The Murvelli mansion was standing in the middle of the busy town. A large duplex fenced round with a strong iron gate, with a feeder road running outwards towards the town.

Detective Kellington rang the bell and Usman, the security, allowed him entrance.

As he slowly walked towards the building, he gazed round studying each detail of his immediate surroundings.

Inside the house, he met three other men and two women. There was Rose the wife, Beatrice the cook, Martin the janitor, Cyril the gardener, and Hutton the driver.

The face of Rose Murvelli was buried in a handkerchief and the cook had an arm around her madam, trying desperately to console the lady, while herself fought a losing battle to keep her own tears from flowing. They looked up as the detective walked in.

"I am Detective Kellington from the police department." he brought out his identity card while studying everyone's face.

It was with a rather grim expression with which they welcomed him.

Rose sniffled and finally spoke up: "And how can we help you, detective?"

"Oh, regarding the singular tragedy which occured in this house in the early hours of the morning, I'll need to ask a few questions," replied Max.

"As you can see here, hardly anybody is in the right frame of mind for such. And by the way, there has been an arrest already and we weren't informed there was going to be another investigation."

"There wasn't until about an hour ago. But you have nothing to worry about, do you?"

"Of course not." She snapped.

Max watched her teeth shut tightly together as if trying to hold herself.

"Anything to help the police," she murmured.

"Now that's more like it. Can someone be so good as to lead me to the crime scene?" Max asked with a grin.

The tall lean janitor stood up. "Sir, you come with me."

Max was led from the living room to a flight of stairs unto the second floor. At the top of the stairway, there was a corridor running on both sides of which the janitor walked in the right direction. Max followed after him.

There were rooms on both sides of the corridor. Max counted four on the left, and three on the right. The third room on the right was a large one that took up the space of two.

They walked past two doors and they came to the third one(the large room) and opened. Max thanked the janitor and asked him to leave. He then walked into the room.

It was a wide spacious room. The large kingsized bed was lying at the left corner and a nightstand beside it. The window in the bedroom was locked tight, it had obviously not been opened for sometime. To the far right, there was another compartment separated by a hollow painted partition wall. This other compartment was the study.

Max went through the entrance and into the study. There was a shelf stacked with books, and other academic material but no sign of the little bottle of liquid which Jason has spoken of.

There were two chairs and a reading table, a laptop and several open books were lying on the black leather covered table. Max observed each with detail.

Several patches of the prints of palms were vaguely visible where hands must have been placed on the table. There were imprints positioned close to where the blood-stained chair was(probably where Murvelli was seated during the night), and also on the opposite edge of the table and the left edge.

Max noticed the imprint of the palms but not all where of the same size. Two were a little smaller but more impressed than the rest. Also there were two half burnt matchsticks on the table and traces of cigarette ash.

He could see a huge amount of blood stains on the chair with little dried droplets on the floor. He squatted and observed the floor with his fingers. The tiled floor was cold, clean and spotless as if it had been scrubbed very recently.

He stood up and walked to the window. It was a sliding glass window which was slid shut but practically not locked. He slid open the window and looked out. He could see the clear view of houses for miles.

He placed his hands on the window sill and thought about the crime. It just didn't make sense. If Jason hadn't killed the man, then who did? There has to be a motive, a congent reason why anyone else would want him dead.

As Max pondered on the issue, he suddenly felt that he was rubbing moist sand on the window sill. He looked and saw there was a patch of  mud on the outward side of the window sill which would not be visible when the window was locked. Mud, Max thought. But of course, it rained during the night... How did mud from the ground get to the second story of a duplex?

He moved his finger along the window sill and noticed a scratch on the wall near the window sill. He squinted to have a better look at the scratch. The scratch of concrete was apparently fresh. "Hmm, queer," Max said to himself. "Well time to have a chat with the household.

He left the room and went down to the sitting room. He decided to begin his interview with the wife of the deceased.

They both went to an empty room where they could talk privately.