‘When I reached the chapel, I saw a faint glow inside. I pushed open the door and stepped in. Near the altar was a dim glow from some kind of a torch. What I saw made my blood run cold. There was Phillip, at the altar with the slab raised and rotated. On the first row of pews were two canvases. He was pulling out the third from its tube in the altar.
‘I crept up slowly, making no noise. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear me. He put the third canvas beside the first two and began pulling out the fourth. By now, I was within a couple of yards from him. I crouched, trying to decide my course of action.
‘The only person who could have known that the Balsano landscapes were with you was Jacob Lopez. The agent who had bought the paintings on Fessler’s behalf wouldn’t have known that you had them.
‘As I thought about it, I realized that Phillip had turned up in the valley seven years ago. Where he had come from, nobody knew. He had shown tremendous interest in your painting collection and subsequently in your wheelchair. Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
‘Phillip was Jacob Lopez. That was the only possible answer. He had tracked you down to Greybrooke Manor, and had bid his time. Eventually, he had figured out where the paintings were and how to reach them.’
‘How?’ Bhaskar asked, his face set in grim lines. ‘How did he figure it out?’
‘Remember the deluge we had two months ago?’ Sebastian asked, his gaze fiery. ‘When the chapel was in danger of getting flooded from the water flowing down into the vale from the hills?’
‘Yes,’ said Bhaskar, nodding. ‘The water was rising, and we had to bring the paintings into the mansion for a few days.’
‘Phillip was staying here then,’ Sebastian hissed. ‘He must have seen us go to the chapel in the pouring rain. He must have wondered why. And he must have seen me transporting the tubes containing the paintings to the mansion.’
‘Yes … yes. I fell ill after that drenching and was confined to bed. After the water receded a few days later, you put the paintings back in the chapel. Phillip must have wondered why you were wheeling the empty wheelchair to the chapel and back. That too in such bad weather.’
‘Not just an empty wheelchair,’ Sebastian corrected him. ‘Four aluminium tubes too. He must have scrutinized the chapel and the altar thereafter. He must have figured out that the paintings were hidden in the altar, and that the wheelchair unlocked the altar.’
‘He then inveigled himself into your confidence, and found out how to operate the wheelchair and its console. He must have obtained your access code by pinching the pocket notebook in which you had written it. He then pretended to find it and returned it–all within ten minutes of your missing it.’
‘The snake!’ Bhaskar hissed. ‘Continue with what happened tonight, Sebastian. You were telling me about how you had crept up to Phillip at the altar. What happened then?’
‘As I watched him, I realized that if I let him go, we would never see the paintings again.
‘My mind went back to 1995, to when the thugs had mangled your legs forever. It went back to how you lay broken, within an inch from death that morning. The Künzi Brothers had done it to you for their own selfish ends. They had done it to a good man, an innocent man. They had done it to the only father I had known.
‘After a long struggle, your father and your wife had helped me finally convince you to keep the paintings. Now, Jacob Lopez, the snake in human form, posing as your friend Phillip, was stealing them from you. I had to stop him.
‘By now, Jacob had pulled out the fourth painting and they all lay together on the pew. Beside them was something long and slender, glinting in the soft glow from Jacob’s torch. It was the dagger the mongrel had dropped. Phillip had taken it from the drawer in the hall. His intent could not have been honourable.
‘As Jacob returned to the wheelchair to close the altar, I reached for the dagger. My blood was boiling. I knew what I had to do.’
‘Sebastian!’ Bhaskar hissed in horror, half rising from his chair. Blood had drained from his face, and his eyes were open wide in alarm. ‘What did you do?’
‘I slit his throat.’
21
Twelve people sat in the drawing room once more. This time they sat in uneasy silence, not knowing what to expect from the gathering Athreya had called. The five members of the Fernandez family sat together. The four neighbours were there in Abbas, Ganesh, Jilsy and Father Tobias. Two outsiders–Varadan and Athreya–made the count eleven, and the twelfth was a surprise. Murthy had been prevailed upon to join the group.
Athreya waited for a few minutes, and when it was precisely 7 p.m., he rose.
‘We were here less than seventy-two hours ago,’ he began. ‘The people were much the same then, with a few exceptions, but the mood was very different. A lot has happened since then, and many illusions have been shattered. I’ve called you all together now to conclude this sordid chapter in your lives.
‘Some of you, especially those from the Fernandez family, have a shadow hanging over you. When you will walk out of here later this evening, the shadow will be gone. That was the assignment Mr Fernandez gave me–to lift the shadow of suspicion from the innocent. I intend to do exactly that over the next fifteen minutes.
‘Let me begin with
