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1-34 of 34
- Calcutta, 1955. Miss Madhubala Rai (Madhu Mohan) meets Byomkesh (Rajit Kapoor) & Ajit (K.K. Raina). She was a nurse in Patna Medical College, but now lives in Calcutta, with her boy Prabhat (Rakesh Sahu) whom she adopted. A pregnant woman was admitted in Patna 20 years ago. She died in childbirth, and no one came to claim the baby, so Madhubala adopted him. When the boy was 5 years old, Madhubala received a letter with Rs 400 that said that the man knew that his boy was with Madhubala and should continue to be so. 2 years ago, Prabhat started working with Anadi Babu (Sadhu Meher), who is impressed with him & wants to adopt him. Anadi convinces Madhubala to stay with him as well. Anadi had an elder brother, who died, with 2 sons, Nimai (Loveraj Kambli) and Nitai (Kush Kambli). Both are goons and hunters. They have shifted base to Calcutta & Madhubala fears they want Prabhat out of the way to take control of Anadi's property. Byomkesh goes to meet Anadi, under the guise of renting property, but Anadi flatly and rudely refuses him and Ajit. Keshto is Anadi's old friend, who is now destitute and lives with Anadi, along with Prabhat and Madhubala. On Diwali night Keshto has a big fight with Anadi as he won't give money for drinks & storms off. He returns at 1 am to find Anadi dead in his balcony & Prabhat and Madhubala blaming him. According to Prabhat, Nepa (Ashok Mishra) (Anadi's secy) left the house at 8 pm, Prabat & Madhubala left at 8 30 pm. Prabhat dropped Madhubala at the cinema at 8 45pm, went to his shop to do work, picked his mother at 11 45 pm and then came back home together. Looking at Anadi's books, Byomkesh finds that he had loaned Rs 5000 to Dayal Hari Majumdar (Pravin Kedia) 1 month ago. Prabhat wanted to marry the daughter of Dayal, but Anadi was not in favor. Also, Nimayi and Nitayi arrive with their lawyer for their uncle's property. The lawyer Kaminikant (Avinash Masurekar) tells Byomkesh that Anadi never adopted Prabhat legally and thus has no rights to Anadi's property. Byomkesh confronts the lawyer about his knowledge of Anadi's death, since it has not even been 2 hours. But Nimai interjects that Anadi has been dead for several hours, which means he knew when Anadi died. There is a hotel opposite Anadi's house. Byomkesh finds the key to Anadi's locker in the street directly below one of the hotel room windows. Byomkesh investigates and finds that the owner of the hotel (Somesh Agarwal) had rented that room to 7 boys. 2 had returned home for holidays, 2 had gone to city for Diwali & 3 were playing cards with the owner till 10 30 pm. They slept at 10 30pm. One of the boys (who went to city) returned at 12 midnight and the other hadn't returned yet. Another room on 3rd floor is rented to Nityanand Ghoshal, who doesn't stay in the room, but comes and goes frequently. He came to the room at 10 pm. He has rented the room for the last 6 months. He always had a longish bag in his hands. He returned at 11 pm. Byomkesh finds that the window of Nityanand's room opens into the balcony of Anadi's house. He also finds a bullet lodged in Nityanand's wall.
- Byomkesh gets Keshto drunk, who tells that Anadi and he studied together in school. Keshto was a good student and Anadi was the mischief. Anadi would create all sorts of issues and as a result both Keshto and Anadi got expelled. They joined the army together in WW 1 and learned how to shoot. After returning to India, they settled in Patna, where Anadi murdered a Marwari businessman and they both ran away with his money. But Anadi duped Keshto, dumped him & came to Calcutta with all the loot to start a new life. Byomkesh goes to meet Dayal and sees Prabhat coming out of his house. Dayal is most hostile, and says he never borrowed any money from anyone & refuses to recognize Prabhat as well. Prabhat is shocked to find that Anadi had loaned Rs 5000 to Dayal. Byomkesh inquires to find that Nipen (Anadi's secy) is adept at making key duplicates. Further inquiries scare Nitai and Nimai who meet Byomkesh and admit that they had hired the room opposite Anadi's balcony to keep an eye on him. They claim that they felt that Prabhat and Madhubala were fueling Anadi's anger towards them & may even cause harm to Anadi, so they took turns going to the hotel to keep an eye on things. On Diwali night Nimai was in the room, when he heard a shot at around 11 pm & a bullet whizzed past his ears (the bullet found lodged in the room's wall). Byomkesh gets his friend to keep an eye on Dayal. He reports that Dayal's girl Shivli is a good girl & was seeing Prabhat. Anadi didn't want Prabhat to get married to Shivli as Dayal had no money. Anadi had loaned Rs 5000 to Dayal. Now Anadi is dead & Nitai & Nimai have claimed Rs 5000 from Dayal. Prabhat has promised to get the money for Dayal and in return Dayal has promised Prabhat to get Shivli married to him. But since then, Shivli is missing with her music instructor and Dayal is missing with his son. Prabhat meets Byomkesh and says that he wants to leave town & wants to sell his book shop as well. Byomkesh indicates that he wants to buy the bookstore & even indicates that he might hire Nipen. Prabhat sends Nipen to meet Byomkesh. Byomkesh confronts Nipen & accuses him of duplicating Anadi's key & stealing money from his closet. He then tells Nipen to create a duplicate key for Prabhat's bookstore. At night Byomkesh and Ajit go to the bookstore, with police hiding outside. 2 hours later, Prabhat comes inside the store to take some books. Byomkesh stops Prabhat and finds that books have currency notes bonded inside. Byomkesh reveals that Anadi wanted to marry Shivli himself & which is why he loaned Rs 5000 to Dayal. Anadi had met Prabhat in Patna & hired him to bind his black money worth Rs 240,000 into his books and kept the books in his closet for safekeeping. Only Prabhat & Anadi knew this secret. To keep Prabhat on his side, Anadi pretended to adopt him, but never signed any legal adoption papers. Nipen had the duplicate key to Anadi's closet and used to help himself to some money, whenever he needed it. When Anadi died, Nipen threw the duplicate key in the street and that's what Byomkesh found. Then Prabhat fell in love with Shivli, but Anadi had lust for her & offered money to Dayal to get her married to him. When Prabat found out, he shot Anadi (on Diwali night, Prabhat was not in his bookstore, and he came back home to shoot Anadi) with a hired gun (the bullet passed through Anadi and lodged itself in Nimai's hotel room across the street) & then removed all the money books from his closet & hid them in his bookstore. He decided to leave Calcutta when he learner that Dayal double crossed him, took money from Shivli's teacher, and got her to go with him.
- Calcutta, 1959. Nilmani Majumdar (Naresh Suri) is a retired police officer. He retired 7 years ago, is originally from East Bengal (Bangladesh), but was posted in Calcutta for a long period of his career. Nilmani never got married in his life. Nilmani tells Byomkesh of 1 unresolved care of his career. 3 years before retirement, in Calcutta, Nilmani was on his unannounced rounds of the city on his cycle, with a gun & a torch. At midnight, He sees 4 men carrying a dead body, who run away when they see a policeman coming. The dead body was of Hema (Kuldip Kaur), wife of Someshwar (Karunakar Pathak). Someshwar is found gambling at his friend Kali Das's (Vinay Malhotra) house with 2 other people. He claims that he was playing cards from 8 30 pm to the time Nilmani arrested him. Someshwar is a rich trader with income of Rs 60,000 +. He married Hema 7 years ago, & his father-in-law's name is Deen Mani Haldar. Someshwar claims that he knew Hema was seeing someone as that person was coming home late at night. Hema also had jewelry in her possession, which was not given by Someshwar. Someshwar is not happy at his wife's death but is not apologetic either. Kali Das says that he knew Hema's parents. Her father was a drunk & thief, while her mother used to enjoy male company, when Deen Haldar was in jail. Kali was not in favor of Someshwar marrying Hema. Someshwar married Hema when he was poor and didn't have any wealth, at that time he thought a girl from a poor background will be good for him. But as his trading business got going, and his income rose, he increasingly felt that Hema was not the right fit for him. Someshwar was a military contractor. The 3rd friend had a business of supplying wood for cremation. The 4th friend was a contractor and used bamboo for scaffolding, the same type which Nilmani found on the harness used to transport Hema's body. All the signs point to the 4 men, but Nilmani has zero proof of their involvement. Someshwar and Kali are released on bail and Someshwar goes back to his home. Post-Mortem reveals that Hema died at about 10 pm. Hema was killed by damaging her neck artery, with a technique that's trained to soldiers for hand-to-hand combat. A couple of days later, Someshwar is also found dead in his home, killed by the same technique used on his wife Hema. Byomkesh asks a few more questions from Nilmani. Someshwar had not will and his entire wealth went to his niece. The night when Somheswar died, the 3 friends were playing cards at Kali's house without Someshwar. Byomkesh asks Nilmani the name of Hema's wife, and he takes a name instantly. Byomkesh declares that Hema was killed by Someshwar and Someshwar was killed by Hema's father. Hearing this Nilmani hastily leaves. Byomkesh explains to Ajit that in fact Nilmani was Hema's real father. Hema's mother was not faithful to her husband Deen Mani. She was having relations with Nilmani, while her husband was in jail. That's how Hema was born. Shortly thereafter Nilmani was transferred. But Hema was his only living relative & he kept track of her. He was posted back to Calcutta before his retirement. Nilmani had the habit of late-night city rounds & used that time to visit Hema and to give her minor gifts. Someshwar murdered Hema with a chop to her neck. He and his friends were taking Hema to be burnt when Nilmani saw them. They ran back to their cards game & came up with a back story that they all stuck to. When Nilmani understood how Hema was killed (by the Post-Mortem report), he killed Someshwar the same way.
