“Did she have a legacy of some royal family in Japan?”

“Yes, how did you know,” Alexei asked Alyssa.

“Oh, just guessed, it seemed like a royal name,” she completely avoided the topic of the story.

“What is this doing in the room of a writer?”

Everybody looked towards Michael to find a screw-driver in his hand.

“How did it come in here? I don’t have a car service kit. This doesn’t belong to the house,” Alexei’s eyebrows were knit in a frown.

John meanwhile was searching that same place when he placed his hand on a weird musical instrument. The wood of the instrument was scratched at places. But why would anyone do that?

It was certainly done with the same screw driver. Someone had definitely tried to open the screws of the device, but wasn’t successful due to the rusted screws.

“What’s this called? It seems to be old,” John deftly covered the scratches.

“It’s called a melochord. It is Spanish in origin as far as I know,” informed Mr. Ivanov.
John was busy rubbing his hands on the scratched parts. His mind was working fast.

“Oh my God! There seems to be a search which had been done here, a thorough search,” screamed Linda standing in front of an open drawer, in which the costly linen were a mess.

“But the police never touched those cupboards,” commented Alexei.

“Somebody seems to have stuffed things in a hurry,” Linda was thoughtful, “But the question is why?”

“There are lots of whys in this case. Friends, just jot down the whys and the clues,” commanded Michael.

They all set to obey at once.
All except Alyssa and John.

Alyssa was reading and rereading the story which seemed to make no sense. But few words like ‘royal’, ‘jewel’ ‘Japan’, ‘kill me’, seemed to faze her. She suspected strongly, that that was a true incident. Not just any random story.

John on the other hand had jotted down only five phrases.

Puncture wound

Victim sleeping probably!!!

No struggles/muffled shouts????

Lateral chest wall

Coronary artery blockage.

He circled the blockage and wrote ‘thrombus’, with red ink.
And then he went on round and round, circling the puncture wound.

Finally he asked, “Is that brother, Takeshi, a doctor?”

“Yes, he’s her personal doctor too,” said Alexei.

“How does Takeshi look,” Nathan was on the edge of his seat in excitement.

He had bumped into the probable killer, the night Midore was murdered.

“He is ordinary looking, pale face, glasses…”

“Yes, glasses, and long coat,” jumped up Nathan.

“Yes, he wears a coat sometimes and he is tall. But how did you know?”

“Umm, I kind of bumped into such a person when I was sneaking out that night.”
His revelation made everyone stunned around.

“Y…You saw the probable k…killer and you never informed us,” Michael’s panicked voice was heard over all other mutterings.

“I wasn’t sure,” Nathan said in a small voice.

“It’s okay kids. Nothing can be done now,” sighed Alexei, ‘We can’t just blame him. We need evidences. As of now, we have none.”

517 words...
TO be completed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dedicated to another awesome reader of mine The_Dweeb for reading my VA fanfics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~