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Originally from Calcutta, Niranjan presently settled in United States. His hobbies are web-designing, playing chess.
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Clue by Niranjan
It was the most unfortunate day for Dinesh. After the business hours, when he checked out from his counter, he was short of cash. In his eight years experience as a cashier at a bank, two or three times he had shortage of money at check out time. But in both of the cases it was always in hundreds and he adjusted from his own account to save his job. But this time the missing cash amount was quite huge for him.
He counted the balance cash again and again, but in vain. There was a shortage of two lakh rupees. He sat down there and tried to recall all the transactions and wondered where things went bad. He had to check in the balance of transfers and cash to the manager Feroz in a few minutes. He was not sure how Feroz would react to this and more over Feroz was new to the bank. He recently arrived as the bank manager.
“Two lakhs?” Feroz almost screamed when he heard the news.
“How did it happen?” Ramana the office boy, who was clearing some papers on the manager’s desk, asked slowly.
“I am not sure. I don’t remember any thing as such” Dinesh broke in to tears.
Seeing Dinesh in tears, Feroz came down to him and held him by shoulder. “Take it easy. I do have trust on you. Let us resolve this calmly.”
Feroz sat in front of Dinesh for more than half an hour and asked him all kinds of questions. As nothing appeared to be giving clues, he felt he would be responsible if he didn’t call police. “Sorry Dinesh, don’t think otherwise, but I need to call the police for the procedures” he explained.
Within another five minutes, the news spread to all the employees in the bank. Everybody tried to apply their investigative minds and derived arbitrary conclusions. Feroz asked Dinesh to stay inside his office and ordered others to attend their normal business. Also he went and closed the bank main doors and ceased all the counters and other chambers. Those were the orders from the police.
Inspector Jagan arrived with two of his constables in half an hour. As soon as he landed, he rushed his subordinates to inspect each and every corner of the bank. Also he summoned all the employees to the main hall. Feroz came forward and took Jagan into his office. There, Dinesh was sitting in tears. After seeing the inspector, he stood up and unconsciously uttered, “I am innocent, Inspector.”
These types of cases were not new to Jagan. In his experience of fifteen years, he was commended for solving tough cases. “Don’t worry. Sit down”, he drew a chair and sat exactly in front of Dinesh.
“Come on, tell me from the very beginning” he insisted.
As Dinesh was explaining him all the details, he was constantly staring at his face. He wanted to find whether Dinesh was telling the truth or not. After listening to Dinesh for some time, he felt Dinesh could be really innocent. His experience taught him that cognizance. After Dinesh finished, he started his interrogative questionnaire.
“At what time you noticed the cash missing?”
“Ten minutes past three” Dinesh recalled.
“At what time the business closes?”
“Three o’clock” Feroz added.
“Normally at what time you check in cash and registers to the manager?”
“Usually by 3:10pm we do it. Today we had little rush at the end and I got delayed in finishing the last transaction,” Dinesh explained.
“What is the total transaction money today?” Inspector Jagan tried to derive more details.
“Total money is nine lakhs sixty seven thousand and four hundred fifty rupees” Feroz added immediately.
“What kinds of denominations are missing? I mean did you notice?”
“We found four five hundred bundles missing.”
“Five hundred bundles. Huh..Easy to carry” Jagan said thoughtfully.
“Show me the register and the cash out” he asked.
Jagan inspected the records of that day and without counting he went through the cash bundles. There were hundreds and fifties bundles along with some ten and twenty rupee bundles. He took out his cigarette case and before lighting it out he asked Feroz, “If you permit”
“No problem. Go ahead” Feroz quipped.
“Sorry. My weakness. Without cigarette sometimes my mind stops working” he laughed loudly.
While smoking he browsed through the register. Feroz was standing on one side and watching the inspector. Dinesh was sitting on a chair because he felt too weak to stand. He was very tense. As if something struck him, Jagan flipped his head towards Dinesh and said, “I see you guys normally exchange money between cashier counters.”
“Yes. But we are habituated to mark it first in the register before we exchange” Dinesh explained. “In fact, we mark in our transaction log book with a different symbol” he got up and showed an example in the register.
“How about other counters” Inspector asked Feroz.
“They tallied well” Feroz tried to show the other registers. Jagan stopped him with his hand. Again he buried himself in the register.
“What are these lines?” he pointed to some cross-lines between the transactions in the register. Dinesh jumped out of the chair to look into the register.
“Those are the lines I mark when I go for a break, like tea or lunch”
“You sure lock you chamber when you go out for a break?” the inspector stressed the doubt.
“Yes. I always lock my cabin” Dinesh answered confidentially.
Later Inspector Jagan addressed all the employees and requested them to cooperate with the police till the case is closed. He urged them to keep the incident away from publicity till police get any clues. He also requested them to leave all their belongings for that day at the office. And before they left, the constables ransacked all the employees. Feroz was asked to stay back to help the police in further investigation.
