Mughal-E-Murder

It was the 6 p.m. Rajdhani Express from Howrah Station to New Delhi. "Dear passengers of Rajdhani Express from Howrah Station to New Delhi, please have your seats. Your journey is going to start in about 15 minutes. Have a nice and happy journey!" declared the announcer. Right then, at the station, an odd man appeared. He covered almost every part of his body including his face as if he was a dacoit. He got upon the train, in the AC compartment. He sat on the seat, numbered 105. The people there were quite frightened to see him and thought him to be a dacoit. So each of them, somehow, managed to pass out of the room, giving excuses. 

After a while, a girl, around 21 years of age, came into the room. Her seat number was 106, just beside the odd and evil-looking person. The girl seemed to be brave enough. She sat at her place and never showed a sign of fear on her face. Instead, she looked worried about something. She took out a piece of paper with writing in some ancient language. The man was shocked, to see the paper. He said angrily, "Who are you and from where did you get this paper from? Oh! So it is him who has sent you to kill me right?" After saying this, he took out a revolver from his coat pocket and pointed it towards the girl. But the girl did not show any sign of being afraid at all. Instead, she laughed and said, "The pot calling the kettle black! So he, himself, being unable to kill me, has sent you to kill me?" The switch of the light was just next to her. She pressed it as quickly as she could. Suddenly there was a sound of a gunshot.

"May I come in Mr AK Bose?" asked a crooked voice from beyond the door. "Yes come in Dr Parrot.", said Mr AK Bose. The door opened and in came a man of about 40 years of age. Mr AK Bose was sitting on his chair, in front of a table covered with newspapers, books, a table lamp, a pen stand and a box, reading the daily newspaper and having a cup of tea. Dr Parrot asked, "AK, how do you always know whenever I come?" Mr AK Bose laughed a bit and answered, "Well! First of all your crooked voice makes me know that it's you. Secondly, the smell of chemicals, from your clothes, makes me identify you, Dr Parrot." Dr Parrot laughed and replied, "Your detection is excellent. That's why you are one of the world's greatest detectives. By the way where's your friend, I mean Junior Detective?" Mr AK Bose answered, "Getting a hint of your existence in our building, he has gone to make some tea for you, Dr Ambardeep Chatterjee aka Dr Parrot." Mr AK Bose, stopped for a while, and then asked, "Got a long summer vacation ahead? Where would you like to go?" Dr Parrot said, "We have almost travelled all parts of India except Delhi. Also, there are many great places for site-visiting, which may influence me to write my next book, which I'm planning to finish this summer." "That's a good idea, Dr Parrot", said a man about 30 years old, holding a plate with 2 cups of tea and 4 biscuits. "Oh! Good evening Junior Detective! How's your work of 'catching thieves' going on?" asked Dr Parrot mockingly. Junior Detective looked at him once, blinked, and then turned to Mr AK Bose and asked, "So when are we leaving for Delhi?" Mr AK Bose said, "Yes we are leaving tomorrow, in the morning. So DR Parrot, be ready with everything and meet us at the station exactly at 9 a.m." "How is it possible that the tickets are already ready? It takes at least 2-7 days to process. And in cases of emergency only, the ticket is given within 1 day. Something looks suspicious! How did AK know that we will be going to Delhi, and not any other place, even before any word?" thought Junior Detective. 

