Inspector Ghote, His Life and Crimes

by H. R. F. Keating

  Slowly ACP Samant put down the receiver. He gave Ghote, standing neatly to attention on the far side of his desk, a slow, assessing look.

  ‘So, Inspector, as I was telling, it is not going to be at all easy to pull in Daddyji. But we are going to do it. You are going to do it. He has a place down in Colaba. Go over there ek dum and get out of him something. Something to have him fairly and squarely on a first-class foolproof charge.’

  And, before Ghote had time to reflect on the ACP’s sudden about-turn, much less before he had managed to think how he was possibly going to get that evidence, he found himself outside the cabin perplexed. Scarcely half an hour later Ghote was standing face to face with the man ACP Samant had pronounced to be all-bad.

  Certainly, he thought, looking at the burly frame, the almost bald bullet head with the thick knife scar running above the left eyebrow and the expression of sullen coldness in the deep-set eyes, the fellow has all the appearance of somebody who is bad. Very bad even. But all-bad?

  In spite of everything the ACP had said Ghote kept his reservations.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘so you are the famous Daddyji I have heard and read a lot about. But you are not so big as I was expecting. You are not much taller than myself.’

  ‘But twice as hard,’ said Daddyji, his voice grinding out.

  ‘Perhaps. But let me tell something. However hard or not hard I am, the CID itself is harder than you, Daddyji. Than you or anyone, than any man with a man’s weaknesses.’

  ‘Oh yes, Inspector? But I am here. And this is not Thana Gaol.’

  ‘No, no, it is not. But the day for Thana Gaol is coming.’

  ‘All kinds of days are coming. The day when elephants are flying, the day when the sea is drying up. But still I am able to do what I want.’

  ‘Perhaps that time is going to end sooner than you think. I have a feeling that now you have gone too far.’

  ‘I go where I like. Where do you think is too far, my little Inspector?’

  ‘I think,’ Ghote said slowly, ‘the Loafer’s Delight Disc Mart was too far. The owner is the son of the Minister for Home.’

  But his threat, if threat it was, received only a roar of uninhibited laughter from the gang boss.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, wiping his eyes, ‘that I was not knowing.’

  ‘Not when you were ordering his shop to be pulled to pieces?’ Ghote slipped in.

  But his ruse was by no means clever enough.

  ‘I order, Inspector?’ Daddyji answered blandly. ‘But why should you be thinking that?’

  ‘Because that is your modus operandi,’ Ghote replied. ‘That is the pattern you are always working to, Daddyji. We know very much about you already.’

  ‘You know nothing.’

  ‘Oh, perhaps not enough to get a conviction today. But no man is perfect, and one day you would make mistake.’

  ‘Oh, yes, mistake and mistake I will make. But it will be no matter.’

  ‘No matter?’

  Daddyji shrugged.

  ‘If I am making mistake,’ he said, ‘it would maybe cost me plenty plenty. But plenty plenty I have. So goodbye to catching Daddyji, Inspector.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Ghote said, ‘I require you to answer certain questions.’

  ‘Answers cost nothing.’

  ‘If they are not true, they will cost you your freedom.’

  But Daddyji only smiled.

  ‘They will cost me only the price of making them true after, my little Inspector,’ he said. ‘And lies are cheap enough.’

  ‘We shall see. Now, where were you at 3.15 pip-emma this afternoon?’

  ‘That is easy. I was here. I am always careful to be with friends at such times, and I was talking with a police constable I am knowing.’

  ‘At such times?’ Ghote leapt in. ‘Why were you saying “at such times”?’

  Daddyji smiled again.

  ‘At such times? At afternoon times only, Inspector. It is at such times that a man feels sad, and then it is good to talk. Especially with a police constable.’

  ‘Very well. Then tell me, when did you last see two men by the names of Iqbal Singh and Chandra Chagoo?’

  ‘Inspector, will you say those names again?’

  ‘You are very well knowing them.’

  ‘Inspector, I have never heard of any such persons. Who are they, please?’

  ‘They are the men you instructed to break up the Loafer’s Delight Disc Mart.’

  Daddyji looked Ghote straight in the eye.

