‘There will doubtless be a good deal of loss of hearing,’ she suggested.
‘If it was that only,’ said the DSP.
‘That only?’ Dr Abrahams queried. ‘There is something wrong here, I think. When I first came in I sensed something. An old woman develops a certain feeling for tensions, for trouble.’
She turned authoritatively back to the River Man and picked up one emaciated hand.
‘James,’ she said. ‘My old friend, what is it?’
But the River Man still obstinately remained silent.
Ghote took it on himself to explain.
‘Madam, DSP Samant and myself came here at the request of Dr P. R. Kumaramangalam, as perhaps he has told you. When we arrived Dr Wals— this person, who in the neighbourhood they are calling the River Man, at first refused to speak at all. Then, when the DSP most ingeniously proved, truly and beyond doubt, out of this man’s own mouth, that he must be Dr Walsingham, suddenly he told us that … Madam, he told us that he was the Beast of the Beaches.’
‘The Beast of the Beaches,’ Dr Abrahams said, ‘but didn’t I read …’
‘In Illustrated Weekly of India, madam.’
‘Really, Inspector,’ Dr Doctor put in, ‘do you think Dr Abrahams would waste her time on publications of that sort?’
‘But nevertheless an old retired lady has time to waste,’ Dr Abrahams answered. ‘Or rather she had time to waste till now. Now she sees a very nasty situation.’
‘Dr Abrahams,’ the DSP said thoughtfully, ‘does it then seem possible to you that he could indeed be both? Both Dr Walsingham and the Beast of the Beaches?’
‘Possible?’ the old German lady answered slowly. ‘As a matter of pure chronology it could be so, if I remember the article correctly. And then … There always used to be something mysterious about James Walsingham’s origins. I remember he would never state a date and place of birth. We used to make jokes about it.’
She sounded extraordinarily sad.
‘But, madam,’ Ghote broke in, swept by feelings of unfathomable dismay, ‘madam, is it possible as more than a matter of dates only? Madam, could two such people, two such totally different people, truly be one?’
Dr Abrahams shook her head in bewilderment.
‘I am an old woman, Inspector,’ she answered at last. ‘And perhaps I no longer know what to believe. Dr Doctor here has more experience in such matters. What do you say, Doctor?’
The young England-returned doctor looked as gloomy.
‘In Europe,’ she said, ‘I read many accounts of such people as the guards at Nazi concentration camps who later appeared to be model citizens, kindly even. Then there is the famous American murderer Leopold, of the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping and murder case, who became a medical missionary when he had served his prison term. You cannot ignore such examples.’
Ghote sadly looked at the ground. Even the DSP seemed a little pensive. But, surprisingly, Dr Abrahams looked up with sudden decisiveness.
‘Well, well,’ she said, ‘all that is a matter requiring much thought. In the meantime there are things to be done. Plainly James … plainly the River Man, as you call him, is not at all well. He needs hospital care. Hospital care at once. Is that not so, Doctor?’
‘Why, yes,’ Dr Doctor answered, after a moment’s hesitation ‘Yes. Yes, his condition is decidedly morbid. Immediate hospitalisation is indicated.’
‘No.’
It was DSP Samant. The forceful syllable rang through the hut.
‘What do you mean, no?’ Dr Abrahams asked.
‘If,’ the DSP explained with stiff formality, ‘it is possible that this man, as you have just said, is both Dr Walsingham and Jack Curtin, the Beast of the Beaches, then the whole matter becomes a police affair. Offences in contravention of Indian Penal Code Section 302.’
‘Murder,’ Ghote bleakly explained.
For a moment no one spoke. Then Ghote turned earnestly to the DSP.
‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Sir, if he – the River Man is Dr Walsingham, if he is that great benefactor, well then, sir, he has asked us to leave him in peace. And … and, sir, I am thinking we ought to do same.’
‘Nonsense, Inspector. A serious allegation has been made. A confession, even. It must be investigated. And, back in Bombay, there would be plenty of corroborative evidence once I am starting to look.’
