‘What weapon would you use, Mr Athreya?’ Dora asked mischievously. ‘If you were to commit murder, that is.’
She and her cousins had gravitated to the centre of the room where everyone else sat or stood.
‘I would choose one that would result in death, but would leave no indication that it was murder,’ Athreya said. ‘The best way to go scot-free would be to not let even the faintest suspicion of murder arise.’
‘Ah!’ Ganesh cut in with a fatuous grin. It was clear that he hadn’t understood Athreya. ‘Me, I would go for a gun. Nothing as dependable and sure-shot as that. Boom! And khalas! The matter is over. The bugger is dead.’
‘Oh, let’s go around the room choosing our preferred weapons,’ Jilsy said excitedly. ‘Each of us will say how we will commit a murder. Come on, it’s just a game!’
‘A silenced gun for me,’ Richie declared, surprising Athreya by going first. He had shed his sullen reticence and had turned on his charm. He was gazing covetously at Jilsy. ‘If I can’t get one, I’ll settle for a long dagger. Wouldn’t want blood spilling on to my hands.’
‘Oooh!’ Jilsy tittered in morbid delight, her eyes wide. ‘I’ll choose poison, like Mr Fernandez said. I can’t use any of Ganesh’s guns. The kick is so powerful that I would topple over backwards. I don’t think I can use a dagger either. I am not as strong as Michelle or Dora.’ She turned her flashing eyes to Bhaskar. ‘You go next, Mr Fernandez. Choose your weapon.’
‘I carry an automatic, my dear lady, and I am a pretty good shot,’ he rumbled drily. ‘You probably know that I shot an intruder recently, but chose not to kill him. It was obvious that he had come to knife me. I would have been well within my rights if I had killed him. Self-defense.’
A stunned silence interrupted the conversation, and Athreya quickly scanned the faces in the room. Stumped, Jilsy was staring at Bhaskar, wide-eyed and with her mouth open. Ganesh had a stupid expression on his face. Sebastian’s jaw was set and he looked grim. Manu and Varadan remained impassive, while Dora and Michelle’s eyes had widened. There was a contemplative look on Phillip’s face, in addition to the perpetual half-smile he always wore. Athreya couldn’t see Abbas and Richie’s faces.
Most of them would know about the break-in and its apparent connection with the two wills. As the awkward silence dragged on, Varadan took it upon himself to break it.
‘There are so many other ways to kill,’ he said. ‘Just read some of Bhaskar’s crime-fiction collection in the library. People drown in rivers, fall down stairs, have heavy objects fall on them, die of suffocation in airless rooms or dungeons, and even get scared to death! In books, people even drink acid, thinking it is water. And in one old story, a scientist, most improbably, drinks liquid nitrogen!’
‘Don’t forget the Speckled Band,’ Sebastian added, joining in the effort to move the focus away from the recent incident. ‘It took all of Holmes’s courage and ingenuity to crack the case. Some writers like Poe have even more bizarre ways of killing their victims. Edgar Wallace too.’
‘Indeed,’ Athreya concurred. ‘Murky London fogs in these stories invariably result in someone falling off a bridge or an embankment into the Thames.’
‘Why go as far as fictional London?’ Abbas joined in. ‘We’ve had instances of people breaking their necks in this valley during foggy nights. The man who built this mansion is said to have died that way.’
‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’ Richie quipped. ‘That’s the question. What say, Ganesh?’
‘A gun for me any day,’ the retired major responded, apparently not having followed the conversation very well. ‘Boom! And khalas!’ he repeated before ambling away to the bar to pour himself a large portion of dark rum.
‘And what about that Parker bloke?’ Richie went on, his eyes riveted on Jilsy. ‘Nobody knows how he died, or where. Least of all himself. He still roams about the vale searching for pieces of his body. Michelle saw him as recently as the day before yesterday.’
A frisson of fear seemed to run down Jilsy’s body, making her shudder. She cast a nervous glance through the French windows, but the grey mist outside was impenetrable, especially when seen from inside the lighted room. A low rumble of thunder shook the drawing room.
‘That’s why I don’t walk around the valley after dinner, Richie,’ she said in a small voice. ‘They say that the time between midnight and 4 a.m. is when ghosts are most likely to roam about. Is that true, Mr Athreya?’
Déjà vu! First Michelle, now Jilsy. Athreya chose to respond differently to Jilsy than he had to Michelle.
‘This Parker’s ghost,’ he asked her, ‘how do you know it is him?’
‘Whom?’
‘Parker, of course.’
‘Why … they all say it is him.’ Jilsy seemed confused. ‘He is deathly white in colour and wears the old British uniform.’
‘How do you know?’ Athreya countered. ‘It must be pitch-dark in the valley at night.’
‘It is not misty on some nights, Mr Athreya, and sometimes the moon is out,’ Abbas broke in, coming to Jilsy’s rescue.
‘Have you seen him, Abbas?’
‘You bet.’
A flash of lightning lit up the mist outside the French windows. A peal of thunder sounded a few seconds later, this time louder and nearer. The lights in the drawing room flickered for a few moments in response.
‘Can you describe him?’ Athreya asked when the reverberations died away.
‘Certainly. Medium height, reasonably thin, a fleshy face like that of a tippler, blonde hair, similarly coloured beard … What else, Richie? Dora?’
The siblings shook their heads.
‘I’ve never seen him,’ Dora said softly.
‘Michelle?’ Abbas asked.
‘Don’t ask me!’ Michelle squeaked. ‘I run when I see anything remotely resembling the Parker ghost.’
‘Thus spake the woman of science,’ Manu teased. ‘A doctor to boot–’
‘I have seen him,’ Sebastian broke in unexpectedly. ‘Several times.
