“Existence is not a precondition to knowledge! Anyway, Dhiresh Kapoor may be dead, but he didn't live in a void. He had a past, a life that was as real as yours or mine. Moreover, the law of nature dictates that our past always overtakes the present to affect our future and the future of our near and dear ones. Mr. Dhiresh Kapoor needn't be an exception to this rule!”
Jatin nodded as he jotted down her instructions. The pen weighed heavily in his starved, weak hand! It was unfair working on an empty stomach. He would have to make this objection clear to his boss in their next official meeting! Feeling most disgruntled, he returned to his table and picked up the receiver and dialed 183 for telephone inquiry. How in heavens was he going to trace the bank numbers!
Nevertheless, half an hour later a very different Jatin rushed into the inner office. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“Your hunch proved right, Boss! I spoke to the Manager of the bank of Delhi and he gave me a detailed report on their ex-manager Mr. Kapoor! You'll love to hear this! Kapoor was accused of embezzling money from the bank! And the amount is huge! About twenty million rupees!”
“Wow!” Sonia exclaimed. “So what happened?”
“Unfortunately, nothing happened. Before any legal action could be undertaken, Kapoor vanished from Delhi. The police searched high and low for him, but he'd done a clean disappearing act!”
“Obviously, he came here to Pune with the noble intention of starting all over again! But the guilt wouldn't permit him to live peacefully. That's why he committed suicide . . .” Sonia remarked contemplatively. “You know, Jatin, crime is a little like drinking liquid in a moving vehicle. It's very tricky business. You may succeed in drinking a sip or two, but invariably, some of the liquid spills on the floor, or on the dress, leaving telltale marks. Sooner or later, those marks are discovered! How did the Manager react to the news of Kapoor's death?”
“He did not mince words! He thought the man deserved a prison sentence! They had some rather incriminating evidence against him.”
“Did
you
tell him about Kapoor's suicide?”
“Oh no. He read about it in the papers.”
Sonia paced the floor of the office, meditating deeply. “I wonder if Kapoor's wife knows anything about that money, now that he is dead. I'll have to meet with her again.”
“But, Boss, what about Neha Gulati? Where does she fit in all this mess? Is he or isn't he her husband, Tushar?”
“Honestly, I'm as much in the dark as you are! However, I
have
formed a vague, foggy picture from the statements of Uma the maid, Neha, and Mrs. Kapoor. The common features were that he frequently changed jobs, was educated, dignified when sober, but spoke of lots of money when drunk. It is now pretty obvious to me that the man who embezzled the money and Mr. Dhiresh Kapoor are one and the same. But is Dhiresh Kapoor Neha's husband, Tushar? There's also the fact that he kept telling Uma that she reminded him of someone—who could it be? It could be Neha, but then, it could be someone else. Yes, there's a possibility that he could be Neha's husband, but I am not confident enough to publicize my conclusion. Something's holding me back—and I simply can't seem to conquer the feeling that I'm way off the mark!”
“But you
are
gaining ground, Boss!” Jatin said encouragingly.
“Of course we are! Goodness, I can hear hunger rumbling inside me! Why haven't you ordered lunch? How many times have I told you not to skip lunch for work? My brain simply refuses to respond on an empty stomach!”
“Right away!” Jatin hastened out of the room, hiding a smile.
Sonia gazed across the room at Mrs. Kapoor and Mr. Jaidev. The latter was of medium height, a hefty man in his late thirties with a few grey hairs immediately above his forehead. But it was his ever-shifting gaze that struck Sonia. Jaidev's small coal-black eyes seemed to be constantly searching, without focusing on anything particular.
“It's true that my husband was accused of embezzlement,” Mrs. Kapoor conceded in a low voice, “but he didn't do it!”
“How can you be so sure?” Sonia asked the widow gently.
“Oh, because I know my husband!” Mrs. Kapoor exclaimed with sudden spirit. “He would never do anything like that! He told me so and I believe him!”
Sonia frowned. “But if you were so convinced of his innocence, why did you both suddenly leave the city and come to Pune? Why didn't you fight it out and get his name cleared?”
Mrs. Kapoor flashed an appealing glance towards Jaidev, who sat placidly at her side with a non-committal expression on his face. Receiving no aid from him, she turned to Sonia with a sigh.