However, he kept quiet. The next morning they got ready and met at the station exactly at 9 a.m. "Dr Parrot, Junior Detective and I are in the same room of the AC compartment, 107, 108 and 109.", declared Mr AK Bose. They got boarded the train and had their seats. Within a few minutes, the train started moving. Dr Parrot said, "My wife has prepared some tasty tiffin for us and has given it to me. So may we have them now?" Junior Detective agreed. Mr AK Bose said, "You all start having the tiffin. Meanwhile let me go and buy a number of sanitisers from the local seller to kill the microbes present in our hands." and left his seat. Within a few minutes, Mr AK Bose came back. But he did not buy any sanitiser. He took his seat and said, "The local seller has gone down. So I couldn't buy it." After that the entire day was gone gossiping, eating, and seeing wonderful sceneries outside. At last, it was time to sleep. Mr AK Bose, Junior Detective and Dr Parrot went to bed. It was 1 hour past midnight. Suddenly Junior Detective got awake. He found that Mr AK Bose, who was sleeping on the sleeper beside his', was holding a piece of paper in his hand and his phone in the other. Junior Detective thought, "Again it looks suspicious! At this night, what is AK doing out all there and from where did he get that paper?" However this time also he kept quiet.

The next morning at 9 a.m. the train stopped at New Delhi. Mr AK Bose and his crew got down the train. They crossed the station platform and found a car waiting for them at the gateway. They got board without any questions. The driver, while driving, asked, "Sir! Now we are going to the Delhi Grand Resort, where you are going to stay. When will you go for site visiting, sir?" Mr AK Bose said, "Let's go for site visiting the day after tomorrow. First, today let's take rest. Tomorrow let us enjoy the surroundings. Then let's go on the next day." After a while, they reached Delhi Grand Resort. On entering the premises, Dr Parrot said, "How beautiful this place is! Its name is the proper description for it! Grand! It looks like the house of a Billionaire." The resort manager arrived rushing at the place and welcomed, "Welcome Mr AK Bose, to our resort. This is the key to your room. Your room number is 111. Have a nice day." Mr AK Bose and his crew entered the room. Junior Detective jumped onto the first bed and Dr Parrot onto the second. That entire day, they took rest and did only the necessary, minute chores.

The next day as consulted, they went out to visit the surroundings. At the corner of the street, there was a famous tea stall. Mr AK Bose's crew hanged out there, in the evening. While they were having tea they suddenly noticed a girl of about 21 years of age arguing with someone on the phone. She said, "How many times do I need to tell you that I've lost it on the train? Do you know how precious that paper was? It would have changed my life! I would have become a famous Billionaire! " Then she cut the phone in anger. Mr AK Bose went closer to the girl and asked about the matter. The girl looked at Mr AK Bose, once. Then got up from the seat and went away. Dr Parrot said in a mocking voice, "The children of these days think about too big dreams..." The junior detective laughed. Mr AK Bose interrupted, "No no! Not all! A few..." The day went by. They returned to the resort.

The next morning the driver arrived again and shouted from outside the door, "Sir! This is Prabhas, your driver. You said today you will go for site visiting." They got ready and came out with happy faces. Prabhas, the driver took them to various places. It took 5 p.m. to complete the site visit. By 6 p.m., they reached back the resort. While Mr AK Bose was making the payment, he found a very rare scene in front of his eyes. He found that an old person of about 80 years of age playing football with young kids and most surprisingly, the young children could not stand in front of the old person for 1 complete minute. Mr AK Bose remembered of his youth and rushed towards the ground to take a chance to play and he did. Mr AK Bose even could not stand against the old person. At the end of the game, the old person came up to Mr AK Bose and asked, "New to this area?" Mr AK Bose replied, "We are from Kolkata. We have just come here to spend our vacations." The old person said, "Well! Come with me to my house." They followed the old person to his house. The time they entered the house, they were astonished. The entire house was wrapped with certificates, medals, trophies, various machinery and research papers. From this, everyone made out that the person was a scientist. They sat on the sofa, prescribed by the old man. The old man too sat on a sofa pointing toward Mr AK Bose. He started, "I am Prof. Lokesh Chandravanya. I am a scientist. From my very youth, I discovered various things and won these. Towards the end of my career, I built a robot, which had all the features and could do anything, as a human being. It took me 18 years to complete the project. Finally, at the end of the 18 years, I made its heart active by flowing a huge amount of electric current through it. Suddenly, the most awful moment of my life occurred. There was a problem with the programming of the robot. That's why the time it came into life, it killed me." Listening to this Junior Detective got a bit frightened and asked in a stammering tone, "The... Then... Who… Who are you?" The old person switched a button. All of a sudden, the door behind him opened. There was a same to the same person, put inside a glass coffin. The old person said, "I'm the robot and he is my master." Hearing this Dr Parrot said, "Ok sir! We are getting late. May we go?" The robot said, "Yes you can go. But dare to come here again!" Then the robot opened the door by pressing a switch. Mr AK Bose and his crew went back to their room in the resort. 

