‘But that—that is impossible.’
‘Oh, but is it? Imagine: a life without your grandmother telling you what to do and what to wear and where to go; a life where you can marry your beloved and go to Hyderabad and live the life of an actor and an artiste—a life you have always dreamed of. And you would have money too. A major portion of the old lady’s wealth would be your father’s, and half of that would be yours.’
Nagarajan said, ‘But if that is the case, why did he try to kill himself?’
‘Remorse,’ said Hamid Pasha. ‘The boy loved his grandmother in spite of all those things. Did Lakshman not tell us once, that the kind of man Praveen is—it is those who most need support that most resent getting it. And once it is gone, they realise they cannot live without it.’
Nagarajan looked at Praveen’s quivering lip, shaking hands, bumbling words, and wondered if it couldn’t be true.
‘And when he was found out, of course, he concocted a story that he was trying to kill himself because he thought his grandmother committed suicide on his account.’
‘It is—it is not true!’
Hamid Pasha shrugged again. Doing an about-turn he faced the women. He spoke to Durga. ‘And you, madam, you were at the well with Gauri that afternoon.’
‘It was after the fact, sir,’ she replied calmly.
‘That may be so, but none of us know when you actually went up to the well. You were only seen coming back.’
‘Well, sir,’ Durga said, ‘since everyone in your theories is walking up and down to the well without being seen, I guess I did too.’
‘And you did it around one in the afternoon.’
She held his glance for a second. Then she cocked her head. ‘So be it.’
‘Kauveramma knew your secret, and you knew that she knew. She had talked to you once or twice before it— you had been overheard by Ellayya by the well on two of his drunken nights. Yes, drunk people overhear so much, do they not? So the well was your designated meeting spot, then?’
‘Mine and grandmother’s? We have met there a couple of times, yes.’
‘It is nice and secluded there, is it not? You could speak your mind without being heard.’
‘Yes, that is true.’
‘And who was the organiser of the appointment on that day?’
‘We had no appointment.’
‘And yet you were there?’
‘You are saying I was there.’
‘You were seen there, memsaab.’
‘I was seen there at half-past-two, sir, not at one.’
‘So you admit returning from the well at half-past-two?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the purpose of that appointment?’
‘Nothing related to the death of our grandmother, sir, I assure you.’
Hamid Pasha’s lips tightened. ‘Memsaab,’ he said grimly, ‘you went to the well much before half-past-two. You went there even before Kauveramma did. You waited for her there. She may have called you there because she wanted to talk to you about something. Is it possible that she saw something she should not have?’
‘You are only theorising, sir, and I don’t think any of us have time for this sort of wild talk.’
‘And Gauri too was seen coming back from the well right behind you, memsaab. What was she doing there?’
‘As I said, sir, it was nothing concerning the matter at hand.’ For just the smallest fraction of a second, Nagarajan thought he saw her glance flicker to her husband and back. Then she said, softly, ‘I promise you that. I promise you I never wished for anything but the longest life for our grandmother. I swear.’
‘She bribed her,’ Ellayya said. ‘She bribed her!’
‘Yes, Ellayya?’
‘Ellayya wrenched himself apart from his wife and got on his fours, then propped himself up on his knees and held something shiny up to Hamid Pasha. ‘She gave her this—to keep quiet.’
‘Ah!’ Hamid Pasha took it into his hand and gazed upon it. ‘Such beautiful craftsmanship. Must be expensive.’
‘It is not what you think,’ she said, and again her eyes went, pleading, to her husband.
Hamid Pasha returned the jewel. ‘Be that so,’ he said, and clamped his hands behind his back. ‘Be that so. And what of you, gentlemen?’ He looked at Raja, sprawled on the floor, and Swami, sitting erect on the edge of the bed with his hands laid out on his thighs. ‘What of you, gentlemen?’
In Raja’s laugh Nagarajan felt he heard some nervousness. ‘Of me, sir? Well, I was not here. And what could I have done even if I were? It would take me an age to get to the well.’
