Sherlock Holmes of Vadakkancheri

"Elementary, my dear Watson...er..Muscilesh", I was explaining
to sub-inspector Muscilesh and constable Savitha why I thought
the case of a man who died of eight stab wounds in the back, was
suicide and not murder. I am Venugopal Unnikrishnan, better
known as Sherlock Holmes of Vadakancheri, which also happens
to be my home town.

"How could a man stab himself eight times in the back?

I don't think it was suicide." "It is really very simple,
Savitha. Now what would you do if I pinched your back?"

"I would turn around and kick your nuts out of its wrinkled
socket."

Muscilesh " ha ha. Then no one would ever call you nuts
again, he heh"

Savitha " And that is putting things in a nutshell"

"what did you say you would do, Savitha?"

" Turn around and kick your nuts"

" Exactly. What did you say before "kick your nuts"?

"And"

"No, before "and"

"Turn around"

"Now , what would happen if I turned around when someone
was stabbing me in the back?, I would get stabbed on the
front side too. In this case, he was not stabbed in the front.
So what does that mean?"

Muscilesh , "He was stabbed only in the back?"

"And..?"

"he died"

"Of course, he died, you idiot. What does that prove?"

"He died of stab wounds".

"And what else"

"Let me think..."

"It means he did not turn around when he was being stabbed,
which he normally should have done. So it was probably
suicide"

"Why do you think he stabbed his back eight times to
commit suicide, when he could have had the same effect
by stabbing in the front side?"

"That is what we have to find out"

This man had owned a hardware store and he was found
lying dead in his own storehouse. This case was going to
be difficult to prove. There was no way this man could
have been murdered. All the evidence pointed to it.
But how does one stab himself eight times on his back,
unless he fixed eight knives on the wall and crashed into
them. Also Savitha made an important point. Why didn't
stab himself in the front if he wanted to die?

I remember a similar case where a man died of being hit
on the head with a coconut. It was also a suicide. He
had climbed up the tree, cut down a few coconuts and
then left a few half cut. Then he climbed down and simply
waited for the coconuts to fall on their own, which it did
after a few days. And one of them fell on the waiting
man's head and he died instantly. From experience I
knew people chose funny ways of committing suicide.

I also had a reputation of proving all my cases very fast
and make them look so easy.

A big crowd had gathered near the shop and as I stepped
out, they looked at me with so anticipation and admiration
that I felt I had to do something to make them keep on
admiring me.

I motioned one of the people who had gathered to come
near me. He walked over towards me with the air of a
man who had absolutely no fear of police. I had to do
something about that as well.

"What is your name?"

"Why do you want to know my name?"

"Tell me your name"

"Why?"

"That is a very funny name".

I guffawed loudly and looked around to see who else
joined me. I usually had to laugh first at my own wit
and humour. This was sometmes necessary to encourage
people to laugh with me. Most often, people did not
recognise good humour and you had to prompt them
to laugh every so often so that in future they would laugh
loudly if they heard the same joke again.

The young man also laughed which was vaguely irritating.
I normally did not like the victim of my jokes to laugh with
me. But I chose to make this an exception as he was the
only one who laughed at my joke. If I reprimanded him,
others might take it as a cue, not to laugh at my jokes and
I did not want that. But I had to do something to put down
his insolence and I wasn't called Sherlock Holmes of
Vadakkancheri for nothing.

"Where were you when this man died?"

" Does that matter? I heard you say it was suicide.
So why try to find out where I was?"

This man was beginning to bug me. The crowd was also
warming up to this trial of sorts and watching very intently.
I had to do something to get on top of the situation.

"Did you know this man personally?"

"I didn't know you could know anyone impersonally?"

"Listen boy and listen hard. Smart, I like; smartass, I don't"

"And listen Sherly and listen good. I don't care who you are
and what you do. But you are wasting my time here. Iam
the district collector who stopped on the way to office, to
see what the crowd was all about. If you have any more
questions to ask me, come to my office and I will be glad
to oblige you."

Have you ever stepped on banana peel and fell down?
Your hands fly in the
air to maintain balance , your legs simply collapse under you,
your face contorts in unimaginable ways and a myriad of
comical expressions appear on your face in a flash, before
a horrified look takes over as you realize that you are going to
land with a heavy thud. It is only when you get up that you
do some face saving exercises which may come out even
more comical than the ones you portrayed on your face,
on your way to the crashing episode. This was exactly
what happened to me when I realized that I was questioning
the person who had the powers of a district magistrate.
Not only did I slip and fall, but made a donkey of myself
in the process.

