Puri was unsure what to do. Was there something wrong? Was she improvising?
He decided to play along, keeping a careful eye on her.
A few minutes passed and she began to look more herself. But then she suddenly stood up and, with arms stretched wide, declared in a loud voice: “I have seen the truth and it is beautiful!”
Many of those sitting around her started to applaud. And then Facecream fainted, collapsing into the lap of the person behind her.
Eleven
“According to my dear late husband, intelligence is number one key to doing solving of cases. But two kinds of intelligence there are, na? Information and IQ, also. For proper detection both are required.”
“Yes, Mummy-ji,” said Rumpi wearily. “But in this case, we don’t seem to have any intelligence at all – intelligence of the first sort, I mean.”
It was Thursday afternoon, twenty-four hours after the kitty party robbery. Puri was in Haridwar and his wife and mother were sitting in the back of Mummy’s car outside the Central Forensic Science Laboratory on Lodhi Road, South Delhi.
They had spent the past couple of hours inside the CFSL building, where the son of one of Mummy’s oldest friends worked as a laboratory technician. Through a combination of charm and sheer obstinacy, she had persuaded him to lift the fingerprints from the items in her handbag and run them through the national database. The computer had not found a match. But as the young man had sheepishly admitted, such random checks rarely bore results.
“Fingerprinting comes into play when we find a murder weapon and need to match prints to a suspect,” he’d explained. “Most investigating officers don’t bother collecting forensic evidence. They rely on confessions from suspects for convictions.”
When Mummy had asked him to run a DNA test on her fingernail cutting, he’d responded: “Auntie-ji, I think you’ve been watching too much of
Mummy had not understood what he’d meant by this; she never had time to watch television, what with all her duties as a mother and grandmother (she still lived with her eldest son, Bhupinder, and his wife and four children) and her numerous weekly social engagements and charity work – not to mention the occasional bit of sleuthing.
But she had not been put off by this setback.
“Look at bright side,” Mummy told her daughter-in-law as they discussed their next move in the back of the car. “Fingerprints will come in useful once we’ve got hold of those goondas. Now it’s time for B Plan.”
Rumpi could not remember what B Plan was. Nor if there was a C or D Plan, for that matter. She was finding that detective work did not come naturally to her. It required a suspicious mind, and she was still struggling to come to terms with the idea that one of her friends had betrayed the trust upon which all kitty parties were based.
“You’re sure it couldn’t have been one of the ladies’ husbands?” asked Puri’s wife.
“You tell Chubby about your kitty, is it?” asked Mummy.
“Of course not!”
“My point exactly, na? No Indian wife is sharing such information with her husband of all people. Her private savings and jewelry worth remain top secret at all times.”
“I suppose you’re right, Mummy-ji.”
Rumpi was still not entirely convinced that the matter wasn’t best left to the professionals. But Jaiya had gone off for the day visiting friends, so she had decided to keep her mother-in-law company – if for no other reason than to make sure she didn’t get into trouble.
She had specified one condition, however. Mummy was never to tell Puri that they had worked together.
“You know how he feels about mummies doing investigations. God only knows what he’d say about wives!”
They had agreed to keep up the pretense of going shopping together.
“Where are we going now?” asked Rumpi.
“Like I said earlier, na, some intelligence is required.”
“And where do you plan to find it, Mummy-ji?”
“When it comes to finding out what all well-to-do Dilli ladies are up to, there is only one place to go.”
They both smiled and said in unison: “Arti’s Beauty Parlor.”
A French cosmetics company had set up a swish new salon called Chez Nous (known locally as ‘Shahnoos’) across from Arti’s in Khan Market. It offered the latest ‘cleansing systems’ from Paris and a free glass of chilled white wine for every new customer. The photographs of pouting Gallic models with flawless skin in the windows extolled the benefits of laser hair removal.
By contrast, Arti’s Beauty Parlor was outdated and dingy. The walls were covered in florid pink wallpaper and posters of models sporting the kind of big hairstyles that had gone out of style in the 1980s. The booking system was still done in a thick ledger with pencil-smudged pages rather than a flash Apple Mac. The beauticians wore uniforms that made them look like hospital orderlies. And the sweeper boy charged with keeping the floors clean did so on his hands and knees, weaving through an obstacle course of legs and shoes with a grimy wet cloth.
For the slim young things who arrived at Khan Market in their chauffeur-driven sedans with Louis Vuitton handbags dangling from the crooks of their arms, the choice between the two rivals was obvious.
The French establishment attracted lots of young male customers as well. They were to be spotted through the windows undergoing the latest skin-lightening techniques at the hands of academy-trained therapists dressed in black. “Because beauty
Chez Nous’s contrived trendiness did not appeal to Arti’s middle-aged customers, but other factors guaranteed their loyalty as well. Her prices were cheaper and she offered natural Indian products and traditional techniques like henna treatment for the hair. Nationalism had played its part, a prejudice actively exploited by Arti, who was positively xenophobic about the French – “That George W. Bush had a point, no?” And there was no beating the general intimacy, in which banter and tittle-tattle thrived.
Mummy and Rumpi arrived to find the salon’s reclining swivel chairs all occupied. Mrs. De Souza’s daughter was getting married that week and was being fussed over by a coterie of beauticians giving her the works: waxing, threading, manicure, premarital ubtan body scrub, herbal steam and almond-meal facial. Mrs. De Souza was getting a pedicure and a chin wax. One of the bridesmaids looked as if she had fallen facedown in mud, the whites of her large eyes set off by a darkening sandalwood mask.
Arti, who wore green eye shadow, moved back and forth across the room, giving instructions to her beauticians, fussing over her customers, making the odd bawdy joke and bestowing advice of a personal nature in a loud voice for all to hear.
“You really must go for a bra fitting!” she admonished one woman. “I’ll give the number of the girl. That thing you’re wearing is two sizes too big. Makes you look all saggy.”
To the bride-to-be she said: “How you got so much of acne? You’ve been eating chocolate? Or perhaps it’s all those hormones, hmmm? Must be thinking of your wedding night!”
When she spotted Mummy and Rumpi waiting in reception, Arti exclaimed in a thrilled voice: “I heard about the robbery! What a thing to happen! Arora Madam was here this morning and told me all about it. Her pooch is in a coma! Poor thing doesn’t respond to its name. Who do you think did it? Probably some of those Purvanchali types. The authorities should send them packing back to their villages!”
Her attention was drawn away by a mini-crisis in the salon. A customer’s wax was too hot and she had let out a yelp as it had been applied to one of her arms.
Rumpi was escorted into a private treatment room by her regular beautician, Uma.
Uma, who had been working at the parlor for some fifteen years, always told Puri Madam about her problems
