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But why had Farrokh chosen a hijra to be the serial killer and cartoonist in the most recent Inspector Dhar movie? Now that a real killer was imitating the behavior of the fictional character—the police would say only that the real killer’s drawing was “an obvious variation on the movie theme”—Dr. Daruwalla had really gotten Inspector Dhar in trouble. This particular film had inspired something worse than hatred, for the hijra prostitutes not only approved of killing Dhar—they wanted to maim him first.
“They want to cut off your cock and balls, dear boy,” Farrokh had warned his favorite young man. “You must be careful how you get around town!”
With a sarcasm that was consistent with his famous role, Dhar had replied in his most deadpan manner: “You’re telling me.” (It was something he said at least once in all his movies.)
In contrast to the lurid agitation caused by the most recent Inspector Dhar movie, the appearance of a real policeman among the proper Duckworthians seemed dull. Surely the hijra prostitutes hadn’t murdered Mr. Lal! There’d been no indication that the body had been sexually mutilated, nor was there a possibility that even a demented hijra could have mistaken the old man for Inspector Dhar. Dhar never played golf.
A Real Detective at Work
Detective Patel, as Dr. Daruwalla had guessed, was a deputy commissioner of police—D.C.P. Patel, officially. The detective was from Crime Branch Headquarters at Crawford Market—not from the nearby Tardeo Police Station, as Farrokh had also correctly surmised—because certain evidence, discovered during the examination of Mr. Lal’s body, had elevated the old golfer’s death to a category of interest that was special to the deputy commissioner.
What such a category of interest could be wasn’t immediately clear to Dr. Daruwalla or to Inspector Dhar, nor was Deputy Commissioner Patel inclined to clarify the matter promptly.
“You must forgive me, Doctor—please do excuse me, Mr. Dhar,” the detective said; he was in his forties, a pleasant-looking man whose formerly delicate, sharp-boned face had slightly given way to his jowls. His alert eyes and the deliberate cadence of the deputy commissioner’s speech indicated that he was a careful man. “Which one of you was the very first to find the body?” the detective asked.
Dr. Daruwalla could rarely resist making a joke. “I believe the very first to find the body was a vulture,” the doctor said.
“Oh, quite so!” said the deputy commissioner, smiling tolerantly. Then Detective Patel sat down, uninvited, at their table—in the chair nearer Inspector Dhar. “After the vultures,” the policeman said to the actor, “I believe you were the next to find the body.”
“I didn’t move it or even touch it,” Dhar said, anticipating the question; it was a question he usually asked—in his movies.
“Oh, very good, thank you,” said D.C.P. Patel, turning his attention to Dr. Daruwalla. “And you, most naturally, examined the body, Doctor?” he asked.
“I most naturally did not examine it,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. “I’m an orthopedist, not a pathologist. I merely observed that Mr. Lal was dead.”
“Oh, quite so!” Patel said. “But did you give any thought to the cause of death?”
“Golf,” said Dr. Daruwalla; he’d never played the game but he detested it at a distance. Dhar smiled. “In Mr. Lal’s case,” the doctor continued, “I suppose you might say he was killed by an excessive desire to improve. He most probably had high blood pressure, too—a man his age shouldn’t repeatedly lose his temper in the hot sun.”
“But our weather is really quite cool,” the deputy commissioner said.
As if he’d been thinking about it for an extended time, Inspector Dhar said, “The body didn’t smell. The vultures stank, but not the body.”
Detective Patel appeared to be surprised and favorably impressed by this report, but all he said was, “Precisely.”
Dr. Daruwalla spoke with impatience: “My dear Deputy Commissioner, why don’t you begin by telling us what you know?”
“Oh, that’s absolutely not our way,” the deputy commissioner cordially replied. “Is it?” he asked Inspector Dhar.
“No, it isn’t,” Dhar agreed. “Just when do you estimate the time of death?” he asked the detective.
“Oh, what a very good question!” Patel remarked. “We estimate this morning—not even two hours before you found the body!”
Dr. Daruwalla considered this. While Mr. Bannerjee had been searching the clubhouse for his opponent and old friend, Mr. Lal had strolled to the ninth green and the bougainvillea beyond, once more to practice a good escape from his nemesis of the day before. Mr. Lal had not been late for his appointed game; if anything, poor Mr. Lal had been a little too early—at least, too eager.
“But there wouldn’t have been vultures so soon,” Dr. Daruwalla said. “There would have been no scent.”
“Not unless there was quite a lot of blood, or an open wound … and in this sun,” Inspector Dhar said. He’d learned much from his movies, even though they were very bad movies; even D.C.P. Patel was beginning to appreciate that.
“Quite so,” the detective said. “There was quite a lot of blood.”
“There was a lot of blood by the time we found him!” said Dr. Daruwalla, who still didn’t understand. “Especially around his eyes and mouth—I just assumed that the vultures had begun.”
“Vultures start pecking where there’s already blood, and at the naturally wet places,” said Detective Patel. His English was unusually good for a policeman, even for a deputy commissioner, Dr. Daruwalla thought.
The doctor was sensitive about his Hindi; he was aware that Dhar spoke the language more comfortably than he did. This was a slight embarrassment for Dr. Daruwalla, who wrote all of Dhar’s movie dialogue and his voice-over in English. The translation into Hindi was done by Dhar; those phrases that particularly appealed to him—there weren’t many—the actor left in English. And here was a not-so-common policeman indulging in the one-upmanship of speaking English to the renowned Canadian; it was what Dr. Daruwalla called “the Canadian treatment”—when a Bombayite wouldn’t even try to speak Hindi or Marathi to him. Although almost everyone spoke English at the Duckworth Club, Farrokh was thinking of something witty to say to Detective Patel in Hindi, but Dhar (in his accentless English) spoke first. Only then did the doctor realize that Dhar had not once used his show-business Hindi accent with the deputy commissioner.
