Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“I am sorry to hear that, sir,” said Puri. “Naturally the police were called.”

“Actually, I believe Swami-ji wished to deal with the matter internally. Our Indian police can sometimes be heavy-handed with such matters and he wanted to give the woman a chance to reform.”

“Most considerate of him.”

Puri could sense that the preamble was coming to an end.

“Unfortunately this young woman absconded before Swami-ji was able to help her,” continued the minister. “He brought the matter to my attention and I did a little checking of my own. And then I thought, well, why not hire Vish Puri, the famous detective, to find her.”

“Most kind of you, sir,” said Puri. “Truly I am honored.”

The minister checked his glasses and began to polish the other lens.

“All we require is an address where we can find this young woman. That and an assurance that anything she might tell you will remain confidential. Assuming you are willing to take on the case, I can assure you that you will be well compensated.”

Puri was thoughtfully silent.

“And if I say no, sir?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Puri?” replied the minister with a quizzical smile. “That’s not a word I hear very often.”

“No doubt. But I take it you still understand its meaning, sir.”

“I can honestly say that I do not. You see, Mr. Puri, on the very rare occasion someone says no to me, they find out very quickly that what they really mean is yes.”

The detective nodded. “It might take me some time to find the girl in question,” he said.

The minister looked over at Vivek Swaroop, who gave a slow, uncompromising shake of his head.

“My friend here is very anxious to see this young lady again.”

“It is late, sir. She will take time to locate.”

Bhatt thought for a moment. “You have until noon tomorrow,” he said. With that he returned to his papers. The interview was over.

Puri made his way out of the room, wished the peons a good evening and walked calmly to his Ambassador.

“Get me back to the office – double fast,” he instructed Handbrake.

The next morning, Elizabeth Rani reached Most Private Investigators at nine, put her tiffin in the fridge, turned on the air-conditioning in reception and then arranged herself behind her desk.

She was in the process of removing the plastic cover from her computer when Door Stop arrived bearing the stainless steel milk pail he was charged with filling at the nearby Mother Dairy stand every morning.

“Namaste, madam,” he said before heading into the kitchen to make the first batch of tea.

Mrs. Chadha came next, greeting Puri’s secretary with the usual pleasantries before making her way into the Communications Room, where her job was to answer phone lines using various fronts and assumed names – and where she managed to get a lot of knitting done at the same time.

“Mrs. Chadha, before I forget, I’ve got a note here for you,” Elizabeth Rani called after her. “You should be getting a ring on line one sometime this morning for Madam Go Go – it’s in connection with the ongoing Kapoor matrimonial case.”

The office sweeper (who did her work at the end of the day for fear of brushing away the good fortune precipitated by the goddess Lakshmi) soon appeared at the top of the narrow stairs that led from the street into reception. She had never had cause to complain about Elizabeth Rani, but society as a whole treated her with the same disdain as the interminable dirt it was her lot to sweep, making her as timid as a mole.

A light tap on the door frame indicated her presence and then she advanced gingerly toward the desk to collect her weekly wage of 200 rupees.

Soon after the sweeper had retreated back down the stairs, the lights, computer and air conditioner all simultaneously switched off, signaling another power cut. Elizabeth Rani had to tell Door Stop to activate the backup UPS battery.

While she waited, it was strangely quiet in reception – so quiet in fact that she noticed a noise coming from the next room. It sounded a lot like her pressure cooker when it was coming to a boil: first a rattling as the steam built up inside and then the volcanic release accompanied by a high whistle.

She went and put her ear to the door. The noise came again. It was her employer snoring.

“Sir, are you in there?” she said, having returned to her desk and speaking quietly over the intercom.

The response was groggy. “What time you’ve got, Madam Rani?”

“Nearly half past nine, sir.”

“By God! Why no one woke me!” he exclaimed.

“Sir, I – ”

The automatic security latch on his door opened. Elizabeth Rani took this as a signal that she was wanted and hurried inside.

The office was a shambles. Every surface was cluttered with takeaway boxes, soft drink cans and Styrofoam cups. An ashtray on the windowsill was overflowing with cigarette butts. Evidently, the detective had had a number of visitors during the night.

Puri was looking equally disheveled. His mien betrayed both exhaustion and anxiety.

“This thing is not turning on,” he grumbled as he pressed the TV remote control.

“There’s load shedding, sir. I told the boy to put on the UPS.”

“Well, tell him to get a move on. Should be the story will air at ten.”

“Story, sir?”

“Ask him why my chai is taking so long also.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And after, send him for some aloo parathas.”

The lights suddenly went on, as did the TV.

An anchor on one of the news channels was talking about cricket. Puri flicked to one of its rivals, which was airing a feature about a Bollywood actor’s on-set tantrum. The channel after that was covering the usual humdrum politics.

“Our three national obsessions – and all in the usual order of priorities,” he commented sarcastically to Elizabeth Rani, who had given Door Stop his orders and was in the process of cleaning up the office.

“Yes, sir,” she said, distracted by seeing him in such a state. “Is everything all right?”

“No, Madam Rani, everything is certainly not all right. But God willing, everything will be all right. I have hardly slept a single wink, actually. Round the clock we have been working. But it is nothing a cup of tea and something hot and tasty should not fix.”

Two cups of chai, three aloo parathas and some of Rumpi’s homemade garlic pickle – a jar of which he kept in his desk drawer – did indeed work wonders for his temperament.

After a cat wash in his private bathroom with some cold water from the fridge, Puri was more or less back to his normal self.

By ten o’clock, his office was also spick and span and smelling of mountain-pine air freshener.

“Madam Rani, be good enough to come and watch this,” said Puri, back behind his desk with the TV tuned to Action News! “If all has gone to plan, it will be dynamite.”

She came and stood next to him as the headlines rolled.

“This morning we have an exclusive that is going to shake the whole of India,” said the young anchor. “The footage that you are about to see was released to us in the past few hours. We have been able to verify that it is not a hoax. What you are about to see is authentic and has been independently verified.”

Puri quickly checked the other channels to see if they were carrying the same story. On Bharat TV a graphic screamed:

WORLD EXCLUSIVE.

Only government-controlled DD News, and SATYA, which was owned in part by the Foundation for the Promotion of World Consciousness, a Maharaj Swami mouthpiece, were not airing the story.

He returned to Action News!

It was running grainy CCTV black-and-white footage of Maharaj Swami sitting on the floor of his private audience chamber.