Kolkata, West Bengal
Part 1
In a secluded part of the city, there is a quiet, peaceful, two-storey house surrounded by a garden. The house is designed with two rooms on the ground floor, a dining-cum-kitchen area, a large hall, and two bathrooms. The layout of the first floor is similar to that of the ground floor, but what makes it special is a small yet beautiful hanging balcony. On this balcony, Bidisha has placed a cane swing and some cane chairs. An ivy plant has climbed up the grill of the balcony and spread across the eaves of the roof, creating a serene and tranquil environment. However, the garden shows signs of neglect, overgrown with bushes and weeds, as it has not been tended to by a gardener for a long time. Recently, a gardener came and managed to clear it just enough to keep it functional.
The house is inhabited by three people: Bishakha, her nine-year-old daughter Mithi, and Tinni, a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl who stays with them day and night. Despite her young age, Tinni is as capable as a seasoned housewife and also serves as a playmate for Mithi. Mithi's father, Samar, works as a cook on a ship and spends nine months at sea and three months at home. Bishakha recently transferred to a government girls' school in the area and has enrolled Mithi there as well. She takes Mithi to school in the morning, but since Mithi's fourth-grade classes end earlier, Tinni goes to pick her up and bring her home by a pre-arranged rickshaw, a journey that takes about forty-five minutes each way. Bishakha and her family have only been here for about a month.
Through the headmistress of her school, Bishakha found a gentleman who keeps the keys to the house. The owner of the house lives in Bangalore, and if anyone wants to rent it, this Bimal Babu arranges for someone to clean the house before handing it over.
Part 2
After bathing and feeding Mithi in the afternoon, Tinni has the habit of indulging in a good long nap after her meal. It’s almost a daily ritual for her, and she sleeps so deeply that she wouldn't wake up even if a robbery were to happen or if there was a fire in the house.
She finishes her chores by 1:30 p.m., puts Mithi to bed, and then falls asleep herself, usually waking up around 4:30 p.m. Bishakha returns home around 5:30 p.m. Although Mithi wakes up early in the morning, she doesn’t feel sleepy in the afternoon. After Tinni falls asleep, Mithi spends her time exploring the new house daily. The house is still filled with various belongings and furniture from its previous occupants. When Bishakha asked Bimal Babu, she found out that the previous tenants had to leave the house suddenly and didn’t take everything with them, saying they wouldn't need certain furniture at their new place.
In the upstairs room, adjacent to the balcony where Mithi sleeps, it seems that a young girl used to live there before. There's an old dressing table with several small black bindis (a traditional forehead decoration) stuck to the mirror. Additionally, there are smudges of lipstick and some makeup items scattered on the table. Mithi measured the height of the bindi stuck on the mirror from the ground using a measuring tape—it was about ninety-five centimeters. If the girl placed the bindi at her eye level in the mirror, then her height would be between ninety-eight to one hundred centimeters at most. Mithi searched on Google using her mobile phone and found that the average height of a three to four-year-old child is around this range. This mobile belongs to Bishakha. Mithi learned how to search for information on Google by watching her mother. Although she’s young, Mithi is quite intelligent, having already read simplified versions of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and books about Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and Sarada Devi by the time she learned to read Bengali.
For her birthday in Class 3, Mithi received "Baksho Rahashya" and "Joi Baba Felunath," her first taste of detective stories. Since then, she has become obsessed with mystery stories. Like many children her age, she often imagines herself as a detective's assistant or a member of a detective team. Despite her young age, Mithi is extremely intelligent, perceptive, and a keen observer. From "Joi Baba Felunath," she learned how Feluda, a famous detective, could estimate the height of another guest in a hotel by observing the mirror's placement on the wall. Mithi didn’t just learn the technique; she applied it practically, realizing that while you can't estimate an adult’s age from their height, you can do so with young children because their height generally increases with age. Her clever search on Google confirmed that the girl's height was just as she estimated. Thus, Mithi easily deduced the approximate age of the little girl who once lived there.
