UBJ’S THE RUBY CUBE

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=uddalak banerjee(UBJ)

The Hindu front page was flooded with the news of heneous murder.The police
superintendent Mr Anup khanderwal had already issued a statement that the case
had been handed over to the CBI and delhi police suspects a foreignhand in the
murder.Ashwini kumar ,the CBI chief ‘s statement that “We have appointed Mr
George FRANCIS to head the investigation “ have created ripples in the fourth
estate over the incompetency of the indian investigation bureau to appoint an india
to head the investigation.

In a corner room near Vidhan Sabha in Raipur an American kept on drawing pictures
and quite incessantly rejecting them after a brief muse. The latest nokia model
vn897654 lay chided to rest beside the table.The screen flashed 3 missed calls from
Saddique Rahman a fellow detective enrolled in CBI.Sadique is known to be the
brain that had foiled the 4/14/2015 terror attack planned recently.In the meantime
Miss Monorama entered.She was George assistant and an MIT grad in COMPUTER
SC AND ENGG and joined FBI soon after GRADuation.She used to analyse data and
mine information for him.They have been working together for 9 years now.Apart
from the Iraq’s Sultan Ahmed murder mystery they had successfully solved cases as
high profile as Software giant globusoft’s chief trillionaire John C Date’s murder
mystery .

Monoroma asked,”For the last seven days I am watching you George but I have
never seen you so tensed.What is the problem?”.

George replied ,”nothing.just cant get the parts of the ruby cube match like before.”

Monoroma asked,”why?didnot Sadique help you?Sir I have been noticing some

amount of negligence in your work since yesterday.I don’t know why.you are more
inclined to play with a ruby cube! Since you found that from that table.”.

George smiled and said,”I love this game and used to play a lot in my childhood.I
invented three different algorithms for solving the mystry of rubycube but still it
excites me.Initially I was looking at the possibility of why it should be at the back of
the table and not over it .But later as I was looking at it more closely I found that a
letter each is inscribed on each of the coloured cube boxes.This is the first time I
saw such a cube with letters! Hence I thought why not test my algos once again!”

Monoroma smiled and said ,”but sir what about Sadique did he not meet you?He
had lost his other pair of contact lens .”

George ,”oh yes he did but his help had further compounded the matter.The cases
here in India is essentially different from those I have faced in Europe.It is
challenging to find out one missing face out of a claustrophobic world of bordering
houses and markets .There faces are so many and to zero down to one ..is at times
grueling.CBI chief Mr Kumar already provided a deadline for my stay inorder to
hasten the process.But this case is real compounded.The murder was done the day
before diwali and the room of murder was adjacent to the mandap and the house
shared its boundaries with five other houses.So the murderer could have jumped
out and took any of these five walls and then again from each of these walls a
similar equation emerges.The city is not planned and there are so many slums and
lanes .He could have easily disappeared anywhere.The motive too is not clear..Have
you got the reports which I asked u to get?”

Monoroma said,”Well from the contacts in his UID and his biocon chief it is evident
that he used to be an avid player of ruby cube .When ever he had time to relax or
any time off from the day long schedule of meetings with public or chief minister MR
Rajiv Singh used to play with this ruby cube a lot.He was ambidextrous and
extremely intelligent .He was the lynchpin and van of all discussions of the state
government and also an leader of allIndia repute.Well from his contacts which
ranges into thousands it is evident that he was extremely articulate and possessed
strong links with the supply chain in case of products developed in C.G and also
with the political party chain of rival parties besides being the most prominent join
of the macramé.His records in school were also very impressive and had a habit of
using abbreviations and puzzled expressions since childhood.(break) sir I think we
are missing something somewhere ..he must have left some sign ..somewhere..the
maid in his statement said that this guy could see his own future and there were
instances in which he used to do things which used to facilitate him in the future.”

George said,”hmm interesting guy.Can I hear his maids statements in more detail?”

Monorama said ,”yes ,just a second ..the recorded statements are in CBI
database..in the arccon.co.ci site.Just hang on.(does something on the computer
and browses over a few pages ).Hmm got it .Once he told his maid that he had
forgotten to bring a document of his from the newraipuroffice and was not well so
he wished that he would go and bring that one form the clerk who would be
there.On coming home and handing over the document when the servant was
about to leave Mr Date said ,”well it you stepped precisely on all those foot marks I
had set for you before you came .You took 1 hour 23 minutes and 23 seconds just
as what I had written on the sheet kept on the table.The old shoe of yours was tied
at the time you went and now one of your laces is untied and I had mentioned this
too in the document.(to himself) Perfect perfect ..I got it ..i love it. ” “

George for a moment went silent and then said “well the window pane was inclined
towards the roof and that was the only thing that looked out of place in the house
.No footmarks no traces of struggle.The alert system is also unbreached.Only one
shoeprint was found near the dead body.Thats it and that was submerged in
blood .How humanly could someone with a bloodstained shoe go out of the room
without making a single step on the floor or on the walls ?The doors and windows
were also closed!”

