It was Lakshman who broke the silence,"You did nothing wrong. I would have done the same in your place."
Jatayu looked relieved, as if a load had been lifted from his shoulders. He nodded.
"You said it was a group of riders who did this to you. Do you remember their faces? Can you identify them if you saw them again?" Ram asked.
"I will never forget them as long as I live."
"Good. We shall start with scanning the near and dear ones of Garib Das and the servants in his house. If we can catch even one of them alive, it will be a huge help."
Over the next ten days, that's what we did. We took Jatayu, of course in disguise, to our meetings with Garib Das's family and friends. The pretext we used was that we were investigating the murder. He was able to identify a few of them as his tormentors.
Once we had covered the inner circle of Garib Das, guards were sent out in the dead of the night to pick up the culprits. We wanted the arrests to be kept secret for as long as possible. This enabled us to work without any political pressure, at least for a couple of days.
The really tough part came next. We needed at least one of these people to confess to the crime. Jatayu had murdured a man, so his word in the case was suspect. The law required us to verify his claim.
"Just give me an hour with one of them. I can get you the confession," Lakshman said.
"What do you have in mind?"
As Lakshman explained, we couldn't help smiling. This should work.
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