Mithi has also organized her toys in one corner of the room. Tiyasha and Piyasha are her two Barbie dolls, while Chini and Poppins, her red teddy bear and pink puppy, don’t have a specific place; they occupy her bed during the day. The movers placed Mithi's bed where she noticed the previous tenants' bed once stood, evidenced by the square marks on the floor left by the bedposts. Mithi figured this out easily. Moreover, the small and large fluorescent stars, with a beautiful half-moon in the middle, spread across the ceiling like a night sky. Naturally, the bed should be right under that, shouldn’t it? At night, when Mithi lies down, hugging her teddy and puppy, with all the lights turned off, it’s as if a piece of the serene sky awakens above her. On full moon nights, the moonlight filtering through the ivy vines creates a shimmering effect on the walls.
Before moving here, Bishakha used to work at a school in Bardhaman city. The house she used to live in there wasn’t very spacious, so after coming here, Mithi has somewhat been able to forget the sadness of leaving her old friends behind.
Part 3
This afternoon, Mithi made her way to the attic. In front of the attic lies a large rooftop area. This room used to be the study and play area for the little girl who lived here before. However, the room had been locked, and Mithi, along with Tinni, broke the lock with a hammer without telling her mother. Mithi had been curious about this room ever since they moved into the house, but she couldn't open it because of the lock. Yesterday, just before her mother returned home, the two of them broke the lock, but they didn't get a chance to explore the room. Mithi had been suppressing her curiosity with great difficulty since yesterday, and now the auspicious moment has arrived.
The room is filled with the simple belongings of a young girl. On the table, the girl had scattered plastic alphabet letters in both English and Bengali. In the center of the table, a few English letters are arranged haphazardly next to each other, forming the sequence “TI2R.” Mithi can’t make sense of it, but she quickly takes a picture of the table with her mobile phone. Beside the table is a steel rack filled with books—mostly picture books, drawing books, crayons, colored pencils, and watercolors. A small camp bed is set up in the room, piled high with all sorts of toys. On the table, there's a last year’s date calendar open to November, with the 8th marked in red pencil.
Part 4
At dinner, Mithi excitedly shares the day’s adventures with her mother, eagerly recounting her discoveries.
“You know, Mom, there used to be a four-year-old girl in this house...”
“Really? And how did my Mithi find that out?”
“Not Mithi, not Mithi, Detective Oindrila Mukherjee.” Mithi looks up with bright, shining eyes.
“And what else has Miss Mukherjee discovered?”
“The girl’s name was Titir. At first, I didn’t understand, but in the attic…” Mithi stops, suddenly afraid.
“That room was locked. Did you two break the lock?”
“Mom, I was really curious. The room has all of Titir’s study and playthings. They didn’t take anything with them when they left. I saw the letters ‘T,’ ‘I,’ ‘2,’ and ‘R’ arranged on the table. At first, I didn’t understand what it meant. But later, while looking at the picture I took with my phone, it suddenly clicked. Plastic letters usually come in sets. So, there was one ‘T’ and one ‘I.’ Now, imagine your name is Bidisha. But how would you get two ‘I’s? If your name is Titir, where would you get two ‘T’s and two ‘I’s? So, instead, she wrote the number two in the middle. Isn’t that clever?”
Bidisha, astonished, seems to rediscover her daughter as she listens to Mithi's deductions. With mock annoyance, she ruffles Mithi’s hair and says, "All day, it’s just this? What about your studies?"
Lowering her head, Mithi replies, "I do study, Mom. I start right when you come back."
Part 5
Today, as soon as Tinni fell asleep, Mithi began exploring the rooms on the ground floor. Since the family doesn’t need all the rooms, the ground floor is mostly unused. They’ve set up the second floor as their living space. Although Bimal kaku had the house thoroughly cleaned before they moved in, and the gardener cleared the overgrown garden when they first arrived, Mithi hadn't had time to explore the house fully. The past month had been spent adjusting to the new environment and catching up on the schoolwork she had fallen behind on during the move. Mithi's afternoons had been spent lying on the bed, reminiscing about old friends and tackling the backlog of her syllabus.
But now, Mithi has gradually settled in. She has made a few new friends at school, caught up on her studies, and has come to love the open environment and the charming house. Her solitary afternoons have transformed into a time of discovery and exploration.
In the room directly below hers, a lonely, empty computer desk sits in one corner. Mithi thoroughly examines the desk, finding it a fun game to unearth the past from seemingly insignificant objects. The desk has a shelf built on pillars, where perhaps a printer once sat. On the left edge of the shelf’s front border, there’s a small paper slip with some symbols, letters, and numbers written on it, which Mithi guesses might be various passwords. Beneath the desk, there’s a sliding tray that likely held a keyboard and mouse. But Mithi notices that the mouse pad is on the left side of the tray. From this, she deduces that the person who worked at this desk was probably left-handed. Not only that, but the number 'seven' seemed to be their favorite, as it appeared frequently in every password.
