In the morning I came down for breakfast. Vardhan had already had one by then. He was reading a newspaper and the highlight was of a murder in a town nearby.
Vardhan: “Murders, rather a common thing nowadays. Do you know, roughly 700 murders happen by civilians every year and more than 200 criminals go unpunished. The worst part is most of the cases are not worth putting your efforts into, too easy to solve.”
That was not really the information I was looking for in the early morning!
Next detective Vardhan reached Mrs. Pettersen’s room and knocked on the door. Mrs. Pettersen opened the door and welcomed him in.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Mrs. Pettersen,” Vardhan said as he took a seat in the room. “I wanted to ask you some questions about Arthur Noah’s death.”
Mrs. Pettersen nodded and took a seat across from him. “Of course, Detective. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Vardhan cleared his throat before beginning. “I understand that you and Arthur Noah were close.”
Mrs. Pettersen sighed and looked down at her hands. “Yes, we were, not many know of this though” she admitted.
“I see,” Vardhan said, making a mental note of the information. “Can you tell me if you had seen Mr. Noah on the night of his death?”
Mrs. Pettersen hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I did. I went to see him at around 1 AM.”
Vardhan raised an eyebrow. “1 AM? That is quite late. May I ask what the reason for your visit was?”
Mrs. Pettersen looked up at him, her eyes filled with sadness. “Arthur had an argument with Mark earlier that day. We often connected over how taking care of young children alone was a task and since I knew how much it meant to him, I wanted to comfort him. I didn’t want to wait until morning to talk to him, so I went over to his house.”
Vardhan nodded in understanding. “And did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you were there? Any strange noises or people?”
Mrs. Pettersen shook her head. ” No, everything seemed normal. We talked for a while, and then I left. Mark had also arrived back home during the same time. After some time I left and it was the last time I saw him.”
Mrs. Pettersen: “This had to do with Mark and Mr. Orlando—both of whom had been a constant source of anguish for Arthur over the past few years. Mark, with his reckless lifestyle and simmering resentment toward his father, had turned every gathering into a battlefield, every conversation into a chance to provoke. His temper was unpredictable, a storm brewing behind entitled eyes. Yet, as troublesome as Mark was, Mr. Orlando had been the heavier weight on Arthur’s shoulders.”
Vardhan leaned forward in his seat. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Pettersen. You’ve been very helpful.”
Mrs. Pettersen took a deep breath and stood up, walking Vardhan to the door. “Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
Vardhan thanked her again before leaving the house, his mind racing with new information. The fact that Mrs. Pettersen had been with Arthur Noah on the night of his death was a significant development, and he would need to follow up on it.
“What’s our next step, detective?” I asked.
“I am something to attend to, I’ll see you tonight” responded Vardhan.
The detective started walking towards his room as he was creating a conversation with Maria who was passing by the hallway at the same time.
Vardhan: “Are you heading out Maria? It must be a lot of work to plan the grand parties.”
Quite a chit chatter he is, not the one would imagine him to be particularly when you think of a person as a detective.
I sat by the window picking up a book from the shelf and saw Maria leaving the mansion who was being followed by Vardhan. I could not keep myself calm and followed them on foot further just a few minutes behind.
Detective Vardhan kept a close eye on Maria as she moved around the city. He followed her discreetly, careful to keep his distance so as not to arouse suspicion. And I was trying to imitate the same. As Maria went about her errands, Vardhan noticed that she seemed to be unaware of the two other men who were following her.
Vardhan kept his focus on the men, watching their every move. He noticed that they were trying to blend in with the crowd, but their eyes were trained on Maria. They seemed to be following her every step, but they never made a move to get closer.
Vardhan’s instincts told him that something was not right. He knew that he had to keep a close eye on Maria to ensure that she was safe. As Maria headed back towards the mansion, Vardhan stayed close behind and I followed. As they neared the mansion, Vardhan noticed that the men following Maria seemed to disappear into the crowd. He could not shake the feeling that they were up to no good. Vardhan decided to stay close to the mansion to ensure that everything was safe.
As Maria entered the mansion, Vardhan stayed outside for a while, watching for any suspicious activity. He did not want to alarm anyone, but he knew that he had to keep a close eye on the situation.
After a while, Vardhan noticed that everything seemed to be calm. As he walked away from the mansion again, he knew that he had to stay vigilant and keep a close eye on everyone involved in the case. Vardhan could not shake the feeling that something was not right. He knew that there was more to the case than met the eye, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Later in the late evening detective Vardhan sat across from me in my room, recounting his investigation into Mrs. Pettersen. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to her than meets the eye but everything she said checks out and it also clears up on Mark’s statements.” he said.
“I followed her today, dressed in disguise so she wouldn’t recognize me. I followed her to the bank and managed to get a glimpse of her transactions. It seemed she was quite wealthy, with several properties in her name. She had made a few payments to the boarding schools”
Vardhan took a sip of his coffee before continuing. “I did some more digging and found out that she had three children, all of whom were in boarding school. It seemed odd to me that she never mentioned them.”
Oliver listened intently as Vardhan spoke.
“Did you find anything else?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Vardhan said. “But I don’t think she had the motive.
“But Tom, Tom is an interesting fellow” Vardhan had a suspicion that Tom Orlando was not being completely truthful during their previous conversation. So, he decided to do some investigating of his own. He put on a disguise and followed Tom around the next morning.
He started by following him to his office and I rushed and joined him in the same. He waited until Tom left for lunch and snuck into his office to look for any incriminating documents. He didn’t find anything of importance, but he did notice that Tom had a lot of properties under his name. He made a mental note to look into those properties later.
Vardhan followed Tom to his bank. He pretended to be a customer and stood in line behind Tom. He overheard Tom talking to the bank teller about transferring some money to an offshore account. This made Vardhan even more suspicious of Tom’s intentions. I kept my distance and only made sure we never really lost sight of Tom.
Vardhan followed Tom to various meetings and social events. He noticed that Tom met with a lot of influential people in the town. He also saw that Tom had a lot of business dealings with Arthur, which confirmed his suspicion that Tom might have had a motive for the murder.
Vardhan and I also did some research on Tom’s past and found out that he had a criminal record for fraud. This was a red flag for Vardhan and made him even more determined to find out if Tom was involved in the murder.