Cracking the Case

The Case,hosted by events management firm Floh,is based on An Inspector Calls,English dramatist J B Priestley’s classic from 1945. It was tweaked into a story of a middle-class family from Mumbai whose domestic help is found dead in Delhi. The murderer is one of the family members. Between December 13 and 15,the day the maid died,the family dined out in 212 Worli in Mumbai,attended a business meeting at Taj Vivanta,Bangalore,and arrived in Delhi for a wedding.

“Investigations until now reveal that the maid was pregnant and was killed at 9.30 am,” says Grover. The detectives were divided into two teams — green and red — and handed sheets with clues and background details. They were allotted corners that had giant screens connected to the other cities,and white murder boards.

With the clock ticking,the detectives in Delhi scurried to the car park where one suspect claimed to have been at the time of murder,the Bangalore team checked with the attendant at the gate about another suspect,the Mumbai team got a list of the drinks ordered by the family members at 212 Worli. The staff at these venues had been briefed for the show and played along. There were bartenders and waiters to be quizzed and different clues to be pieces together. The last few minutes were marked by euphoria — “His alibi checks out” — and doubt — “She was closest to the victim,so she didn’t … or did she?” — as well as the final leap of “let’s just go with this”.

By the time the green team called in with the results in Delhi and Mumbai,there were still a few pieces blank on the murder board. The red team called a moment later. “The mother did it,” said Ankit Bajaj,an entrepreneur,“because her son was the father of the maid’s unborn child”. The supreme attitude of Hercule Poirot was absent but the green team had nailed it,as did the reds though a moment too late. “It was not a difficult case to crack. What was amazing was that we got to talk to so many people and trust their decisions,” said Abhideep Singh of the red team.