The Murvelli Murder

18. More Facts

The next was on Jason Murvelli. He was very bad in his academics and he spent most of his time gambling in casinos. Recently he had incurred huge debts and he had been threatened at the casino by his creditors. Probably he needed money so bad that he could have murdered his father to inherit his property?

The next file was on Mrs. Rose Murvelli. She had lodged at a five star hotel, the Hotel la Créme. Had been seen with a very handsome and young looking man and they have walked arm in arm, very excited and quite in love...

As they read on, inspector Kennedy exclaimed: "Finally the solution! You said the lawyer told you this woman was aware of the will. She must have a hand in her husband's death as all she wanted was the money. You say she seemed a very materialistic kind of person? Then that's her motive.

"Why, is it not obvious enough? She had left the house and lied about her whereabouts, only to hire an assassin to enter the house through the window knowing that the window will be open at that hour, and assassinated the husband. She wishes to start a life with this other young man and needs her husband out of the equation. She knew she would be the heir to the empire if only the son, Jason was out of the equation as well. And so she implicated the boy somehow. Or was she in league with him? But he couldn't have agreed to such a thing, knowing he would be on the losing end.

"Wait, What if she had bribed the cook to poison his coffee. In that case, what has the son got to do with it? And then there is the driver who smokes and Cyril who denied smoking but walks about with a lighter. And certainly there has to be in the picture someone with a penchant for smoking. Everybody is a suspect now. Oh my God, I thought I had it covered but alas I now admit I can't wrap my head around it. It gets even more mysterious!"

The Inspector's face was coated with irritation.

Max almost laughed. "You may be right," Max said. "I also had a feeling that she was hiding something when I questioned her regarding salient points, but let's read on. This gets really interesting."

The next was the doctors report from the autopsy. Time of death was established to be from between 2-3a.m in the morning and he had died immediately from the stab wounds. But there was something in his bloodstream indicating a dose of toxin. The toxin was established to be Verconium, a rare poison made of hemlock which causes temporal paralysis from the neck downwards all through the spine, including impairment of speech resulting from paralysis of the pharynx.

"Exactly!" the detective exclaimed with utmost satisfaction . "Exactly what I've been looking for. I hoped I could get this missing piece of the whole puzzle inside the content of the bottle, but when I realized the bottle was nowhere to be found, an autopsy became imperative.

"There was cigarette ash on the table but the dead man had not smoked it. The cigarette was a grave mistake on the part of the criminal as it led me to deduce that someone who smokes had spent quite some time in the room with the deceased. This in turn led me to believe the deceased was temporarily paralysed during that time and that was why he couldn't fight his enemy. He was seated in the chair, ready to read when the poison took effect and rendered him incapable of speech or movement. He could not scream for help. Jason told me about the victim's pose as he died. He was seated, very unlike someone who was seeing danger, yet his face was ghastly, like one seeing horror and death right before him. Such a man weilds immense strength and stamina, it would take more than just one person to hold him down to a chair and murder him in cold blood. Hence my conclusion that he was poisoned before stabbing. Poisoned by adding this toxin to the bottle which has now gone missing. Murvelli drank it and therefore got the toxin lodged in his system.

"This means he was poisoned by someone in the house. It's all a chain of reasoning. Remember the window was locked before the rain. It was this same person who opened the window to let his partner inside. Recall the floor of the study was unusually very neat, even neater than the bedroom. The person who came in through the window left the same way after the murder has been committed. The one inside had cleaned the floor because his or her partner had brought in mud and water from outside due to the rain.

"But again, it could be anyone. An enemy could have bribed one of the employees. Jason could have sought help from one of his friends outside in order to murder his father. Anybody could have done it."

Max went on talking mostly to himself and then stopped dead...

"But just one person could have killed the man with the aid of such poison and the dagger." He appeared to be talking more to himself than to his companion who just sat there listening, dumbfounded. "Why,"  the detective went on, "Why did this unknown suspect need to let in a companion when they already have the paralysed Murvelli at their mercy?"

He was thinking hard. That same feeling he had back at the lab with the dagger came back again. A word was trying to come to his lips. Something so simple, he felt, yet evading his consciousness. The news on the TV was still on. The detective's head was spinning. He found himself listening to the voice of the TV reporter.

"...morning was caught this morning," the voice on the TV was saying. "Last night He had broken into a home once again and tried to rob, but unknowing to him, the owner of the house, who was a wrestler and trained armsman, was in the house and vigilant. The suspect had robbed several houses and escaped the police but last night he met his nemesis in the hands of the wrestler who he intended to rob..."
"Nemesis!" Max cried, getting up from his seat. Chief Kennedy just watched on like a fool, completely at sea.

"Nemesis, the god of retribution," Detective Max was soliloquising. "Yes! Also known as Rham..... Rhamno... Rhamnousia! Yes, and then the crocodile. By, god, how stupid I have been."

"Can you just calm down a minute and tell me what the hell is going on?" the chief inspector said, but the detective was in his own world by this time.

Max reached into his pocket and dialed the phone number of the constables placed at the mansion. "You can leave the place now. Tell everyone at the mansion that they have been released of all suspicion as more incriminating evidence has been found against Jason Murvelli. In fact, tell them the boy had broken down and admitted guilt to the crime. They can all go about their normal duties and plan the burial of the deceased."

He hung up. Then he faced his companion with a distant look. He said nothing. He thought for several moments and he picked up his phone again and called the constables.

"After leaving the mansion," he was speaking into the phone, "the three of you should strip off your uniforms and go to the Murvelli Aurum corporation and be on the lookout."

Next Max telephoned another unit and asked them to proceed to the international airport and be on the lookout for two men, one tall the other not so tall. Be armed and ready.
He ended the call and turned to Inspector Kennedy.

"Now, chief," the detective spoke softly, "Now, we wait."
He smirked in very pleased manner.