There are a few hooks behind the door, likely used for hanging clothes. Mithi measures the height of the hooks from the floor, as well as the height of the shelf above the computer desk, and uses Google to calculate. She concludes that the person who used this desk must have been at least six feet tall.
Next to the door, there's a wall hook, and right beneath it, a rectangular section of the wall is noticeably brighter than the surrounding area, indicating that a large picture frame had been hanging there for quite some time. However, on this rectangular section, there are several semi-circular scratches, which suggest that the picture frame had rubbed against the wall multiple times, leaving those marks. Mithi always carries a measuring tape and a magnifying glass with her, and she uses them to examine the wall more closely. She notices something sticky and dark on the nail, with similar dark spots on the surrounding paint, as if something had stained it.
Mithi’s keen observational skills allow her to piece together clues about the previous occupants, showing her growing curiosity and determination to uncover the mysteries of the house.
Part 6
Mithi tossed and turned in her sleep, haunted by strange dreams. The attic room kept appearing in her mind. She saw the marks on the floor where the camp bed had been dragged, as if it had been moved after sitting in one place for a long time. Pushing the bed forward towards the door revealed a two-step stool hidden in the gap. Mithi had seen electricians or painters use similar stools to work at heights. The attic’s ceiling was made of asbestos, with a false ceiling below it. In her dream, Mithi noticed a dusty handprint on the white ceiling. Something seemed off about the print.
Mithi suddenly sat up trembling, her body drenched in sweat. She quietly slipped out of bed and peeked into her mother’s room. Her mom was sound asleep, and Tinni was also fast asleep on the camp bed beside her. Moving silently, Mithi made her way to the attic. She didn’t dare turn on the staircase or terrace lights, fearing that her mom or Tinni might wake up and start questioning her. The darkness heightened her fear, making her heart pound in her chest. Only when she turned on her torch in the attic did she feel slightly reassured.
Despite the CFL light in the room, Mithi pointed the torch towards the end of the ceiling. There, she saw the dusty handprint of a grown man’s left hand on the false ceiling, with a few fingerprint marks, likely from the right hand, nearby. But something was missing from the left-hand print—the impression of the little finger was absent. The false ceiling was made up of several square blocks of plaster of Paris. In this area, some blocks appeared to have been hastily removed and then reattached. The shoddy work left cement smeared in places around the joints.
Mithi tiptoed downstairs to the room she had explored earlier that day. Turning on the light, she examined the doorframe closely. In her dream, she had seen this very image. The doorframe bore a dark, hand-shaped stain on the green paint, a left hand’s print—but, just like on the ceiling, the little finger’s mark was missing.
Part 7
Tonight, as soon as Tinni fell asleep, Mithi hurried out to the garden. Since moving into the house, she had only visited the garden once or twice, despite frequently going up to the terrace. Although the gardener had cleared most of the overgrowth, many unnecessary plants still crowded the space. There was a large jackfruit tree with a huge beehive, an ant colony at the base of a bael tree, and mosquitoes swarmed the area as soon as the sun began to set. The garden was teeming with various unpleasant insects, and Mithi had a bad experience on her first day there. Something had bitten her through her leggings, causing her leg to swell up painfully. There were hornets, wasps, centipedes, snails, and many other unknown and strange creatures all around.
Despite these dangers, an inexplicable curiosity had driven Mithi to the terrace and the ground floor in the middle of the night. Today, that same force pulled her towards the eerie garden. There was a sense of unease gnawing at her mind, something that didn’t quite add up.
Mithi took precautions this time, tying the bottoms of her leggings with string, wearing sneakers to keep bugs out, and applying plenty of Odomos on the exposed parts of her body. She also carried a mosquito racket in hand. Bracing herself, she passed the well and ventured deeper into the garden.
The garden and the back part of the house. There are several coconut and betel nut trees, a fig tree, and three septic tanks. The entire garden is covered with tall grass. The gardener didn’t really take care of the back area, finishing the job quickly and slipping away. As a result, wild plants have also crowded in along with the grass.