  ‘And you would never be able to prove that, Inspector,’ he said. ‘You would never be able to prove that I have ever even met them.’

  ACP Samant was not very pleased.

  ‘And I suppose now,’ he snapped, ‘you are proposing to sit upon your bottom and say “no can do”?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Ghote answered firmly.

  ‘No, sir. No, sir. Then what are you proposing to do, man?’

  ‘Sir, from my examination of the material in Records I have come to the conclusion there is one good line still to take.’

  ‘Records. Records. You are all alike. If it is hiding in Records with a good fan blowing down on you in the heat you are willing to work and to work. But if it is getting out into the hot streets you are thinking differently.’

  ‘But, sir, I am about to go out into the hot— Into the streets, sir. To interview the owner of the only place so far to have defied Daddyji’s goondas, sir. An establishment by the name of the Galerie Sodawaterwala.’

  ‘Gallery? Gallery? What sort of place is that?’

  ‘It is an art gallery, ACP sahib, and also a shop for the sale of curios and other objects.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me, Inspector. And I suppose next you are going to inform that Sodawaterwala is an old Parsi name. Give me credit for knowing a little bit about some things, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Well, what for are you standing there, man? Get out there to this Sodawaterwala gallery and talk to the man.’

  Mr Sodawaterwala seemed well named. He was a meek and mild looking individual, evidently with all the artistic leanings of the ancient Parsi community fully developed. But he had refused to pay Daddyji’s men any protection money. Even after the police guard he had been given when he had reported the approach first had eventually been withdrawn.

  ‘And nothing has happened since those men were withdrawn?’ Ghote asked him, with surprise.

  ‘Ah, no, Inspector. But you see I took certain steps.’

  ‘Steps?’

  Mr Sodawaterwala heaved a neat little sigh.

  ‘Inspector,’ he said, ‘I must confess. I hired goondas of my own.’

  ‘Criminal types? But, Mr Sodawaterwala …’

  ‘Yes, yes. But what was I to do? The very day the police guard was withdrawn, I spotted on the far pavement there the very men who had earlier demanded money. But I am glad to say, Inspector, that both the fellows I hired proved to be altogether charming chaps.’

  ‘I am glad to hear.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Goondas they may have been, but thoroughly willing and dependable fellows both.’

  ‘They may have been, Mr Sodawaterwala? Are they then with you no more?’

  ‘No, no. They are here always by day. But by night, I regret to say, I have been unable to find any others as dependable.’

  ‘But have you left the premises unguarded at night?’

  Mr Sodawaterwala suddenly smiled with tremendous impishness.

  ‘No, indeed,’ he said. ‘Come this way, Inspector, and I will show you something.’

  He lead Ghote to an upstairs office over the big gallery showroom, throwing open its door with a flourish.

  And there, sitting on two stools, were what Ghote took to be at first sight a pair of the most villainous looking goondas he had ever met.

  But then he stood peering in at the dimly lit room and looked again.

  ‘They are not real?’ he asked. ‘They are dummies
only?’

  Mr Sodawaterwala giggled in glee.

  ‘Exactly so, Inspector. Exactly so. A ruse I borrowed from my extensive reading of the crime stories of the West. The Saint, Sherlock Holmes and so forth. These are just such models as deceived the fierce Colonel Moran when Holmes returned from the dead.’

  ‘You were making yourself?’ Ghote asked, looking more closely at the extremely lifelike heads.

  ‘No, no, my dear sir. I have no talent in that direction. Yet I am inclined to bet that you will never guess who did indeed make these altogether excellent figures.’

  ‘One of the artists whose work you are selling?’

  ‘No, no. Not at all, not at all.’

  ‘Then I am unable to guess.’

  ‘They were made, my dear sir, by none other than my sweeper boy.’

  ‘A sweeper. But …’

  ‘Yes, yes. But how could a sweeper, a boy of the lowest class, have such a talent? You are right to ask. But, Inspector, let it be a lesson to us. Never underestimate the abilities and complexity of any human being whatsoever.’

  ‘He made them himself, without any assistance?’ Ghote asked, looking again at the uncannily lifelike models, still only half able to believe that someone young and untutored could possess such ability.

