by Tarquin Hall
Dutifully, Mary drained the cup and Rumpi took it from her.
“Now, look at me, child,” said Mummy.
Mary’s brimming eyes met those of the older lady.
“Tell me. Did you work for this family?”
The maidservant’s lower lip started to tremble. “Yes, I worked for them,” she admitted, and burst into another fit of sobbing.
When it had passed, Mummy said, “If you are the same servant girl called Mary who worked for this family and you are alive, then Shri Kasliwal is innocent. You will have to go to Jaipur and help clear his name.”
The suggestion engendered a terrified reaction. “No, madam, I cannot go!”
Rumpi took Mary’s hand in her own.
“Would you want Shri Kasliwal to go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit? He is innocent.”
Mary hung her head again. “Madam, I cannot go,” she repeated.
“You must,” said Mummy. “It is your duty. You have no choice in the matter. The destiny of this man and his family is in your hands. But you will not have to face this alone. I will be with you.”
Twenty-six
Before driving Mary and Mummy to Jaipur, Puri went to the Gymkhana Club to meet Brigadier Kapoor’s granddaughter, Tisca.
Their meeting was set for eleven o’clock in the morning, but the detective arrived a few minutes early to peruse the noticeboard in reception. The lunch menu promised Toad in a Hole and Pinky Pudding. Three more names had been added to the list of membership applicants. And there was a new notification signed by Col. P. V. S. Gill (Ret.), pointing out that hard shoes were to be worn in the building at all times. RUBBER SOULS CAUSE SQUEEKING AND ANNOYANCE, it stated.
Wearing his nonsqueaking shoes, which he’d changed into before entering the club, Puri made his way to the front lawn. There he ordered tea and cucumber sandwiches and sat down at the most secluded table he could find—a good twelve feet from a gaggle of aunties talking in loud voices about how much money they’d made on the stock market.
At the far end of the lawn, a mali was cutting the grass with a manual mower drawn by a buffalo.
“Uncle, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have that much of time,” said Tisca Kapoor when she arrived, lowering herself into one of the cane chairs, which was barely wide enough to accommodate her wide girth. “Pappu Uncle asked me to meet you, but he wasn’t at all clear about what it’s about.”
“Actually, my dear, I have come as a friend to discuss your proposed marriage,” said Puri.
Tisca Kapoor rolled her eyes. “That’s what I was afraid of,” she said. “You’ve been asked by Brigadier dada-ji to talk some sense into me, no? Well you might as well save your breath, Uncle. Quite a number of aunties and uncles have tried before you. I love my grandpa very much and he’s a national hero and all, but I’ve made my choice and I have my parents” blessing. That should be enough. Buss.”
“I’m asking for a few minutes of your time only,” said the detective. “You are quite correct. Your grandfather asked me to look into this matter and, during my investigation, I’ve come across certain information. This information is of a most highly delicate nature, to say the least. I’m in no doubt—no doubt at all, actually—that if your grandfather came to know what I’m now knowing, the wedding would be most certainly getting over in a jiffy. That is why I have come to you first. So, please do me the courtesy of answering a few questions. I have your best interests at heart, actually.”
“You’re a private detective, is it—a kind of Indian Sherlock Holmes?” asked Tisca Kapoor.
“Sherlock Holmes was fictitious, but I am very much real,” answered Puri. “Yes, I am a private detective. The best in India, actually, as many important personages will attest. They’ll also tell you I am a man of great discretion.”
He poured them both some tea.
“Now, tell me how came you to know Mr. Mahinder Gupta?”
Tisca Kapoor hesitated and then said with a sigh, “We studied together—him and me.”
“At Delhi University, correct?”
“I see you’ve done your homework, Uncle.”
“You were sweethearts, is it?”
“Just friends, actually.”
“And then?”
“I stayed in Delhi; he went to Dubai. But we kept in touch. Last year he moved back to Delhi and we started spending time together. In August, we decided why not go the marriage way.”