- Sunil (Salim Shah) is married to Reba (Sujata Gokhale). Sunil is from a rich family, but his dad gives all his property to Reba upon his death. Reba is beautiful and smart. She learns how to run the business and how to drive a car. Reba is a control freak & uses her new independence to cut Sunil off. She pays off all debts, gives Sunil a fixed stipend of Rs 500 a month, tells him that he will be responsible for his finances henceforth, with no extra support from Reba. Sunil seems innocent but is constantly scheming to figure out how to get his father's estate back from Reba. Sunil mentions to Reba that he has seen a stranger lurking around the house. The next day Sunil and Reba file a police complaint. The Inspector Ramani (Shakti Singh), knows Reba from before her wedding & promises police protection. Ramani has feelings for her & says that he feels Reba is punishing herself by being in the marriage. Sunil goes for some errand that evening & returns home at 8 pm. Reba is worried about the stranger and the lack of police protection. At around 9 pm, Reba watches a man matching the stranger's description, lurking near her house. Reba is pondering her options & agrees with Sunil to ask Ramani for her father-in-law's pistol to be given to her. The pistol was deposited to the police upon her father-in-law's demise. Reba decides to get the license issued in Sunil's name. Reba invites Ramani to her house at around 8 pm so that he can also see the stranger. Reba is alone with Ramani when she confesses that she feels that Sunil is plotting her death. She says she is staying only since her father-in-law wanted her to care for the estate. Reba has no love for Sunil. Meanwhile Sunil meets his servant Hukum Singh (Ramesh Goyal) in private and instructs him not to lurk around the house anymore as the purpose is achieved. Hukum works with his elder brother Mukund. Once Sunil gets possession of the firearm, he meets Hukum Singh, gives him some money & instructs him to visit the house at 8pm (the usual time when Sunil returns home), knock the door, kill Reba, steal her jewels & run away. He promises him Rs 10,000 once he gets possession of Reba's estate. Hukum follows the instructions, strangles Reba, but then Sunil pounces on Hukum (as he comes out of the house) & shoots him dead. Ramani knows Sunil has plotted Reba's death but has no proof. Ramani gets Byomkesh involved. Byomkesh writes a letter to Sunil stating that he has a letter from Reba from before her death & invites Sunil to meet him. He arranges for a tape recorder as well. But Sunil is smart & doesn't crack under counter arguments & pressures. He sees Ramani in attendance & accuses him of being the reason for Reba's death. In private, he confesses to Byomkesh that he killed Reba, because of her feelings for Ramani. As Sunil steps out, he is shot dead by Mukund Singh, brother of Hukum Singh. Ramani admits his feelings for Reba. He says that they studied together, but Reba was from a rich family and was married off. Sunil got transferred to the same town as Reba and they started writing letters to each other. They didn't meet much.
- In Agnivaan, a family witnesses a mysterious death and no method of murder is found. Unless there is a confirmation on the method of murder, motive cannot be deduced clearly. Byomkesh, with his friend Ajit, uncover the motive and solve this intriguing mystery. The professor, his wife and kids are in the middle of a killing spree.
- 1958. Amrit is a young boy in a village who likes to exaggerate and prove his bravado. He claims to his friends that he saw a horse ghost one day and didn't fear it. His friends dare him to go inside the jungle & write his name on a tree (near his friend Sadanand's house) to prove that he is brave. As soon as he does, his friends hear a gun shot and find Amrit's body a few moments later. The boys beg Byomkesh to investigate, who finds horse hoofs near the dead body. Boy thinks that it's the horse ghost that Amrit mentioned. During the investigation, another boy Sadanand (Pramode Kumar), returns to the village and as soon as he enters his house, he is killed by a booby-trapped hand grenade. Byomkesh believes that someone had entered the house in Sadanand's absence to set the grenade with an intention to kill Sadanand. He also feels that Amrit was only collateral damage, with the real target of both deaths was Sadanand only. Byomkesh also finds that Amrit was killed by a 38 mm bullet, which is used in American guns being sold on the black market. Sadanand had borrowed Rs 1000 from a local businessman Vishwanath (Arun Desai), just before Sadanand left for Calcutta (he had returned from Calcutta, when the bomb went off in his house). Sadanand was a small-time trader and has a sister, who is married. Sadanand also had some business dealings with Vishwanath. Vishwanath says that Sadanand borrowed Rs 1000 as he wanted to set up a shop for Ayurvedic medicines. Vishwanath also owns 7 horses, which is why Byomkesh is keen to investigate him further. Vishwanath used to be a jockey & left the income as he was having a tough life to maintain his fitness for the profession. So, he opened a rice mill instead. Byomkesh inquiries about who used to fraternize with the US soldiers when they had set up base near the village during WW II. Byomkesh suggests that maybe whoever is dealing in these illegal arms (procured from the US soldiers), had hidden them in the jungle. Byomkesh meets another mill owner Badridas (Rabi Ghosh), who supposedly has a black horse. Badridas is most uncooperative and refuses to answer any questions from Byomkesh. A stranger named Rakhal Das (Kalyan Chatterjee) meets Byomkesh and says that he works in Badri's factory. He says that Badri knew Amrit and Sadanand and has a black horse as well. That night Byomkesh waits in the jungle near the tree where Amrit was killed. He sees Vishwanath come to the tree on a black horse and retrieve weapons hidden on the tree. The next morning Byomkesh gets Vishwanath arrested and recovers weapons from his rice mill. He was dealing in illegal arms bought from American soldiers. Basically, Sadanand (who was 45 years old) found that Vishwanath was trading in illegal arms and was hiding them in a tree near Sadanand's house. He took Rs 1000 from Vishwanath to keep his mouth shut. Vishwanath decided to remove Sadanand so that he can't blackmail him anymore. He sets the hand grenade in Sadanand's house, but is seen by Amrit, exiting Sadanand's house. So, Vishwanath shoots Amrit as well.
- Calcutta 1935. Karali Babu is a rich man with multiple properties in Calcutta and has been murdered. He was a bachelor and lived in his house with 3 nephews Makhanlal (Tushar Majumdar), Motilal (Asit Banerjee) and Chunnilal (Rakesh Sahu), & 2 children of his brother Sukumar (Naved Aslam) and Satyavati (Sukanya Kulkarni). Karali was temperamental and used to change wills frequently from Makhan, to Moti to finally Sukumar. Moti is absconding since Karali's murder. The day before the murder, Moti was heard fighting with Karali regarding the new will. Karali was murdered by inserting a fine pin in a delicate part of his neck, just below the Medulla Oblongata. The house servant saw Moti leaving the house just past mid night and Sukumar entering the house after about 15 mins. Byomkesh finds 3 pin holes in Karali's neck. Byomkesh meets Chunnilal, who feels that Sukumar is a deserving candidate for the wealth as he is educated and will become doctor. Chunnilal is now dependent on Sukumar's good graces to stay further in Karali's property. Chunnilal says that it is pointless to suspect Moti as all 3 brothers were removed from the will at one point or another. Sukumar claims that he was returning from cinema that night. He also claims that earlier in the day, he was trying to convince Karali to divide the wealth equally amongst brothers. Satyavati claims that she took the morning tea to Karali & discovered his dead body. Byomkesh tries hard to ask if this was the first time Satyavati saw Karali dead, but Satyavati sticks to her story. Byomkesh finds the crochet of Satyavati, but finds the needle is missing. Byomkesh speculates that the dark spots on Karali's nose were due to chloroform administered to prevent him from screaming. There were 3 pin holes, as the killer couldn't find the right spot in the first 2 attempts. On Sukumar's desk Byomkesh finds a book in which he has underlined the medulla attack strategy with red pencil. But no red pencil is found in his desk. He finds chloroform in Sukumar's closet, which was used to sedate Karali, so that he doesn't scream when attacked with needles. Motilal is caught the next morning & claims that he was out drunk & sleeping. Byomkesh also finds another will in Sukumar's luggage, dated to the day of Karali's murder & made to Chunnilal. Police is about to arrest Sukumar when Byomkesh again speak to Satyavati who confirms that Sukumar left the house around 9 to watch a movie. At 10 30 she heard noises in Sukumar's room, as if someone was moving around heavy boxes. She went in a few minutes later in Karali's room to find a needle stuck in his neck. Satyawati tells Byomkesh that Chunnilal was very interested in studies. Byomkesh studies the will made to Chunnilal and finds that there are no witness signatures on the same. Byomkesh finds that Chunnilal is in habit of borrowing Sukumar's medical books and has a red pencil as well. Byomkesh confronts Chunnilal, who goes pale and asks for 1/2 hr. He commits suicide and leaves a note professing his love for Satyavati. Byomkesh reveals that Chunnilal murdered Karali after Moti left the house shortly before midnight. He has taken the needle from Satyavati's crochet earlier. The Chunnilal took the last will from Karali's closet. He hid the chloroform bottle and the last will made to Chunnilal in Sukumar's room, to point the needle of suspicion firmly at Sukumar. Byomkesh starts dating Satyavati.
