Jatin did look up then, and there was intense pain in his eyes. He suddenly seemed much older than his young years. “I’m sorry… but I don’t know what to believe anymore or what to say…” How could he explain to them that his whole universe had turned topsy-turvy? How could he ever explain what he was going through?
Sonia took the chair beside him. She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jatin. I know that love stories are supposed to have happy endings. But only when the love is mutual and for real. I know that you loved Naina and you’re heartbroken. But Naina was using you. For her, it was all a part of a charade she was enacting. You’ve got to believe that what happened is for the best. At least we stopped you before you got embroiled in a counterfeit case.”
“Why did you ask me to go ahead when you knew that she was… a criminal. You could have at least saved me some self-respect!” The anguish in his voice tore at her heart.
“Because there was no other way. Right from the first time I met Naina at Pune Station, I liked her. Very much. And I really believed that she was the right girl for you. Until something happened. First, Shettychacha dropped by, returning the counterfeit fifty rupee note that you gave him for the dosas. Apparently Naina had given that bill to you. Then you gave me the horoscope details and my first passing thought was that it was funny how the two sisters wrote out their birth details separately. I mean, I would’ve expected Priya, being the older sister and like a mother to Naina, to write out their birth details. But each one wrote out their own. Anyway, I charted out their horoscopes and discovered some startling puzzles. Priya’s and Naina’s horoscopes had no parallels whatsoever. Each horoscope told a different story. Their characters were very different from what you’d told me. The age difference was more than eight years. Priya was twelve years older than Naina. Their backgrounds were totally in contrast to what you told me. Neither of them would ever be rolling in money - at least honest money. Neither of their horoscopes seemed to indicate any problems with their parents, who ought to be well and alive, not dead and gone! In short, every single detail seemed in total contrast to what we knew as facts. And Naina’s horoscope was a true puzzle. With Libra as the zodiac sign and the ascendant, she had a strange mix of planets. Sun, Mercury, and Saturn in conjunction in her eighth house revealed her to be melodramatic, talented, and intelligent, but dishonest and cunning and indulging in shady business, which would boomerang on her. Moreover, Sun, the Lord of Leo in the tenth house, was in conjunction with Saturn, which meant that she would go to any lengths to earn money. Jupiter in her Sagittarius gave her those beautiful, serene looks, but it was aspected by Mars. Saturn with the Sun in the eighth house would one day bring her illegal activities out in the open! Naina’s horoscope revealed such criminal traits that it was shocking. But although her horoscope confused me at that point, since it was totally in contrast with her image, I didn’t allow it to sway my judgement of Naina. Not just then.
“First, I took the hundred rupee note that Naina had laid beside our Ganapati on the first day of the festival to Uncle Jeevan. I had retained that money for good luck; that is why I knew it was the same bill. Inspector Divekar at once identified it as fake. My mind began ticking. First Shettychacha and now this. Was it a coincidence that Naina possessed two counterfeit bills? Had someone given her these rupees by mistake and had she carried them forward? Or was there a deliberate connection between the two? The first thing I did when I returned to the office yesterday was take another long look at the horoscopes. And suddenly a lot of my questions were answered. I knew then for a fact that something was definitely wrong and that I had to adopt a course of action. I remembered the twenty hundred rupee notes that Priya had gifted you and you had placed in my drawer. I instantly checked out the notes. All the notes were fake! This was definitely no coincidence. Naina’s friendship with you began smacking of something really suspicious and I had to find out what it was. So I enlisted Mohnish’s and Inspector Divekar’s aid. Inspector Divekar sent a Constable to keep a watch on the bungalow, while Mohnish found out if it really belonged to the sisters.”
“That was easy enough,” Mohnish explained. “A few inquiries around the neighbourhood and the information dropped into my lap. The neighbours told me that the two sisters had just recently moved into the bungalow. It had laid vacant for years and the owner, who lived somewhere abroad, had left an agent in charge to deal with the renting of the place.”
“It was now obvious that something fishy was going on for sure,” Sonia told Jatin. “But I wondered what your role was in this whole business. Why had you been roped in and why was Naina leading you on? That she wasn’t in love with you and was using you for some private end was now sadly apparent. But what was her motive? Then I remembered how you had rushed to the medical store to purchase the inhaler when Naina had her asthma attack. And out of the blue everything fell into place. The two sisters were testing counterfeit money on you! First the inhaler, then at Shettychachas, and then the gift money given by Priya. But that certainly wasn’t the end. Naina had been duping you for far too long a time, angling for you
