‘Yes, but as you want to become a detective then you must read this.’

‘Oh, thanks a lot sir, when should I return this to you?’

‘There’s no need to return this book to me,’ Mr Driscoll replies gently, ‘I have too many books on me, you may keep it.’

‘Oh…but sir don’t you think that I can leak this? I mean aren’t you taking a sort of risk by giving this book to me.’

‘I told you before, my every big step has a bigger reason behind.’

‘Oh, of course sir,’ Nigel smiles.

‘Anything else that you want to say…’

‘Well, before we came here, one of my father’s rival said to him that he won’t spare my father alive. I think my father’s life is in danger.’

‘You shouldn’t cry before you’re hurt Nigel. Don’t claim him to be a killer, because if you’ll call a man a thief, then he’ll definitely steal.’

‘So, you mean I shouldn’t worry about him or his life.’

‘Yes,’ Mr Driscoll says standing up.

‘Anyways, it was really nice seeing you Mr Arthur.’

Nigel begins to walk away and sees Mr Driscoll’s cell phone ringing. The detective turns on the loudspeaker of his phone and answers the call,

‘Hello?’

‘Arthur, I want my wife’s note!’ Someone yells in a very vague voice.

‘Excuse me? Who’s this?’ Mr Driscoll replies.

‘I’m Wilson Rodger, my wife committed a suicide and you took away her suicide note.’

‘Who told you that?’ Mr Driscoll asks.

‘My maid, now just tell me what’s in that note.’

‘Whatever it was, I just tore away Jill’s suicide note.’

Nigel hears this conversation and then begins to walk away towards his father.

Nigel feels Humiliated

For the next few days, Nigel kept on reading Mr Driscoll’s book and was really enjoying the book as he learned many ways of doing investigations. He learned three basic things of solving mysteries which he wrote down one by one on a piece of paper, and they were:

1-Collect all the PROOFS and left over EVIDENCES.

2-Make a list of all the SUSPECTS.

3-Gather as much information as you can from the WITNESSES.

He keeps all these points in his mind but still keeps on reading the book with interesting chapters such as ‘Types of Mysteries’ and ‘How to recognise the Culprit’.

However, Mr Arthur Driscoll was also resolving his case, which was given to him by Mr Dahl. He almost resolves the case until Mr Dahl comes to him and tells him that the culprit had confessed his crime himself. The detective then doesn’t demand any money as he didn’t solve the investigation completely, but he was still given a reasonable amount of money by Mr Dahl.

One night of an unusual day, Nigel was at his home and was wearing a shirt with a name ‘DAHL’ printed on its back. He receives a call from his father. He picked up the phone and answers the call:

‘Yes Dad, when are you coming home?’

‘Nigel, today I won’t be able to come home, I’ll be staying at your Uncle Simon’s home.’

‘Well, okay then…’ he replies getting a little disappointed. ‘So, when will you return from there?’

‘Ummm, by tomorrow.’

‘Okay…bye.’

He ends his call and switches off his cell phone.

Nigel hears his doorbell ring. He goes to see who was on the gate and opens the gate to see that it was Gerard. Gerard smiles and asks,

‘Can I come inside?’

‘Sorry, I’m busy right now, please can you come later.’

‘Come later? Is this how you talk to your guests?’

Nigel gets a little angry but allows him to enter inside.

As Gerard goes towards the living room, he sits on the large sofa. Nigel gets a glass and fills it with a soft drink. He puts the glass on a table that was right next to his house’s main entrance and exit door.

Nigel comes to the living room and says to Gerard:

‘A glass of drink is kept at the exit of house. If you want to have it then go and get it yourself.’

‘You may be good in comedy, but your fate has played a better comedy with your life.’

‘Oh yeah, thanks for letting me know that.’

‘I know why you hate me,’ Gerard says looking aside. ‘It’s because I always tell you the truth that you can’t face.’

‘No, I don’t hate you. Actually, whenever I see you I feel like becoming a murderer, but you should be thankful of the fact that I hate people such as serial killers, assailants and other type of murderers.’

‘What you like and dislike is not my concern. My concern with you is about telling you how low and disrespectable you are…’

‘Oh, really?’ Nigel says looking at him.

‘Yes, tell me your mother died of diabetes? No. She died because of your millionaire father who never kept her happy. Your father just married another woman after her death because he had no grief about her first wife’s death.’

Nigel angrily grabs him from his collar and pulls him to make him stand up,

‘You know Gerard, that you’re just jealous. Because you don’t possess the things that I do.’

Nigel then drags him hardly towards his exit door and pushes him away,

‘I’ve had it with you. Now just get out of my house before I kick you out myself.’

Gerard begins to walk outside seeing the soft drink in the glass. He says to Nigel before leaving:

‘Your mother Stephanie lives alone in that house; do you know why? Because she is a characterless woman who is actually unfaithful to her husband.’

Gerard leaves after saying this. Nigel gets very angry on his last words and then he says:

‘That’s it, I’m going to kill him for this.’

He rushes out of his home and rushes towards Gerard leaving the main door of his home open. Gerard runs away faster, Nigel chases him off at the corridor. Nigel stops suddenly and thinks:

‘Why am I getting my hands dirty on him?’

He then walks back and reaches his home. He enters inside, as the gate was open. As he locks his door, he looks at the wall clock and the time was 10:45. Seeing the time, he picks up the glass and takes a sip of the soft drink.

