Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Missing Servant

The detective looked at his watch; he'd been asleep for more than half an hour.

"Yes, by all means," he said drowsily, buzzing in his secretary.

The test Elizabeth Rani was referring to was the analysis of the mystery liquid Mrs. Duggal had retrieved from Mahinder Gupta's bathroom.

After looking over the results, and drinking a cup of chai, Puri called Flush on his mobile phone to tell him the news.

"It's testosterone," he said.

"Is that all, Boss?"

"You sound disappointed."

"It's very common for guys to take that stuff these days, Boss," Flush explained. "Everyone who goes to gyms is taking it. They all want Salman Khan muscles, so they're pumping themselves full of dope. It's readily available on the black market. Most chemists will sell it to you."

"I don't doubt Gupta wants big muscles," said Puri. "But from everything we've learned about this man and his habits, I have a feeling his motives are different."

"HIV, Boss? Maybe that's why so much of his hair is falling out."

"No, something else. Find out his doctor's name. Has he seen him lately?"

Puri had given Rumpi and the servants strict instructions to make Mary feel welcome and asked them to put away the Hindu idols for a few days (he had to keep up the pretense that he was Jonathan Abraham, after all). He'd also sent Sweetu to his cousin's house for a few days because he couldn't be trusted not to blurt out the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Mary's father only stayed at the house for a couple of hours and then headed back to the train station. His wife and younger daughter needed him at home, he explained to Rumpi.

A tearful Mary saw him off and then joined Monica and Malika in the kitchen, where she helped them prepare lunch.

When asked where she had worked before, she told them that this was her first job.

After lunch, Monica and Malika showed Mary the laundry room and taught her how to use the top-loading washing machine, which had to be filled with buckets of water because there was rarely any in the taps after eight o'clock in the morning.

Rumpi then took her shopping at a nearby market for new clothes. Mary picked out a few bright new kurtas, salwars and chunnis, some underwear and two pairs of chappals. Puri's wife also bought the new maidservant a hairbrush and various bathroom necessities.

The next stop was a small private health clinic run by Dr. (Mrs.) Chitrangada Suri, MD, who gave Mary an examination. The doctor found that she was suffering from dehydration, malnourishment, worms and lice, and immediately wrote out prescriptions for a couple of different medicines, vitamins, minerals and oral rehydration salts.

Talking in English so Mary would not understand, Dr. Suri also told Rumpi that the girl had tried cutting her wrists within the past few months and although the blood loss had probably been significant, she was young and seemed to have bounced back.

That evening, after Malika returned home to her family, Mary and Monica made the evening meal, did the washing up, took down the laundry from the roof, ate their dinner and then went for a walk in the neighborhood.

They passed many other servants working for other households out enjoying the cool evening. Monica stopped to chat and gossip and bought them both ice creams from a vendor with money that Rumpi had given them specifically for the purpose.

At 8:30, they sat down with Madam in the sitting room to watch Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki , one of India's most popular soaps. Set in the home of a respectable industrialist family, the serial nonetheless featured shocking twists and turns with extramarital affairs, murders, conspiracies and kidnappings.

In the latest development, the main daughter-in-law had had a face-change operation and turned up as the wife of another man. But Monica said this was because the actress playing her had been fired after demanding a salary increase.

At nine o'clock, Rumpi said that Sahib was expected home and that it was time to sleep. A second mattress had been arranged on the floor in Monica's small room and lying on it was a new Bagha-Chall set. Mary's eyes lit up at the sight of the pitted wooden board and the bagful of pretty, polished stones, and she eagerly accepted Monica's challenge to a game.

Mary proved a demon player, easily beating her opponent.

"I'm village champion!" she said. "I could beat all the men if they would play me!"

The two of them then settled down for the night and Mary was soon fast asleep. But Monica lay awake for a while, wondering why her new roommate was so sad and why she wore her bangles to bed.

Around midnight, she awoke in a fright. Mary was sitting up, screaming.

Monica jumped up and turned on the light and then put her arms around her new roommate, telling her that it had only been a bad dream. Now awake, Mary fell back on her pillow and started crying.

"I lost him!" she sobbed. "I lost him!"

"Lost who?" asked Monica.

But she didn't answer and cried herself back to sleep.

Flush called Puri the next morning to give him the name of Gupta's doctor.

"How did you find it so quickly?" he asked him.

"He went to see him before reaching office," answered the operative.

"What's the doctor's name?"

"Dr. Subhrojit Ghosh."

"Six-B Hauz Khas village," said Puri.

"You know him, Boss?"

"Indeed I know him," said the detective with a chuckle.

"Well, Boss, it's definitely Dr. Ghosh who prescribed Diet Coke testosterone. Afterward he went and bought more supplies."

"Good. Well done. Now pack up and get out of there."

"The operation is finished, Boss?"

"I'll be taking over," said Puri. "If Gupta is seeing Dr. Ghosh, there is only one meaning."

Puri drove to the leafy area of Hauz Khas in south Delhi, built amid the ruins of the ancient Delhi Sultanate.

Dr. Subhrojit Ghosh practiced in the basement of the same two-story house that his father had built and in which he had grown up.

It had been more than six months since Puri had been there, but he knew the place well. He and the doctor had met during one of his first cases. The erudite Dr. Ghosh had been recommended to him as an expert on a medical matter. In the years since then, Puri had turned to him on many occasions for advice and the two had spent many a pleasant evening sitting in the Gymkhana playing chess and talking politics.

Puri opened the gate and, instead of knocking on the front door, which led to where the family lived, he made his way down the side of the building to the clinic entrance.

After letting him in, Dr. Ghosh's assistant asked Puri to wait in reception. He sat down on the cane couch and picked up a copy of the Indian edition of Hello! The cover featured a leading Bollywood actress who had cropped up during one of Puri's more sensational matrimonial investigations a few years earlier-the Case of the Absconding Accountant. She had been an unknown then and in the process of bedding half the producers, directors and leading men in Mumbai.

The spread pictured her sitting on a white couch with her parents and her pet poodles. "Putting Family First" read the headline.

With a disdainful chortle, Puri tossed the magazine back onto the table just as the door to the doctor's office opened.

"Hello, old pal, this is a surprise!" said Dr. Ghosh with open arms. "Long time no hear, eh, Chubby? How long has it been?"

"Too long, actually," answered the detective, embracing his friend.

"Well, come in. You'll take some chai?"

"And some of those chocolate biscuits you keep hidden in your drawer."

Puri stepped into the office and sat down in one of the two chairs in front of Dr. Ghosh's desk.

"Extra sugar for my dear friend," Dr. Ghosh told his assistant before closing the door behind him and sitting down in the chair next to Puri.