- Calcutta, 1963. Nengti (Pinaki Mukherjee) is a child detective & Considers Byomkesh his master. Ajit (K.K. Raina) asks Nengti about a beautiful woman in his house. Nengti says that she is the daughter of Mr Kamal named Hema. Kamal died in Bangla riots & she came to Calcutta to stay with Santosh (Rajendra Gupta) (Santosh is master of the house where Nengti works). News reaches Byomkesh that Hema has died by falling off the balcony. In the house are Ravi Verma (Narendra Gupta) (Santosh's secretary), Chameli (Santosh's wife), Twin boys Uday (Bhuvan Mansodia) and Jugal (Mukesh Ramani), Nengti and Chingri (Pamela Mukherjee) (who work in the house). Santosh is the head of the house & travels on weekends. The death occurred on a Saturday. Santosh & Kamal were friends & Santosh knew Hema since childhood. So, when Kamal died, he gave roof to Hema. Chameli didn't like Hema. Santosh was told about Hema's death on phone by a stranger & he came back to Calcutta. Santosh admits that he has a mistress for last 10 years, Sukumari (Saavri), whom he visits every weekend as he is not attracted to his wife. Sukumari stays in an apartment arranged for by Santosh & has a phone, whose number no one has except Santosh and Sukumari. Sukumari is a public singer and doesn't want to give up her profession. So, she agrees to stay in Santosh's apartment on every weekend, Saturday and Sunday. So, it's a mystery as to who called Santosh to tell him about Hema's death. The roof has access via a scaffolding that surrounds the house. The next day Nengti tells Byomkesh that a fire broke out in Hema's room & destroyed everything just in her room. The police had found a bunch of keys on Hema's dead body. One of the keys did not fit any lock in the house. Nengti tells Byomkesh that he used to hear a mouth-organ sound, which was a signal for Hema to exit the house & enter a taxi waiting a little further away, with a man inside. She would return an hour later. This was a monthly routine. Jugal & Uday both admit that they loved Hema. Uday admits that he followed Hema to the roof on the day of her murder, but he found the roof door locked from outside (the police said that the door was open when they reached the roof). Byomkesh meets Sukumari who confirms that Santosh received a call informing him of Hema's death and he left for home right after. Byomkesh asks Ajit to keep an eye on Ravi. Ajit finds him going to Shahnaz hotel, where people from East Pakistan come & go. The key from Hema's bunch opens the door of one of the rooms at Shahnaz hotel. The manager of the hotel says that the room was rented by a man from Dhaka, who paid for the whole month but only stayed for a few days. The manager says that the room is registered under Umar Shiyazi. Byomkesh finds a book with papers inside the room, along with a mouth organ.. Byomkesh confronts Santosh & says that Santosh used to love Hema's mother. That's why he would visit Dhaka frequently. He even converted to Islam & married Hema's mother & gave half his Calcutta property to her. Hema's mother kept the papers carefully & upon her death passed the papers to Hema. Hema & her lover Umar started blackmailing Santosh & Hema even started staying in Santosh's house. Santosh killed Hema (he entered the roof via the scaffolding) & set fire to her room as he could not find the property papers. Byomkesh found the property papers in Umar's room in Shahnaz hotel. Ravi knew that Hema is blackmailing Santosh and used to follow her to the hotel. Ravi knew that the property papers are in Hema's hotel room. Ravi also wanted to blackmail Santosh. On that Saturday, Santosh had read the newspaper which carried the news of a plane from Dhaka to Calcutta crashing & the list of passengers. The passenger list had Umar Shiyazi. Santosh figured that 1 blackmailer is gone & this is a golden opportunity to kill the other & remove this problem permanently. Sukumari had cooperated with Santosh in this scheme and corroborated his statement of receiving a phone call of Hema's death. There was no phone call. Santosh commits suicide.
- 1956. Byomkesh attends a party by Deep Narayan Singh (Raees), landlord in Bihar, on the occasion of him recovering from ill health. Dev Narayan (Harpal Singh Pali) is the dumb, fat nephew of Deep and the inheritor of his wealth. Dev's friends include Beni Prasad (B.P. Singh) and Leeladhar Bansi (Prashant Jaiswal). Shakuntala (Prateeksha Lonkar) is Deep's wife & Chandni (Babli Singh) is Dev's wife. Shakuntala is Deep's 2nd wife & is 25 years old & not from his caste. Dr Patil (Raviraj) is the family doctor, who is credited with Narayan's recovery. News trickles in that Patil's dispensary has been burgled. The next morning, Patil administers a routine injection & Deep is killed on the spot. Inspector Ratikant (Rasik Dave) is the investigating officer, who belongs to a royal family and has taken a police job as his family has fallen upon hard times. Dr Patil says that his assistant closed the dispensary after hearing the news of the theft. Byomkesh summarizes that the thief exchanged the injection bottle, which was the real reason for breaking into the dispensary. Shakuntala is preggers. Byomkesh inquires about Shakuntala's character and finds that he had a regular visitor for last 5-6 months in Narmada Shankar, a rich landlord & a smooth talker. But police commissioner is sure that Shakuntala is above reproach. Narmada Shankar was with Shakuntala before the party started the previous evening & no one saw him leave. It is also revealed that Deep gave Rs 12,000 to Dr Patil. Dr Patil had asked for a loan, but Deep had instructed his estate manager to treat it as a gift. Shakuntala says that she is not aware of any will from Deep. Deep had left Rs 5,00,000 for her in her bank account. Shakuntala had talked to Deep about the baby the previous night. Shakuntala faints when asked of Deep's reaction on hearing of her pregnancy. Byomkesh says suspects include Dev, who has inherited all of Deep's wealth. His wife Chandni, as Dev is dumb and after Deep, she will have effective control over the wealth. The estate manager (Dev Sharma), since Deep was strict and under Dev the manager will have enough opportunity to steal from the estate. Byomkesh suspects that Shakuntala never had sex with Deep (since Deep was ill for the last few months and Shakuntala has been preggers for 2 months) and that Shakuntala never talked to Deep about the pregnancy. Before he could find out, he was removed from the scene. Inspector Ratikant brings a lab report that says that the bottle handed over by Dr Patil had no poison in it. He theorizes that Dr Patil killed Deep with poison from a different bottle and handed a different bottle to the police to confuse them. Maybe he took money from Dev to kill Deep. Dr Patil claims that he never got any money from Deep (He says Deep had suggested to give him money for a new car, but he never received any Rs 12,000 from him or from his manager), and he is deeply offended at the suggestion that he switched the bottles before giving it to the police. Byomkesh visits Shakuntala's family & returns to her to say that he knows that her baby belongs to her lover & not her husband. He says that she is to give him Rs 250,000 for his silence & to give her acceptance by letter. To Ratikant he conveys that Shakuntala has accepted her guilt and will reveal the name of her lover by post. For the same, Ratikant is required to remove her guard by 10 pm, to allow her to post the said letter. Byomkesh stays hidden at 10 pm to find 3 shots fired and Ratikant & Shakuntala dead. Byomkesh reveals that Ratikant was Shakuntala's lover from her native place. But Ratikant's family was not well off & he had to take a police job. Meanwhile Shakuntala was married off to Deep. Ratikant followed Shakuntala to her new house & kept meeting her in secret. But then Shakuntala became preggers. Ratikant created the plan to remove Deep by orchestrating the burglary at Dr Patil's dispensary & getting him to administer the poison to Deep. Then Ratikant changed the bottle sent for analysis, so that Dr Patil is suspected. Upon learning from Byomkesh that Shakuntala has agreed to reveal everything, Ratikant decided to kill Shakuntala and then was killed by the bullet of the police force that Byomkesh had assembled to arrest him
- Calcutta, 1960. A gang of women robbers is terrorizing the city. They enter the house during the day when women are in the house alone. They pose as salesgirls & offer attractive discounts to entice customers. Once inside, they pull weapons to rob the occupants. Chintamani Kundu (Sunil Dhawan) writes a letter to Byomkesh. Chintamani is a stroke victim & left leg paralyzed. Servant Ramadhin cares for him. He stays on the top floor of his 2-floor house and watches the street opposite to him, which has 2 identical ground floor rooms which Chintamani owns and gives on rent. He has a binocular. One day a young man named Tapan (Rakesh Sahu) (dressed in heavy overcoat and sunglasses) hires one of the rooms & agrees with Chintamani to start staying there from the same evening, along with his wife. Tapan claims to have a job in a newspaper publishing house, where he works all night & sleeps all day. Chintamani asks for Rs 150 per month as rent for his furnished room, which Tapan agrees. But that evening no one came. The next morning Chintamani observes that the door of the rented house is open. So, he guesses that Tapan & his wife have moved in overnight. He watches a woman close the door and go out only to return before sundown. Shanti (Varsha Agnihotri) is Tapan's wife and comes to meet Chintamani. She says she is a schoolteacher. Every day Chintamani observes Shanti go out in morning to return in evening & Tapan (dressed in heavy overcoat, and glasses) go out at night & return before morning. Chintamani has never seen Tapan & Shanti together. But Shanti comes to meet Chintamani quite frequently. One-night Chintamani observes a stranger entering Shanti's room late at night, when Tapan was at work. A few nights later Chintamani sees Tapan lay in wait at night & murder the stranger before he enters his room & then goes inside his room. Chintamani calls the police. The police find only Shanti in the room. The dead man is a policeman from out of town, who was in Calcutta for a vacation. Tapan is absconding. Police suspects Chintamani, who writes a letter to Byomkesh, requesting his help. Byomkesh meets Chintamani and learns that Tapan had a thin voice. The police suspects Chintamani's hand in the murder. They think that Tapan conducted the murder, but Chintamani was involved and is now putting the blame on Tapan, to save his own skin. Byomkesh reaches Shanti's room with police & finds a suitcase. Upon opening it has lots of stolen merchandise. Plus there is no shaving kit in the house, neither any male slippers. Byomkesh surmises that Shanti and Tapan are the same person. Shanti is an escaped convict who killed a jail guard while escaping. Shanti's real name is Pramila Pal, who was jailed for poisoning her husband. She escaped 2 years into her jail term & came to Calcutta to hide as Tapan and Shanti. The stranger was a police officer who recognized Pramila & hence was murdered by her. Pramila used to conduct robberies during the day. She used to dress as Tapan during the night to exit the house while Chintamani was awake. But then would return home later at night, when Chintamani was asleep.