“Will you believe me if I tell you that I had absolutely no idea why we suddenly left Delhi? My husband simply announced the change and all I did was follow. It was only when we came here that I realized, by and by, that something was not right. My husband had become an entirely different person. One evening, in a moment of acute depression, he confided in me. He was bogged down by the hounding unjust accusations and couldn't face the injustice of it all! I think that was the main reason why he committed suicide. He realized that the
badnami
—the bad name—would follow him wherever he went!” Mrs. Kapoor said in a sad voice.
Sonia folded her arms. “I'm afraid I still fail to understand why he fled from the accusations instead of taking them by the horns, so to say!”
“You don't understand because you didn't know my husband. Dhiresh was a weak kind of person, unable to cope with the pressures of life, kindhearted, who wouldn't hurt a fly! He found life unbearable if he saw a mother hitting a child or if he saw a child throwing stones at a street dog! He was totally misfit for this hard and cruel world. That's the reason why, when the world turned against him, he took the chance of leaving it forever!” Mrs. Kapoor spoke with a distinctive reverence in her voice.
“Mr. Jaidev, do you agree with . . . this character sketch of your friend?”
“She couldn't have expressed it better. Mrs. Kapoor has described my friend perfectly,” he replied gravely.
“Thank you, both of you,” Sonia remarked, picking up her handbag. An idea was beginning to jiggle about in her mind, and she realized that she had to get out of the confines of this location. The stagnated atmosphere of the house and the overhanging feeling of death suddenly seemed to suffocate her.
Without preamble, she headed towards the gate, opened it, and for a moment turned around and glanced at the building. The house, she thought, looked like a stale cake, crumbling at the corners and without its icing.
“Here's the telegram! With all the details you need!” Jatin handed his boss the paper.
Sonia almost snatched it in her eagerness. “It's taken long enough! I've been waiting for this bit of information for three days. And I had to keep all my theories suspended in the meanwhile! From this information, I can write out Tushar's horoscope.”
Without further ado, Jatin inserted a cassette and a
ghazal
floated soothingly into the air. Sonia immediately turned to the shelf. Her hand traveled along the almanacs of different years, paused on the one she was looking for. She carried it to the table, looked up the month, and referred to the time. On a plain paper, she began drawing the horoscope. Her pen plotted the chart with the numbers which represented the different zodiac signs. It was when she began filling the twelve squares and triangles with the constellations that her heart began an unexpected tattoo. She'd seen this combination before! In fact, she'd seen this horoscope several times in the past week. Hastily, she completed plotting the horoscope. Then, riffling through the documents on her desk, she produced the first three horoscopes, the ones Inspector Divekar had sent to her. With an almost feverish anticipation, she brushed aside the mess on the table. Her trembling hands carefully laid out all the horoscopes side by side. Mr. Dhiresh Kapoor, Mrs. Kapoor, Jaidev, and . . . the fourth and final one—Tushar! Her gaze moved back and forth. There wasn't an iota of doubt. This was Jaidev's horoscope all over again, number by number, star by star! And with the clarity of lightning, the pieces of the puzzle converged into a shocking picture.
Sonia leaned against her chair, fighting to compose herself. The wave of excitement at the sudden discovery of the truth—stark and horrible—was ebbing slowly, leaving her cold and weak. She had to act quickly before it was too late.
She pressed the buzzer and Jatin popped his head in.
“Yes, Boss?”
“Jatin, you have to leave immediately—I want you to fly to Delhi—today. You have work to do!”
“Fly!” His eyes shone. “I've never been in a plane before. . . .”
“There's always a first time!”
“Yes, but can we afford it? Five or six thousand one way . . . that makes it twelve thousand rupees! What's so urgent?” he asked sensibly.
“Everything! We don't have a moment to lose! Now listen very carefully and make no mistake about it! You have to work fast and efficiently!”
Jatin caught the infectious streak of anxiety mingled with excitement and without another word whipped open his pad. Her instructions followed one after the other.
“And remember, the moment you lay your hands on it, call me up directly! I shall be near the phone all tomorrow morning!”
“Right, Boss! I'm going to love this!” Jatin rubbed his hands together, an anticipatory gleam in his eyes.
“If all goes well, I'll be glad, too!” Sonia remarked in a more sober tone. “Now get going!”
Sonia paced the room, her eyes shifting restlessly from the telephone to the wall clock. It was past ten. The offices in Delhi should be open by now. Why hadn't Jatin called? She slowed her frenzied steps, shaking her head. There was no need to get panicky. She couldn't change the past but she had done all she could for the present, to see justice done. She had rung up Inspector Divekar and he had promised to follow her lead. The rest would have to wait until the proof was in her hands.
