Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Missing Servant

"So I take it we'll be sticking to our usual routine," she said to Puri after they had exchanged pleasantries.

"You know the old saying: 'Why fix what isn't broken?'" answered Puri.

Mrs. Duggal, a petite auntie who wore her sporty silver hair pulled back, smiled her innocent smile.

"I must say, I do so enjoy our little forays, Mr. Puri," she said in her quiet, lilting voice. "Retirement is quite all right. It's wonderful seeing the grandkids growing up. Did I tell you Praveen won a silver medal in breaststroke on Friday? I can't tell you how proud we all are. I wouldn't have missed being there for the world. But sometimes I do find myself pining for the old days. I miss that sense of adventure."

No one meeting Mrs. Duggal or passing her in Panchsheel Park where she took her morning walk with her neighbor, Mrs. Kanak, would have imagined that she had worked for RAW, India's secret service. During the 1980s and '90s, Mrs. Duggal and her husband, a career diplomat, had been stationed in some of India's most high-profile foreign high commissions and embassies. Ostensibly, she had worked as a secretary, taking dictation, typing and answering the telephone. But secretly her mission had been to keep tabs on her compatriots-diplomats, bureaucrats, administrative staff and, most important, her fellow spies.

To this day, not even her husband or children knew of Mrs. Duggal's so-called double role and the fact that she was a decorated national heroine.

While based in Dubai, she had identified the traitor Ashwini Patel and prevented him from betraying the identity of the highly placed Indian mole working inside Pakistan's secret service, ISI. During her four-year stint in Washington, Mrs. Duggal had discovered that the Military attache was having an affair with a Chinese spy and had seen to it that the hussy sent phony naval plans to her superiors in Beijing. And in Moscow she had collected evidence of the High Commissioner's involvement in the Iraq Oil for Food scandal.

For the past four years, though, Mrs. Duggal had been enjoying her well-earned retirement back in Delhi. She passed her days playing bridge, spoiling her grandchildren with home-made ladoos and spending long weekends with her husband, now also retired, by the Ganges in Haridwar.

Occasionally she also did freelance jobs for Puri, whom she had worked with some fifteen years back when she had needed discreet investigation into the Moscow embassy's chef.

Her usual part was that of the detective's wife, for which Mrs. Duggal needed no disguise. She was dressed in the understated style that had worked so well for her during her undercover days: a simple but fetching beige silk sari with gold zari design, a black blouse, a pair of sensible heels and a modest selection of kundan jewelery.

"You're very sober, Mrs. Duggal," commented the detective as the car pulled onto the main road to NOIDA.

"I'm glad you approve," she replied. "You know I'm not one for gaudy colors."

Puri gave her a couple of Flush's ingenious sticky bugs, one of which looked like a wasp, the other a fly, and explained where he wanted them placed.

Mrs. Duggal popped them into her handbag, where she also kept her lock-picking tools: a couple of hair grips and a metal nail file.

"Should be child's play for two old professionals such as ourselves," said Puri.

"Just as long as I'm home by eleven-thirty, Mr. Puri. My husband will be expecting me. Any later, and he'll start thinking I've got a boyfriend."

The two chuckled as the Mercedes sped along the new three-lane toll road.

Half an hour later, they were standing in the elevator heading up to the twenty-second floor of Celestial Tower.

A long, carpeted corridor with wood-paneled walls and air-conditioning vents purring overhead led to the executive penthouse.

Puri rang the bell and the door was promptly opened by a servant, who ushered them into a spacious, dazzling white apartment. He was relieved to find it crowded with members of the Gupta and Kapoor families and their closest friends. Among such a large gathering (the party was at least seventy strong), no one would notice a couple of old gate-crashers, let alone challenge them. Indeed, as the detective and his escort stepped through the door, looking for all the world like a respectable auntie and uncle, they were greeted warmly by Mahinder Gupta's parents. It did no harm that Mrs. Duggal wobbled from side to side with "arthritic" hips and grimaced each time she put her right foot forward.

"Monty Ahluwalia and my good wife," Puri said in halting English with a deep, provincial drawl as he shook Mr. Gupta by the hand.

"Such a beautiful apartment," commented Mrs. Duggal to Mrs. Gupta. "You must be very proud."

The four of them engaged in small talk for a few minutes. It wasn't long before the Guptas revealed the apartment's whopping price tag: five crore.

"Of course, it's absolutely rocketed up since then," Mr. Gupta told Mr. and Mrs. Monty Ahluwalia. "Our son spent fifteen lakhs on the bathroom alone."

"Seventeen lakhs actually, darling," cooed Mrs. Gupta, going on to describe the Italian Jacuzzi bathtub. "The toilet's also amazing. You know, it flushes automatically, has a heated seat, a sprinkler system and a bottom blow-dryer! You really must try it."

As Mr. and Mrs. Monty Ahluwalia began circulating among the other guests (and trying the Japanese hors d'oeuvres, which the detective did not rate, grumbling to a fellow Punjabi that he was a "butter chicken man through and through"), Puri began to understand why Brigadier Kapoor was so against his granddaughter's marriage.

The Kapoors belonged to the refined, elite classes of south Delhi: military officers, engineers, the odd surgeon and one Supreme Court judge. Puri could picture them at cultural evenings at Stein Auditorium or the IIC, wine tastings at the Gymkhana Club and art exhibitions at the Habitat Center.

Indeed, as the detective and Mrs. Duggal mingled, they overheard some of them discussing a retrospective of the Indo-Hungarian artist Amrita Sher-Gil, which had been showing at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Elsewhere, an uncle in a blazer, striped cotton shirt with French cuffs and loafers was telling another uncle, who was dressed almost identically and had a matching greying moustache, about the cruise he and his wife had recently taken around the Great Lakes. And at the far end of the room, Brigadier Kapoor himself, dressed in a three-piece suit and standing with his silver-haired wife at his side, was telling another elderly auntie in a mauve sari about a charity dinner that he and Mrs. Kapoor had attended at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Gupta clan, by contrast, was drawn from the Punjabi merchant castes. All the younger men seemed to have salaried positions with IT multinationals and worked twelve-hour, six-day weeks. They wore off-the-rack suits and gold watches, had gelled hair and talked mostly about the markets, Bollywood and cricket. They smoked, drank and laughed raucously, occasionally giving one another matey slaps on the back. Their wives showed a fondness for chunky sequined heels, garish eye shadow and either sequined cocktail dresses or Day-Glo saris worn with strapless, halter-style blouses. Four of them were clustered in the kitchen admiring the stainless steel extractor fan.

"Wow!" one exclaimed. "So shiny, yaar."

Puri and Mrs. Duggal chatted for a while with Gupta's fiancee, Tisca Kapoor, who seemed like a sensible, articulate woman, if hugely overweight and clearly nervous about how the two families were getting along. As they talked, the detective dropped his napkin on the ground and attached a bug to the underside of one of the faux alligator-skin side tables.

He and his partner in crime then split up. The detective crossed the room to the gas fireplace, where he attached another device to the back of one of the photo frames, and then went in search of a Scotch on the balcony.