- Calcutta, 1968. Beni Madhav (Daji Bhatwadekar) is a rich man, who is very sick. He feels that his son and daughter want to see him dead, so that they can take over his property. Due to his fears of being poisoned via food, Beni starts to arrange for his own food. Beni asks his faithful servant, Meghraj to bring his wife Phoolvati so that she can cook Beni's meals. Meghraj even shaves Beni on a daily basis. Beni gets better and calls his lawyer Sudhanshu. He has everyone in the meeting, his daughter Gayatri (Pushpa Verma), her husband Gangadhar (Indrajeet Sachdev), their daughter Jhilli (Piyali Mukherjee). His eldest son Ajay (Mannjit Singh) & wife Aarthi & their son Makrand (Ashiesh Roy) & daughter Rauni. Two other boys stay in the house, brothers Sanat (Naved Aslam) and Nikhil (Anup Soni) who are Beni's mama's sons. Beni instructs the lawyer that Gayathri and Ajay will continue to receive monthly allowances, but no cash balances. He has kept aside Rs 50,000 each for Jhilli, Rauni and Makrand for their wedding. He offers to pay for Makrand's education but asks him to mend his vagrant ways. Makrand leaves the meeting in disgust. Beni declares that he will put a condition in his will that if his death is not natural then no-one gets anything. In that event everything will go to Calcutta University. Sudhanshu leaves with instructions to come back in 2 days with the will and witnesses. The next morning Beni & Meghraj are found dead with their throats slashed. No one entered the room as Meghraj was sleeping just outside. The previous night, Makrand came at 9 pm and left before midnight. Sanath went away out of town to return the next day. Nikhil was not in house. Gangadhar came home drunk & hit shamelessly on Phoolvati. Rauni went out for movies with her boyfriend. Murders took place between midnight and 3 am. Makran is missing and an arrest warrant has been issued against him. Makrand is arrested at a gambling den and is arrogant as ever. He refuses to answer any questions. Nikhil claims to Byomkesh that he goes to parties at night to figure out which girl wrote him a love letter. Sanat tells Byomkesh that he has no proof that he went out of town on the night of Beni's murder. Gayatri is quite adamant that there is no will from Beni before his death. Byomkesh suggests that maybe in that will Gayatri was disbarred from all of Beni's wealth. Gayatri is very angry at Byomkesh. Byomkesh collects all raincoats from the house. He theorizes that the killer would have worn a raincoat to avoid the fountain of blood from slashing the throats, splattering of his or her clothes. Blood can be easily washed off a raincoat. Byomkesh reveals that he found the blade which Meghraj used to make Beni's beard. But the blade was blunt and had no fingerprints on it. This suggests that the blade was used to kill Beni & Meghraj. Plus, the blade was in Beni's room and Meghraj was sleeping outside the room. So how did anyone acquire the blade? Byomkesh then reveals that his investigations show that Phoolvati was not Meghraj's wife. She had left her real husband and ran away with Meghraj. Once here, she fell in love with another man & hence decided to remove Meghraj from the picture. But killing Meghraj would have led to suspicion, so it was agreed to kill Beni as well to complicate the investigation. Byomkesh reveals that it was Sanat who was Phoolvati's lover & killed Meghraj as well as Beni. A few drops of blood was found in the pocket of Sanat's raincoat, which led to his arrest. Jhilli had been writing the love letters to Nikhil as her fingerprints were found on the letters she wrote.
- In this story, Detective Byomkesh Bakshi solves the mystery of a ghost who scared all to complete his own purpose.
- Calcutta, 1963. Dr Suresh (Athar Qureishi) visits Byomkesh & begs him to visit his stroke patient who is paralyzed on one side of the body. The patient's name is Bishupal (Sadhu Meher) & is a rich moneylender. Abhay Ghoshal (Suneel Sinha) has borrowed money from Bishupal. But Abhay is a crook. Abhay threatened to kill Bishu if he asked for the money back & that led to Bishu's stroke 3 months ago. Byomkesh meets Bishu, who says that he knew Abhay's father who was a rich & respected man in Calcutta. He died 2 years ago, which is when he met Abhay. Bishu had heard a few rumors about Abhay, but felt that new money always spoils young minds, before they self-correct. Bishu has a money landing business and has lent Rs 20 L in the market, overall. Abhay approached Bishu for Rs 30,000 to fight a court case 2 years ago. Bishu loaned that amount without a guarantee & now regrets the same. Bishu followed Abhay's legal battles & figures that he was a womanizer. He had trapped a nubile young girl & had a relationship with her & then killed her with poison. That is what the court case was about. He had also squandered his father's property completely. Bishu got worried about his loan & met Abhay for the collection. But Abhay looked at Bishu like the devil & sent him away. The same night Bishu had a stroke. Since then, Bishu is convinced that Abhay will kill Bishu. Bishu has taken security guard protection & meets no-one except the doctor. There are 2 guards: 8 am to 8 pm and 10 pm to 8 am. from 8 pm to 10 pm the doctor is in the house with Bishu. Byomkesh meets Abhay & finds that Abhay has no knowledge of Bishu's paralysis. Abhay also denies threatening Bishu or refusing to pay his money. He also suspects that someone followed him to Abhay's house. Only Dr Suresh knew that they were coming to meet Abhay. The following day Byomkesh finds that Abhay was found dead the previous night after 9 pm. The police tell Byomkesh that Abhay was a known womanizer & had destroyed life of countless women. He had killed his last wife with poison, but his crime could not be proved in court. Byomkesh suspects that Bishu is not paralyzed and is somehow involved in the murder. Byomkesh gets a police doctor to examine Bishu, who confirms that Bishu is indeed paralyzed. Byomkesh talks to Dr Aseem Sen to understand what medicines can induce paralysis. Byomkesh reveals that Dr Suresh was artificially giving a medicine to Bishu to induce temporary paralysis. This medicine would induce paralysis for 3-4 hours at a time. Bishu was convinced that Abhay wanted to kill him. So, he planned this whole charade to kill Abhay & to recover his money by selling his last remaining property. He involved Suresh in his plan. He also got guards so that they could keep surprise visitors at bay & he could move freely inside his home, without his secret being exposed. Bishu had involved Byomkesh with the confidence that Byomkesh would become a staunch ally and witness and no-one would doubt Bishu. Bishu asked Dr Suresh to keep an eye on Byomkesh, as he met Abhay. Bishu took advantage of the guard's absence from 8 pm and 10 pm to exit the house, murder Abay & come back undetected. Ajit argues that Bishu killed Abhay in self-defense & law is lenient for that. But Byomkesh reckons that Bishu planned this murder for months & hence cannot be considered in category of self-defense. He informs the police & Bishu is arrested.