The phone shrilled like sweet music into her reflections. Sonia rushed to pick it up.
“Boss? I've found it! You hit the nail dead on the head!” Jatin's excited voice rang into her ear.
“Excellent work, Jatin! I promise you a raise for this case!”
“Wow, thanks, Boss! It took me some time, going through all the newspapers, contacting their offices. But I found it ultimately!”
“You can fly back now, and don't forget to bring a copy of the paper with you! In the meantime, I'll set the cat on the mice!”
“I can't believe it! You did it again! With the same technique—I wonder what the critics will have to say about this one!” Inspector Divekar asked with a guffaw.
“Wait a minute! I'm still in the dark about a lot of things,” Mohnish interrupted.
They were all sitting in Sonia's office—Inspector Divekar, Mohnish, Jatin, and Nidhi, the privileged one, on Sonia's lap.
“I have yet to be told the whole story,” Mohnish insisted. “All I know is that Mrs. Kapoor and Jaidev have been arrested for murder. So those two
were
romantically involved and had to get rid of the husband?” Confusion was written on his handsome face.
Jatin glanced at his boss, candid admiration in his expression. “Boss, why don't you explain the hows and whys of it? I'd love to hear it, too!”
Sonia smiled a little bashfully. “Sure!” She caressed the cat with a loving hand. “But first let's have some
chai
with plenty of milk!”
After Jatin poured out the hot beverage, Sonia continued. “On the face of it, this did seem a very simple case of Bigamy. Until I met Uma the housecleaner and Mrs. Kapoor. They narrated some rather contradictory things about Mr. Kapoor, which sometimes rang true and often rang curiously made-up. Dhiresh Kapoor kept referring to another woman whenever he was drunk and with Uma—that made me wonder if he was indeed referring to Neha. But he also claimed that he had money, and that did not fit the description, since Neha's husband was a poor fellow. I realized later that what he meant was that he
would be getting a lot of money
! What was also strange was the way Mrs. Kapoor shuttled between the present tense and the past tense whenever she spoke about her husband. She seemed confused, and at the time, I excused her, thinking that she was prostrate with grief and a distraught person and was finding it really hard to cope with her husband's death!
“Then I had the opportunity of going through the three horoscopes and I got a clear insight into the natures of each person. It was when I saw Mr. Kapoor's horoscope that I noticed the inherent crookedness of character. Something stirred in my mind. I decided to check up on his record at the bank, where, true to my suspicions, we discovered that he was involved in a fraud of twenty million rupees! When I confronted Mrs. Kapoor with the accusation, she gave me such a graphic and pathetic description of Mr. Kapoor that she almost managed to convince me! She would have been successful, too, but for the fact that the devoted and glorified image of her husband that she created for my benefit was in direct contrast to my readings of his horoscope. That was the point where this whole business began to ring entirely untrue and I began to have serious doubts about the couple.
“Also, keeping in mind the fact that Dhiresh had embezzled money from the Delhi bank, I wondered why the couple had not changed their name when they came to Pune. I mean, that would've been the obvious thing to do. Change name and settle in another place, so as to start life all over again. Especially if you are guilty. But what really clinched the matter were Tushar's birth details! When I charted his horoscope from the almanac, I got a shock. Neha had claimed that Mr. Kapoor was her husband, so going by her claim, Mr. Kapoor's horoscope should have
matched
Tushar's horoscope! But that was not what happened. It was
Jaidev's
horoscope that was an exact duplicate! This mix-up floored me for a moment, until truth dawned! I had two options before me. If Jaidev's horoscope matched Tushar's, then
Jaidev
ought to be Neha's husband, which he
wasn't
! And if Mr. Kapoor was Neha's husband, then his horoscope ought to have matched Tushar's,
which it hadn't
! Since both these calculations misfired, I decided to approach the problem from another angle. Keeping Neha's claim as the right hypothesis—that Mr. Kapoor was actually Tushar—I matched
the horoscope with the face
—
Mr. Kapoor's face!
And realized that that was exactly what Mrs. Kapoor had done! Remember, she had refused to give the original horoscopes. She had copied them down for us. Only, while doing so, she had changed the names, or should I say, she had left the original names intact. She labeled
Jaidev's
horoscope as
Dhiresh Kapoor
and put
Jaidev's
name on the other horoscope, the one she told us was her dead husband's!”