Yours Naturally-21
“It is not a natural death nor is it the last.” The investigating officer paced his horizontal office in quest of a vertical solution.
“Six murders in a row, now it will be the 21st?” The assistant couldn’t assimilate the superior ideology.
“Yes,” pat came the official reply, “The 21st would be a suicide; suicide by the offender.”
Lost in heady sensations, the officer scribbled some numbers interspersing calculus signs in between. Like a teenager, he was enjoying his mathematical encounters.
The number play was increasing the ambiguity around the mysterious deaths. One, not two nor three, total six exploring minds had ventured into the oblivion.
***
Media thronged the courtroom, clicking forced pictures of Dr. Khurana, the research scientist. Fame was tamed to iron clutches in the court of law.
“Officer, please enlighten the courtroom how you convicted our suspect in the court of law?” the public prosecutor wanted to display the proficiencies of the CBI at the earliest.
“My Lord, the six murders which were projected to be as natural deaths, were planned with a formula. All the six of them were scientists working at Haffkins who were given regular doses of methyl mercury mixed in tea, by Dr. Khurana. This drug is neurotoxic, resulting in slow death mimicking a natural one.” The officer spoke without an exhalation.
“But why only these people?” the probing continued.
“What no one knows is they all have a common thread of receiving their patents. The first soul had received one patent, the second two and so on in a serial order till the sixth victim had a collection of six.”The grey cells of the brown uniform smiled.
“Smart! But what made you think that our Dr. Khurana would be the murderer who will try committing a suicide?” The thirst for details was unquenchable.
“Now the mathematical wizard he is, Dr. Khurana used maths to meticulously plan these murders. I came to know of him being the next target after six was when the scientist with seven or eight patents, were not harmed at all. Secretly, the tea samples of the scientist were checked every day which lead me to discovering the poison in Dr. Khurana’s tea. Arithmetic Progression, 21 is the sum total of first six natural numbers and our Mr. Newton has 21 patents to his credits.” The courtroom applauded the revelation.
Yet our civil servant was not satisfied, “So he wanted to end himself fearing sabotage?” the lawyer continued the dissection.
“I think our hero would like to answer that.” Officer grimaced.
Nonchalantly, the pride spoke, “The Sapiens have overruled even god. With each new invention, there is death of US by an egocentric ME. I can create, I can destroy. I’m supreme. I didn’t want the world to see more inventions which would wipe off the running race. Yet with the application of this formula, I wanted US to become immortal in history.” This time the courtroom was silent. Some revelations made you stoic.
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