“You’ve not considered marrying before?”
“There’ve not been a lot of takers—not with my weight and all,” she admitted.
“Why him all of a sudden?”
Tisca Kapoor smiled. “We’ve always got along, actually.”
“So it’s a love marriage, is it?”
“Certainly I love him, yes.”
“And he loves you, my dear?”
Tisca Kapoor hesitated again. “I believe so,” she answered. “Certainly he’s very devoted and kind.”
Puri drank half a cup of tea, stuffed a cucumber sandwich into his mouth and chewed.
“So I take it you won’t be wanting a family,” he said, his mouth half full.
“Why do you say that, Uncle?” she asked, sounding more cautious.
“You must be knowing about his problem.”
“Problem? What problem? I don’t know of any problem.”
“It will do you little good to pretend, my dear,” he said. “My investigation has been most thorough. I know everything. My only concern is you are not being deceived. If Mahinder Gupta has been one hundred percent honest, then that is your business. Certainly, I would keep his secret safe from your grandfather.”
She said nothing in response. Her expression betrayed both alarm and helplessness.
“It’s my guess you’ve known what he is for many years. Perhaps he confided to you at university. Or you discovered it by chance,” prompted Puri.
There was a long silence and then Tisca Kapoor said in a quiet voice, “It was at university. Everyone else teased me about my weight. None of the other boys gave me a second look. But Mahinder was always kind to me. We used to talk for hours and hours. About everything under the sun. I suppose I fell in love with him. One day I told him how I felt, but he ran from my room and after that he didn’t talk to me for two weeks. Then, one day, he came to see me and told me that we could never be together. That was when he revealed his secret.” She lowered her voice. “That was when he told me he was born a eunuch.”
Tisca Kapoor’s throat had gone dry and so Puri poured her a glass of water.
“You mustn’t be embarrassed, my dear,” he said. “In my profession I’m often called upon to put aside the detective and become the psychologist. There is little I have not heard.”
Tisca Kapoor sipped the water gratefully and nodded.
“Understand, Uncle, this is something I’ve never told another living soul. Mahinder made me promise. He said his parents had hidden the truth from the world at his birth. Otherwise the hijras would have come and claimed him.”
“They were right to do so,” interjected Puri. “They would most certainly have taken him.”
“That is why all through his childhood they kept it a secret. But also, had anyone at school ever found out, he would have been the laughingstock. That is why Mahinder has always been an extremely private person. He’s kept himself to himself. But he’s very sweet, I can assure you.”
“So now all these years later you’re getting married. Is it only for convenience sake?” asked Puri.
“I’ve always loved Mahinder,” she said. “But, yes, partly it is for convenience. There’s so much pressure to marry, Uncle. My mother has been after me for so long! Now at least she’ll be off my back!”
“She’ll be after you for grandchildren next,” said Puri. “What will you do?”
“We’ll adopt,” she answered. “One girl and one boy.”
“It’s all decided, is it?” asked Puri
“We have it all planned out.”
>
The detective nodded knowingly. “Well, it’s as I suspected. Just I wanted to check you weren’t being taken advantage of.”
“So you won’t tell anyone?”
“My dear, you can trust me on that score. Confidentiality is my watchword, actually,” said Puri with not a little bravado.
Tisca Kapoor, soon to be Gupta, sighed with relief. “You’re too kind, Uncle. I can’t thank you enough.”
The detective beamed with pride. “No need for thank you, my dear. I’m only doing my duty.”
They walked back through reception and Puri saw her to her car. “What will you tell my grandfather?” Tisca Kapoor asked before driving away.
“I’ll tell him you’re betrothed to a good man,” answered Puri, but it was not a conversation he was looking forward to.
Twenty-seven
Puri’s Hindustan Ambassador reached the Jaipur courthouse at a quarter to five the following afternoon.
It was the first day of the Ajay Kasliwal “Maidservant Murder” trial and the proceedings had been under way for a couple of hours.
