A Mistake Indeed

yet another crime is solved by Mr.X's great deduction and reasoning skills. Must Read!

Singapore, an island city-state off southern Malaysia, is a global financial center with a tropical climate and multicultural population.It's one of the world's greenest and most visited tourist place but crime doesn't care about the place and the time.

(Monday, 6:00 p.m)

Police arrived at the campus of Nation Singapore University due to the fact that a body was found in an auditorium of the university. NSU is one of the best universities found in the world, it consists faculty of world's renowned mathematicians,chemists, physicists, researchers etc.

(Auditorium 2)

A total of 11 members were present in the room of the crime including the police, body was lying beside the podium in prone position. Victim's one hand was on his neck which indicated the cause of death must be suffocation and other hand was holding his phone in which some random numbers were pressed which was deduced as his failed attempt to call for help.

People in the room consisted of two senior police officers who were examining the body, three police members who were barricading the body, two female teachers who found the body, director of the university who was talking with one of the senior police man, two other faculty members(one male and one female) who came after body was discovered.

While senior agent Cole and Paul were talking to the director, agent Paul saw a guy around 20 years of age was sitting on the upper side of the auditorium doing something. Agent Paul suddenly shouted towards the upper side "hey you ! yes you! Who are you? What are you doing there ? Come here".

That guy who was doing something came down and smiled and said "hello officer ! is there any problem?"

Agent Paul with furious tone said " what do you mean by is there any problem?, can't you see it's a crime scene and students are not allowed in here. Go out and stand with others".

The Guy who was 20 years of age reached to his coat's pocket and pulled out a card and handed it over to agent Paul. After watching the card agent Paul hesitatingly said "I'm Sorry Mr.X, I didn't know it was you. Our Senior officer told us that they asked crime branch to help solve us this case and they were going to send us their best detective but we didn't expect that detective to be this much young".

Mr.X laughed and said "So, you expecting a aged man around 40 to 50 years of age with teeth in his hand?"

Agent Paul was smiling awkwardly while calling for agent Cole. Paul introduced agent Cole to Mr.X and started explaining the crime scene. Mr.X requested agent Paul and Cole that he would like to hear the crime from the mouth of the people who discovered the body, saying so he turned around and asked University members to explain the exact scenario from the moment they found the body till now.

The two female faculty who found the body came forward and one of them said " Hello Sir! My name is Naomi, I am one of the chemistry teacher here and she is Angela and she is also a chemistry teacher. We were heading outside the college through the corridor when we heard a noise from the auditorium so we opened the gate and asked if someone was in here?, lights were off so it was dark. We came little bit inside to get a broader look when we saw someone was lying down so I panicked and in a hurry I opened the windows  so that light can come inside and asked Miss Angela to call someone quickly. She rushed off quickly and called Mr.Tim and Mrs.Kendra who were also heading out and after that we called the police and our Director Mr.Peter. We didn't touch anything other than windows and lights".

Mr.X said "OK! So Miss Angela, is there anything you would like to add?"

Miss Angela said "No sir, Exactly as Miss Naomi said happened. As soon as we saw the body Miss Naomi opened the windows and asked me to call for someone so, I hurried and called others."

Who was the victim? asked Mr.X

Director Peter said " He was Mr.Drucker, one of the most talented mathematicians of Singapore. He was a very polite and charming man."

Mr.X said "OK" and asked agent Paul and Cole about the body.

Agent Cole said " No, nothing suspicious was found out of the body. His one hand was on his neck which shows the cause of death must be suffocation and from the other hand he was trying to call someone for help but was not able to call just typed the numbers and died. Other than this a pen, a book and his wallet was there."

Agent Paul said "Mr.X I don't think it's a murder case, what I think is that he just suffocated to death and those number was not an attempt to call someone instead it was just some random keys he pressed while suffocating or what cou...."

Mr.X interrupted agent Paul and said while smiling "No! It was a murder and a clever one i say."

Everyone looked at Mr.X surprisingly.