In the hotel room, Junior Detective noticed that Mr AK Bose was reading a book, which no one has ever seen before. He asked, "AK, where did you get it from?" Mr AK Bose replied, "Stole it from Prof. Lokesh's house." Dr Parrot said, "Why? What if, if he takes revenge for this?" Mr AK Bose bade good night and went to sleep, without giving any answer.

The next day, in the morning, the manager came and informed them that they had to leave the room within 1 hour, for a new guest were to check in. Mr AK Bose said, "Delhi is quite a good place! Isn't it? Let's stay here for 2 more days." Junior Detective said, "Yes AK, but the manager has told us to leave the room within 1 hour." Mr AK Bose said, "I know an old house here. No one lives there. It's also a peaceful area. Let's go there." Everyone agreed. The house was close. So they decided to walk to the place. On the way, Junior Detective asked, "From the beginning, I'm noticing that the matters are very odd, like within 1-day booking of train and hotel, going and not bringing sanitiser, looking at an anonymous paper at night and stealing of the book. What's the matter AK?" Mr AK Bose replied, "First let's go to the house, then you will understand everything." They reached the place. There was no sign of life within a radius of 1km. But near, there was an old mysterious building, rather looking like an eroded palace. Looking at it, Dr Parrot asked, "What is this monument and how do you know of this place?" Mr AK Bose smiled and said, "This is all because of Prof. Lokesh's diary. And Junior Detective, 2 days before coming here, I was given a case to spy on and solve. A man, named, Salim Shah, was murdered on the same train we travelled on the day, the night before. And thus in order to investigate we were given the very next room. And when I promised to bring the sanitiser, I actually, collected the evidence from the crime spot. There I got 2 papers with something written on them in an ancient language. Then I took those in my pocket and at night when everyone was sleeping, I took out the papers and researched about it. They were written in half Turkish and half Persian. The 1st message, if translated means-

My dear Reshma,

This is your grandfather from Delhi. You may be surprised but it's true, that your father had a secret marriage with your mother. Your father was the great-grandson of the last Mughal Emperor, who had a secret summer palace towards the southeast from the Delhi Grand Resort, where he had hidden all his treasures, for his future generation. Also, your father was the owner of all the Mughal works. But after his death, I was given everything. Now a few evil people have been trying to kill you and me and inherit all the Mughal works and treasury and for killing you they have sent a person named Salim. Whenever you see him, kill him. And come here as quickly as you can, for I will make all the property yours, before passing away.

With Regards,

Your's Grand Father

And if you translate the second message, it says-

My dear Salim,

This is your grandfather from Delhi. You may be surprised but it's true, that your father had a secret marriage with your mother. Your father was the great-grandson of the last Mughal Emperor, who had a secret summer palace southeast of the Delhi Grand Resort, where he had hidden all his treasures, for his future generation. Also, your father was the owner of all the Mughal works. But after his death, I was given everything. Now a few evil people have been trying to kill you and me and inherit all the Mughal works and treasury and for killing you they have sent a girl named Reshma. Whenever you see her, kill her. And come here as quickly as you can, for I will make all the property before passing away.

