“Do I look good in this dress?” the detective asked me. I looked at her with amusement. “Yes, pretty lady! You look marvellous.” The detective was wearing a blue sari with a black blouse. She had the charm to look gorgeous in any dress or even without it!

I looked at her blue eyes and blonde hair. “You have a similarity with Anna Chapman. Have you ever considered being a spy?”

The detective burst into a musical laughter. It seemed like a cocktail of ethereal notes expressing celestial divinity. Any man, living or dead, would fall in love with her.

But I could not. I had serious work to do. I was walking alongside her, my hand entwining hers gently. “You did not answer my question, detective,” I said to her.

She took her time. “Well, it’s a great compliment. But I still don’t think that I want to be a spy. Don’t you like me as a detective?”

I obviously liked her. She would conquer the world one day with her popularity. Besides, I myself always preferred Sherlock Holmes to James Bond. There won’t be any problem if she did not become a spy.

We went to a coffee shop. The waiter greeted us politely. We took our seats beside each other. There was a man sitting alone in a corner looking outside the window. I thought that I had seen him somewhere.

We ordered coffee and some snacks. There were some people staring at my companion. I scolded her, “You are a detective. You must be able to get entangled with the crowd without drawing any extra attention.”

She was not bothered a bit. Suddenly she touched my face with her hands and kissed on my lips. She kept kissing me for some time until I gasped for air.

The people, who were staring at her till then, started looking elsewhere. They got the feeling that I was her lover. Surprisingly, the man sitting in the corner never glanced at us. He looked submerged in his thoughts. I asked the detective, “Can you say something about the whereabouts of the man sitting there?” I pointed my finger at him.

She watched him attentively. “Just a minute,” she said and left the table. She went to the man and said something in an inaudible voice. The man shut the window pane. The detective came nonchalantly to sit beside me again.

“What did you tell him?” I asked her.

She smiled heartily, “It is raining outside. Can you please shut the window? I have got a cold.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Just to have a better glance upon him. He is married, has two kids. He is waiting here for his wife.”

I was stunned. I thought she was joking. “How could you get all this information in just a few moments?”

She stared at me, not blinking at all. “You have read all the detective stories of Sherlock Holmes. You should not be so much astonished. It’s simple. He has a wedding ring on his finger. You may not have noticed but his wallet is left on the table in open. It contains a picture of a boy and a girl. He must be a very forgetful person. Anyone can pick the wallet from the table.”

“Yes, it’s not difficult at all,” I said, “But how were you so sure that the photo depicted his children? It could have been a photo print kept within the wallet by the manufacturing company. It’s also possible that it’s a picture of his childhood.”

“No, it’s not. The companies use a different quality paper. Besides, it has a heart sign drawn with a marker at the bottom. Why would someone mark a photo print of two unknown children without any reason? The tint states clearly that the photo was taken recently. So it doesn’t have any relation to his childhood,” she said confidently.

“But it’s possible that the picture is of his nephew and niece,” I argued.

“Yes, it’s possible. But it’s very unlikely to have such an uncle nowadays. Look, his wife is going near his table,” she diverted my attention to a chubby woman.

“But how could you...,” I could not complete my sentence. She put her finger on my lips mischievously with a gesture requesting to be silent. “Let there be some mysteries intact. A good magician never reveals his tricks,” she said.

We were out of the coffee shop in a few minutes. The more I got to know her, the stronger the attraction I felt for her. The weather had become very comfortable after the rain. Cold breeze coming from the south was the only thing to disrupt the pin-drop silence.

Suddenly, there was a hue and cry at a distance. We heard some gunshots along with screams. We rushed to the spot immediately.

A man was lying on the road, badly injured. “Who did it to you?” the detective asked, pushing the crowd aside to get nearer to him.

The man tried to look at the inquirer. He was in a deep pain. I could see a doctor rushing towards him.

The man uttered, “K...K…” He died before saying anything more.

I looked at the detective and asked, “Can you solve the mystery?”

“Yes, of course,” she seemed determined. “So, will you give me a chance?”

“Ok, let’s do it together,” I said. “Please help me whenever I am stuck.”

“I will,” said the detective.

“Do you need an assistant?”

“You can come along. I will solve mysteries and you will weave them. You can also glorify me by narrating the story as a partner with less intelligence.”

I got back to the writing desk happily from my imaginary world. I had got the heroine of my upcoming thriller. I promised her that she would get a chance to solve this mystery in my new detective story.