How can you say this with confidence? asked agent Cole.

Mr.X smiled and said "Didn't you notice a little wet floor? And when I was at the upper part of the auditorium I discovered some footprints on the floor due to this wet floor which the murderer forgot to take into consideration while planning for the murder. Last but most important thing is that these random keys you are talking about is the dying message of Mr.Drucker which he wrote while suffocating, revealing the identity of the murderer."

Everyone was surprised and blanked by listening Mr.X's deductions. Agent Paul asked Mr.X "How can you be so sure that these keys are the identity of the murderer? Because it's just numbers and how can Mr.Drucker can be killed without any signs of violation or force or any murder weapon? ".

Mr.X said "Mr.Drucker was a great mathematician so he tried to give us the identity of the killer with these numbers. He could've written the name but he took the worst scenario into consideration that if killer returns to check for him and saw the name then she can easily erase it leaving with no evidence at all, so he wrote the identity using mathematics so that if killer saw the numbers than he could be fooled for his attempt to call someone like you people here and my friend don't you worry because there was a weapon, it's just weapon vanished into the thin air ."

Mr.Cole suddenly asked " How can you say the killer is 'she' not 'he'?"

Mr.X said "So you noticed my words good. I deduced that fact due to the footprints that I found at the top of the auditorium. It was a footprint of a heel which only women wears." and smiled while thinking about the crime.

"Can I see those numbers?" asked Mr.X.

One of the policeman gave the numbers to Mr.X.

"140101501309"

Mr.X looked at the numbers carefully and thoughtfully. The amount of brain he was using on those numbers was clearly visible on his face. Everyone was quietly watching Mr.X, even the sound of the clock was audible at that point of time. Suddenly a sound breaking the barrier of silence came out of nowhere. It was agent Cole's phone.

"I'm really sorry. It's our senior. Excuse Me" said agent Cole.

After agent Cole finished talking, he asked Mr.X "Can you please call the crime branch? Our senior officer received a call from crime branch they said you were not picking up your phone."

Mr.X said "oh right! They asked me to brief them about the case" and he pulled out his phone from the pocket and started calling for headquarter but suddenly he stopped and..

Mr.X smiled and murmured to himself "clever! clever indeed!, But why...?"

Agent Paul signaled the other police men to clear the crime scene. Other policemen started clearing the crime site.

Agent Cole said to Mr.X " So, I think we are done for the day, let's talk about this case tomorrow?"

Mr.X smiled and in a weird manner said to agent Cole "I think I know why this crime is committed and where we can find further clues regarding this crime. I think we should check the victim's apartment." and while he said so Miss Angela coughed and excused herself for the washroom and went outside.

After a while Miss Angela came back from the washroom and started talking to Mrs.Kendra.

Agent Cole said to Mr.X "A Mistake!, OK then we will meet you tomorrow . I will send you the address of the victim and we will meet there only after breakfast?"

Mr.X said "OK then we will meet you tomorrow." and asked University members, not to leave the city while the investigation is going on.

After a while all the crime scene was cleared and faculty members also went home for the day.

(Same day, 11:30 p.m, Victim's House)

Door's lock was picked by someone and that someone with the help of a torch was roaming around the house quietly. All the cupboards were messed up in the search of the mistake that someone did. Finally that someone entered the bedroom and suddenly...

click...click...(Lights On!)

Mr.X was sitting on the couch inside while eating ice cream said "want some?."

That someone hesitated a bit and said "how....?"

Mr.X interrupted her and said "Don't panic, I always knew it was you Miss Naomi. Just didn't know the motive behind it so I lured you here by voluntarily speaking about a made up mistake by me to agent Cole so that you can hear it and pretended to search this apartment tomorrow so that you can get enough night to search for it. Clever right?".

Miss Naomi turned around to run but saw Director Peter, Miss Angela, Agent Paul and Cole, Mr.Tim and Mrs.Kendra standing by the door. She fell on her knees and put hands on her mouth and asked "How? How did you know?"

