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The Mystery of a Belt

by Soma Bose
(Pune, India)

I was waiting for a long time for the inspector, after some time I passed with a cup of black coffee in the coffee house, a hard voice spoke out, "Hello! Are you hearing me?"


It was Mr. Ray, the senior police inspector looking for my intervention abruptly in solving a murder case.

"The dead body is removed from the place of incidence, the victim's body is now under forensic observation," Ray said in such a way as he was looking for my consent to make our entry in the forensic laboratory.

The forensic expert still held his look around the dead body, glancing at the body, I asked him,"How much do you already know from your
test?"

"Only what I have examined and found on his body, the victim is purposely induced with arsenic through a small pin like syringe which has made a small hole into his back side," the lab assistant said.

The body was exposed, both Ray and I were riveted by the cause of murder as two previous cases of murders were happened in the same way but the killer fled and left no evidence against him.

Few miles away,we entered into the mall where the last murder took place.

"Welcome," a well dressed man said,"This is the way," he veered in a certain direction and we followed him to monitor the spot where the victim's body was found laid breathless.

"Do you think this is a crime of same conscience? Whoever killed the previous two has killed this man in the same manner?" Ray broke my silence.

"We should delicately observe the CCTV footage of all three cases, then I can give you the logical explanation behind these murders," I answered.

"Only logical! And what about the motive of this crime?" Ray yelled.

"The killer will reveal this from his own mouth if we can trace him out," I wanted to expand my view into the footage of all the three places when the incidents took place eventually.

I enlarged the views and suddenly jumped on a chair where Ray was looking to have his seat.

"Here is," I said, Ray stared, he was obviously waiting for my explanation.

I continued with,"Look at this man, his lower belly is a good fit for this belt."

Ray took a view of the CCTV camera,"Obviously, I can see this belt but the man who wore it is not clear to me," he said.

"But the belt of same pattern and worn in same style is clearly visible and every time, on the eve of murders, the same or any different person came near parallel to the victims who attached the belt of same pattern and logo with his pant," I gave my explanation.

Ray nodded his
head positively,"Absolutely right," he said.

We knew, we could find some logic hidden behind this belt and we searched every shops of belts nearby the places where the murders took place.

We found out some shops from where this particular type of belts were sold within some previous days of the incidents of murders. We checked the invoices and buyers' records from the shops' purchase and selling registers and tried to track the names and addresses.

Ray was looking impatient as the names and addresses of purchasers were more than hundred,,"When our case will conclude?",he asked.

I was thinking of leaving the case on God's hand as it was looking really impossible, but I found out one solution, "The killer may be single, no one can do so many murders having a family along-with, he can not endanger his family life because I think, he is not a psycho patient and whatever he has done, he did it scientifically, he put the small syringe in the hole of buckle of the belt and threw it towards the victims so mechanically and delicately that nobody noticed it, as we know, every-time the syringe was filled with arsenic so that the pinned syringe could kill the victims scientifically."

Ray nodded his head as he agreed with my observation. We started our search as we knocked the every door of the suspected purchasers whom we sorted based on said status and interrogated everybody except one, his neighbours disclosed one fact that this person had locked his room since many days and presently he was not seen for last many days. We broke the lock of his room and entered into the room, what we discovered that really stunned both Ray and me. Some paper cuttings were remained scattered on the floor and I took up them,"Unbelievable! What is this?"

Both Ray and I looked into the matters of the clips, it revealed another story happened
few years before- a poisonous wine scam case came into our knowledge, all the members of the killers family died after drinking that wine and it was his revenge to kill every one who were involved in this scam!

The first victim was the owner of that brand of wine, second one was the retailer of that
alcoholic liquid and the third one was the wine shop owner from whose shop his family bought that liquor, the killer then was not present along-with his family, so he survived and he planned from then to make a way to kill all these three so delicately and accurately that nobody could suspect him.

But now we had all the proofs against him and we acquired all his identifications, and Ray
was well enough determined to capture him along-with his police associates.

***

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