“And my friend, Alfred Bates is back,” Detective Henry Cornwall tells the audience at the police station.

“Where have you been all this time?” the detective asks the most-awaited question.

“Well I was first in Toronto to visit my family and afterwards went to London to meet some friends,” Bates replies.

“What happened in London, won’t you tell us?” Henry asks again.

“He has just returned Henry, give him a break,” Captain Sebastian Kent puts in. “Meet me in my office, Bates.”

“Ok sir,” Bates follows Captain Kent back into his room.

“There are strange happenings going around in the city,” Captain Kent gets down to business. “I have just been informed that a gang has held people hostage in the National Bank and they want my best man to negotiate.”

“You can send anyone from the precinct, boss,” a jetlagged detective advises the captain.

“They are not my best man … you are!”

“As you wish boss … but what if I fail?” Bates asks the captain before leaving for the assignment.

“Have you ever?”

“You don’t want to know,” Bates says to himself as he heads to the National Bank in his car.

“My name is Alfred Bates and I am the Head Detective of Precinct 7,” the famous detective introduces himself to the gang through a glass door at the bank. “What are your demands?”

“We want safe passage to the airport otherwise we will harm the hostages,” a masked man, supposedly the leader, replies.

“I can’t let you do that sir,” Bates replies with authority, worrying the in-lookers.

“Are you nuts man?” the masked robber replies.

“No I am not … but may be you are.” the detective tells the worried man with the gun.

“I will shoot this man and then you’ll know who is nuts.”

“Actually my friend you will not do any such thing,” Bates says as he tries to enter the bank. “In fact you will not stop me from entering the bank.”

“Look people, the best police detective doesn’t care about your lives,” the robber tells the hostages. “He wants me to shoot one of you.”

“… but he knows you can’t,” Bates stands in front of the man with the gun and tells him to his face.

“Are you sure?” the robber wipes out sweat from his face and fires the gun.

Click.

“The gun didn’t fire because it had no bullets,” the detective tells the relieved hostages. “He knew that even then he tried to pose as if he had bullets and was ready to fire.”

“You will have to pay for this,” the robber exclaims as the constables enter the premises and take him away in handcuffs.

“Well done Alfie,” the captain says as he comes inside the building after watching the hostages leave. “How did you know he didn’t have bullets in his gun?”

“Simple deduction, boss!” Bates tells his supervisor. “There were many factors that contributed to this decision.

“When I entered the parking lot of the building, I saw the security van that had two flat tires,” Bates begins his explanation. “Now only a novice bank robber would do such a thing otherwise he could have used the van as a getaway vehicle.”

“I am listening,” the boss says with his arms on his chest.

“He wasted two bullets on the van; two were used to damage the security cameras in the parking lot,” the detective continues. “That makes it four bullets out of six. The guy used his last two bullets in the bank, firing in the air to attract everybody’s attention.”

“But he could have had ammunition with them?”

“He could have but he didn’t since he wasn’t carrying anything in his pockets,” Bates tells his Captain. “He had no accomplice, wanted to get back at the bank for something and above all, it was his first attempt at robbing a bank.”

“How could you deduce that he was a novice?” the captain asks.

“The guy was sweating like crazy even in a centrally air conditioned building,” Bates explains in his usual calm manner. “He didn’t know that there was a safe way out from the back, didn’t carry a bag with him to take out the cash and kept asking the security guard for keys to the lockers.”

“What’s wrong about that?”

“The manager has the keys in the National Bank,” Bates tells his superior. “The manager was amongst the hostages and hid his badge to become one of them instead of standing out.”

“Good thinking by the manager but tell me one thing … you foiled a hostage situation on the basis of a hunch!” Captain Kent tells his best man.

“There are no such things as hunches sir … either something you know; or you don’t. Luckily for me, I deduce,” Bates tells his boss as he sits in his car and drives off into the sunset.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 19th, 2015