Outside the main entrance, the media had gathered in full force. Six uplink trucks were parked on the pavement, their satellite dishes emblazoned with the logos of the nation’s English and Hindi 24-hour news channels. Eager, earnest reporters posed in front of cameras mounted on tripods, relaying live developments to tens of millions of potential viewers spread across the three million square kilometers that separated Kashmir from Kanyakumari. Photographers in sleeveless khaki jackets sat bent over their WiFi-enabled laptops transmitting the images they had captured an hour earlier of Kasliwal being led into court. Meanwhile a clutch of grizzled hacks milled around the chai stand, smoking laboriously, swapping disinformation and falling prey to their own self-deluding rumors.
Had any of them but known the identity of the shy, frightened young Jharkhandi woman who passed within a few feet of them, they would have surrounded her in much the same way Indian crows will ring and taunt a street cat if they spot it out in the open.
But the press-wallahs’ scoop passed up the steps of the courthouse undetected.
Once inside, Puri led Mummy, who in turn was holding Mary by the hand, down the busy corridors until they reached the door of Court 6.
Already a crowd was waiting outside, all of them jostling for position and trying to cajole the peon on the door to let them in despite the sign that stated boldly, HOUSE FULL.
For once, Puri’s powers of persuasion failed. The peon would not budge. “Naat possi-bal,” he kept saying.
Mummy scolded her son for his failure.
“That’s no way to go about things, Chubby,” she said after he had been rebuffed for the third time. “How a son of mine ended up with cotton wool in his brain, I ask you? Evidently, a woman’s touch is required, na. I will take care of it.”
Puri bristled. He had had grave misgivings about bringing along Mummy. But he had been left with no choice. Mary needed a chaperon and Rumpi needed to be at home to oversee the preparations for Diwali.
“Mummy-ji, please. I told you, don’t do interference. I will sort it out,” Puri insisted.
“Chubby, when you’ll accept you don’t have power over everything, na? A helping hand is required from time to time.”
Mummy’s words echoed those spoken to Puri by Chanakya in the dream he’d had in his office; for once, he was dumbfounded.
“What did you say, Mummy-ji?” he asked her.
She tutted impatiently. “It’s time to put away your pride, Chubby. I’m your mummy, after all. I’ve your best intentions at heart. Right now, a woman’s touch is required. Now, you two go and sit. Jao!”
For once, Puri did as he was told and took a seat with Mary on a bench a few feet down the corridor.
With all the noise created by so many people coming and going from the various courtrooms, Puri was unable to make out what Mummy said to the peon on the door. But gradually the man’s demeanor softened and then tears welled up in his eyes.
Finally he signaled to the detective that he could enter the court after all.
“What all you said to him?” asked Puri.
“No time for explanations, na,” she answered. “Let us say mummies have their uses after all. Now go quickly. Might be he’s changing his mind. So corrupt these people are. We’ll wait right here.”
Inside the courtroom, the gallery was packed with spectators, all of them sitting in silent, rapt attention to the cross-examination of Inspector Shekhawat by the defense counsel, Mr. K. P. Malhotra, who was living up to his reputation as a fearsome advocate.
“Inspector, you say you found bloodstains in the accused’s Tata Sumo,” he was saying. “But I put it to you that this blood could have come from anyone. Another passenger with a bleeding nose, perhaps.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that the blood is the victim’s,” answered Shekhawat.
“Surely it is the responsibility of the police to offer proofs, is it not? Two and two should always equal four. Is that not correct, Inspector Shekhawat?”
“I can provide three witnesses who saw Ajay Kasliwal pull up in his Sumo and dump the servant girl’s body on the Ajmer Road,” he answered.
“We will come to that in a moment,” said Malhotra. “But let us first consider these bloodstains. I put it to you…”
Malhotra lost his train of thought as he read the note Puri had managed to pass to him.
“Mr. Malhotra?” prompted the judge. “Are you with us?”
