“You said that you miss a child in your life,” Sonia began. “That was only partly true. You do miss him, but not because you don't have a child but because you
have
a son whom you cannot claim as yours!”
Her words fell like a bomb in the hall. Medha drew in her breath sharply and her eyes darted wildly to her husband. Revati's face registered shock. Even Jatin, who was rather inconspicuous until then, turned in his chair, his mouth agape.
“This is utter nonsense!” Medha raised her voice, offended to the extreme. “You are insulting my sister—”
But Pradnya raised her hand to silence her. “Sonia is absolutely right, Medha. Yes, I have a son. One I've never been able to call mine. When . . . when that thief ran away, I . . . I was pregnant, though I didn't realize it until later. I was against abortion. I went to a place where there were no prying eyes and delivered my baby!”
“Pradnya! You . . . you don't know what you're talking about!” Medha remarked faintly, wildly clutching her husband's hand. Her voice shook uncontrollably.
Her sister turned to Sonia. “If you could read so much from my horoscope, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me where he is right now.” She leaned towards Sonia and asked almost defiantly, “Where is my son?”
Sonia smiled at the older woman's challenging look. “I don't need to read your horoscope for that. I'm already aware of the identity of your son, and of his whereabouts! Your son is right here, in this house, isn't he?”
Pradnya stared at Sonia in silence. Then she looked at the figure in the corner and smiled sadly. “Yes,” she admitted softly. “Sushil is my unfortunate son.”
As the words were uttered, all pandemonium broke loose. Medha uttered a loud, hysterical “No!” Kaki, the housekeeper, froze like a statue at the kitchen door. Thunder clapped so deafeningly that everyone jumped, startled, and Revati screamed. Simultaneously a mug crashed. And then, like a masterstroke, the lights went out. The house was plunged into darkness.
“Oh God!” Revati exclaimed. “Gaurav, where are you?”
“Right here!”
“Kaki, get the candles, please!”
“Yes, sir.”
“It's all your fault, Pradnya! You lied to me! You—”
“Shh . . . not now, Medha. Pull yourself together.”
“Is the fuse this side of the hall?” Inspector Divekar asked.
“In the kitchen. I'll check,” Mr. Tupay replied.
As clamor gripped the house, Sonia rose. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the hall for a brief instant. Shadows molded into solid shapes and, casually, Sonia's eyes moved to the corner. The remote figure sat in its dazed state, like a blind man, his hands placed on the table, beside the napkin, a pitiful, melancholy outline. She was about to move when someone banged into her. An apology sprang to her lips but was curbed by a sudden ear-splitting sound. The shot was followed by an agonized scream of a woman.
“What happened!” someone yelled.
“Don't move, anybody! Ritesh, show me the main electricity switch. Jatin, move towards the kitchen,” Inspector Divekar snapped orders in the darkness.
A cold gust of wind made Sonia shiver. Minutes later, the hall was flooded with lights. She blinked at the glare.
“Pradnya Aunty!” Revati screamed.
All eyes were riveted on Pradnya, who lay in a crumpled, awkward heap on the sofa. A dull red mark was soaking her off-white blouse. Inspector Divekar pushed his way through the horror-struck family members and checked her pulse.
“Alive,” he observed tersely. “The bullet grazed the right shoulder. The impact and pain made her faint. I'll call the Doctor immediately.”
While Sonia and Ritesh Tupay did their best to arrest the flow of blood, the Inspector called for medical aid. It took a while for the Doctors to make their way through the storm, but soon Pradnya was driven away in an ambulance.
As the ambulance disappeared into the night, Medha dissolved into bitter tears. “What in heavens is happening in this house! I hope to God she lives! I really don't care if she lied or kept secrets, but she must live! I must go to the hospital. . . .”
“She'll be fine, dear. Just stay calm. And you will go to the hospital once this matter is cleared up,” her husband consoled.
“But who shot at her? And why?”
“I hope Inspector Divekar will have an answer to that most crucial question.”
The Inspector glanced at Sonia, who was staring at the door where Kaki stood.