The police squad searched the entire bank and tried to get any clues. They took the fingerprints that were available in Dinesh’s cabin, particularly at the doorknob. They took all the list of the employees and their home addresses. Despite so much of search and effort, Inspector Jagan and his team did not get any clues.
Dinesh went home and told about the incident to his wife and parents. ‘Don’t they blame us when the thief is not caught?’ his wife expressed her fears. Dinesh silently nodded his head worrying on the same thought. He might lose his job for being reckless. Or might be demoted to lower clerical post and transferred out. The incident would permanently go into his work record and wherever he went people would refer to this.
The police might give a press release within a day or two. ‘What would he say to everybody? How would he show his face again?’ he worried. He was innocent but how many would believe him. His credentials would be at stake. He could not sleep that night till late morning.
Next day, Dinesh tried to hide away from his colleagues. He was worried that they might be looking at him as a thief. ‘I didn’t do anything’ he told himself a thousand times. At lunch break, he sat alone and burst into tears.
Even after two days from the incident, Inspector Jagan could not get any clues. He got the finger print report from the forensic department. Most of the prints matched with Dinesh’s, except for two. One was found to be the office boy Ramana’s. Other one was yet to be identified. Inspector Jagan called for Ramana and asked couple of questions. He sent some of his constables to Ramana’s house and searched but Ramana turned to be innocent.
Later that evening, Inspector Jagan came to meet Feroz. They had quite a long discussion in the manager’s cabin. Dinesh was tensed up and always kept an eye on the room. After half an hour, he was asked to go inside.
Inspector Jagan was sitting in a chair with cigarette in one hand. Feroz was sitting in his chair behind his desk. After seeing Dinesh, Jagan asked him to sit. Dinesh quite obediently went and sat in the chair.
“Dinesh..” Jagan gargled his mouth a little, as if he was about to deliver a long sermon.
“So far we did not get any clues in this investigation. It is obvious for us to suspect you now” Jagan took a pause. Dinesh turned pale as soon as he heard those words. That was what he feared the most.
“If Feroz agrees, probably you may deposit the money back. You will not be arrested then” Jagan turned towards Feroz.
Dinesh was not listening. He tried hard to recollect everything that happened that day. He remembered the customer, who deposited two and half lakhs rupees, four five hundred bundles and five hundred rupee bundles. ‘What happened then?’ he hit his forehead and scratched above his left eyebrow. He looked for a clue.
“Mr.Dinesh, I don’t mean to hurt you. Already two days have gone by. We have just one more day to settle this issue, before I report anything to higher authorities”
‘Yes. I knew this would swindle back to me’ Dinesh was cursing himself and left the room. He did not feel like staying in the office anymore, so he packed his stuff and left for the day. All other employees looked at him pitifully.
‘Where from I will get two lakh rupees in one day’ he cried. His wife tried to console him, but he drove her away. He sat alone and wept for his ill fate. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ he asked again and again. His father came down and sat next to him. ‘Don’t worry. God will save you my son’ he assured him. ‘When?’ Dinesh screamed aguishly.
“If you just sit and cry like that nothing will happen. Let us try to collect the money. I have some of my retirement money” his father delivered.
“But how will I get two lakhs?” Dinesh sobbed.
“I will ask my brother for some money. Why don’t you try some of your friends?” his wife suggested.
“Yes. Let us try before we give up”, his father proposed.
Those consoling words gave little courage to Dinesh. “Yes, I can do that” he told himself. He tried to remember his friends, who could help him. He remembered three of his best friends, who were well off. One of them was Giri. In fact, Giri visited him that day when theft happened. Giri got transferred to another branch just a year back. He came that noon to greet him. Since Giri was his ex-colleague, Dinesh unlocked the door and let him in. He spoke to him for five minutes and then both of them left to have some tea. Later Giri bid farewell to him and left. That was the last time he ever saw the five hundred bundles.
‘Could it be Giri?’ Dinesh reasoned. ‘How can he do this to his best friend? And he had earned so much for himself and he was so well off, why would he do such a thing?’ he argued with himself. If it were Giri who took the money, how would he resolve the crisis? That night he could not sleep. His thoughts were occupied with Giri. There was no reason to believe that Giri would have taken the money. But he was the only guy who had easy access to that money.
The next morning, he called Inspector Jagan and told him his doubts. He also mentioned that his doubts might not be true. Jagan promised him that he would do his best.
To trap Giri, Inspector Jagan first visited the bank where Giri was working. On seeing a policeman at the bank, Giri appeared to get little tensed up and was constantly watching the inspector’s movements. Jagan managed to show that his visit was casual and he enquired the clerks about fixed deposit interest rates.
Having his suspicions on Giri, with warrant Jagan immediately attacked Giri’s house for a complete search. Police ransacked the house fully. They were not surprised when the money was found under the bed. Later the police matched the remaining fingerprints with Giri’s. With compelling evidence against him, Giri confessed his crime.
Inspector Jagan personally congratulated Dinesh for that right clue. Still a simple question was left behind in Dinesh’s mind, “How could Giri do such a thing?”
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