrong leaf, a powder slipped unnoticed into food or drink—these were not the tools of murderers, but in the wrong moment, they could become exactly that. The thought unsettled him, and he found himself studying her more closely: the lines etched into her face, the dark intensity in her eyes, the way she seemed too comfortable discussing Baldev’s sins. When he asked whether anyone else knew of the illegitimate child, she shook her head slowly, warning him that chasing such truths could tear open wounds the village was not ready to face.
As he left Rani’s home, Arjan’s mind buzzed with contradictions. The midwife had painted Baldev as a man with enemies born not just of land and greed but of betrayal and intimacy—motives far stronger than the ordinary rivalries Arjan had encountered so far. Yet even as she spoke of Baldev’s hidden past, her own presence grew suspicious in his eyes. She had free access to every household, trusted by all and questioned by none. If Baldev’s death bore the trace of poison, who better than Rani, with her shelves of herbs and her practiced hands, to administer it without raising alarm? And yet, would she? Arjan could not decide whether her words were an attempt to help him uncover the truth, or a careful diversion to deflect suspicion from herself. The whisper of her warning echoed in his ears long after he left: “Some secrets, Arjan, are not meant to be dug up. They will not free you—they will bury you.” The dusk settled around him, heavy and restless, as he walked back through the fields. Each step carried with it the sense that the circle of suspicion was tightening, and Rani, with her healer’s touch and her whispered truths, now stood at its very center.
8
The day of the will’s reading arrived like a storm long awaited, and the haveli filled once again with family, neighbors, and hushed tension. A local lawyer, summoned by Harjit Kaur, carried the document in a worn leather folder, its very presence commanding silence in the great hall. As he began to read aloud Baldev Singh’s final words, the atmosphere thickened, every line tugging at hidden emotions. The expected division of land and wealth—Gurpreet as eldest son inheriting the lion’s share, Karamveer receiving his smaller portion—seemed ordinary at first, until the lawyer’s voice shifted. Baldev, in a move that left many stunned, had declared that a large portion of his vast holdings was to be donated to charity: to schools, to the village gurdwara, and to the poor farmers he had long dismissed in life. The revelation fell like a stone into water, rippling through the gathered family. Gurpreet shot to his feet, his face flushed with rage, his voice breaking with disbelief. “This is a lie! My father would never give away what rightfully belongs to his blood!” His words cracked the hall’s silence, but they did not undo the ink upon the page. For him, it was more than a financial blow—it was an assault on the very authority he had always expected to inherit.
Simran, seated quietly at the edge of the gathering, lifted her head for the first time with a faint trace of triumph. Though her relationship with her father had been severed, this act of charity seemed to her like a quiet acknowledgment that Baldev had carried guilt, that perhaps he had understood the cost of his pride. In her eyes, it was vindication—not of her place in the family, but of her belief that even the proud patriarch could not erase every wrong with silence. She said little, but her expression unsettled Gurpreet further, as though her presence alone mocked his outrage. Across the room, Karamveer sat pale and shaken, his disappointment tempered by a resigned sorrow rather than anger. But Harjit Kaur, the widow, surprised Arjan most. She neither wept nor protested, her face calm, almost unreadable, as though she had long known what the will contained. When Gurpreet demanded she intervene, she merely lowered her eyes, her silence cutting deeper than any word. For Arjan, her composure raised more questions than answers. What role had she played in these decisions? Had she urged her husband toward charity, or was she merely a woman too accustomed to bearing storms in silence?
As Arjan observed the hall unravel with accusations and whispers, a new understanding took root in his mind. The poisoning of Baldev Singh could not be reduced to greed over property alone. The will had unearthed more than material loss—it had exposed wounds of honor, betrayals of trust, and the fragile egos bruised by a man’s lifelong dominance. Gurpreet’s fury was not only about land but about being denied his rightful recognition. Simran’s quiet satisfaction stemmed from years of rejection now partially avenged. Harjit Kaur’s stillness, so deliberate, hinted at knowledge far deeper than she revealed. Even the villagers watching from the doorways, murmuring about Baldev’s decision, carried their own interpretations—some praising his final generosity, others scoffing that it was too little, too late. Arjan realized then that the roots of the conspiracy stretched beyond a single motive, binding together greed, pride, and revenge into a knot far more tangled than he had imagined. The poison in Baldev’s lassi was not poured by the hand of hunger for land alone—it was fed by the bitterness of years, by grudges layered one upon another until any number of those in the haveli could have tipped the glass. And so, as the lawyer folded the will back into its leather case, Arjan knew that the true inheritance Baldev left behind was not his land or wealth, but a legacy of resentment that now threatened to consume the living.
9
In the tense atmosphere of the haveli, Arjan decided it was time to break through the fog of half-truths and evasions that had clouded the investigation since the tragedy struck. He called the entire family together in the courtyard, where the evening breeze stirred the lanterns and shadows danced against the old walls, making the faces of those gathered appear both weary and restless. “We will replay that evening,” he announced calmly, though there was a sharpness in his eyes that made no one dare to object. The lassi that had caused the death had been served in that very courtyard, and so Arjan had a tray, glasses, and even the same mat arranged as it had been on that fateful night. The family looked at one another uneasily, aware that the inspector’s plan was not just a re-enactment but a carefully constructed trap. Each of them was made to take their place, and slowly, as they went through the motions of that night, the first cracks in their carefully rehearsed stories began to appear. Arjan’s voice was steady as he asked simple questions—who touched the tray, who passed the glass, who stood where. It was not the questions themselves, but the way he lingered on their responses, watching eyes flicker and hands tremble, that began to unsettle everyone present.