The area between the well's paved platform and the coconut trees has relatively shorter grass and fewer bushes, but there's no sign that anyone has recently tended to it. The ground is mossy, but in the area where the grass is shorter, the soil is a bit uneven, slightly elevated compared to the rest of the area, almost like a small mound, with less moss. Mithi took out a tape measure and found it to be just over six feet. A short distance away, there was a rusty spade covered in moss and soil. Mithi noticed that the gardeners brought their tools like spades and shovels with them and took them back after work. This spade had been in the garden for a while.
Part 8
Pinki is Mithi's best friend, and since Pinki’s house is on the same route as Mithi's, they pick her up and drop her off every day. On the way back today, Mithi suddenly asked the toto driver, “Kaku, can you take me to the police station?”
Nimai stopped the vehicle with a screech, “What are you saying, little sister? Have you gone mad? What will you do at the police station?”
Pinki spoke up, “My sister, Bahni Sen, is the OC of the police station. We'll just stop by to see her for a moment...”
“Oh my, Madam is your sister! Alright, I’ll take you there…”
The toto turned toward the police station, making Tinni a bit grumpy, knowing her afternoon nap was about to be interrupted.
Though Bahni didi is a senior police officer, she has a sweet demeanor. Even though she carries a pistol in a leather holster, she also has a Cadbury in her pocket. As soon as Mithi and her friends arrived, she offered them chocolates. Having heard Mithi’s suspicions about their rented house, Pinki had already informed her sister about their visit to the station.
“Tell me, little detective, what kind of trouble have you found in your new house?”
“Sis, none of the rooms in the house are locked, except the attic, where there are some trivial toys and books belonging to a small child, and it’s locked. That struck me as a bit odd. Then I noticed that the heavy camp cot filled with books, which Titir couldn’t possibly move on her own, was shifted by someone older. After moving it, they hastily removed four slabs from the false ceiling. What exactly were they doing there in such a rush? Whoever it was is left-handed, but they’re missing a pinky finger...”
“Do you think something valuable was hidden behind the ceiling?”
“Why would someone who is about to leave hide something valuable here?”
“So?”
“The person who worked on the computer downstairs was left-handed and about six feet tall. I’m sure there was a struggle in that room. One person must have pinned the other against the wall. There was a photo frame on the wall behind the person’s back. During the struggle, the frame must have scraped the wall several times. Then, the person’s head was forcefully slammed against the nail holding the frame, embedding the skull into it. The nail likely still has sticky blood on it. Even though most of the bloodstains were cleaned, some splatters remain on the wall. The bloody handprint left on the door is noticeable, but it seems the pinky was missing. The person who was injured must have been six feet tall, as suggested by the height of the nail. Similarly, the bloody handprint on the door is also at six feet high, missing the pinky finger…”
Bahni now became quite serious, “What did you see in the garden?”
“I believe that a deep hole was dug and something was buried there, which was then covered with uneven soil. There wasn’t enough time to level it properly. There’s an abandoned spade there. You could find the print of a hand without a pinky on it if you look closely, didi…”
Epilogue
Following the clues provided by the little detective, a nearly six-foot-tall skeleton in a shirt and pants was excavated from the garden soil, but it had a pinky finger on its left hand. An old nylon bag hidden above the false ceiling in the attic was found, containing a plastic-wrapped child’s skeleton wearing a pink frock. After questioning Bimal, it was revealed that the person, Arjun, who had previously rented the house, had left in a hurry after settling the rent and taking all his belongings, but the little girl was not with him. Bimal had made a major mistake by not asking for any ID from Arjun at the time of renting. As a result, it took the police a long time to trace them. However, after faxing pictures to various police stations and using sources, Arun, Arjun’s twin brother, was finally caught through another lead. The cybercrime cell apprehended Arun while investigating a blackmail case, and it slowly emerged that both brothers had a long history of cybercrimes. Ultimately, the dispute over the money led to a physical altercation and the fatal injury with the nail. Since Titir had witnessed everything, the evidence of the murder was destroyed. On the 8th of November, the day of her fourth birthday, she met her death at the hands of her uncle. Bimal did not know about Arun, and Arun, seizing the opportunity, had quietly disappeared posing as ‘Arjun.’ The two brothers looked almost identical, except for the missing pinky on the younger brother’s hand. However, in the end, the secret was uncovered due to the perceptive curiosity of a very intelligent child...