Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“You told Inspector Singh you had a headache, is it?”

“That’s right. I came home and used some Muchukunda.”

“That is what exactly?”

“You’ve never heard of it, Mr. Puri?” Sharma tut-tutted and wagged a finger at him. “It’s an Ayurvedic remedy. A paste that is applied to the forehead. Much better than aspirin. It’s been used in India since time immemorial.”

Puri tried making a note of it, but his pen didn’t work. He chose another from the four in the outside breast pocket of his safari suit, but that one didn’t work either. The same was true with the next.

“Just the humidity is wreaking havoc,” he said by way of an apology.

“Here, take mine,” said Sharma impatiently.

The detective wrote down ‘Muchukunda’, checked that he had got the spelling right, and then asked: “You saw anything unusual, sir?”

“Unusual? Mr. Puri, I believe the entire incident falls under that category, does it not?”

“Yes, sir. You saw any suspicious persons around the place?”

“After Dr. Jha was murdered the place was mobbed by people. Dozens of them sprang from nowhere. It was complete chaos.”

“You didn’t see any ice cream wallahs, for example?”

Sharma gave him a quizzical smile. “So early?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I did not.”

Puri could sense that his time was running short; he got in his next question quickly.

“Dr. Jha was known to you?”

“I met him yesterday for the first time,” Sharma replied briskly. “And now, Mr. Puri, I must get on with my work. I’m giving a lecture at the Habitat Centre this evening and I need to prepare.”

“Actually, sir, one last question is there.”

“Last one?”

“Undoubtedly, sir.” Puri paused. “Just I wanted to ask, it was your first time at this Laughing Club?”

“That’s right.”

“How you came to join exactly?”

“I heard about it through somebody – a friend, I think. I’m in need of exercise so I thought I’d give it a go.”

“Forgive me, sir, but you look fit already, if I may say so.”

“Well, looks can be deceptive, Mr. Puri. I am in as much need of exercise as the next man. And they say laughter is good for you.”

“You enjoyed it, sir?”

“Now that’s four more questions, Mr. Puri, and frankly I fail to see the relevance. But seeing as you ask, I did not enjoy it. There’s something very unnatural about forcing yourself to laugh. It didn’t feel comfortable.”

“You won’t be continuing membership, sir?”

“No, Mr. Puri, it’s not for me. And now if you don’t mind, I’ll take back my pen.”

Second on Puri’s list was N.K. Gupta, senior advocate.

Puri had no difficulty locating his house near Bengali Market, but he found the front door locked and barricaded from the inside. A big swastika had been painted in red on the doorstep to ward off evil.

“Go away! I don’t want to talk to anyone!” Gupta shouted from behind the door after Puri rang the bell three times.

“But it is Vish Puri this side. I’m looking into – ”

“I don’t care who you are!” interrupted the lawyer. “Those media persons have been banging on my door all day. All I want is to be left alone! I’ve got nothing to say to anyone!”

It took the detective a good ten minutes to persuade Gupta to come to the front window.

Even then he refused to put on the lights or fully pull back the curtains. He stood a couple feet from the window, his face barely visible.

“None of us is safe!” he exclaimed. Puri caught a glimpse of his wild, tormented eyes. “ She will return and murder us all!”

“Most unlikely,” replied the detective soothingly. “What you saw was someone pretending to be the goddess, only.”

“How do you know? You weren’t there. I tell you that was no human being! It was the goddess herself. I looked into her eyes! She breathed fire!”

“All a trick of some sort,” said Puri.

His words were wasted; Gupta could not be persuaded. And yet the advocate retained his legal faculties and, despite his ranting, provided the detective with a remarkably intelligible account of the murder: how he had been unable to stop himself laughing and felt transfixed by ‘an invisible force’. He remembered the caws of the crows, the barks of the dogs and the mysterious mist. Kali had ‘materialized out of thin air’ and floated above the ground.

“She was absolutely hideous! Her arms writhing, the skulls around her neck clunking together. I can’t get that noise out of my head. And her voice, Mr. Puri! Her voice! Like… like the screams of murdered children!”

Gupta came closer to the window and looked left and right down the street.

“What about a severed head? You saw that, also?” asked Puri.

“Yes! Yes! It was dripping with blood!”

“You recognized his face – this gentleman who had been apparently deprived of his body, that is?”

Gupta faltered. “I… I didn’t see it clearly,” he admitted.

“There was no blood found at the scene apart from that belonging to Dr. Jha,” Puri pointed out.

Sharma grew agitated again. “I’m telling you what I saw.”

The detective asked about the sword.

Gupta said he had seen it driven through the Guru Buster’s chest. But what had become of it he could not say.

“I covered my eyes. After that I can’t remember much.”

“When were you able to move your feet?”

“Immediately after she disappeared.”

“And it is my understanding you had a headache, is it?”

“Yes, and it won’t go away, Mr. Puri! It will never go away!” He gripped his hair with his hands. “Just like her voice! It’s like she’s here now, calling my name!”

Mr. Ved Karat lived in New Rajendra Nagar. A political speechwriter for the Congress Party, he was also at home trying to recover from the ordeal of the day before. He too was badly shaken. In his case, though, it was the shock of witnessing the murder that had affected him. The goddess herself had not scared him.

“In fact I found her quite magnificent to look at,” he said, sitting in his living room still wearing his pajamas and dressing gown. In one hand he held a glass of fresh nimboo pani, to which he had added a pinch of black salt. “She had an extraordinary aura about her, an emanation of raw power. In a way it was awe-inspiring.”

Karat, too, had been unable to stop himself laughing and his feet had gone ‘leaden’. He described the mysterious mist and the severed head and a ‘blinding flash’ before Kali appeared, ‘levitating high above the earth and breathing fire’. The speechwriter had also witnessed Dr. Jha’s death and seen the sword sticking out of the poor man’s chest after Kali had ‘miraculously disappeared’.

When Puri explained that it was yet to be found, he seemed surprised.

“Someone took it?”

“Murder weapons are often getting removed from the scene. Most probably some unscrupulous fellow took possession of it.”

Karat went on to explain what had happened next: how he had stopped laughing the moment Dr. Jha was killed; how he had rushed to his aid.

“There was so much blood. I felt his pulse, but he was already gone.”

“After you had any headache?”

“I felt nauseous, but no, no headache,” said Karat.

“When were you able to move your feet?”

The speechwriter had to think for a moment before answering. “I believe it was soon after she vanished,” he said.

Puri reached the residence of Professor R.K. Pandey, the Laughing Club instructor and organizer, late in the afternoon. A detached four-bedroom house in West Shalimar Bagh, it was surrounded by a seven-foot wall.