  ‘Something like a miracle, is it not?’ the dapper little Parsi gallery owner said. ‘And, more than this, the boy – he is about sixteen years of age only – came to me like a miracle.’

  ‘Explain please, Mr Sodawaterwala.’

  ‘Well, one morning a few weeks ago my old sweeper, who had been with me for years, announced suddenly that he was leaving. I offered him an increment. I even offered him a better place to sleep. He had the use of this cupboard here under the stair. Look.’

  Mr Sodawaterwala led Ghote to a small door under the stairs and opened it with a flourish.

  ‘You will meet my miracle –’ he began.

  Then his voice came to an abrupt halt.

  ‘But … but this is extraordinary,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ Ghote asked, alerted by the note of bewilderment in the Parsi’s tone.

  ‘The boy, Piloo. He has gone. Look, all his few possessions they are here no more. And his pictures. His pictures have gone.’

  ‘What pictures are these?’ Ghote asked.

  ‘I was telling you, Inspector. Just the very day that my old sweeper left so unaccountably, Piloo came to me asking for a job. Quite soon I discovered that Piloo was a remarkable artist. He began to play with some scraps of modelling clay that were lying about and he made these really excellent small pictures. Scenes of everyday life, modelled in clay. I was going to get them on display even.’

  ‘He knew this?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Only three days ago I told him. And now he has gone. Vanished. And I really believe he would have become the Indian Hogarth.’

  Ghote stood in silent tribute for a moment to this odd event in the gallery owner’s life. But he could not waste more time. Pushing aside the boy’s disappearance, he said, ‘Mr Sodawaterwala, when I saw those dummies of your goonda guards an idea came into my head. Can I ask you tonight not to put them in their usual place?’

  The gallery owner visibly paled.

  ‘But, Inspector,’ he said, ‘in that case I very much fear I shall be visited by those fellows who threatened me. They will break up the gallery, perhaps even attack me myself.’

  ‘That they should come into the gallery is exactly my object,’ Ghote answered. ‘But do not take away the dummies till a late hour. Say, after midnight. Before then I will come and conceal myself on the premises.’

  ‘And catch the fellows red-handed?’ Mr Sodawaterwala brightened.

  ‘More than that I am hoping,’ Ghote said. ‘I hope to catch them and to get them to admit who sent them.’

  ‘You think you can do that, Inspector?’

  ‘I think I must do it, Mr Sodawaterwala.’

  Ghote’s mind was still filled with that determination as, just after eleven that night, he cautiously approached the darkened Galerie Sodawaterwala from the rear, the key to its back door which Mr Sodawaterwala had given him in his hand.

  But he found the little door in the narrow dark lane unlocked. Worse, forced open.

  With pounding heart he pushed into the echoing empty premises, flashing his pocket torch here and there. All seemed to be well. Nowhere was there any sign of the damage Daddyji’s men were likely to have inflicted.

  But then, from somewhere up above, he detected a sound. A muffled groan.

  He swung the flashlight beam round, located the stairs, pounded up them. Pausing for a moment at the top he listened. And, yes, distinctly another groan.

  He ran forward.

  Mr Sodawaterwala was lying on the floor in the middle of his little upstairs office. His face was black and bloodied. One of his legs was twisted under him at an angle that it should never have been. Both his hands were a mess of open wounds.

  Ghote knelt beside him.

  ‘Mr Sodawaterwala,’ he said, ‘I am here. I will fetch help. Do not try to move. Where is your telephone?’

  ‘In gallery,’ the battered Parsi managed to say. ‘Down …’

  ‘Yes, yes. Downstairs. I am going. Lie back. Help will be here in a few minutes only.’

  And indeed an ambulance arrived in answer to Ghote’s urgent call in a commendably short time. But the interval had been long enough for Mr Sodawaterwalla to groan out to Ghote the details of what had happened.

  ‘Daddyji’ was the first word that he managed to mutter.

  ‘Daddyji?’ Ghote asked. ‘Did he come himself? Was it him who did this to you?’

  ‘He took pleasure … In telling … telling me.’

  Ghote felt a renewed sense of angry determination.