With Regards,

Your's Grand Father‟ 

Before, from reports, I got the information that at the time of the murder there was only a girl about 21 years old, whose name was, Reshma Bahadur Shah, who after the murder, disappeared from the crime spot. Then, here when I saw a girl about 21 years old, arguing about becoming a famous Billionaire and losing a precious paper, I suspected her. When I went near her, I found her name on her purse- "Reshma Bahadur Shah‟. And there was a chit with a number noted as a grandfather. I memorized the number. Yesterday, when I entered Prof. Lokesh's house, I found a paper, inside his diary where it was written that it was his number. So while coming back I stole his diary. Yesterday, I just read the last few pages of the diary and from there, I understood that the robot had planned everything and he is going to meet Reshma, here, tonight, at 9 p.m. Still I have many questions that if the robot really killed the Professor due to some programming error, how was it repaired and who set the plan of this murder in his head and even why? To get the answer to all these questions, I'm here today." 

After this, there was a long silence for the whole afternoon. It even stretched a bit long. Suddenly they heard the sound of 2 people. Dr Parrot said, "In this silent and unpopulated area, who has dared come at this night?" Junior Detective whispered, "I think they are the robot and the girl, Reshma." Then all 3 of them peeped out through the window. And Junior Detective was right. Then suddenly they saw that the girl hit the robot, right at the centre of the chest, and the robot fell to the ground. Then the girl took out a chip from the brain of the robot and inserted it into her laptop and started typing a few things. After seeing all these, Mr AK Bose took out his revolver and went out. The others, too, followed him. Mr AK Bose pointed toward Reshma and shouted, "Your game is over Reshma Bahadur Shah! What did you think, you will vanish away after killing a person and no one will be able to catch you. And all the plan of this Mughal property was yours? Why did you do so and how did you learn everything about here?" Reshma suspended her hands up, showing that she has surrendered. She came closer and said, "Sir! I've not done anything believe me! I really got that letter from someone else. Along with that, I got a revolver. You can check the revolver I've not shot him. What really happened was that the revolver had an inversed path, due to which, the bullet hit the person using it! I observed this while trying to snatch away the revolver from him." By saying this, she took out the revolver from her bag and offered it to Mr AK Bose. Mr AK Bose gave it to Dr Parrot to examine it. Dr Parrot said, "Yes Mr AK Bose, she is right. There are all the bullets available and the bullets have not been used or touched for at least one month. Also, there is an inversed path." Then Mr AK Bose said, "If you are really innocent then why did you try to change the programming of the robot?" Reshma said, "Can you tell that who, in the world does not have a greed for treasure? By tracking my impersonate grandfather's phone's location, I went to his house, one day. There we had a lot of talks and while talking, I made out that it was a robot, because once when I opened my bag, his hand got attracted to the magnet of my bag. I'm a Software Engineer, by profession. So in order to know the exact location of the treasure, I called him to meet today at 9 p.m., here, so that I can get his source code and data from which I could know the exact location." Hearing this Mr AK Bose said, "Ok, please can you do a favour? Please can you show us the data?" Reshma wrote a few things on her laptop and then hit enter. All the data came up on the computer screen. After reading the entire data, Mr AK Bose said, "Junior Detective and Dr Parrot, the mastermind is in that old palace. After saying this he rushed towards the palace, at the back of the palace, where they were hiding. Junior Detective, Dr Parrot and Reshma, too, ran after Mr AK Bose. They opened the door and entered the palace. 

