She then re-examined the three pieces that were dark blue in colour. One of them, a shirt, was made of cloth that was much thinner than the scrap. She discarded it. The second was a pair of trousers made of a thick material, but seemed to be cotton or linen, and it lacked gloss. The scrap she had in her pocket was clearly synthetic.
The third turned out to be the one closest to what she was looking for. But by this time, Bhuvana was looking at her suspiciously. There was no point in being surreptitious any longer. Boldness was the only way forward.
‘Hey! This is a nice piece,’ she exclaimed and picked up the garment. ‘I haven’t seen one like this in a while.’
It turned out to be a night gown with embroidery at the hem and the lapels. It was indeed a striking gown. As she held it up, she noticed a tear about a foot and a half from the hem. It was an inch-long rip, into which the scrap in her pocket would have fitted well.
‘Whose is it?’ she asked casually.
‘Don’t know,’ one of the ironing boys said. ‘Look at the room number mentioned in the tag. Here, show it to me.’
He straightened the tag attached to one of the buttonholes and peered at it.
‘Room number three,’ he said presently, and began to iron the nightgown.
‘Three?’ Dora repeated. ‘Can’t be. That’s the room Phillip was staying in.’
‘Not upstairs, Dora,’ Bhuvana said, still eyeing her. ‘Room number three in the annex.’
Dora was about to ask who was occupying the room, when she decided against it. That was a piece of information she could easily obtain, and Bhuvana was looking at her more and more doubtfully.
Dora seemed to lose interest in the dark-blue night gown and shifted the conversation to what was being prepared for dinner. Ten minutes later, she walked out of the kitchen.
Athreya hurried out of the library and into the drawing room, where the other residents were to gather before dinner. There, he buttonholed Ganesh and strolled out through one of the French windows with him and Jilsy.
‘You had an altercation with Phillip on Thursday,’ he said quietly once they were out of earshot. ‘Can you tell me about it?’
‘It was really nothing, Mr Athreya,’ Ganesh replied guardedly. He shot an annoyed glance at his wife. ‘Just some silly misunderstanding. It was sorted out and forgotten.’
‘That’s good. But I’d still like to hear about it.’
‘Really, Mr Athreya, it’s nothing,’ Jilsy pleaded. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Phillip’s death. It’s not really a fight between Ganesh and Phillip. We were very good friends with him.’
‘At this point,’ Athreya countered firmly, ‘we can’t tell if it had anything to do with Phillip’s death or not. We just don’t know enough about his death to tell what may be related to it and what may not be. However, if you fear that I am suggesting that the altercation pins a motive on you, rest easy. My intention in asking this question is something else.’
Relief flooded Jilsy’s pretty face. The tension slipped out of Ganesh’s bearing too.
‘You are a good man, Mr Athreya,’ he said.
‘Now,’ Athreya persisted, ‘will you tell me about it?’
‘Well, it was like this,’ Ganesh began. ‘Phillip’s gate and our gate are side by side, and our cottages are adjacent to each other. I was entering through my gate when I overheard Phillip say, “the mongrel is here”. At that point, I didn’t think much of it. But within the next ten minutes, Jilsy, who was out in the garden, heard the term “the mongrel” repeated twice.
‘There was no doubt that Phillip was referring to someone. Each time the context was such that Jilsy thought that he was referring to me. Upset, she came and told me what she had heard. I recalled him saying “the mongrel is here” minutes earlier when I entered my gate.
‘I put two and two together, and concluded that he was insulting me. I went over to his cottage immediately and confronted him. He seemed a little shocked that I had heard him use that derogatory term, but denied that he was referring to me. When I asked him whom else he could have been referring to, he had no satisfactory answer.
‘But he insisted … pleaded, rather … to forget what I had heard. It was not me he was talking about when he used the derogatory term, he repeated. He then cooked up a cock and bull story about someone who was visiting a servant at the resort and whose nickname was “the mongrel”. But the man seemed so sincere that I decided to let it go.’
‘Did he say that the servant’s name was Ismail?’
‘That’s right!’ Ganesh exclaimed in surprise. ‘How did you know?’
‘This was on Thursday?’ Athreya asked.
‘Yes. The day before we gathered here. Jilsy and I decided to forget about it once and for all.’
‘Do you know who Phillip was talking to when he said “the mongrel” thrice?’
‘Er …’ Ganesh began uncertainly.
‘I know,’ Jilsy cut in. ‘He was talking to two men in his cottage. A pretty serious discussion, I would say, from the sound of it. You remember I was in the garden when I overheard Phillip? I saw them leave shortly after the conversation. That’s how I know who he was talking to.’
‘Who?’ Athreya asked.
‘Abbas and Murthy.’
Athreya stopped, and turned to face Ganesh and Jilsy.
‘Don’t speak of this to anyone,’ he said in an undertone. ‘We don’t know if it is relevant. But if it is, such information can be dangerous.’
‘You mean–’ Jilsy began but broke off. She had turned pale.
‘There is a killer around. It’s best to play safe.’
14
The next day dawned foggy and dim, but it was not as murky as it had been on Athreya’s first morning at Greybrooke Manor. As had been the case the