  ‘Then we shall get him,’ he said. ‘I am promising you that, Mr Sodawaterwala. But how was it that he knew this was a time to come? Were those dummies still in place?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Still there. As instructed. But Piloo–’

  ‘Piloo? Your sweeper boy who disappeared this afternoon? What had he todo with this?’

  ‘Brother.’

  ‘Brother? I do not understand.’

  ‘Piloo Daddyji’s young brother. Daddyji told me. Told me made my old sweeper leave, put the boy in instead. Spy.’

  Ghote, kneeling beside the broken body of the Parsi, thought for a little.

  ‘But did you not tell it was some weeks since the boy came?’ he asked at last. ‘He had time to make the dummies, and for you to discover he was the Indian Garth-ho.’

  ‘Ho-garth. Very famous British artist. Scenes of low life.’

  ‘I am sorry. Hogarth. Yes, Hogarth. But why, if he was sent as a spy, did he not tell Daddyji long ago that you were not really guarded?’

  ‘Because I had told him what a talent he had. He refused for a time to tell his brother.’

  ‘Daddyji told you this?’

  ‘Boasted. Said he was giving me extra because … Because of that.’

  ‘Yes, that is very like the man,’ Ghote said grimly. ‘But now we would nab him, with your assistance we would do it.’

  ‘No,’ groaned the battered gallery owner.

  ‘But – But – No, lie back, Mr Sodawaterwala.’

  ‘Inspector, I will not give evidence against that man.’

  ‘But, Mr Sodawaterwala, this is the one good chance we have. A man of your reputation, a stainless witness against that man.’

  ‘Inspector. Not what I thought I was. Not a fighter for good through and through. Insp … He told me what he would do to me next time.’

  It was with feelings of deep pessimism that Ghote reported next day to ACP Samant.

  ‘Sir, Mr Sodawaterwala is recovering well in J. J. Hospital. But he is adamant, sir. He will not give evidence.’

  The ACP grunted non-committally.

  ‘And you say this boy, this Piloo, is Daddyji’s younger brother?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But if
you are thinking that here is a way into that man’s heart, I do not—’

  ‘Heart? Heart? I tell you, Inspector, that sort of talk does not apply in the case of Daddyji. He is an all-bad hat. Understand that.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But the boy took away from the gallery these paintings or pictures or whatever?’

  ‘Pictures in clay, sir. Mr Sodawaterwala believes they will make him the Indian Garth— The Indian Hogarth, sir.’

  ‘I dare say. I dare say. But the point is that the clay was undoubtedly the property of Mr Sodawaterwala. So the boy stole it. And we are going to put him behind the bars for that.’

  Ghote felt puzzled.

  ‘But, sir, he was not anything to do with the raid on the Minister’s son’s record shop, sir.’

  ‘But is the Minister to know that, Ghote? Is he? Is he? No, no, we tell Minister sahib that the boy was one of two brothers and that it has been convenient to bring a charge against one only, and we assure him that the culprit will catch a damn long term of Rigorous Imprisonment. That will get the Minister off our back, and that after all is the object of the exercise.’

  ‘But, sir,’ Ghote said, flooded with sudden dismay. ‘Sir, the boy is the Indian Hogarth. If he is sent to prison, India will lose her Hogarth.’

  ACP Samant brought his fist crashing down on to his desk till every brass paperweight there jumped in the air.

  ‘Inspector,’ he stormed, ‘unless you get down to Colaba and arrest that boy now India will lose her Inspector Ghote.’

  So, in less than an hour Ghote was once again facing the formidable figure of Daddyji. A smiling, contemptuous Daddyji.

  ‘I had a feeling that I would be seeing you soon, my little Inspector.’

  ‘I expect so,’ Ghote returned levelly. ‘But I have not come to hear where you were at eleven pip-emma last night.’

  That did surprise the boastful iron-tough crook.

  ‘Not? Not? But you must want to know. I was far away. Out at Juhu Beach. With my friends Mahesh Khandwalla, Sudakar Dalvi, Mohamed Hai, Sudhir–’

  ‘Stop. However much nonsense you are telling, however many names you are giving, I know better. You were at the Galerie Sodawaterwala then committing grevious bodily harm.’

  Daddyji brightened at this. Here was a game where he knew the score.