Spotlight

Mystery in Nottingham

“Damn it!” pierced a sound through the chilly night air. Dr. Charles Dougal was Sitting on his Chair. his skin growing even paler than his normal yellowish pale Skin. In the dim light, his brown dyed hair was Shining black. His black eyes were staring at the screen of the computer the hospital had kindly provided him.

“GAS EXPLOSION KILLS 4’

These were the words that were sprawled across the monitor, declaring losses of life in the suburbs of England.

‘Because of a gas explosion at I I: am. in the suburbs of Nottingham, England 4 people were killed and 3 were injured The deceased have been identified as Ms. Agatha, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Nicole and Mrs. Jeanette. The police think that this was purely an accident due to malfunctioning but locals report that there was foul play involved.”

This was the Place where he lived. What he called home was demolished and his neighbours were now dead, fortunately for the detective, his leg had been fractured when he Slipped on the wet floor and went skidding straight out the back door where he collided with the postbox and fractured his left leg Such a small incident had saved his life.

Now, there was no reason for the gas explosion occurring incidentally as it was checked every da. This gave room for the theory of an accidental explosion, thought Charles, who was starting his detective work once again. He searched for the suspects as reported by the locals. The most suspected turned out to be. _ himself. But that was completely wrong. How could he, a detective be a suspect for a crime such as this? Then there was also the fact that he had been sitting inside his room at the hospital during the time of this explosion, so he was hardly any suspect. Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door He answered,

“Come in!”

And from the door emerged the last person you would expect at night- Nimrod.

Nimrod was a friend of Charles’ who had helped him out of so many tight spots that the number itself would be unimaginable, “How do you do it? He asked.

“Do what?” asked Charles.

“Fall in trouble from a room inside a hospital that is twelve miles away from the suburbs.” He replied.
‘You know I did not do it.” Charles said_

“So I do.” He said, “but that is not enough to convince the people.”
“ Innocent until proven guilty. “ Charles said.

“That is what the people are not ready to believe Charles”’ Nimrod said, “You must do something to find the culprit!”

That was true. Charles wondered what he could do to prove himself innocent. The first step would be to visit the place of incident. He remembered learning so in the first class of detective training.

“Take me to that place.” Charles said.

so it was, that next day morning that the two of them left the hospital Charles on a blue wheelchair and Nimrod, pushing the wheelchair while panting due to a lung disease. Now that he was under the bright glow of the sun now, the colour was flushing back into Charles’ pale cheeks.

People jeered at him as he passed through the crowds of Nottingham. Evidently, they had read the morning papers and thought of him as the criminal. Finally, after much booing and hissing, they reached the suburbs. They were allowed to go through the police barricade after much persuasion by Nimrod.

The first thing he saw was a silver ball pen, with a golden cap. Even though it was sparkling brightly, the police and other detectives had not seen it. Charles bent down and picked it up. He found that it had the letters B.S. On it. Charles figured out that they were initials. so B.S must be Benjamin Smith! So Benjamin Smith was the culprit! I showed my findings to the police. They told me that this was highly unlikely as Benjamin Smith had just come back from work that day and was in his car during the explosion. They said that it had probably just flown out of a house because of the Shockwave.

Charles was not in the least satisfied with the explanation provided by the police. He decided that the culprit had dropped the pen, though he did realise that Benjamin Smith was not the criminal. Then who was it? ‘S’ was the most common initial in England, which stood mostly for ‘Smith’. So it was a person whose first initial was B and surname was ‘Smith’. That came down to a 0.03 to 0.04 to % of the population of Nottingham, which is Still a big number. Then it can further come down to the suburbs, which will make it around 0.02%0f the population of Nottingham, which is around 150 people out of whom, only a third live in the suburbs. 50 people were suspects as per Charles.

He went back to what was left of his home and was delighted to find that the library at the rear end of the house was practically untouched. He took out his phonebook and began flipping through it. He saw that there were lesser people with the initials ‘B S’ than he had thought. Only around a twenty or so, He began striking out the people he knew. Five of them. He was then left with fourteen suspects.
He interrogated each one of them but it produced no result. Suddenly, all of it made sense to Charles.

“Of course it’s Benjamin Smith. He must have triggered the explosion from his car and told the locals beforehand that I was up to no good all because I am his enemy, or more like was. But his plan had failed as the radius of the explosion was larger than he expected.” He told Nimrod.

“Wow, I never expected it would turn out like this, but I made a few investigations myself and I had the same result!” He said ‘When this was told to the police, they made further examinations and found out that they were right.

Funnily, the mystery was solved quicker than thought.