“Then I took a closer look at Deepa’s horoscope. Sun and Saturn together in the second house with Capricorn, Ketu in her seventh house and Mars aspecting the seventh house, Moon with Harshal - all hinted at a stormy love marriage which wouldn’t have a happy ending. In fact, Deepa’s horoscope definitely showed the dramatic turns her marital life would take. But what was very interesting and eye-opening were all the planets in her first house. With Sagittarius in the ascendant, a number of planets were in conjunction - Moon, Harshal, Neptune, Rahu, Venus, and Mercury. A very unique combination. Mercury in the ascendant sign revealed her extreme fury; Rahu indicated plotting and scheming with an avenging attitude, going to any extent - using any path, any method - however melodramatic, to accomplish her goal! In short, Deepa seemed to be a person with dangerous streaks of jealousy, possessiveness, and cunning, with an ungovernable temper. Anup’s horoscope was of little significance compared to Deepa’s dynamite of a horoscope.
“It worried me. And that’s when I began to have my real doubt about Deepa. How was it that the whole world was aware of the affair her husband was having with his co-star and yet Deepa hadn’t learnt about it - an astute, former actress like her, who made it a point to be connected with the play from start to end? That was my first question. The second problem was that both Anup and Jaya died of cockroach poison. Too much of a coincidence - unless, of course, they really did conspire to kill each other. But they were in love, they had great careers and a wonderful future ahead of them. Why would they opt for death? All along, I repeatedly asked myself, what had these murders achieved? And then the answer came to me, plain and clear. Actually, it was Mrs Wakil who gave me the clue. She remarked, in passing, that if these murders hadn’t happened, Deepa and Anup’s marriage would surely have ended. And that was the answer to my question. These two deaths had prevented Deepa’s marriage from ending - I mean in the legal sense. They prevented Anup from leaving Deepa for Jaya! And there was only one person who seemed to benefit from those murders. Deepa!
“The sauciness, the boldness of the act, the nerve, and the cunning - they proved that the real murder scene was scripted by an insider, someone who knew every nook and cranny of the play. A beautifully masterminded murder by someone who thrived on the weaknesses of the two victims. I was convinced that Deepa was responsible for Anup’s and Jaya’s deaths. She certainly had the motive for murder and her horoscope substantiated the motive. I set about proving my theories.
“My first hurdle was, how had she achieved this? How could she have killed Anup and Jaya, in front of the whole audience? It was a brain-teaser and the answer eluded me for a while. Obviously, she couldn’t possibly do it herself. So how had she pulled off such perfect scheming and timing? I put myself in her shoes and began wondering. How would I go about it? How does one encourage two people in love to go at loggerheads with each other? To turn someone so much against a person that he would be roused enough to kill? I realised that I would first have to initiate a rift between the two lovers. And how would I do that? By creating situations that would poison their minds against each other. And that’s exactly what Deepa had done, I realised. Her personal script for the final act had begun long before the actual show. She had played on Anup’s and Jaya’s weaknesses and insecurities. She created pits of doubt in their minds - in short, she’d provoked them enough to make each wish the other dead. She planted the idea in their minds to use the play to kill the other. In other words, she masterminded the whole murder excellently, using Jaya and Anup as puppets. Karan once mentioned that Deepa was an excellent mimic and could imitate anyone perfectly. She was also an excellent actress. I realised that Deepa must have done something to uproot Jaya from Anup’s heart, so much so that in his anger he had grasped the poison bottle on her hall table and used it. That much was clear. Had Deepa pretended to be Jaya at some point? Said or done something that had set him dead against his lover? It was worth thinking about, though I knew we would never have proof of it. But what about Jaya, how had Deepa influenced the actress? It was one thing to manipulate your husband, whom you knew intimately and who was within reach. But it is quite another to stage-manage someone beyond your control. And then I recalled things. How Vijay had wanted to return Deepa’s kerchief to her while she was on her way to the hospital and how she had refused to acknowledge it as hers. I had seen a similar handkerchief in her hands, when she was being questioned at her house. Also, according to Karan, Jaya had been very upset by a number of things just before the show. One of them was a message on her answering machine. And Mrs Wakil had told us how Jaya had made that remark about legal status from the horse’s mouth. Which horse’s mouth was that? And suddenly it all