- Calcutta, 1953. A retired judge Nishanath (Vijayan V. Nair) calls Byomkesh to solve the mystery of someone throwing car parts into his house through his window. Byomkesh finds that 12 years ago the judge had sentenced Lal Singh to death for a crime. Lal Singh had a motor garage. He appealed in high court & got 14 years in jail. He might have gotten out early due to good behavior. The judge lives with his wife Damayanti (Sangeetha Balachandran) and nephew Vijay (Ninad Deshpande) (who has a flower shop in town). In his locality are Panu Gopal (R.D. Shome) (a mute, who cares for livestock & hears loud), Prof Nepal Gupta (Shreechand Makhija) & daughter Mukul (Prabha Mathur). Professor had a chemistry lab that was destroyed in an explosion. He was suspected of making a bomb which led to his firing & subsequent police investigations. Prof Nepal still runs a mini lab in his house & claims to be making fertilizers (that don't work). Brajadas (Govind Dharmadhikari) is a priest and an animal doctor. He was a court clerk but was dismissed for corruption. Nishanath was the one who sentenced Brij for 6 years in jail. Dr. Bhujangdhar Das (Yusuf Khurram) also stays in the vicinity & plays Sitar and has been staying for over 4 years. Laxmi (Prateeksha Lonkar) is the tailor for the colony, Laxmi was lured by a fraud from her village and abandoned in Calcutta, she joined the colony 2 years ago. Prof Nepal is not happy that animals are left in the care of a novice such as Brajadas. He wants the judge to put them in his care, as he is also a biochemist. This hurts Braja's feelings. Judge stops Nepal & asks him to leave Braja alone, or he will have to leave the colony. Nepal is very upset and threatens to reveal "everything". Bhujangdhar was married to a white girl, who left him and Bhujangdhar had to come back to India. His doctor's license was suspended when he conducted an illegal abortion to save a young woman from society's shame and insults. Bhujangdhar also says that Nepal wants to become the head of the colony and hence if trying to scare Nishanath away with the motor parts stunt. He also alleges that Damayanti has feelings for Prof Nepal. Byomkesh talks to Vijay, who gets all flustered when he asks about Mukul. In the whole story only Mukul's past is unknown yet. Byomkesh receives a letter from Nishanath, that tells him to stop investigating further. But simultaneously receives a call from police that Nishanath has died. Dr Nagendra Pal (Ajay Wadhavkar) is called to conduct the preliminary investigation into Nishanath's cause of death. His dead body still had warm socks on it, while Nishanath supposedly died in bed in hot summer season. He was a long-term BP patient as well. Death occurred between 10 and 11 PM & no signs of external injuries. Probable cause of death is brain hemorrhage. The doctor does say that BP will rise if wearing warm socks in summer. Also, when socks are removed, body marks indicate that Nishanath had been restrained with ropes in the legs. A broken bird's nest is found under the bed, with the remainder on top of the ceiling fan. Byomkesh theorizes that Nishanath was hung upside down with ropes tied to legs from the room ceiling. He died when his brain nerves burst due to the extra pressure. Then while moving him down, the bird nest on the fan broke & the killer forgot to remove the socks. Nishanath was knocked unconscious before being subjected to this torture. Byomkesh wonders why Damayanti didn't hear anything as she was in the room right next to Nishanath. Vijay and Damayanti are equal beneficiaries of Nishakanth's wealth. Vijay had come home from Calcutta on the day of the death but had left again for Calcutta and returned at 12:30 am & gone to sleep. Mukul heard Damayanti scream in the morning & that's how the colony knew about the death. Byomkesh talks to Nepal, who says that Mukul wanted to marry Vijay, who initially agreed, but then got mixed with some lose character girl (he meant Laxmi) and forgot Mukul. Byomkesh also inquires that Lal Singh died in prison. He had a wife, who is untraceable. Brajadas is missing since Nishanath's death.
- Damayanti married Nishanath 10 years ago, when he was 47 while she was only 19. Vijay has been with them since his parents' death 10 years ago. Damayanti states that she slept at 10 pm on the night of Nishanath's death & at that time Nishanath was asleep and alive. Vijay claims that when he returned from Calcutta that night, he received an anonymous letter that called him to Calcutta & threatened to reveal his secrets if he didn't comply. He went to see who the person was. But no one turned up at the meeting point & Vijay waited till 11 pm before coming back home. Dr Nepal claims that between 10 pm and 11 pm he was playing chess with Mukul. Panu Gopal wants to say something, but no one can understand him. Dr. Bhujangdhar Das claims he was playing the sitar and Laxmi claims she was sewing clothes & didn't hear any sitar notes. Laxmi claims that she likes Bhujangdhar & wanted to learn sitar from him, but Bhujangdhar wanted sexual favors from her and so she refused. Panu Gopal is found dead a few days later, poisoned by mixing lethal quantities of nicotine in an ear medicine he used to take. Mukul was the first to find his body as well. Brajadas is found (but he refuses to say why he disappeared after Nishanath's death) & confirms that Bhujangdhar was playing sitar at the night of Nishanath's murder. But he never saw Bhujangdhar. Only heard the sitar sounds. Braja also says that Damayanti is Lal Singh's wife and that she and Nishanath never got married. Vijay was 13 years old back then & Damayanti was 19. Vijay took pity on Damayanti and hid her in Nishanath's bungalow. When Nishanath found out, he scolded Vijay, but allowed Damayanti to stay. When Byomkesh again confronts Damayanti, she claims that 7 months ago she got a letter from Lal Singh saying that he needed money & every time he threw a motor part in the house, Damayanti was supposed to put Rs 500 on the colony gate between 10 and 11 pm. On the night of Nishanath's death, there was no motor part, but Damayanti received a last letter saying that Lal Singh was moving to Punjab and wanted to see Damayanti one last time at the colony gate, between 10 and 11 PM. She was at the gate, but no one came. Byomkesh informs Damayanti that Lal Singh died 2 years ago in jail. Byomkesh gathers everyone in 1 room and says that Vijay told Nishanath's secret (about Damayanti) to Mukul and Lakshmi. Mukul told Dr Nepal and Laxmi told Dr Bhujangdhar (who is Laxmi's real husband). Bhujangdhar and Laxmi were con artists and Bhujangdhar saw the potential to take over the colony. He got Laxmi in, & got Vijay ensnared in Laxmi. Vijay spilled the secrets and Bhujangdhar started blackmailing Damayanti. When Nishanath involved Byomkesh, Bhujangdhar decided to eliminate Nishanath & removed Damayanti and Vijay from the house with fake letters. The sitar was being played by Laxmi that night, not Bhujangdhar, who entered Nishanath's house and killed him. Panu Gopal had seen him entering the house, so Bhujangdhar killed him as well. Bhujangdhar and Laxmi commit suicide by taking cyanide capsules.
- Himangshu (Anang Desai) is a rich Landlord with a huge estate outside Calcutta. Byomkesh & Ajit are spending a few days there, courtesy their common friend Tridivendra Narayan (Devendra Khandelwal). Himangshu is an expert shooter and can shoot just by hearing sounds of his target. Himangshu had hired a poor, educated man, to be his daughter's (Rony Saha) tutor. The man, Harinath (Nirupam Bhattacharya) had joined Himanshu's employment 2 months ago. He was very straight, and humble. But the man has gone missing for 2 days. Himangshu was embroiled in financial court cases with rivals. His estate's financial records for last 4 years are also missing and so are 6,000 rupees from his locker. Himangshu and his PA, Diwan Saheb Kaligati Bhattacharya (Krishnakant) feel that Harinath worked for their rivals and perpetrated this crime. Upon investigation, Byomkesh finds that Harinath wore a spectacle, but the same was found in his room. He also found Harinath's slippers and clothes in the room. Byomkesh finds it odd that Harinath left without his glasses and clothes and suspects that Harinath might be dead. Diwan Saheb specializes in making animal sounds. Outside the estate is a quicksand, cleverly concealed with a cottage and very difficult to detect. The cottage was built by Diwan Saheb to host a Tantric who visited the estate a few years ago. After 6 months, the Tantric vanished, but the cottage remained. Diwan Saheb is convinced that Harinath is hiding in the cottage as he sees light coming from the cottage at night. Diwan Saheb advises Byomkesh to hide in the cottage the next day to catch the culprit and to run towards the sands, if they hear a tiger (as tigers don't go into sands). Byomkesh simply listens to Diwan Saheb and doesn't indicate that he already knows that the sands outside the cottage hide a quick sand area. Without telling Diwan, Byomkesh tells Himangshu to come to the cottage at 10 pm, when they would go at 9 30 pm. At 9 30 pm, Diwan comes to see Byomkesh off. At 10 PM, Himangshu joins Byomkesh & Ajit at the cottage. They hear tiger sounds. Himangshu shoots & finds that Diwan is dead. When Himangshu's father died, Himangshu was not interested in being the landlord, so handed over the reins to Diwan Saheb, who got greedy and started stealing from the estate. As the greed grew, he mortgaged Himanshu's property to raise loans and then used the stolen money to buy the property from the loan sharks. He also initiated the court cases, to justify the higher expenses and to hide his theft. Harinath was a simple man & got access to the ledgers and quickly found the theft. He reported the theft to Diwan Saheb, who got afraid that his time was up. He lured Harinath to the cottage and then used his tiger voice to scare Harinath into going into the sand, where he got consumed by the quick sands Diwan Saheb got scared by Byomkesh's investigations and lit the fire in the cottage himself to convince Byomkesh that Harinath was alive.