‘But you were not at the movie, Raja saab,’ said Hamid Pasha, smiling mirthlessly. ‘You could have left the house “to see a movie” and then returned before the required time, even before Nagesh took his place near the main gate, and snuck away to the well. You do move fast on your crutches, do you not?’
Raja’s smile faded. His eyes became little sharp rectangles. ‘I do.’
‘Then it would not have been a hard thing for you to manage. There was a risk that you would be seen, of course, but then that is the risk anyone would have had to take.’
‘And I suppose you would say I killed her so that I could have some more cigarette and movie money every month.’
‘I have not said anything,’ Hamid Pasha said. ‘But is that true?’
Raja looked around the room in a single sweep and stopped when he came to Swami. His eyes narrowed even further. Then he turned his head and spat in the direction of Hamid Pasha. ‘You know nothing,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Nothing!’
‘I think I know a little more than nothing, Raja saab.’ Hamid Pasha turned to Swami now. ‘And you, Swami saab? You were sleeping the whole morning in your room, were you not?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Gauri was at your door from eleven-thirty to two. Is that right, Gauri?’
‘Yes, babu,’ Gauri said from the window.
‘But you were with your mother in the morning, were you not? You took her breakfast, and afterward you took her some water to wash her hands in.’
‘Yes.’
‘Gauri told us that the water was bloody after your mother had washed her hands in it.’ Hamid Pasha leaned forward. ‘Is that true, miyan?’
‘Bloody? No, sir. It was early in the morning. It was dark. I doubt that we can trust what she saw in the morning gloom.’
‘Ah,’ said Hamid Pasha. ‘Of course.’ He strolled back to the centre of the room and raised his voice so that everyone could hear. ‘From the very start I have wondered about the evidence of the two workers at the house. One—that their evidence is auditory, and two, why were they even there in the first place?’
‘But there was a scream,’ said Nagarajan.
‘Yes,’ said Hamid Pasha, nodding, ‘and a splash. And people saw the old lady walk up the path to the well around half an hour before the two were reported. The splash and the scream happened at one, and the old lady was seen, was she not, at twelve-thirty? So that should have settled it; except it did not—no, something did not seem right about it all.
‘I told you, miyan, that day—it all seemed upside down, somehow. The old lady going to the well, which she was terrified of; the presence of the workers on the same day, as though the killer had deliberately chosen the day the workers were present. I think you even said it once, did you not, that the killer must have liked showing off because he knew people would hear the old lady scream.’
‘Oh, sir, please, don’t say things like that.’ Prameela spoke for the first time that afternoon, and shuddered.
Hamid Pasha ignored her and went on: ‘Yes, that was a very good thought of yours. What if the killer had deliberately chosen the day the workers were present? I added my own modification to it. What if, I asked, if the killer had deliberately asked the workers to come and work by the well on that day?’
He threw a sharp look at Swami as he said that, to which the old man did not respond.
; Hamid Pasha continued, ‘Perhaps the workers were meant to hear what they did. The splash and the scream— but it was not really a full-throated scream, was it, miyan? What did Ashok call it? A hesitant scream; as though she was wondering whether to scream out loud or not, he said. Ah, but perhaps she did. Perhaps she was conscious of being heard over at the house.’
‘What rubbish this is, Mr Pasha,’ said Koteshwar Rao, visibly bristling. ‘You are wasting all our time with this empty theorising. When Inspector Nagarajan here told me that he held your abilities in high regard, I thought I would be getting more than a—than a street performer.’
Hamid Pasha said, ‘Patience, doctor saab. You can only peel an onion layer by layer, can you not? This case is very much the same. It is important to explore all the dead ends before you find the path of the truth.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, so where was I? Yes, I was saying maybe the old lady was hesitant in screaming out loud when she was pushed into the well. Maybe she was careful not to let anyone in the house hear her; only to let her two witnesses hear her.