" Iam sorry, sir. I did not know that you were the collector
of the district..I mean..er..district collection agent..er district
collector. I only hoped to extract some information
on the murder that happened here"

"But I thought you said it was suicide".

"It was a suicide, sir"

"Then why do you call it murder?"

"Sir, it is a murder committed by the man on himself during
which process he died". My face saving exercises were
in full swing.

"How do you know it is suicide and not murder?"

"He was stabbed only in the back, sir"

"Since he was stabbed only in the back, it was not
murder..eh? That is a very stupid explanation"

"Sir , if I pinched Savitha in the back, she would turn
around and kick my nuts. This man did not turn
around and so it is suicide."

"WHAT!!!???"

"Sir, I asked Savitha if I be allowed to pinch her back
and she said if I did that she would kick my nuts out.
She also said she would turn around first. But this man
did not turn around. Sir, if I pinched your bottom........"

"YOU WILL NOT PINCH MY BOTTOM!!!".

"But if I did, you would turn around, wouldn't you?"

"Tell me something, Sherly of Vada. Are you nuts?"

"No sir, Iam not nuts. Just now, Muscilesh also told
me no one is going to call me nuts if Savitha kicked my nuts"

"Jeeeeezz!!! What the heck are you talking about?"

"Sir, it is like this. If I pinched Savitha in the back, she
would turn around and kick my nuts out of its wrinkled
socket. Now if I did not have them, I couldn't be called
nuts. That is what Muscilesh told me . And that is how
Savitha put it in the nutshell".

"Oh God! Either I have gone nuts or Iam missing something"

"You only missed that part where Savitha steps up to
kick, sir. But that was after she turned around first"

"Let me see the body first and you step aside. Don't walk
with me and talk to me as I wish to remain sane the rest
of the day".

I walked with him anyway. These kids may be collectors
of the district, but they were also wet behind the ears and
you had to be around to lend a helping hand or necessary
advise. It was so exasperating explaining to this guy.
It was a different matter if he did not like to be pinched,
but the point was that he would turn around if pinched
and the dead man did not turn around. It was as simple as that.

I also needed to stop this guy from calling me Sherly. It
was really annoying to hear that name uttered in the most
irreverent way possible. Here I was, the one and
only Sherlock Holmes, having to act so subservient to a
person who was much younger in age and of course did
not match my intellectual taxidermy. In fact, I would
have loved it very much if he, in the end, said something
like, " Sir, it was a great honour meeting you".

I was determined work this to perfection when.....

"why are you called Sherlock Holmes anyway?"

"Sir, I had proved certain cases which were hitherto
uncrackable. The most famous of them being the
'mystery of the lost diamond ring'. It was that which
earned me this name".

"Tell me about it"

"The Royal family of south vadakancheri always held
me in high esteem and I was not surprised when they
asked to me come over and find the missing diamond
ring of the erstwhile raja. And I proceeded to do so
within a few minutes"

"How did you do that?"

"Sir the Raja had misplaced it and thought one of the
servants may have taken it. I asked him a few questions
like the name of the person he suspected, when he realized
that the ring was missing etc. He told me that the ring
had become very loose on the finger and normally he
was wont to remove the ring and put it on the left hand,
before eating breakfast. That day, after the breakfast,
he checked his left hand and the ring was not there.
I asked a few sharp questions and then the last question
produced results".

"What was the question?"

" I asked him if he checked his right hand. And lo! the
ring was on his right hand. He had simply forgotten
to remove the ring from his right hand while eating and
thankfully it did not end up in his stomach".

" I do not think you will get lucky today."

"It wasn't luck, sir. It was all calculated and carefully
thought out questions from a sharp mind, that did the
trick. In this case too, if only you will let me demonstrate
something by letting me pinch..."..

"YOU WILL NOT PINCH MY BOTTOM!!!"

"Yes sir, I mean..no sir"

"Who broke open this front door?"

"The police, sir. It was locked from inside and there
were no other doors. Despite repeated pleas and requests,
this man would not open the door. He couldn't open the
door because he was dead. So we had to break it open
to get inside".

"What is this stuff that is spilled here?"

"Oil, sir"

"Is that a knife stand with eight knives, with blood
stains on it, on the floor?"

"Blood stains? I thought it was painted red."

"Now look at this, Sherly. You see those marks on the
floor where someone seems to have slipped and fell.
This man probably slipped on spilled oil and fell on the
stack of knives. This is a godown and store where no one can
enter except from the front door and it was locked from
inside. It goes on to prove that this man died of a freakish
accident and it is not murder".

"Exactly as I said sir. I knew it was not murder all the while.
As I had been telling constable Savitha, it was impossible
to think it was murder. If it had been murder, he would
have turned around like Savitha had turned around first........."