- Calcutta, 1960. Mrigen (Sunil Chauhan), Arvind (Babloo Mukherjee), Madhumoy (Aditya Srivastav) and Manish are bridge players at a Calcutta club. Pran Hari (Sumant Mastakar) is a brilliant bridge player and is new to the city and to the club. Pran makes friends with all & invites them to his house for gambling (which is illegal in public places). At Pran's house he has a long serving servant Mohini (Dolon Roy), who is good looking & the young boys are infatuated with her. Arvind starts chatting up Mohini, while Pran keeps winning big. One day the 4 friends see that Pran is cheating at the game, while keeping them busy on Mohini. The friends are furious & want to teach Pran a lesson. They go back to his house in a taxi. Arvind goes to his room but finds it locked. He returns a few moments later with his friends. This time the door is open & Pran is found dead inside. The 4 friends run away in the same taxi they arrived. Mohini was cooking dinner in the kitchen and didn't see anything. At night, she found Pran's body and got the message to the police. Byomkesh investigates. He finds Rs 10,000 in the closet in Pran's room and Rs 1.5 L in his bank account. Arvind's elder brother had offered a bribe to the police inspector to shut the case. Arvind used to visit Mohini in Pran's absence to woo her, but she resisted his charms and bribes. Mohini is married, but her husband ran away. She has decided to return to her village as soon as the investigation is complete. Pran died from a blow to his head & from the front. Pran's room had 2 entrances, one from within the house, and one from outside. Looking at Pran's ledgers, Byomkesh figures that Pran had an unexplained income of Rs 70 per month and figures that perhaps he was blackmailing someone. Mrigen and Madhumay are hostile to Byomkesh. But Arvind and Manish are friendly. Arvind admits that he paid Rs 2000 to Pran Hari, who was acting as Mohini's pimp, to spend time with Mohini. But all 4 friends deny going to Pran's house on the night of his murder. The police trace the taxi driver who admits to dropping the 4 friends a 100 ft from Pran's house & then picking them up 2 hrs later. Byomkesh meets Mohini again, but she remains elusive in her answers. A few hrs later, the taxi driver picks up Mohini & runs away with her. Byomkesh gets Pran Hari's locker in the bank opened, which has a document that says that Bhuvneshwar Das (Prem Dutt) (the taxi driver) has mortgaged his taxi to Pran for Rs 2500, and in exchange Pran would use the taxi daily for his office commute in exchange of payment of Rs 70 per month. Byomkesh reveals that Mohini was Bhuvneshwar's wife. They stayed together in Cuttak. But Bhuvneshwar started working as truck driver for army & left Cuttak. So, Mohini started working for Pran. Pran wanted to use Mohini as a honey trap to get the 4 young men to gamble with him. But Mohini was not that way. Bhuvneshwar had come back from army & wanted money to buy a taxi, which Pran gave to him, when Mohini approached Pran. Pran's plan was to keep both Bhuvaneshwar & Mohini under his control. But then Pran made a deal to pimp Mohini to Arvind for Rs 2000. When Bhuvaneshwar found out, he was enraged. It was sheer luck that the 4 boys hired Bhuvaneshwar's taxi to go to Pran Hari's house that night. Bhuvaneshwar heard their conspiracy & decided to kill Pran that night, by entering his room through the back door & hitting Pran on his head. Before escaping, Bhuvaneshwar opened the front door of the room (which is why it was open when Arvind returned to the room with his friends). Mohini was not aware of anything as she was in the kitchen cooking dinner. When she discovered Pran's body, she closed the 2nd door, which opened to the outside of the house. Bhuvneshwar and Mohini escape town.
- Calcutta, 1964. Rajkumar, 40 years old, is found dead in room number 102 of hotel Anupama. Dr Shobhna Roy (Ramna Wadhawan) stays in room 101. Death occurred between 9 pm and midnight. The weapon was a sharp object that pierced the heart precisely. The murderer is a professional. Rajkumar's face is disfigured, but it is an old injury. Shobhna is a widow, 45 years old, of Dr Ram Ratan Rai. Shobhna is a gynecologist based outside Calcutta but comes to town for NGO work. She had one girl, who died many years ago. Shobhna claims that she went to sleep at around 9 15 pm but kept hearing the adjacent room door being opened and closed between 9 30 and 10 pm. In the morning, she attended to a person in room 103, who was suffering from cold and fever. The diary found in the room has name Sukant Som on the front page. Byomkesh reckons that's Rajkumar's real name. Each page of the diary has the name of a city & some additional names & value (against each name) on it. The occupant in room 103 is Sachin Sanyal, who has a ghee business & comes to Calcutta to meet his customers. He has been in town for 3 days and was to return but got held back due to his cold. He says that Sukant is the same age of his brother-in-law who died a year ago. He doesn't know any Rajkumar. Harishchander (Chandra Mohan) is the manager of the hotel, who has been living at the hotel for 8 yrs. He had opened room 102 in the morning to discover Rajkumar's body. Rajkumar used to come to the hotel twice a year for last 5 yrs. He stayed for 2-4 days each time. He says that this time Rajkumar had kept Rs 5000 with him. He claims that he was out of the hotel between 9 pm and 12 pm on the night of Rajkumar's murder. The hotel servant served dinner to Rajkumar in his room at 8 45 pm and collected the dishes at 9 15 pm, at which point Rajkumar was alive. The hotel security guard, Rampirit Singh (Shivaji Sanyal), says that 3 people met Rajkumar on the day of his murder, 2 male and 1 female. The female came at 9 15 pm. She left after 5 minutes. 1 male came at 9 30 pm and left in 5-6 minutes (thin and had little mustache). 2nd male came at 9 45 pm and left in 5 minutes (fat & round Bengali). Rajkumar's diary had 4 names against Calcutta, 3 male and 1 female. They trace the first guy on the list, Jagabandhu (Tushar Trivedi), who runs away when they arrive. The second guy Mohanlal Kundu is out of town. 3rd guy Shamakanth is in office. Female is Latika Choudhary (Meenacshi Martins). Latika reveals that she is from a rich family & when young, she had a crush on actor Sukant Som 12-13 years ago. She had a relationship with Sukant (she wrote letters to him and even met him secretly), only to find that he was married. Latika was married soon after to a different guy. Then Latika read in papers that Sukant was arrested for the murder of his wife but was let off when he proves it was for self-defense. Wife attacked Sukant with a knife & he strangled her in self-defense. But in the fight, his face was disfigured, and his acting career ended. That's when Sukant met Latika & blackmailed her for Rs 300 every 6 months in exchange for his silence about their affair. Byomkesh reveals that Sukant's wife, whom he murdered was Dr Shobhna's daughter Sharmila. Sharmila married Sukant as she wanted to be cast as heroine in films. But Sukant never made any progress in this direction. Sukant also cheated on Sharmila. This led to their fight. Shobhna claims that Sukant killed her daughter first & then disfigured himself, but Byomkesh believes that the court version was correct. Sukant had no reason to disfigure himself as his livelihood was dependent on it. Shobhna saw Sukant in Calcutta by chance & decided to take vengeance. Shobhna killed Sukant around 10 pm when all people had come and gone.