It was, however, Inspector Ghote who in fact did the looking for corroborative evidence. In the ancient, crumbling, antmined reports of the Beast of the Beaches murders, written out long before by hand by babus who had learnt regularity of script but had evidently no conception of the need to be readable.
‘… sent to the Chemical Examiner,’ he pieced out, and realised with a faint shock that what had been sent to that dignitary of years gone by, for what reason it was impossible to conceive, was an entire rowing boat, the one that had been found drifting after the escaping Beast had made off in it.
He raised his head and wondered aloud.
‘So after all was that fellow drowned, and was Dr James … Was the River Man …?’
He plunged back to his task. The DSP had said that, although they had put a guard on the river bank opposite the little island, he wanted to get out there again as soon as some corroborative material had been found.
But, at last, there were only the newspapers of the time to be gone through. He had nearly finished his search of their columns, forcing himself to be totally thorough however repetitive they were, when the door of his cabin burst open and DSP Samant was there.
‘Well, man?’
‘Sir, there is nothing.’
‘Nothing? Nothing? Well, that’s excellent. There is nothing that contradicts the confession we were both hearing.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ghote sadly agreed. ‘Nothing in the case papers is contradicting that.’
‘Very well. So you’ve finished, eh? I will order transport to be here in five minutes.’
‘Sir, almost. Just one or two more newspapers to check.’
‘What can newspapers only have to tell? Pack up, Ghote.’
‘Yes, sir. But I will just only …’
Once more Ghote plunged into the tall yellowed pages.
He had believed the DSP had been away less than five minutes when his door was flung open once more.
‘Damn it, Inspector. I have been waiting out in the compound for one half-hour. One half-hour. What the devil have you been doing?’
‘Sir, I was reading only.’
‘Reading? Reading? I’ll give you reading, Inspector. Wasting my time in this fashion, I’ll—’
‘No, sir, no.’
Ghote was unable to stop himself cutting the DSP short.
He saw the fierce eyes beginning to blaze with redoubled fire.
‘Sir,’ he jabbered hastily. ‘Sir, I have proof. Proof. I have just only realised it, sir. Sir, in each and every one of the newspaper accounts there was not one mention of one thing.’
‘What the hell are you talking about, man? Come along, we’ll never get to that island at this rate.’
‘No, sir. Sir, it is this. There is no mention in any paper whatsoever of the Beast having been a butcher in his early days. But, sir, he – the River Man, sir. He was saying Do you think Jack Curtin, the lad who had been a butcher’s apprentice … Sir, I heard. You also heard. Sir, it is proof. Proof, I am altogether afraid.’
Back out on the island once more there had been no sign of the River Man prowling his little kingdom as there had been when they had first watched him through binoculars. And, when their boat had touched the shore – Ghote managed it more adroitly this time – there was still no sign. It was only when they had reached the hut and peered inside that they saw why. The old man was lying on his charpoy, feebly coughing from time to time and looking yet worse in health than when they had left him the day before, after the DSP had persuaded the two doctors that their ruse to take him to some private hospital had failed.
Ghote ducked his head, entered
the hut and went across to the sick man.
‘Dr Walsingham,’ he said, deciding in an instant that this was the only form of address he wanted to use. ‘Dr Walsingham, you are not well? Can I get you tea?’
He checked himself.
‘Well, there does not seem to be any fire for making such. But can I fetch you some water? Or … Or perhaps one Garibaldi biscuit? May I open this packet?’
He pointed down at his still unopened shiny purchase.
‘Quiet, man,’ the DSP said, coming to his side and looking at the emaciated figure on the bed.
He cleared his throat loudly.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘I have one or two questions to put. You were informing us yesterday that the Beast of the Beaches had been in youth a butcher, yes?’
The old man on the charpoy was silent.
‘Well,’ the DSP said eventually, ‘you can take it from me that you were making such a statement. Inspector Ghote here witnessed the same. Now, tell me. How do you account for your knowledge of that when none of the published records describe the Beast as other than a ship’s steward?’
There was another silence.
But at last the old man broke it himself.
