I was woken up by the sound of my mobile ringing. I groped around in the dark for it and found it under one of the pillow on my bed. I looked at the time. It was eight o' clock. I had thick curtains drawn on my windows because of which the sunlight hadn't yet creeped into my bedroom and it still looked as if it was the middle of night. I then looked at the caller's name. Adrian.
“Hello,” I answered. Despite being sleepy, I knew I had a hint of excitement in my voice.
“Your theory stands correct,” was the first thing Adrian said.
I pulled myself up a bit so that I could rest my head on a pillow and talk more comfortably. “So, you found the marks?”
“Yup. Two straight lines near each other at the very edge of the window sill. No doubt, the string cut there. And also a scratch mark at the corner of the window. Maybe that was where the stick or whatever was used to hold the window open was placed. It scratched the wood as it was tugged away forcefully by the weight pulling the string.”
“So, we now know the murder was done. But still no leads on who the murderer is, huh?”
“Not yet. But I'm guessing the murderer is one of the witness.”
“How can you say that?”
“The closer a criminal creates an alibi to the crime site, the safer he will be because people take pity on him, saying he was probably framed or it was chance that he was there. Better yet if the person was the one who discovered the crime.”
“Well, you're the one who has a degree in psychology. Me, I'm just an astronomer.”
“Oh come on, you're good too. By the way, I discovered something else that strikes me as strange.”
“And that is?”
“There are two hoops hammered above the window on the outer side of every apartment. Probably for curtains though I cannot imagine why they would need curtain on the outside for a window that faced the backside of another building.”
“Poor building management. They don't even have a fire escape! What were the builders thinking? Do they want the tenants to burn to their death in the case of a fire?”
Adrian chuckled. “The building's set for demolition in five months anyways. All the tenants have received a notice to leave by then. Anyways, the strange thing is the window of this apartment doesn't have one.”
“Well, maybe they forgot to put it there, those idiots–”
“No no. The hoops were there alright. They aren't there anymore. There are two holes in the concrete where the hoops should have been. It's as if they were pulled out from their places.”
“Hmm. I guess that could count as peculiar. But I don't see how that has got to do anything with this case.”
“I dunno. I just have a gut feeling it does.”
...
Breakfast was nothing special. I ate the burger leftover from last night and downed it down with a glass of cola. Charlie would have chided me for drinking a soft drink and not some hard stuff like beer or whisky had he been there. Of our group of friends, I was the only one who did not drink or smoke at all.
I arrived at the apartment at around ten. The police were no longer there; they'd already done all they could – taking fingerprints, photographs, searching for evidence, questioning the witnesses etc. Now they'd completely handed over the case to Adrian.
“The police were about to call in another detective because we'd reached nowhere with the case. However, thanks to your deduction yesterday the case is back to us. Their faith in us has extended for the time being,” Adrian had told me during our call that morning.
The door was wide open. It hadn't been repaired since the night of the murder when it had been forced open. Poor management.
Entering the room, I found a lady in the corner, putting the books of a shelf into a carton. She turned at the sound of my footsteps. It was Jenna Harper, the victim's ex-girlfriend. If I remembered correctly, she had been here on the night of Drake's death to meet him before she left town. What a tragedy to have befallen the poor girl.
“You are Jenna Harper?” I asked just to be sure.
“Y…yes,” she managed with a quivering voice. I noticed that her eyes were faded pink and there were vertical lines on her cheek where her tears had left their mark.
“I am sorry,” I said.
She merely nodded and resumed putting the books in the carton. I approached the window. The smell had faded now that the body had been removed but it was still stained with the blood which hadn't been cleaned. I opened window; as Adrian had said, I needed to slide it vertically upwards. And there, on the outer edge of the sill were two straight marks engraved into the wood. I poked my head outside and looked up. Both the upper corner of the window had two holes on the wall. I looked at the other windows. All of them had hoops as Adrian had said. Except this one. Was it important?
“Hey Peter!” It was Adrian shouting. His voice sounded very distant. “Be careful or you might fall! I don't want another dead body!”
I pulled my head back in and looked about the room. The lady was there, still organizing the books into the carton. No one else. I looked outside and downwards. Adrian stood near a trashcan twenty floors down on the alleyway.
“What the hell are you doing down there?” I shouted.
“What?” he shouted back. He couldn't hear what I was saying. I took at my mobile and dialled him. I saw him fish for his mobile in his pocket.
“Yeah, you were saying?” he spoke into the phone, looking up at me.
“I asked you what the hell are you doing down there?”
“Oh just looking around.”
“Looking around a trashcan? What the hell for? Did you lose your cat?”
“No you idiot. Looking to see if I could find the weight that was dropped from that window.”
“You're an idiot, not me.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Do you really think the murderer would leave something like that behind?”
“Of course not. But it was still a possibility. Can't take a chance. And why are you whispering? Is someone there, in the room?”
“Yeah. Jenna Harper.”
“Oh that … poor girl. She still hasn't left? She was organizing the book when I left. I assumed she would have been finished by now.”
“Then you didn't get a look at how many books there were on the shelf. She's down to the bottom row. In any case, I doubt she'd be able to work efficiently with what has happened.”
“I guess. Stay there Peter, I'm coming up.”
I turned around and saw that Jenna Harper was about to leave. The shelf was empty now, she'd stacked them up neatly in five boxes of carton.
“Your boxes ma'am,” I said.
She paused and turned around. “Oh those, I'll come receive them tomorrow. I'm on a tight schedule today.” I noticed that she was limping.
“Is there something wrong with your foot ma'am?” I asked.
She paused and turned around. “I twisted my ankle the day I was coming here. High heels.”
“Oh. Take care of yourself then,” I said. She smiled and left.
Adrian arrived after about three minutes. There was a smile on his face and he seemed jubilant.
“I assume you found something,” I said as he entered the room.
He reached into his pocket and took out two ring likes things. It took me a moment to realize that those were identical to the hoops all the other windows had.
“I found these near the trashcan.”
“So, they are related to the case?” I asked, not seeing how those things could be important.
“I think so. If my theory is correct, I may even know who committed the murder and exactly how.”
“You mean you deduced who killed Drake Hallow? But wait … we already know how it was done. So what do you mean you know exactly how it was carried out?”
“Your theory was a brilliant one Peter. But I don't think it was entirely correct. About ninety percent correct.”
“And what about the rest ten percent?”
“It took me a while to figure that out but a good look around and in the trashcan and now I have a theory which I believe is completely true. It even answers how the door was still locked. I guess I owe you and apology Peter.”
“An apology? For what? And cut the suspense, tell me what it is that you've discovered.”
“I will. But before that, call the police and all the witnesses. Until then, I think it'll suffice to tell you that the murderer never left through the door.”
ns 15.158.61.52da2