- North Bihar 1952. Dr Ishan Majumdar was found dead in a fort where he lived alone. His body was full of snake poison but had a huge blow on his head & a gold coin in his hand. The fort was owned by Ramkishore (Govind Namdeo), who lived with his family a short distance away from the fort in his mansion. His daughter had also died from snake bite. The mansion is inhabited by Ramkishore, 3 sons (Bansidhar (Narain Pati), Murlidhar (Ajay Srivastava) & a young boy Gadadhar (Master Babloo)), 1 remaining daughter Tulsi (Shilpa Tulaskar) & his son-in-law (Manilal (Rakesh Dube)) husband of the elder daughter who died. A tutor Ramapati (Sashi Hans) comes to teach the younger daughter. Ramapati tells Byomkesh that Ishan was very learned & knew the entire family history of the fort. Ramkishore was Ishan's friend & thought maybe Ishan found his family treasure hidden somewhere in the fort, which led to a gold coin found in his hands. Ramkishore also says that Ishan borrowed a torch a few days before his death, which is now missing. Ramkishore knows that his sons will bicker over his estate, so he wants to settle matters before he dies. He plans to divide the estate between his 3 sons, but wants to give the fort to Tulsi, whom he plans to get married to Manilal. The 2 elder sons are dead opposed to the same. Byomkesh finds a diary in Ishan's living quarters which talks about a hidden treasure in the fort and indicates that Ramkishore's elder brother Ramvinod knew about the same. But he died 30 years ago. Byomkesh talks to Tulsi who likes Ramapati & dislikes the fact that Manilal is jealous of him. Tulsi doesn't like Manilal and doesn't want to marry him. A hermit also lives in the jungle surrounding the fort & is supported by alms provided by Ramkishore. Byomkesh investigates the fort further & eventually finds the hidden chamber. He finds the missing torch, but no hidden treasure. The earthen pots in the chamber are empty. Ramkishore and the brothers fire Ramapati, over an alleged theft of a fountain pen from Manilal's room. Tulsi is adamant that she gave one fountain pen to Ramapati & that Manilal had 2, but no-one listens to her. Manilal claims that he only had 1 fountain pen. Byomkesh approaches the hermit who promises to tell him everything at night. But he is found dead when Byomkesh goes to meet him at 10 pm, snake bite marks on his leg. Byomkesh confronts Ramkishore in front of Manilal & accuses Manilal of murdering the hermit, who was Ramvinod. They use the pretext to search the house, and search Manilal's room first & find the 2 fountain pens that are found to be full of cobra venom. Manilal confesses & Byomkesh starts his debrief. Ramkishore and Ramvinod were ordinary business men 25 years ago. Due to plague Ramkishore ran away & didn't know that Ramvinod survived. Manilal had designs on Ramkishore's wealth from the beginning. Manilal acquired snake venom from vagabonds passing thru a few years ago. His wife, Ramkishore's elder daughter, suspected Manilal & hence she became his first victim. Manilal acquired Ramkishore's sympathy, who prepares to get Tulsi married to Manilal. That's when Ishan & Ramapati arrive on the scene. Ishan perhaps knew Ramvinod & got him to come to the estate as a hermit & live there. Ishan found the hidden treasure in the fort, but needed help. He chose Manipal, over Ramapati. Deal was to split the wealth 50:50. But Manipal killed Ishan & didn't bother to check that there was no treasure in the hidden chamber. By the time he got ready, Byomkesh arrived on the scene. Things started to unravel when Tulsi gave the pen to Ramapati. He witnessed Byomkesh talking to the hermit & decided to kill him before Sadhu / Ramvinod could tell Byomkesh anything. Byomkesh knows the real location of the treasure, but makes Ramkishore promise 2 things: he will get Tulsi married to Ramapati and transfer the treasure to them. Then Byomkesh reveals that Rajaram and Jayaram were 2 brother ancestors of Ramkishore. One phrase in Ishan's diary said that if Rajaram and Jayaram are dead, then gold be safeguarded by Mohanlal. Mohanlal is the name of a canon in the fort. Rajaram had liquefied the gold & stuffed it into a single column in the barrel of the cannon named Mohanlal.
- Calcutta, 1969. Byomkesh's son is selected to study Engineering at IIT Kharagpur. He leaves home after taking blessings from his parents. Ajit is busy with their publishing business. Satyavati feels that she now completely alone in the house. Ramakant (Vijayan V. Nair) is a cashier at a Kolkata bank. He lives in Kolkata alone, while he has family in Purulia. His landlord's name is Akshay Mandal (S.K. Das), who also has an account in the same bank where Ramakant works. Akshay lives on first floor and Ramakant is on ground floor. But Akshay has never invited Ramakant upstairs and always meets him only on ground floor. 12 months ago, Akshay left the house, locking his first floor, and instructing Ramakant that he can use the entire house if Akshay doesn't return in a week. The rent agreed is Rs 150/month for the whole house, as against Rs 50/month for the ground floor only. He requests Ramakant to keep depositing rent in his account. 3 days later there is a bad stench in the house & a dead body is found on the first floor. The body is of known smuggler and police issues a warrant for Akshay. Ramakant brings his family to Calcutta and starts using the whole house. He enjoyed the house with his family for 12 months. 2 months ago, a man saying that he is the brother of Akshay's wife (Anju), approaches Ramakant. He says that his sister (Akshay's wife) has been staying with him for many years, but now he can't pay for it and wants Ramakant to vacate the house. Ramakant refuses to vacate the house & gets a dog to guard his family, upon advice from the local police inspector. He also receives threatening anonymous letters asking him to vacate the house. Police gives Ramakant protection & he feels safe. Now Ramakant wants to go on a month's vacation with his family & his friend (Debashish Majumdar) family. He is afraid that if he leaves the house, the woman claiming to be Akshay's wife will occupy the house. Debashish is also a clerk in the same bank as Ramakant. Byomkesh meets Debashish alone and finds that Ramakant is the one insisting on a month-long vacation & not Debashish. Byomkesh asks that Ramakant is a cashier and Debashish is a clerk. Cashiers earn twice as much as clerks. Yet, Ramakant always needs money, and Debashish is able to afford a month-long vacation with his meager resources. In Akshay's room, Byomkesh finds small iron boxes, big enough to store biscuits. Byomkesh advises Ramakant to leave for his vacation. He then meets the police inspector and asks him to remove police protection from Akshay's house & instead arrange for secret surveillance of Akshay's house. The first night itself, they catch Akshay who was trying to retrieve some objects from the water tank at the top of the house. The objects were gold biscuits that were smuggled contraband. Akshay was a trader of illegal contraband. Akshay had killed the smuggler upon some dispute and then asked Ramakant to stay in the whole house, so that his hidden gold remained safe. He then tried to get the house vacated by various means & even paid Debashish to convince Ramakant to take a vacation. Further investigation reveals 57 small iron cast boxes hidden in the water tank, each containing 2 gold biscuits. Each biscuit weighed 50 grams
- Byomkesh meets Mohan, one of Ajit's school friends, whose patient, Nand Dulal Babu, has a weird addiction to Tarantula's fluid, which is gradually damaging his health.
- 1957. Manimoy (Bunty Behl) & his father Rasmoy (R.S. Chopra) are in the jewelry business. They have made an expensive necklace for a customer in Delhi, worth Rs 60,000. The customer has already paid an advance of Rs 40,000 and Mani is to take the item to Delhi for delivery and get the remaining 20,000. Mani's wife Uma (Indrani Dutta) loves the necklace & wants a similar jewel for herself. She is not happy that Mani is going to Delhi alone. Rasmoy keeps the necklace in his safekeeping for the night, in his study drawer & has Mani's wife sew the jewel into an old cloth piece to conceal it. Mani is in habit of gambling at his club every night. Rasmoy suffers from joint pain and has Bhola (Samir Jani), the house servant, to massage him every day. That night also Bhola comes into Rasmoy's room and massages his legs, as Rasmoy falls to sleep. Mani comes back around mid-night & finds a man standing near the entrance to the house. His wife also saw this man running across the courtyard (as she looked outside waiting for Mani to come back home), but it was dark, so no face was visible. The man ran away after seeing Mani. Mani goes to Rasmoy's room to see the necklace missing. Rasmoy summons Byomkesh for help & explains that he has 5 jewelry shops & a business worth Rs 30 L per month. All his employees in the shop are old timers and above suspicion. His customer in this instance was Ramdas Chowksi, who himself is a jeweler in Delhi. When the necklace was ready, it was stored in the shop locker and only brought home the day before Mani was supposed to take it to Delhi for delivery. His wife has gone for religious pilgrimage with his younger son. Uma handles the entire house all by herself. When the police came, they searched the entire house, but could not find the necklace. Rasmoy says that only Mani, Uma and Bhola entered the room in the last 24 hours. Byomkesh speaks to Bhola who says they are 3 brothers and 2 sisters, who are also in Calcutta. Bhola has been working for Rasmoy for 3 years now. The elder brother is a postman and the younger works in the Municipal corporation. Bhola says that he went outside the house around midnight for fresh air. He ran inside when he saw Mani returning to the house. Byomkesh questions Mani's wife and finds that she comes from an ordinary household. She is in a family of 4 sisters and 2 brothers & sends money home to support them. She has infrequent contacts with her family. She admits to seeing Rasmoy hiding the jewel but says she didn't enter the hiding place after putting Rasmoy to bed. She did visit her father after the theft for an hour. She admits to having the desire to posses the necklace. Mani also tells Byomkesh that Uma wanted a similar necklace and she asked him for it the previous night, before it was stolen. Byomkesh alleges that Mani entered the house, went straight to the study drawer, and took the necklace from there. Normally, Mani could not afford a Rs 60,000 necklace, so stealing it was the only way to fulfill his wife's wish. He also could have lost money in gambling. Then Byomkesh sees Uma posting a letter in a post box just outside the house. Byomkesh finally figures that it was Bhola who stole the necklace & put it inside the post-box outside the house. Bhola's brother was a postman & the plan was for the brother to pick up the necklace when the matter cooled down.