Monoroma too was musing on the possibilities rather deeply specially after reading
out the incident of MR john and his servant manorama has decided to give
everything a second thought now.Every angle of the room had a mystry stored in
them.If the window was inclined to the roof may be Mr Date wanted someone from
the roof see him at the instant of his murder ! who knows?Maybe the murderer was
a bigger mathematician than he was and he outthought him and used the time of
murder perfect to get out unnoticed.The servants are mostly old and have been
loyal to him for years now and there has been no quarrel or cause of shift in
allegiance to suspect them for murder.But then Monorama also found it hard to
believe that such a man would not see his own murder before its occurance.He had
earned a fortune by his prescient nature and with a net worth of 6 trillion dollars he
could not have died any stranger.

There was a brief hiatus.Soon the doorbell rang.

Monoroma went towards the door to open it but before she could open it the subject
had fast absconded.A letter lay at the floor.Over the letter some alphabets were
inscribed .

George came calling ,”who is it?”

Monorama said,”Sir there has been a mail for you.Some Mr Mahmud sent for
you.On the mail there are three letters inscribed for you..M.N.S. and in the letter
also there is just three letters M.N.S”

The alphabets were all in Times New Roman.Monorama before handing it over to
George had a fast scan and match on the pattern of the letters so as to get some
arbitrary info on the person who wrote them or the machine type used for the
purpose.The software used by her was called Cygfin.But the results yielded a 7890
cases for handwriting match and when tested for the machine it yielded a further
1293 possible type of typewriters or computers that may have produced it.

However when the letter was handed over to George he took a long hard view at
the letters and their inter letter distances and their pattern.
“no this is not any machine ..it has been done by hand and I think this is …I got
it ..O yes I got it case is solved ..”

George rushed to the next room without waiting for Monorama and picked up the
ruby cube which was kept on his table.

“He knew it ! yes monorama you were right!.See this letter S it matches the letter S
in the ruby cube .It is in times new Roman all right but it had a dot on the right
which is same as the dot in circumference and thickness with this one.(to
himself)Amazing man!”

Without waiting any further Geroge started to turn the cube for the
combination.Now there was a gap each in between the alphabets and the dot at the
end of the sentence was about three spaces further of after “S.”.The beauty of this
ruby cube was that here too there were 6 blank spaces and a single dot “.”.George
turned the given combination in a flash.His was an old hand at this.The moment the
combination was arrived at there was a clicking sound in the ruby cube and
immediately the cubes seemed loose.There was a small piece of paper at the centre
of the rube cube surrounded by the other constituent cubes.Just when the cubes
were drawn apart and the letter was taken out he found the magical words which
absorbed the interest of Manorama too.The words were too small so George too out
his magnifying glass and focused on the paper.In it was written “hi george.. turn the
page you will get the murderer..”.Obeying the instructions when George flipped the
page he found that there is a big hand made in pencil pointing to the roof.

They both followed the pointed finger and reached the roof .Nothing was there .Both
grew silent trying to understand where did they go wrong .

George picked out the page and with his magnifying glass started looking for
possibilities in the figure again.He scanned the dimensions of the paper and the
dimension of the fingure.And then turned the paper upside down to make more
sense.The fingure had only one scratch running making it somewhat look like “in”
on much approximation.

George went down to the room and from his tool kit he picket out a driller and using
a ladder reached the ceiling and without a word started to drill.Monorama on the
otherhand followed George to the room and confoundedly started to look at him and
his actions appanently trying to figure out what he was upto.But since George was
not speaking she fellback and tried to use the computer pattern match tech to get
to a result.

“GOTcha ..got yet big time..Monoroma come here…” screamed George.”look what I
got!”

Then after descending the stairs of the ladder George unraveled the packet infront
of Monoroma and a pair of contact lenses came out.There was a pin drop silence in
the room .Noone of the two spoke.Both knew the conclusion is to the case is
reached.

“But sir WHY DID mr sadique kill him?” asked Monorama appanently shaken by the
veracious discovery.

George too was thinking of it and hence unfolded for the entire paper completely
and looked for a clue.Towards the end of the paper on the reverse side there was
some scribings as if someone with a pencil has scribbed on it .

“There is something written beneath this scribblings “said George.

He quickly moved towards his toolkit and from there took out a rubber and started
to rub the part.Once the part was rubbed he took out his magnifying glass and
started to read it.It was a number +2345623456..

Monorama called to the number and put the phone on loudspeaker.

The recorded voice on the other side said,”I knew u would call MR George.I have
recorded this voice myself to get my murderer to justice .I knew that this could get
international attension and may spark tension if the murderer is not caught and in
the interest of our nation and its justice system it is important.Sadique was the guy
who killed me.I stand testimony against my own killer.dont worry Mr George this
tape is not doctored I have a vedio recorded of it too which will help u convict
him.Well Sadique was someone I used to lookup to a lot for his superior crime
handling record of whose news I used to read daily.I desired that I leave my money
on someone who would be a value to the society once I was gone.But gradually as I
started to go close with him I found that he was fast changing.Once when he got the
whiff of my plans and that I desired him to be the successor to my software empire
he decided for a faster way to the throne rather than inherit it.Anyways I had finally
ensured the proper inheritance and channelization of money by selling of all my
shares and bonds and secretly donating it to people of India and Indian
Governments various poverty alleviation schemes.Thankyou George for your help
and the white shoe that was falling beside me was my school kits which I was
holding with me till my death.I loved that shoe very much.If you can Mr George
please put that shoe with me in my coffin.Thankyou again .Goodbye!”