A House on Fire (Part 3)

‘Shall I bring his servants for evidence' asked Martin.
‘No, we don’t need him. He is right about the car and the fire. What’s the time now anyway’ I asked. I was looking at Henry to tell the time. He lifted his right arm to see the time but he wasn’t wearing any watch.
‘Where is your watch?’ I asked.
‘I must have forgotten to wear it’
‘Are you sure it’s in your house?’
‘Yes, if I’m not wearing it then it simply means it’s in my house’ said Henry irritatingly.
‘You would have been right if you were telling the truth-'
‘DO YOU MEAN I'M A LIAR?’ he shouted.
‘You’re a liar and a criminal too’

The entire hall went silent and they were watching me and Henry in bewilderment.
‘What do you mean that I’m the criminal?’ he said angrily.
‘You were responsible for this whole incident’
‘Sundus? Are you sure you’ve made enough investigation’ Martin whispered in my ears.
‘You shouldn’t blame anyone without any strong proof’ he said irritated.
‘I’ll give you your strong proof’ I said smiling and took out the watch from my pocket which I had found near the tree 'Is this your watch?’
For some moments Henry didn’t speak and I had to repeat my question.
‘No, it isn’t’

‘You can’t hide this watch from anyone’ I said forcefully ‘it’s made of pure gold with white gold hands. And look at its back it has your name on it’
‘It’s just a watch and it isn’t the strong proof’
‘I’ll tell you your whole plan. You and Mr. Jones were having some disagreements in between you. So you decided to kill him. You went to him to kill him. But first you shot him and –‘
‘What? He shot at him?’ said Martin shockingly.
‘Yes but he didn’t shoot him in the library. He shot at him in the room beside it’
‘What? Are you sure?’ said Martin.

‘Yes yes, I'm sure about my whole investigation. And then he took him to his library. Then he put sprinkled petrol in the room and lighted it which resulted in the fire’
‘How can I escape if I was in the room lighting up the petrol’ asked Henry.
‘You lighted up the string whose one end was in the petrol so that it wouldn’t catch fire at once and you’d be able to have enough time to climb down the tree and run to your car. Like this no one could ever blame you that you were present at the time of fire. And this watch, I found it near the tree.’
All the policemen, servants and Henry were shocked at my explanation.
‘Now don’t you still accept your crime’ I asked. Henry was staring the floor with his head down.

‘How can I get in the library and it while locked from the inside’
‘It’s very simple. After you placed Mr. Jones on the chair you locked the door from inside and escaped from the window. And when the fire was gone you went in again from the window and placed the ashtray and the jug with some smell of petrol to show that the fire had erupted from the library. But you didn’t notice that the fire dose not leave smell of the petrol behind it after it has burnt the object. And the last thing is that you had threatened the servants to help you too’
‘How did you find that out!' said the servant with pony tail.
‘Because of your silly answers. How can you’ve been working here for twenty years and you still being young? You said that you went for bringing the tobacco later that you said that you escaped from the back door’

‘Are your eyes glued to the floor’ Martin asked Henry who was again staring at the floor.
‘Shut up’ Henry shouted ‘you should award me for saving your lives’
‘Award you?’ said Martin.
‘Yes Jones was planning to blast the police offices in the city after you hanged his two brothers’
‘Who are his two brothers?’
‘Malfoy and James’
‘They were the most wanted criminals’
‘Yes and they were his brothers’

‘But they were responsible for hijacking the two airplanes’
‘Yes, Jones wanted me to work with him in blasting the police offices in revenge’
‘You could have easily informed us about his plan’ I said.
‘I couldn’t. He took six millions dollars –‘
‘Six millions dollars’ said Maritn in shock.
‘Yes he took six millions dollars from me and threatened me that he would not return the money to me before his plan has been executed and if I tried to leak his plan he’d burn my house and kill me’
‘But you killed him and burnt his house’
‘Yes, I did exactly what he wanted to do to me’
‘When was he going to work on his plan?’ I asked.
‘The night after tomorrow’

‘You could have easily informed us. He threatened you but did you detect if he was watching your actions? If you would have informed the police and about his threats we would have taken precautionary measures without any one noticing and without his noticing too. And you would have been easily saved’ I said.
‘But even if you had captured him before hand, you were to hang him. What difference dose it make if I have killed him before you’
‘You did a murder. You could have killed these innocent servants. Beside, this is a criminal act and is severely punishable. It doesn't matter that you killed the criminal. It wasn’t you're duty. You did it for your revenge without caring for others lives. That makes you a criminal too'

‘Are you going to hang me instead of him because I have killed him?’
‘I’m not a judge to decide suitable punishment for you’
‘Take him to the car’ said Martin and the two policemen took him by the arm and went away.
‘Well I think I have to go too’ said I.
‘But what about the house and the servants?’ asked Martin.
‘I think you’ll be able to cope with them very well’
‘Yes yes of course’ he said hesitating.
I went out and watched the house in the dark night. It was quite as usual as it was before a few hours, before the fire began. I walked to the "Pizza Restaurant" where I had had a dinner with few friends before the incident but now it was closed. I sighed and waited for the taxi to arrive and take me to my house.
….THE END…..