“My apologies, Your Honor,” answered the lawyer, looking up from the note with a bewildered expression. “I have just been informed of what could well be an extremely dramatic breakthrough in my client’s defense. Might I take a moment of the court’s time to confer with one of my associates?”
“This is highly irregular, Mr. Malhotra, but I will grant you sixty seconds.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Lawyer and detective exchanged a few quiet words and then Malhotra continued with the cross-examination, taking it in a new direction.
“Inspector Shekhawat, how can you be so sure that the Kasliwal family’s maidservant Mary and the body found on the Ajmer Road are one and the same?” he asked.
“Two of her co-workers identified the victim from a photograph taken by the mortuary photographer. Three part-time employees at the house did the same.”
“And if Mary was alive today—let us imagine she walked in here right now, for example—those same witnesses you mentioned would be able to identify her?”
Inspector Shekhawat replied confidently with an arrogant smirk. “Without doubt.”
“I have no further questions for this witness,” said Malhotra. “But I reserve the right to recall him.”
Shekhawat was excused.
“Your Honor, I would like to call a new witness who, I feel confident, could save a great deal of the court’s time,” said Malhotra as the inspector resumed his seat in the gallery to watch the rest of the proceedings.
“It is teatime,” grumbled the judge.
“Your Honor, if you will allow me five minutes, I believe we can clear up this whole matter.”
The judge gave his consent.
“The defense calls Mary Murmu,” announced Malhotra loudly.
“Who is Mary Murmu exactly?” asked the judge.
“Mary Murmu is the alleged victim, sir, the Kasliwal family’s former maidservant,” replied the lawyer nonchalantly.
Malhotra’s answer elicited a collective gasp. Every head in the court turned to look at the main door.
In the dock, Ajay Kasliwal stood on his toes and craned his neck to see above the sea of heads.
The door opened again and Mary stepped through it, her head covered by her pallu and eyes cast down, with Mummy by her side. Together they walked slowly through the gallery until they reached the bench and the former maidservant was escorted to the witness stand.
“State your name for the record,” she was told by Judge Madan in H
indi as Mummy took a seat nearby.
Mary mumbled a response.
“Speak up, girl, and show your face!” he ordered.
She stated her name again and pulled back her pallu.
“My name is Mary Murmu,” she said clearly for all the court to hear.
“Liar!” screeched a woman’s voice in the gallery.
Mrs. Kasliwal was standing, pointing an accusing finger at the witness.
“That’s not her!” she screamed. And then she fainted and fell to the floor.
The courtroom descended into bedlam.
Twenty-eight
Facecream was crouched behind a shrub in the back garden of Raj Kasliwal Bhavan. It was nearly eight o’clock and pitch dark. She had been there for over an hour keeping watch at the rear of the house in accordance with Puri’s orders—delivered by Tubelight when the Kasliwals were still in court.
“Boss will arrive around eight,” he’d explained. “Munnalal’s murderer is still at large. He might try to take out Boss. So be on your guard.”
Facecream’s position to the right of the servant quarters provided a commanding view of the garden and the interior of the sitting room. The curtains had not been drawn, which was unusual. But then, today was proving to be anything but routine.
At breakfast, Madam had been in an uncommonly pleasant and buoyant mood, talking confidently on the phone about how Mr. Malhotra was going to make short work of Shekhawat’s case.
“It will soon be over,” Facecream had overheard her tell someone.
But at around 6:30 in the evening, when her freed husband had brought her back from the courts, Mrs. Kasliwal had been completely hysterical.
“Vish Puri will ruin us all!” she’d screamed. “Don’t let him into the house!”
Shortly afterward, the family doctor had arrived and given Madam a sedative that had put her to sleep. His patient was not to be disturbed, he’d insisted. The arrest and trial had exhausted her.
In accordance with the doctor’s instructions, Ajay Kasliwal had excused all the servants from their duties for the evening—apart from Jaya, who’d been told to make sure there was a ready supply of cold hand towels to cool Madam’s forehead and ice for Sahib’s whisky.