“That is the kitchen, adjoining the hall, isn't it?” she asked the housekeeper. “Can I take a look?”
Sonia headed towards the kitchen, followed by Inspector Divekar and Jatin. Kaki made way for them to pass through into the huge room. An oval jute rug covered the stone slabs of the floor. On the wall opposite, closets curved round a long cooking platform. A dining table was placed beside another door. Sonia opened this door and immediately a gush of wet wind swept into the room. She shut the door at once, shivering. Her gaze glided along the floor and caught a small pool of water, at the bottom of the wall. Just above the puddle of water was the main electric switch of the house.
The water trailed out of the kitchen. With a frown of concentration, Sonia followed it to the corner table in the hall. Another puddle glistened under Sushil's chair. He remained motionless, his eyes closed and the napkin on his lap. Nonplussed, Sonia returned to the kitchen and stood in the middle of the room. Inspector Divekar was studying two coffee mugs on the table. He touched them. They were warm.
“Kaki, did someone have coffee in the kitchen a while ago?” he asked.
“Yes, the gardener came in, wet and shivering, so I offered him some coffee. Then I went out into the hall to collect the empty mugs. That's when the lights went out.”
“But he wasn't in the kitchen when the lights were switched on?”
“No. Actually, I didn't even think of him. My first thought was naturally for my Sushil. But poor Sushil was right there, as unconcerned and detached as ever. The gardener must have left to check if everything was okay outside.”
“Yes, quite likely,” the Inspector agreed.
As Inspector Divekar continued his examination of the kitchen, Sonia took her place on the sofa in the hall, thinking very hard. Medha was sobbing softly now and the two lovers were talking in low tones. Jatin took the seat beside Sonia.
“Anything I can do, Boss?”
“Any ideas?”
“The gardener?”
Sonia nodded silently. She wished she were back in her office with the music blaringly eliminating the unnecessary details. Quite unexpectedly, a scene from a film knocked on her mind. The hero is traveling in a train and a blind beggar passes him, singing an old song. The hero listens for a few minutes, then drops a coin in the beggar's extended palm. The coin is not a reward for the quality of the man's singing but because the song has triggered some hidden memory in him. It had deeply touched a core, a sentiment, she recalled. The scene stuck in her brain. . . .
Her hand casually riffled through the horoscopes lying on the glass centre table and she flicked them open, one by one. Suddenly, she stiffened. A finger twirled a lock of her blunt cut, as she bent her head over a horoscope. The seconds ticked by. Jatin waited, an expression of awe and respect on his face. He knew his boss's mind was racing and calculating. Finally, she raised her head and he caught the full impact of the triumphant glitter in her eyes.
“Jatin. I need to speak to everyone. Not Sushil, of course. Kaki can stay with him. But not here. Find out if we can meet in a quiet room. Perhaps a study?”
Minutes later, Sonia, Jeevan Uncle, and Jatin were shown into a spacious, thickly carpeted study. Maroon velvet–cushioned armchairs surrounded a huge teakwood table. Mr. and Mrs. Tupay seated themselves opposite the Inspector and Jatin. Gaurav settled himself behind the table, while Revati leaned casually against it. Sonia paced the floor.
“Are we just going to chew over the issue?” Ensconced in a deep chair, Inspector Divekar raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Or do you have an answer to this riddle?”
“Possibly, if I can straighten the muddle in my head,” Sonia replied. Her gaze took in each member of the family. “That's what I'm going to do, try to clear the muddle. And I want you all to listen and help me. One thing puzzles me immensely. Something was expected to happen tonight—I mean, everyone was waiting—subconsciously—for some kind of incident, but it was on Revati's account.” Sonia stopped pacing and studied the girl. “Revati was getting the threatening letters and that was the reason why you were here in the first place, Jeevan Uncle.”
“That's true,” Inspector Divekar acknowledged.