The first unraveling came with Manpreet. She had claimed repeatedly in her earlier statements that she had never touched the tray, that she was too busy attending to guests and had only come later when the commotion began. But as Arjan walked her through the moment, Jaswinder spoke out suddenly, insisting with a frown that he had seen her holding the tray and setting down the glasses himself. Manpreet’s face stiffened, her lips parting to object, but the hesitation gave her away before she even spoke. The room seemed to close in with silence, every gaze fixed on her, and she tried to recover by saying Jaswinder was mistaken, perhaps confusing her with someone else. Yet Arjan leaned forward, his eyes sharp, and asked her why then a servant had remembered her scolding him near the kitchen just before the tray was brought out. Manpreet faltered, her explanation clumsy, and in the pause her credibility collapsed further. The unease rippled outward—if she had lied about something so basic, what else was she hiding? Arjan let the silence hang, forcing her discomfort to sink into the others, making them all acutely aware that the walls they had built with lies were now starting to crumble.
It was then Simran’s turn. She had told Arjan from the start that she had arrived late, after the drinks were already served, her excuse being a small errand that delayed her. But as Arjan replayed the sequence, the village healer—called in to observe—spoke up without hesitation. “No, beti, I saw you in the kitchen earlier. You even asked me to step aside so you could fetch something from the cupboard.” The words fell like a hammer, and Simran’s eyes widened in shock, as though she had been caught in a net she never expected to be noticed. She stammered about a misunderstanding, saying she only passed through briefly, but Arjan cut her off gently, pointing out that her version had shifted too many times. The family looked on, their faces tightening as one by one the lies they had clung to were being peeled away, exposing raw nerves and hidden tensions. In that courtyard, the truth was no longer a distant specter but a cornered animal, struggling, hissing, but unable to escape the net Arjan had laid. The air grew thick with suspicion and fear, as if every word spoken would either accuse or exonerate, and in that moment, Arjan knew his trap was working—the mask of harmony the family had worn so carefully was breaking, and the truth, jagged and dangerous, was beginning to surface.
10
As the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place, Arjan stood in the haveli courtyard where Baldev Singh had taken his last breath. The re-enactment had loosened tongues and shaken nerves, but it was the inconsistencies that truly revealed the truth. One lie led to another, and beneath the lies lay the rotten core of the family’s tangled resentments. Arjan gathered them once again—Harjit Kaur, Gurpreet, Karamveer, Simran, Manpreet, and Jaswinder—each avoiding the other’s gaze, each silently fearing what might come next. His voice cut through the heavy air, low and deliberate: “Baldev Singh was not poisoned by one hand alone. This was not the act of a single enemy, but the work of more than one of you—bound not by loyalty, but by hatred.” The words struck like a thunderclap. Murmurs rippled among the villagers crowding the gate, their faces pressed against the iron bars, hungry for the truth. The family members shifted uncomfortably, their proud postures collapsing under the weight of suspicion. For weeks, they had believed they could conceal their secrets, but now Arjan was stripping them bare in front of their own people.
He began with Gurpreet, the eldest son, whose debts and greed were already known. Gurpreet had intended to weaken Baldev’s control, to force his inheritance by hastening the old man’s death. He had encouraged the idea of poison, whispering to Jaswinder that their master’s cruelty had gone on long enough. But Gurpreet had not acted alone. Manpreet, weary of humiliation and insults, had seized the chance to take part—not to claim money, but to silence a voice that had belittled her every day. It was she who had handled the tray, ensuring the lassi reached Baldev first. Simran, too, was no innocent bystander. Her return had been less about forgiveness than she had claimed; she brought with her the bitterness of her father’s curse, the years of being cast out. She had entered the kitchen early, not late, helping to prepare the drinks, her silence allowing the fatal concoction to reach the glass. Each one had believed they were acting separately, their reasons personal and justified, but together they had woven the threads of Baldev’s death into a single tapestry of betrayal. Rani the healer had suspected much of this, but even she had underestimated the depth of the conspiracy.
When Arjan finally revealed the truth, the courtyard fell into stunned silence. The villagers, who had expected one culprit, now recoiled at the thought that nearly the entire family had dipped their hands into the poisoned chalice. Blood ties had not saved Baldev Singh, nor had they bound his heirs together in loyalty. Instead, they had become the very poison that consumed him. Harjit Kaur’s calmness, once thought to be composure, now revealed itself as something else entirely: resignation. She had long known the storm brewing within her home, perhaps even sensed that one day it would consume them. “This haveli,” Arjan said grimly, “was poisoned long before the glass was raised. Baldev Singh’s death was only the final symptom of a sickness that lived in every corner of these walls—greed, anger, betrayal.” The family lowered their heads, the weight of shame heavier than the inheritance they had fought over. Outside the gates, the villagers whispered, shaken by the revelation. To them, the haveli had been a symbol of power, of wealth, of tradition—but now it stood only as a monument to corruption and fractured bloodlines. Arjan, his duty fulfilled, looked at the broken family before him and understood that justice, in this case, was not about punishment alone, but about exposing the poisoned heart that had always beaten inside the Singh household.
End
