‘I consulted my Sujata, my wife. She agreed with Sebastian. She too said that they were small compensation for what I had suffered. Providence had gifted me the paintings. After all, I had spent a fortune on medical bills.
‘I then went to my father. He too was of the same view as Sujata and Sebastian. Besides, he told me, if I were to rake up the old story and tell the world that the paintings had been stolen, I would leave myself open to criminal proceedings. The fact remained that they had been in my possession all these years, and I had kept quiet.
‘In addition, I would bring down serious indictments on Sebastian’s head—the very man who had saved my life and had stuck with me through all this. He could have chosen to sell the paintings himself and pocket the money. He would have been a rich man.
‘I thought about it, and decided to remain silent. There was no risk in it except one: Jacob Lopez. He would soon be released, and we did not know how much he knew. Did he know that the Künzi Brothers had thrown the metal tube with the Balsano landscapes into my antique shop? We had no idea. It was best that we stayed low.
‘That’s what I did, Mr Athreya. I stayed low. I spoke nothing of the four paintings. Wherever I happened to be–Bangalore, Chennai or here—I always found a safe hiding place for them. That is the story of my crippled legs and of the Balsano landscapes.’
They went silently along the walkways as Bhaskar fell quiet. Athreya considered all that he had heard, and decided that Bhaskar had spoken the truth. That is what had happened in the past.
Now, they had to deal with the present; the present in which Jacob Lopez had probably come to India. If the paintings had been worth twenty-seven million then, they would be worth much more now. That was enough to kill for.
By this time, they were near the chapel. Athreya stepped towards it. After a moment’s hesitation, Bhaskar followed. They entered the building together and went up to the altar.
‘You always found a good hiding place for the paintings,’ Athreya said softly. ‘That’s what you said. When you renovated Greybrooke Manor, you actually built a hiding place for them, didn’t you?’
Bhaskar stared silently at Athreya, his facial expression giving nothing away.
‘That is what led to the murders,’ Athreya went on.
‘Somehow, Jacob Lopez discovered the hiding place.’ He turned and faced the dais. ‘The altar. Four of the five metal tubes that support the middle slab are hollow. Four tubes for four paintings. The central one houses the mechanism to open and close the hiding place.’
He went up the dais and opened the long cupboard at one end of it. There, he turned on two switches and returned to Bhaskar. Both of them stared at the altar.
‘The mechanism to open the altar is operated wirelessly,’ Athreya continued. ‘It is operated from the console of the wheelchair. It is indeed a good piece of work, well designed and well executed. I did not have the heart to force it open.’
Athreya turned to Bhaskar and spoke softly.
‘The chapel door is locked,’ he said. ‘Please open the altar.’
Bhaskar stared at the mural of Jesus for a full minute, his face etched in tragic lines. At length, he moved his hands and operated the console on his wheelchair. Half a minute later, a soft click sounded from the altar and the middle portion of the altar slab rose by about four inches.
‘Rotate the stone clockwise by ninety degrees,’ Bhaskar said softly. ‘That will expose the tubes.’
Athreya pulled out a pair of gloves from his jacket and put them on. He rotated the altar slab clockwise. As the stone turned, the openings of the four tubes became visible, and Athreya shone a torch into them.
‘There is something here,’ he said.
‘Can’t be,’ Bhaskar said in alarm. ‘The paintings were removed after Phillip died.’
‘These are not paintings,’ Athreya replied quietly as he dipped his gloved fingers into one of the tubes. They contain something I have been looking for…blood-soaked floor mats. The ones that were under Phillip when he was killed.’
One by one, he pulled out the contents of the tubes. The two missing mats, each cut into two pieces so that they could fit into the tubes, came out. Four pieces in all. And in one of the tubes was a pair of gloves.
‘These are Phillip’s gloves,’ Athreya continued. ‘The ones he used so that he left no fingerprints. He had somehow figured out how to operate the console and open the altar. That’s why he had to bring the wheelchair to the altar that night. Without it, the altar could not be opened.’ Athreya rotated the altar slab anticlockwise, and when it was aligned with the tubes below, he pressed it down. It didn’t move.
‘I’ll have to do it from the console,’ Bhaskar said and touched the screen a few times.
The slab sank smoothly and clicked into place. The altar now looked as it always had, smooth and even. On the floor lay the bloodied mats and a pair of gloves.
‘So, Phillip opened the altar that night,’ Athreya concluded. ‘But, unfortunately for him, the rest didn’t work out as he had intended, and he ended up paying the ultimate price.
‘Now, Mr. Fernandez, tell me the rest of the story. The story that Sebastian told you early Friday morning.’
‘Okay…I will tell you. As I said, I probably owe you this. Besides, there may be no getting away from it as far as you are concerned. I will narrate what Sebastian told me, but I reserve the right to say nothing to the police. If you repeat what