“But it was Pradnya Joshi who turned out to be tonight's victim! Why? There are several theories to that. First, the culprit had planned this attack all along. Second, someone entirely different pulled this stunt, capitalizing on the already strained situation. And third, it was a spur-of-the-moment change of plan on the part of the culprit. If you choose the last option, then the question arises—what made the culprit change his mind? Obviously, something did—was it something that transpired during the evening? Something that he or she
heard
?”
“My theory is that this is an outside job,” Inspector Divekar stated firmly. “After all, we cannot ignore that puddle of water under the main switch and near the table.”
“You mean the gardener?”
“On pretense of getting a cup of coffee he came inside, switched off the lights, then approached the table, fired at Revati as was his intention all along, but missed in the dark.”
“And then left through the kitchen door,” Sonia completed, nodding. “I did feel a cold gust of wind in the dark. But someone also banged into me a split second before I heard the shot. Someone in direct range of Pradnya, with a deliberate intention of harming her!”
“So you mean . . .”
Sonia faced the assembled group of people. “I am merely trying to piece together a distorted picture, trying to make it a whole with some sense. We have some pretty good evidence of what happened here tonight, though at the moment nothing seems to have bearing on anything else! Someone banged into me, a gust of wind, and pools of water in two different spots. Now let's rearrange the course of events in the form of a story.
“Actually, it was when we were discussing Pradnya's horoscope that I got the first hint of something being amiss. She was talking about her former fiancé when she halted and stared at the window. She seemed shocked, as if she'd seen a ghost. She clearly saw something or someone outside. I believe it was the gardener, looking in at the window. He came in to have a cup of coffee. He waited until Kaki went out into the hall and then he quickly moved to the switch and turned off the lights. Coming into the hall, he banged into me, fired at Pradnya, then escaped through the kitchen door.”
“But why Pradnya?” Jatin asked. “I mean, what motive could the gardener possibly have to shoot Pradnya?”
“Because Pradnya
recognized
him when she saw him at the window,” Sonia answered. “He was her fiancé, the thief who made off with her jewels and left her pregnant!”
“What!” Jatin exclaimed.
“Her fiancé! What would he be doing here?” Medha Tupay asked incredulously.
“You could be right,” the Inspector accepted thoughtfully.
“But there's a hitch in this story. A point which had been bothering me,” Sonia added reflectively. “If the gardener shot Pradnya, what about Revati and those threatening letters? Could that mean that there were two different people involved in this business? But this incident seems too hinged together to be played a coincidental part by two strangers. Then there's also that pool of water at Sushil's feet. How could it have got there? It surely was an important clue. Therefore, I reconsidered the evidence. There's only one way that puddle could have found its way under the table. Unless Sushil himself went out in the rain and returned to his seat . . .”
“That's impossible!” Revati ruled out.
“Sushil does not go unattended anywhere at all,” Mr. Tupay explained.
“He has to be led everywhere. How can he just get up and go out in the rain like a normal person?” Medha protested. “Don't you see, he's unaware of what's happening around him. He's like a child, lost in his own world, he's unsound of mind.”
Sonia quietly absorbed the spontaneous defense of the family members. It was obvious that they loved Sushil a lot and felt deep sympathy for him.
“Yes, I know,” she agreed gently. “That leaves us just one other solution. Someone who had been out in the rain had taken the same position as Sushil. To be precise,
sitting
in Sushil's chair!”
“But Sushil was there all along! You saw him and so did Kaki,” Jatin argued.
“Precisely. And that was how I began thinking, I mean really thinking. All evening I had this odd feeling that I was participating in some kind of charade, a drama being enacted before my eyes. There were characters in the foreground and in the background. Initially I concentrated on those who were obviously active. But gradually others—the subtle ones screened either by their absence or immobility—came sharply into focus. I had been seeing things, hearing them, gathering disjointed information from voluntary expressions and forced confessions. The links were available, ready to be gleaned and put in a logical sequence of a composite whole. Revati and Sushil growing up together as close friends, Revati's engagement, Sushil going crazy, the threatening notes. Facts which could be coerced into a sensible whole. And that's exactly what I'm going to do now. Reconstruct the story.”