‘But while she was at the well, she also snuck behind the brick wall for a period of time. I found a lock of her hair stuck to the touch-me-not plants there. Why? Who was she hiding from? Was she surprised by whom she saw walk in on the path? And did she come out and break up an exchange of words—if there really was an exchange—before she got pushed into the well? If there was conversation of any kind, why did we not hear of it from Nagesh, who must have heard at least some of it?’
‘You are asking more questions, Mr Pasha, when what we need are answers.’
‘Right,’ said Hamid Pasha, ‘then I will give you some answers too. Answer number one: The scream that Ashok and Nagesh heard that day was not Kauveramma’s.’ He looked around him and raised a hand. ‘Answer number two! The splash they heard was not of the old woman hitting the water.’
For a long time no one spoke. There was a snort of derision from Karuna, but apart from that the gathering kept their silence. Then Inspector Nagarajan found his voice and said, ‘That is impossible, Hamid bhai. The two men swore that it was the woman’s voice, and—’
‘Did the gentleman here not tell us, miyan, that everything is possible? And yet you tell me that that what actually happened is not possible? If it is not, then how did it happen, hain? You talk of the woman’s voice, but have we not been told that all the women in the house have identical voices? Did Lakshman not tell us that when they heard them talk upstairs, they had to identify who said what by the words they used, and not their voices?’
‘And the splash—’
‘When there is a weight missing around a well in which a splash was heard, and when the well is equipped with a pulley system and two quite long crowbars, it is rather easy, is it not, to put two and two together?’ Hamid Pasha frowned at Nagarajan. ‘Perhaps not for everyone.’
‘My diving stone,’ the doctor said in a whisper.
‘Yes, miyan. Where do you think it went? I would bet my beard that it is now lying at the bottom of that well.’
‘But if—if my grandmother did not die at one o’clock, you are saying she must have been killed afterward, by somebody who came to the well?’
‘Answer number three,’ said Hamid Pasha. ‘Your grandmother was not killed after she reached the well. She was killed before it.’
Durga got to her feet. She said to the inspector, ‘Sir, this has gone on for long enough. I don’t see why we should give this man any more of our time. Nothing he has said so far makes sense.’
‘On the contrary, memsaab,’ Hamid Pasha said smoothly, ‘I think what I am saying now makes a lot of sense. No, no, I do not just think. I know it does, because it is the truth. Truth always makes sense.’
‘What truth are you talking of, sir?’ Durga demanded. ‘You say grandmother was killed before she got to the well, and yet no less than three of us have seen her walk to the well all by herself.’
‘Answer number four,’ Hamid Pasha said solemnly. ‘The woman you saw walking up the path to the well was not Kauveramma.’
Kamala started. Lakshman rubbed his hands together and examined his wet palms thoughtfully. Durga drew back and held the edge of her chair. None of them, though, said a word.
‘You saw a woman, an old woman, dressed like Kauveramma, walking like Kauveramma, who looked like Kauveramma, but you were all looking at the person from your first-floor windows; and her back was turned to you, was it not? Did any of you see her face? Could any of you see her face, from that distance, from that height?’
He smiled. ‘No, you could not. You saw someone who looked like Kauveramma, dressed like Kauveramma, and walked like Kauveramma, and you thought her to be Kauveramma; it was but natural. Tomorrow, if you see a bearded fellow in a topi limping off on the main road, will you not look out of your top-floor windows and say, “Ah, there goes Hamid Pasha?” You will, and the person—this person who walked up to the well in Kauveramma’s clothes—wanted it to happen.’ Suddenly, he turned to face Karuna Mayi and addressed her. ‘Is that not so, memsaab?’
The woman showed no emotion. A flicker of a smile appeared on her lips; it was more of a snarl. ‘Has anyone told you you are crazy?’ she said.
‘I may be, memsaab. But I will tell you right now: your game is up. You walked up to the well dressed like Kauveramma. You did not have to work hard on your appearance; it has been said more than once that the women of this house are all the same height and of a similar build—except Durga memsaab, of course, who is taller.’
