Descendants of Holmes

Agurchand Mansion on the Mount Road, Chennai is an ancient-looking building in polished red brick that on-look a busy junction. A flight of stairs, amidst a row of artifact and electronic equipment shops, takes you to a narrow corridor that branches out in four directions. Any first time visitor to this place will be perplexed to see a variety of pointers that welcomes you to the security, recruitment or investigation wings of several detective agencies.

Once you push open one of the half doors, you are in an air-conditioned small room where an ever smiling young lady usually welcomes you with a “May I help you sir/ madam?” She asks for the purpose of your visit, shows you to a chair if you need to wait, brings you coffee or tea (needn’t expect anything else)....Hello! You are in a detective agency! At least three of them work from these dark corridors.

Unless you have a previous association with detectives, you may expect to meet a brainy man, who doesn’t care to keep himself clean, but extracts all secrets through your eyes. But the person you’ll be meeting here is a clean professional, at your service, whether it is a case of your teenager son not attending his school or minor thefts in your neighbourhood.

But most ‘detective agencies’ in the city are actually agencies that recruit and post industrial security guards on contract basis. “The employees are recruited on the basis of just willingness and are given a weeklong training, usually on the type of work they have to do, how to deal with particular circumstances, etc. They further have an on job training after which they are given identity cards and are posted at some industry or corporate office”, says Anthony Amalraj, Manager, Operations, Raj Detective Agency.

However, some of them have investigation wings too, usually handled by experienced detectives, ex- military or police officers. Major Pattabhiraman of Globe Detective Agency and Benjamin Theogaraj of Raj DetectiveAgency are two major players in the field. Private Investigation & Surveillance, Asset Verification, Pre / Post Matrimonial Enquiry, Pre / Post Employment Screening, Industrial Thefts / Frauds, Infringement of Trade Marks, Market Survey, Investigation into While Collar Crimes, Competitors’ Activity...reads the list posted on the walls of most receptions. Globe also has a special wing that deals with Burglar Alarm Systems, Fire Alarm Systems, Access Control Systems and Fire Fighting Systems.

Star detective Agency is reputed to have an exclusive women’s wing of detectives led by A.M. Malathy, South India’s first woman detective. An engineering graduate, she started doing it for fun and later became a full time detective. “A woman has access to many areas where men are forbidden. You can even pass off as an ordinary house wife”, she said when asked about the advantages of being a woman. Globe too has a good number of lady detectives working for it in its various branches around the country. Investigation is no more a monopoly of men!