After entering they found that there was an old lady sitting in a corner. Before asking anything to her, she got vanished. Seeing this, Dr Parrot, really got very scared, which could be made out on his face. He said, "May I go out, please? I don't want to be food for ghosts!" By saying this he went out of the palace. After a few minutes, suddenly, the entire room changed into an assassination hall, where, Dr Parrot was hanged and an ice cube was there under his legs to support him. The time it finishes, Dr Parrot will automatically get hanged. Reshma whispered to Mr AK Bose, "Sir, this room is actually not like this, it is being shown like others by 3D Hologram." Suddenly, Mr AK Bose heard the sound of a water drop from a great height. He made his eyes more curious. And discovered a flight of steps, leading to a room, from which the water was coming out. Mr AK Bose also noticed that there were a few cameras set in all corners. He shouted, "See whoever you are, we are surrendering. Please let us go!" The voice said, "Why Mr Detective? I should let you go to call the police and get myself caught. Do you think I am mad? Now since you know this you have to die!" Mr AK Bose rushed towards the steps. The others followed him. The voice said, "Though, you try, you will not be able to go out! Ha Ha Ha….!" "Who said we are going out without catching the mastermind?" Mr AK Bose said, by opening the door and pointing his revolver towards the person. It was an old woman! Seeing the revolver, she tried to run away from the room but was caught by Junior Detective. Mr AK Bose asked, "Who are you ma'am and why did you do all these?" Meanwhile, Reshma went forward and opened the knot from Dr Parrot's neck. The old woman said, "I'm Saiza Begum, the last Mughal Emperor's great-granddaughter. I had 2 sisters. One was named Amina Bahadur Shah, the mother of Reshma and the other was named Salma Shah, the mother of Salim. Our parents were killed by the British. Our grandfather took us, along with all the treasures of the Mughal dynasty, to this summer palace, since it was in an unpopulated and silent area so that no one ever gets to know about our existence. When I was 20, my two sisters got married. I did not marry, to live in that palace and for enjoying all the Mughal treasures alone. But after a few days, my grandfather wrote all the property in the names of my 2 daughters. I got very angry. Thus changed the letter and made it such that they fought and killed each other! After a few days, my Grandfather died. Now I fell in trouble. Because I could not get his sign to acquire all the property. Then first I planned to kill all the other Mughal descendants and not even get into any murder cases. For that, I learned almost everything about Computer science from a private tutor, for about 50 years. Then one day, I found this robot in the doorway. It was coming to kill me. Immediately, I thought of this idea. I switched off the robot, took out its chip and formatted it. Even the letter sent to Salim and Reshma was written by me. Even the revolvers were made by me with the help of the robot. Then my plan was to write a letter to the ministry, one day, and acquire all the property. But, unfortunately, you all came my way. Still, I tried to confuse you and kill you. First I made your friend Dr Parrot, sleep, using chloroform, while he was trying to escape. Then, in front of your eyes, I brought him up and made the arrangements. But again you all made me stand at your gunpoint." Listening to the story Mr AK Bose said, "Bad minds always lead to bad endings, ma'am. For what you have done, now you will neither get the property nor the treasures. Instead, you will be, forever, sent to jail, and even can be hanged! And, by the way, ma'am, meanwhile, my friend has called the police and they have arrived and are waiting outside. So may we go? And Reshma, congratulations! From now this entire Mughal property and treasures will be yours. I've recorded everything and will soon submit it to the appropriate Ministry." Reshma said, "Thank you very much, sir! I even did not know that I'm a descendant of the Mughals. Again thank you, sir…"

After that, the police took Saiza to jail and declared her to be hanged. After a few days, Mr AK Bose and his crew returned back to Kolkata. "Twelve… Thirteen… Fourteen… Fifteen! Fifteen prizes for the Mughal Case!" said Mr AK Bose, counting the number of prizes, on his third shelf. Junior Detective, being jealous, said, "Yes… yes… You did everything! And we kept watching!" By this time Dr Parrot entered the room with a book in one hand and a medal in the other. He said, "See! This is my new book! "Murder Chain For Mughal Property‟. And for this, I have received this award!" Mr AK Bose said, "Oh! Congratulations! And Junior Detective, don't be angry, you also have good news that you have a promotion! You are now a COP, chief of police! Yesterday I received the letter and forgot to convey it to you." "Is it true?" asked Junior Detective. "100% true" replied Mr AK Bose. "Oh yes! I did it at last!"- By saying this Junior Detective started celebrating.