Karuna Mayi sighed. ‘I was not even in the city at that time, sir. Surely to walk up to and down from the well, I would need to be in the city at least?’
Hamid Pasha waved that away. ‘You live mostly on your own in Hyderabad. I have confirmed that your daughter was away, visiting a friend out of town, as she often does. Therefore, nobody would have missed you if you came here in the morning. You do not have anyone in Hyderabad who will vouch that you spent the day there. Hain?’
Karuna shook her head. ‘It is not my fault that I am alone for the most part of my days.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Hamid Pasha murmured, ‘very convenient too, is it not? You were seen at five-thirty in the morning at the railway station here, memsaab, by the porter who then told Raja saab who then told us. You came here early in the morning, entered the house—if I am not wrong— at six.’
‘And no one in the house, of course, saw me.’
‘They did. Durga memsaab did. But you were in your disguise then too; this time you were disguised as Gauri. Memsaab saw you at the downstairs gate at six. And so did Raja when he peeped out of his front window; he saw you walk down the path from the front gate. And again, you were dressed as Gauri, you walked like Gauri, you looked like Gauri, so people who saw you from a distance thought you were Gauri.’
Karuna was about to say something, but Hamid Pasha stopped her. ‘Wait. Let me speak. Gauri is also the same height, of the same build, you see. When people talked of the ladies of the house, they only referred to the old lady, Karuna and Prameela. But what of Gauri? The thing about Gauri is that she is dark-skinned. All the others are fair-complexioned. So what did Karuna Mayi do? She coloured her arms and hands with a dye, and as soon as she entered the bathroom, she changed into the garb of Kauveramma, and it was when she was trying to wash the paint off her hands that Gauri—the real Gauri—walked in on her. Karuna was smart enough to tell her off for entering the bathroom and drive her away. After she went into Kauveramma’s room, Swami saab took her a bowl of water with which she washed her hands, and that is why the water was dark when it was brought out.’
He pointed to Gauri. ‘Gauri saw the dark water and made the association with blood. And while Karuna Mayi was inside Kauveramma’s room, she started to groan and moan like the old lady did, and the fact that Kauveramma was suffering from a cold meant that any difference in the voice that would otherwise be noticed would now just be attributed to a sore throat.
‘She stayed in the ro
om until lunchtime, and at twelve-thirty she carried out the last bit of her plan. She hid the clothes she’d worn to impersonate Gauri in the folds of her sari and set off for the well. She dressed as Kauveramma would, but she forgot to put on Kauveramma’s glasses— because Karuna’s eyesight is perfect, you see. That was a fatal mistake, but understandable, when you think of how much she must have had on her mind.
‘So she got out of the house via the back door and walked around to the front, because Gauri was sleeping by Swami saab’s room and she would not have liked to wake her up. She walked up the path and towards the well, hoping somebody would see her from the top-floor windows. But even if nobody did, it would not matter. She went to the well, and by means of the crowbar, dropped the stone into the water, and the same time screamed Swami’s name. Once again, consider the genius of the choice; Swami saab was the only other person in the whole house that had an alibi, so she chose to scream out his name.
‘Then she immediately went behind the wall and changed into Gauri’s costume. Now this took her a good half and hour to forty-five minutes because of the colour she had to apply on herself; and just as she was about to go, she saw Durga and Gauri come to the well to talk. What they talked about and what Karuna memsaab overheard is not relevant to the issue, but as the two walked away, Karuna memsaab saw her opportunity and walked off herself, not more than five minutes later.
‘But here she was walking towards the house, so she had to cover her face. So with the ends of her sari, she covered her head and her face. That is why Kamala memsaab said Gauri came back from the well at two, but Lakshman said she did that five minutes after two. Lakshman also remembered that “Gauri” had her sari veiling her face, but Kamala did not say so. In fact, Kamala said that she had never seen Gauri with her sari about her head.
Banquet on the Dead Page 22
