It was with the capture of the criminals Krishnan and Karunan—twin brothers who were known as Cat and Mouse—that Victor became famous within the entire police force. Even their own mother claimed that she could not tell them apart. They had committed several burglaries and the occasional sexual assault. They did these crimes individually, but after carefully planning them together, so that, if one was caught, he could argue that the other was responsible. With the help of a skilful lawyer, they avoided punishment in several cases. The trials of cases where Cat or Mouse was the culprit created several dramatic and comedic moments in courtrooms, with their lawyer making fun of the police as well as the victims when they could not tell one brother from the other.

But their fortune began to change when they were arrested together during an attempted burglary at a jewellery shop. At the police camp, Victor committed to memory their separate and distinctive smells. And from then on, when they were arrested, it was possible to tell which one had committed the crime. Finally, they were sent to prison for a very long time.

Life at the police camp did not change Victor’s peculiar attitude. He paid little attention to ordinary policemen, and only recognized those above the rank of circle inspector, responding to them as though he was their equal. He operated with complete freedom when he was part of an investigation. The image that came to people’s minds when they heard the term ‘police dog’—a dog straining forward at the end of a chain held by its handler—was simply not true in Victor’s case. Instead, like a stern-faced detective, he performed his duty and went back to his post, and the policemen regarded him not as a dog but as one of them.

Although not quite demonstrative of his considerable skills, there was an incident that made him famous outside the police force. A newly appointed excise commissioner, a man who was keen to be known as someone who could not be corrupted, began the task of systematically destroying the marijuana farms hidden within the forests in the High Range hills. The raids did not get off to a successful start. Then Victor joined the effort, his keen nose following the scent of ‘shivamooli’—as ganja was locally known—over several kilometres deep into the forests. The khaki team followed him, cut down the plants and set light to them. As they sat huddled in their tents in the piercing cold, they smoked the ganja they had cut down, and wondered why human beings were destroying the plants God had created in His wisdom. Walking around the forest, some of them witnessed a fantastic sight. Through the gaps in the tree trunks, they saw a dog that looked exactly like Victor, with a leather collar around its neck, pass before them. They would have mistaken him for Victor had it not been for the dire state of exhaustion he was in.

A government minister, pursuing the fame that would come with taking part in the raids, arrived at the police camp. The man, known to be a buffoon, was accompanied by a group of inebriated photographers representing a range of media outlets. One of the newspapers published, prominently on its front page, a photograph of Victor leading the minister through the forest, with the caption, ‘Who is the smart one?’ After this incident, when important cases were being investigated, people began to ask not whether they had brought a police dog, but whether Victor had arrived.