The Mystery Of The Missing Necklace :

It was a busy Tuesday morning. Siddharth Chatterjee, the founder-owner of "The Chatterjees" asked his driver to have the car parked behind one of those stalls selling sweets and snacks, and got off the posh padro. He walked a couple of steps to what happened to be a majestic building in the mid-nineteenth century, bought the ticket to the museum from the counter next to the iron gates and got inside the magnificent Cooch Behar Palace. It is a working day, there were not many people inside the Palace-turned-museum recently.

The Royal Palace of Cooch Behar, built at the fag end of the 19th century by Maharaja Nripendra Narayan of the Koch Dynasty, is famous for its architectural grandeur. The Palace, since its conversion to a museum, has drawn people from all across the globe. Siddharth wandered from one room to the next and spent the next forty minutes, looking at some of those rare objects of great value. Finally, he found himself moving out of room 34 on the ground floor into the small passage near the exit. His third visit to this museum was futile too and did not yield what he had been coming here for. He didn't find what he had been looking for, some clues about The Missing Necklace. The diamond necklace of the last Queen of the Koch Dynasty. Despite all the arms and weapons, the replica of the palace in a rectangular glass box, the murals and paintings on the walls of the Hall, the exquisite royal clothes made of gold and silver - he was about to leave, more doubtful and dissatisfied than ever before.

"Look at the picture over there, Ma," he heard someone chirping excitedly behind him.

Turning his head, he found an attractive lady pointing to an elderly lady, equally graceful, possibly her mother - the picture hanging atop the massive exit door.

Siddharth looked up at the framed photograph of a very strikingly beautiful lady with the words written at the bottom:

Rani Indira Devi (1913 - 1922) was the last Queen of the Koch Dynasty. Known for her unimaginable beauty and charm, she was married to Maharaja Jitendra Narayan. The King was exceedingly fond of his wife ….

Siddharth found the beauty of the Queen so bewitching that it was much later that he read the taped warning underneath the photograph :

Keep a safe distance. Photography is strictly prohibited. 

"God! Wasn't she very beautiful?" Siddharth heard the elderly lady tell her daughter and couldn't but agree with her assessment of the last Queen. He even wanted to tell her about the fondness of the Queen's husband bordering on the insane to indulge all her whims and fancies. The diamond necklace that King Jitendra gifted her, for instance, was estimated to be worth crores!

He saw the younger lady pulling her mother out over the threshold of the exit door. He was thinking of following them himself when he noticed the Guard with his back towards him in front of the other door on the right. The Guard, who hadn't seen him, was whispering into his mobile :

"There are max-to-max five people now. If you really want to do it today, do it now."

The way he was looking around briskly while talking into the mobile, made Siddharth suspicious. He just slid across to hide behind the wall connecting the other door.

"There are three ladies, a man and a kid. I don't see any resistance from any one of them, in case they stay back. In fact, the man may have gone out by now."

Siddharth heard a crackling voice speaking something from the other end before he heard the Guard muttering, "Yah, the two of you can do the job without a hitch. And listen, DO IT FAST."

As the Guard got up from the chair, Siddharth darted back across the passage up the stairs to Hall 16. There was no one in the room with all the handicrafts like statues of some of the royals, musical instruments and such stuff. He hurried up to the window to catch a glimpse of a lady with her son, followed by the mother-daughter duo out on the gravelled path in the middle of the well-maintained lawn, scampering lazily back to the gates.

He noticed the two hefty, menacing-looking Guards heading towards the Palace only then. Soon they were inside. He hastened to hide behind one of those gigantic statues in the corner as he heard footsteps on the stairs. They came in and sneaked a peep in from the door. 

"All clear. No one in sight," he heard one of them mumble out.

They scurried down the stairs back to where the Museum Guard had been. On his sore knees, Siddharth knelt down further to place his ear against the floor. There was something fishy going on. A fake fight? A tussle?

Putting two and two together, he realised what was happening. The two guards were tying the hands and legs of the Palace Guard who was prompting them to do it quickly.

There was a complete hush for the next two-three minutes before he heard one of them say, "That will take care of the electrified wares. I have deactivated the Control Box. We can safely take Rajmata (the Queen) down now. The photo alone, when sold after some months, will fetch us millions. And if, by chance, the missing necklace is hidden inside the frame, even our grandchildren won't have to work…"

Siddharth heard the other Guard hiss at him, asking him to shut up. His guess proved right. They were proceeding to the exit door. One of them took and placed the chair the Guard had been sitting on, under the Queen's photo.

Why didn't he look up at the framed photo earlier?

They had it brought down by then, unscrewing, putting the hand in in order to detach the photograph from the frame. Then Siddharth heard them exclaim: "God! What a beauty! We're rich, man. We're …."

Siddharth could not wait any longer. It was time for Siddharth to call 101.

Let alone Lalbazar, the headquarters of the police in West Bengal, he was prepared to go to hell to save another curio from being stolen from the palace. 

The end