‘Perhaps,’ he suggested feebly, ‘it was somewhere in the papers at the time?’
‘Ghote here conducted a cent per cent thorough search.’
‘You’re hard. A hard man.’
‘Perhaps,’ the DSP answered. ‘But it was you yourself who started this. Did you expect a police officer to take no notice of such a confession?’
‘Yes,’ the River Man answered, coughing dryly and hard. ‘Yes, I suppose I did.’
‘Please, Dr Walsingham,’ Ghote put in. ‘Please, is there not an explanation of how you knew the Beast was a butcher also?’
‘Before I came here, to this island, the second time,’ the River Man responded with a new meanderingness. ‘Before. I never had time to think.’
‘Come,’ the DSP barked. ‘This is not a matter requiring thought. You told us the Beast had been a butcher. The records confirm the killings were expertly done. But there was nothing of that in the newspapers. Unless you are the Beast itself, how do you account for that?’
‘I was busy,’ the River Man went on, apparently not having heard. ‘I was always working. Working.’
He looked up abruptly at Ghote.
‘You,’ he said. ‘You as a boy saw that.’
‘Yes, I was seeing. From dawn to dusk you worked. But – but, please, tell us one way you could have known the Beast was this butcher’s apprentice.’
‘Then my hands went,’ the old man continued wanderingly. ‘The processes of age. And what use was there for an eye-surgeon with shaking hands? So I left. I came here again. To think. At last. To think. And when you start to think the world begins to look very different.’
‘Are you about to say the world looks like a place where the Beast of the Beaches did not exist?’ the DSP cut in.
‘Yes,’ the old man said, seizing on the words. ‘Yes, yes. Where that young man does not exist.’
‘Now, look,’ the DSP said, his famous terrier anger evidently rising once more. ‘I am asking one simple question, and I require an answer. How did you know the Beast of the Beaches was a trained butcher?’
‘I have given you your answer. People who once existed cease to exist.’
‘Pah.’
‘Look at me. Old. An old man on an old and rotten charpoy. Can you see it, this thing, me, pulling down ripe young girls in the darkness of the night?’
‘It is not a question of what I am able to imagine. It is a question of what you were or were not doing.’
‘But, sir,’ Ghote felt obliged to offer. ‘Sir, is there not something in what he is saying? Can you charge such an old man with a young man’s crimes?’
‘I can, Inspector. And I will, unless he can explain how he knows what no one but the murderer should know.’
But the River Man was paying no heed.
‘Time to think,’ he muttered. ‘Out here. What we are. That’s the centre of it. What can we say for certain that we are? We change. At every instant. I am changing now. I feel it. A cold slow heaviness creeping on.’
Ghote leant forward.
‘Dr Walsingham,’ he said. ‘There is no need for any more. He is understanding what you are meaning now.’
He was hardly sure that the DSP was beginning to have any doubts. But at least he was now silent. However, the River Man ignored everything.
‘Change. Everything changing. The river. The old conundrum. The water flows. Is it the same stream that it was a moment ago? Am I the same man?’
‘Dr Walsingham, do not tire yourself. Lie back. Take rest. Look, DSP sahib is convinced.’
‘An old man is not a young man. Is not. Once, long ago, somewhere, there was a young man tormented by desire, who came in the end to be called the Beast of the Beaches. The Beast.’
‘The Beast, yes,’ the DSP broke in. ‘That is what we have to cling to. That man committed six murders. Offences under Section 302. The law does not have these doubts.’
He thrust his face down at the River Man’s.
‘Now,’ he jabbed out, ‘are you or are you not the Beast of the Beaches? Yes or no?’
‘Sir, he has said it is no.’
‘Let the chap speak for himself, Inspector. He has been attempting to spread confusion, and it is plain he has succeeded. But some of us can see through such fancy work.’
‘Wait,’ the River Man replied, looking up at his interrogator. ‘Just you wait thirty or forty years, and then you won’t talk about fancy work. Then you will know.’
‘But now I am only knowing what I know. That it is my duty as a police officer to charge a murderer.’