- Byomkesh marries Satyavati (Sukanya Kulkarni) and Byomkesh, Ajit and Satya start living in the same house. One day Byomkesh is fascinated by news that a noted high society thief Ramanath Niyogi (Kumar Shirazi) has been released from jail. He gets news that the PA Harihar of Maharaja Ramendra Sinha (Prem Rishi) has been murdered and Byomkesh is called for investigations. Maharaja Ramendra believed in rehabilitating known criminals. Harihar approached Ramendra 6 months ago & had served jail time several times in his last 30 yrs. He had just been released from an 8-year jail term for theft and robbery. He was released one year early due to his good conduct during imprisonment. Harihar wanted to reform himself and hence approach Ramendra, due to the latter's reputation. Ramendra employed Harihar & soon promoted him to his PA, as he was becoming indispensable to his affairs. Harihan was first murdered by a knife to the chest and then his throat was slashed. Ramendra recollects that Harihar was acting very scared a couple days before his death. In one of his town meetings, one poor man approach Ramendra for help & Harihar got very scared just by looking at the man. Byomkesh recollects that a Lal Neelam was stolen from Ramendra 8 years ago and he had announced a reward of Rs 5000, if returned. Ramendra says that Harihar had also inquired about the same award a few months ago. Byomkesh declares that Ramanath Niyogi is the killer. Ramanath had stolen the Lal Neelam from Ramendra 8 years ago and was jailed. Ramanath was a noted thief in high society circles & had thefts of more than Rs 4 lakhs credited to him. His eyes were on the Rs 25 L worth jewelry collection of Ramendra. Ramanath found an opportunity to steal the entire collection, which contained a Lal Neelam, which Ramendra considered his most prized possession & the source of his good luck. Byomkesh says that Neelam's have a unique effect on every person, and the same stone can be auspicious for some and destructive for others. Ramendra announced an award of Rs 5000 for the same. Ramanath was caught & the jewelry recovered, but not the Neelam. Byomkesh is convinced that Ramanath holds the key to the case. He has Ramanath arrested & his house searched but doesn't find the Neelam. Byomkesh theorizes that Ramanath was captivated by the Neelam. When caught 8 years ago, he took the Neelam to jail with him & managed to keep it hidden from jail authorities. But Byomkesh convinces Ramanath that not all Neelam stones are conducive to everyone. This Neelam, while auspicious to Ramendra, had an opposite impact on Ramanath. Harihar was in jail with Ramanath, & both became friends. Harihar helped Ramanath hide the Neelam. Harihar had developed a pocket in his neck, which he used to hide gems. Ramanath gave Harihar the Neelam to hide in there. Soon thereafter Hairhar is transferred to a different jail. Harihar betrays Ramanath by taking the Neelam with him. After 8 years, when released, Harihar goes to Ramendra to return the Neelam in exchange for the Rs 5000 award. But before he could do that, Ramanath came into the house, killed Harihar & cut his throat to retrieve the Neelam. Reluctantly, Ramanath gives up the Neelam & it is returned to Ramendra.
- Calcutta, 1964. Bhupesh Chatterjee (Mahan Swadesh) lives in the same building as Byomkesh. Byomkesh is away to Cuttack & Bhupesh invites Ajit to be a bridge player in his group. Bhupesh works for an insurance firm and travels a lot. The other 2 players are Ramchander (Ashok Tande) and Banmali (Ashok Mishra), who also live in the same building. One night, while coming down to meet the 3 players, Ajit hears a loud noise. He reaches Bhupesh's room, who says that the noise came from the room below, and he saw a man running away from the building. The room below belongs to Natwarlal Naskar. They find Natwarlal shot dead in his room with a pistol on the window ledge. It looks like the killer shot Natwar from window & then ran away. The killer was seen wearing a red shawl. Bhupesh claims that he saw the person run away. Ramchander and Banmali are with him at that time. Shortly thereafter the manager Shiv (Robin Gupta) of the building comes in wearing a red shawl. Shiv claims that he was outside on some personal work. Ajit calls the police. Shiv tells police that he has been managing the building for 25 years. Natwar came there 3 years ago and only knew Ramchander and Banmali in the building. Bhupesh is a widower, without kids. Got transferred to Calcutta 2 months ago and loves to play bridge. That's how he came to know Ajit, Ramchander and Banmali. Bhupesh heard a loud noise and went to his window on the 2nd floor, where he saw a man wearing a red shawl running away. Ramchander's family was killed in Dhaka during partition & he came to live in Calcutta. he knew Natwar from Dhaka. Banmali also has the same story. He and Ram used to work for an MNC in Dhaka & both now work for a bank in Calcutta for last 4 years. Hari (Prem Dutta) is a servant of the mess & reports that on the evening of Natwar's murder he had heard an argument going on in Natwar's room. As the door was closed, he could not see who was inside. Byomkesh returns to meet everyone. He finds that Bhupesh had also lost his young son in the Dhaka riots & plays bridge to distract himself from grief. His wife died soon after the boy died, due to grief. Ramchander & Banmali claim that they only had peripheral acquaintance with Natwar in Dhaka as well. While Bhupesh says he never saw Natwar alive. Byomkesh sees Natwar's belongings which has a Dhaka court deed declaring that 2 brothers Rasbihari and Banbihari, employed as treasurer for a MNC in Dhaka, were sentenced to 3 years in jail for fraud. Byomkesh concludes that Natwar was a blackmailer. Ramchander & Banmali are Rasbihari and Banbihari respectively. Natwar was in the business of blackmailing. He planned to blackmail Ras & Banbihari when they got released from jail. But then the partition happened & Natwar came to Calcutta and lived poorly. By luck he found that Rasbihari and Banbihari have come to live in the same building as him. Natwar started blackmailing them for Rs 80 per month. The brothers admit this but say that they did not kill Natwar. Byomkesh says that a gun shot sound is not like a bomb. It is sharp. Byomkesh then reveals that Bhupesh is the killer. He entered Natwar's room in the evening before the bridge game. He killed Natwar with a muzzled gun & left the gun on the window. Then, when Ram & Banmali came to his room, he went to his own window, threw a loud cracker down the window, and screamed that a man is running away. In the heat of the moment, Ram & Banmali agreed with him. Bhupesh agrees & reveals that Natwar had kidnapped his son & asked for Rs 10,000 as ransom. Bhupesh gave him everything he had, but his son never came back. His wife also died from the shock. Then, when Bhupesh got transferred to Calcutta, he saw Natwar & started living in the same building & killed him at the first opportunity. Byomkesh promises to protect Bhupesh, but still encourages him to go to police & tell the truth.
- Calcutta, 1965. Byomkesh has moved into a new house with his wife Satyavati (Sukanya Kulkarni) & house help Punti Ram (Kartik Dutta). Gangapada Choudhary (Rakesh Vidua) meets a stranger at Howrah station, who claims to be coming to Calcutta first time, from Meerut. The stranger looks like his younger brother Durgapada Choudhary. The stranger doesn't have a place to live, so Ganga offers him his own house, as he is going away on vacation for a month. Ganga says that his house owner might object to a stranger living in the house, so instructs the stranger to tell his name as Ganga to all outsiders. He also instructs the stranger to note the time and date when he sees a person with a red coat in the street below. With this, Ganga leaves for his one-month vacation with a small shoulder bag. 4 days later the stranger stands at the window (as instructed by Ganga) & is shot in the forehead. The stranger survives & Byomkesh meets him in hospital where he reveals that his name is Ashok Maity (Shantanu Chhaparia). Ashok lives in Meerut with widow mother & unmarried sister. He himself is a widower. He is in Calcutta to find a suitable groom for his sister. He wanted to stay at a public lodge in Calcutta, but it was full, and that's when Ganga approached him and offered him accommodation. The house owner meets Byomkesh & reveals that Ganga never had a beard, while Ashok said that the man he met, had a thick beard. The owner also says that Ashok looks a lot like Ganga. Ganga was working in an iron mill in Calcutta & had gone for one 1-month leave. The bullet was fired from an abandoned house across the street. At his workplace, Byomkesh finds that Ganga was an electric furnace operator in the factory and 1 of only 5 such skilled people in Bengal. Naresh (Suhas Palshikar) was an electric furnace operator at the factory before Ganga and is now in jail. Ganga was Naresh's apprentice. Naresh was arrested in a murder trial & was jailed for 3 years (for involuntary manslaughter) after the testimony from Ganga. Naresh had maintained his innocence in the matter throughout and said repeatedly that Ganga wanted to remove Naresh so that he could take over his job at the mill. Investigations reveal that Naresh had been released from jail 45 days ago. Ganga's name is not found on any train leaving Calcutta in the last 15 days. Byomkesh theorizes that Ganga had seen Naresh lurking near his house, planning his shot at Ganga. So, Ganga, adorned a beard & prepared to go away on an extended vacation. But at the station Ganga met Ashok & found him to be resembling himself. So, Ganga bought Ashok home and asked him to regularly look outside the window. As anticipated, Naresh took a shot at Ashok, thinking he was Ganga, but Ashok survived. To arrest the 2, Byomkesh releases an ad in the newspaper for the post of furnace operator in a Bombay mill, with a fat pay. As luck would have it, both Naresh & Ganga respond to the ad at the same time and start fighting. They are promptly arrested by the police.