The Assassination

Next morning, Nigel is sleeping but gets disturbed by his cell phone ringing. He wakes up and sees that it was his father’s brother Simon Dahl’s call.

‘Hello, good morning uncle!’ Nigel answers the call in a sleepy voice.

‘A tragedy has happened,’ his uncle replies weeping.

His uncle tells him something, which makes him stand up suddenly on his bed getting badly shocked,

‘What the hell do you mean?’ Nigel asks angrily and sadly.

‘Come here as soon as you can.’

‘I’m on my way,’ he says hastily.

Half an hour later, at Burlington Street’s Bungalow, Nigel arrives in his car and sees a few police vehicles along with an ambulance standing outside his uncle Simon Dahl’s house. Nigel runs faster in a hurry and enters inside. He sees his father lying dead on a bed, with a dagger stabbed on his chest. His dead body’s photographs were being taken. Nigel walks towards his father not believing what he was seeing. One of the police officers follows him and says:

‘I’m really sorry for your father’s death.’

‘This was not just any sort of death,’ Simon cries. ‘He was murdered by someone as I told you.’

‘I know it very well that this is a high profile assassination.’

Nigel leans down and badly weeps hugging his father. The police officer says to Simon:

‘I know this is a bad time for both of you, but we need to ask you what happened last night…because this is not just an ordinary death. It’s an assassination of a well-known personality.’

‘Not now sir, after the funeral,’ Uncle Simon says.

‘Mr Simon you can’t burry him right now,’ the police officer says.

‘Why not?’ Simon asks angrily.

‘Because we found chloroform on his face, which means his body needs to be taken away for the post mortem.’

Nigel stands up angrily and says:

‘You are not taking him anywhere. I will not allow my father’s body to be cut open.’

‘Look, you’re not getting the point,’ officer says trying to convince, ‘Mr Steve Dahl’s assassination is a breaking news for people of Toronto, they’ll need an answer for this case’s investigation.’

‘Then just give this case to Mr Arthur Driscoll,’ Simon replies.

After the Funeral

Few days later, at Mr Steve’s funeral, everyone among the family members and other office employees had arrived. All the men were wearing black suits. Nigel had quite overcome his sorrow, but was now mystified about the murderer. He had decided that he would solve this mysterious case himself, especially with finding the person who had stabbed his father to death.

He sees that the red haired guy Oliver is standing there pretending to be sad, but is actually happy about this murder. Nigel tells himself to keep an eye on this guy.

As the funeral was about to be over, Nigel sees a strange sort of woman who had just arrived. She was wearing black clothes and was smoking her cigarette. He gets a little suspicious on her and goes towards her. As he gets closer, she says:

‘You must be Nigel?’

Nigel then stops and gets a little more suspicious,

‘Yes, by the way who are you Ma’am?’

‘Your father must have told you me. A lady who had always been against his progress and success in his businesses.’

‘…Miss Kim?’ he asks concentrating on her words.

‘Yes, Kim R.’

Telling her name, she leaves him and walks towards her husband.

Nigel keeps on looking at her and sees that her husband seemed quite younger than her. He goes towards Uncle Simon and says to him:

‘Uncle…that lady Miss Kim was my father’s business rival.’

‘How do you know that?’ Mr Simon asks.

‘Dad had told me about her, he said that this lady had always been against him in business. She was always in competition with him.’

‘Oh…what else did he tell you?’

‘He told me that she could be a threat.’

‘Well, don’t worry about that,’ Mr Simon says, ‘we’ll catch the culprit, and we won’t spare him alive.’

‘Yeah, for sure!’

The funeral goes on for a while and before leaving, people try to console Nigel courteously. Nigel and Mr Simon get surprised of the fact that Steve’s wife Stephanie didn’t attend the funeral.

That night after the funeral, Nigel was at his own home with a photograph of his father’s dead body stabbed with a dagger. He keeps on looking at the picture and says:

‘This is my father’s murder case…I will do the investigations myself. I won’t take anyone’s help. I will follow the rule of three things: Proofs, Suspects and Witnesses.’

Then, he takes out a piece of paper and gives a title heading ‘My Suspects’, and then he writes three names. Before writing the third name, he stops and thinks for a while, but still writes to gather as many suspects as possible. The three names were:

1-Oliver

2-Kim R.

3-Uncle Simon

After writing down he picks up his cell phone and makes a call to his Uncle Simon. Mr Simon answers the call:

‘Hello, Nigel?’

‘Uncle, I need to ask you something?’

‘Sorry, but do you know that your mother’s in hospital?’

‘What happened to her?’ Nigel asks getting a little worried.

‘Your father’s death gave her a shock which led to a nervous breakdown.’

‘Oh, that shouldn’t happen, but Uncle I need you to narrate me the incident of that night.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m doing investigation of my father’s case,’ Nigel replies firmly.

‘You don’t need to. Mr Arthur Driscoll has already been given this case. And you don’t need to worry when Mr Driscoll is working for you, because no culprit can escape him.’

‘Oh, my God, just wait a second,’ Nigel says getting a little angry, ‘I don’t get it, who gave Mr Driscoll this case.’

‘I did.’

‘Look uncle, I’m sorry to say this but this was a stupidity that you did without letting me know about what you’re up to.’

‘What the hell do you mean, Nigel?’

‘I’m going to work out for this case myself, I don’t need Mr Driscoll to interfere in this matter.’

Nigel ends his call saying this and switches off his cell phone. After that, he decides to go back to the detective’s home and stop him from doing this investigation.