Mr.X grinned and said "Light of Truth always Penetrates the Clouds of Lies".

Mr.X continues" Okay, I will reveal the truth first tell me the motive?"

Miss Naomi with tears in her eyes said "I loved him. I loved him a lot and when I told him he said that he love miss Angela and will tell her on the annual event which is two days from today. I tried to convince him and also said that if he will not accept me then I will die but he said he didn't care if I died or lived. I was very angry. I was not going to stand and see him get taken away from me. I will never allow that. So, I planned that if I can not have him then nobody can have him." and she started smiling like a mad person who is psychologically ill.

Director Peter said with remorse " Shame on you miss Naomi, I couldn't believed Mr.X when he told us but it was all true."

Miss Angela said "I never knew he liked me. How could you do this to me Naomi?, we were best friends."

"Now tell us the truth behind this case Mr.X" asked agent Paul.

Mr.X said "Okay, let's start from the beginning. I already told you guys that how the killer was a 'she' not a 'he' right?. Now when i was walking down from the stairs of the auditorium, I checked feet of every female faculties to see who was wearing heels but all of them were wearing heels so that didn't gave me the identity of the culprit but it was clear that culprit is a woman. Furthermore I also noticed the wet floor when I entered the auditorium and when I discovered the cause of the death then murder weapon can be the only thing that can suffocate, leave a wet floor and vanish into the thin air which is none other than 'Dry Ice'. Yes! Dry ice, doesn't surprise yourself. We only know good uses of dry ice but what we don't know is that it can also be dangerous if not used carefully. Dry ice is nothing but solid form of pure CO2 right?. What miss Naomi did was she called Mr.Drucker to the auditorium where she already kept the dry ice to evaporate on the room temperature half or one hour before. As CO2 is heavier than oxygen and nitrogen, so when CO2 evaporated in the auditorium it settled down submerging the lower part of auditorium fully and upper part partially. So when Miss Naomi and Mr.Drucker came inside the room closing the door behind, Mr.Drucker didn't noticed the evaporated CO2 because CO2 is odorless and tasteless gas. When Miss Naomi started talking to him, what she did,  she stepped to the upper side of the auditorium which prevented her from inhaling the CO2 as it was on the bottom side and when Mr.Drucker inhaled the considerable amount of CO2 and started suffocating, Miss Naomi left the room from the upper gate straight to Miss Angela and packed their bags started leaving the college for the day. But she didn't expected that Mr.Drucker will use his phone to leave a hint behind exposing her.

Second time I thought of murder weapon as a gas when Miss Naomi told me that when they found the body she instantly reached for the windows instead of going to the lights first, so that gas can move out of the room leaving no trace behind. As a chemistry teacher she knew everything about the dry ice so she cleverly planned this crime and used dry ice as the weapon but she forgot that gas condenses which left the room a little wet and footprints on the upper side of the auditorium.

Agent Paul abruptly asked Mr.X "How did you found the identity of Miss Naomi with those numbers?"

Mr.X again smiled and said "OK, that was a clever one I admit. I knew those numbers are not just numbers but alphabets so, I converted those alphabets in numbers from 1 to 26 and then matched the code left by Mr.Drucker with alphabets but I was unable to find any useful information. But when agent Cole asked me to call headquarter and I started searching contact of headquarter in my phone by the help of search option in contacts then it struck me that when we search something we write something and then give a space to write another word by pressing 0 in keypad phone right? So, I considered zeros in the code as spaces and other numbers as alphabets then a name appeared in front of me which was of miss Naomi. Let me show you...

14 is N

0 is space

1 is A

0 is space

15 is O

0 is space

13 is M

0 is space

9 is I

Which gives NAOMI

Clever isn't it?

That was how I was able to deduce the name of the culprit.

Agent Paul said " OK, that was a great deduction from your side Mr.X."

Mr.X said "I think that was all for the case. Officer's you can take her away now."

Miss Naomi got arrested and went to the prison. Mr.X's clever deductions and sense of justice solved yet another case.

The End.