‘Oh, you poor fellow,’ the River Man answered with more fire. ‘Things are not so simple. No, they are not.’
‘Yes,’ the DSP shot back. ‘Yes, they are simple. There is a logic to things. It is only when you start playing with logic that you come unstuck. Like when you forgot no one could know you were a butcher by training.’
‘That,’ said the River Man, with a stirring of his matted beard that might have been a smile. ‘That. Now that is something simple.’
‘Simple enough to catch you out.’
‘No,’ Ghote broke in again. ‘Dr Walsingham, you were saying there is a fault in our claim, that it does not show you must be the Beast?’
‘You forgot one thing.’
‘Impossible,’ the DSP snorted.
‘No, no. You see, if you were in Bombay at the time and followed the newspaper reports—’
‘No,’ Ghote said. ‘I must state clearly. There was not one single mention of butcher.’
‘No, I dare say there was not. But there would be one man who could have deduced from all those accounts that the Beast was in fact a butcher.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense.’
‘Dr Walsingham, who?’
‘Why, another trained butcher, you ninny. Another man who knew the ways a knife could be used.’
‘But you …’ Ghote said. ‘But is it that you are saying Dr James Walsingham was once also a butcher’s apprentice?’
‘There. There, Mr Deputy Superintendent of Police. There’s a hole in that logic of yours.’
‘And, Doctor,’ Ghote hastily added, ‘was it because you had once been a simple butcher that you were concealing your origins, as Dr Abrahams was stating was the case? I can see it would not have done for a surgeon to be known as a butcher only.’
‘I knew a case like this was altogether too much of good luck,’ the DSP muttered, seeing all his happy suppositions apparently deflated. ‘Come along, Inspector. Come along, for God’s sake.’
They were on the point of beginning the awkward business of getting into the boat when they heard the noise coming from the hut. A monstrous bout of coughing.
‘Sir,’ Ghote said, one leg in the boat, one in the mud. ‘Do you think he is all right?’
‘Yes, DSP sahib. Yes. But – but it is altogether most quiet there now.’
‘Yes.’
Ghote heaved his leg from the mud.
‘You think we really should go now, sir?’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so, Inspector.’
Then in the still air there came the sound of a distinct groan.
‘What was that? Did you hear, Ghote?’
‘From the shack, sir?’
‘Quiet, man.’
They listened.
And it was quite plain that from the shack the River Man was calling to them.
‘Come on, man,’ the DSP snapped. ‘Can’t you hear? The fellow needs help. He’s ill.’
The River Man plainly saw that they had come back into the hut. But he seemed to speak as much to himself as to any listener.
‘When I go back I can see it all as if it was yesterday. The first. She was stupid, a stupid girl. Able to think of nothing but her stomach. I got her down to the beach with a promise of Turkish Delight. A box of Turkish Delight. The fool.’
‘What is it you are saying?’ Ghote heard himself whisper.
‘After her, after the timid boy had killed, I thought I would never be able to stop. And each one made it worse. But then … Then when I came to this island, rowing in that boat, swimming in the end, then, then I found I could stop. I was someone different. Afterwards, back in Bombay, I used to think about those girls sometimes. But not often. I was too busy. You. You remembered how hard I worked.’
‘Yes, I remembered.’
‘So there was little time to think. Till my hands went. And since then, out here, I have had something else to think about. The change. The two selves I had been.’
‘So you were truly both?’ Ghote asked, though he knew he had no need to.
‘Oh, yes, I was both. But was each of them the other? And which was I really? They were very different, you know. The Beast, poor little Jack Curtin, was a sorry sort of chap. Good for nothing but his trade, cutting up meat. And timid. Now a surgeon cannot be timid. And James Walsingham was not. He was a driving man. A force. Was that not so, Inspector? You saw him.’
‘Yes, it was so.’
‘Then did he blot out the other? Tell me. Tell me the truth. Isn’t that timid, dark-minded butcher boy who took his prey on the warm foreign beaches in the soft dark, isn’t he gone? Blotted out? Vanished?’
Inspector Ghote, His Life and Crimes Page 7