We had heard the story from Police Inspector Ramani Mohan Sanyal. Byomkesh and I had met Ramani babu when we went to a large city in western India on some secret government work. Due to red tape in government work, our work was getting delayed hence we were sitting doing nothing in the Dak bungalow. Ramani Babu used to come to our bungalow almost every evening, and we used to have a good chat. His face was very sweet and charming. But that is his disguise. In fact, he is a very clever and intelligent policeman. His age was less than ours, not more than forty years. But our conversations were very interesting and lively cause we belonged to the same field of catching criminals.

It occurred to us that his frequent visits to us could not be of unselfish kindness; I was waiting in the hope that his purpose of frequent visit would be revealed in due time. Then one day he told us a story. Not exactly a story but a series of events related to a murder.

After finishing his story, Ramani Babu said, " Byomkesh Babu, I know who the killer is, I know why he killed; But still, I can't hang the man on the gallows. I don’t have any evidence. The only way is confession if the accused admits the crime himself. You have a lot of tricks in your head, can't you come up with a plan to trap the guy?

Byomkesh smiled and said, "I'll think about it.

"The story attracted me; It seems that Byomkesh's mind will also be drawn towards it. After Ramani babu left that night, Byomkesh said, 'Can't you write a story from the series of events that Ramani babu told us?

I said, "I can. The series of events are interesting. Only I have to understand the psychology of the characters and twine them together."

Byomkesh said, "Then write. But there is one condition: Please don’t distort the facts to make the story interesting.”

I said, "you don’t have to remind me of that.”

It took me two days to write the story. After finishing the draft, I gave it to Byomkesh, who read it and said "It seems to be correct. Let's read it to Ramani babu and see what he says.

"When Ramani Babu came at night, I let him read the story. After reading the draft he looked at me with joy and said, “this is it! This is exactly how the events happened and you have done a great job in intertwining the events together in form of a story.

Below is the story.

Shiv Prasad Sarkar was a rich man in this city who was made it big from his liquor business. His was a workaholic and had accumulated a lot of money, besides a huge house, and expensive cars. People called him a miser, he called himself a wise spender. The line between these two attitudes is very thin and we