Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker

by H. R. F. Keating

  The acting-Director turned from the window and looked with confidence at the arrangement of chairs at the big desk. He had defined his position, and was proud of it.

  “And the Director is in Nepal, you say?” Ghote asked.

  “Yes. It is his life ambition to secure a Yeti for the zoo. He considers the so-called Abominable Snowman would be a public attraction. And so even though his retirement date is a good many years away, he frequently visits Nepal.”

  “I see,” Ghote said.

  His suspicions were sharpening by the second with the information about the Directors long future tenure of his job.

  “But you, you say, are only acting-Director,” he went on. “There is a Deputy Director also. Where is he?”

  Pretending to be on holiday, no doubt. And lurking round with a small calibre rifle.

  “Dead,” said the acting-Director.

  “Dead?”

  The acting-Director bowed his small, worried head.

  “Yes,” he said. “A coronary thrombosis, poor fellow. He went quite suddenly less than six months ago. That is why we are so much at sixes and sevens, to tell you the truth.”

  “No arrangements have been made to replace him?” Ghote asked. “No junior staff have been promoted?”

  “There is only the Head Keeper and Deputy Heads, and they are quite unqualified scientifically.”

  The acting-Director sighed deeply.

  “Ever since poor Karandikar died things have been appalling,” he said. “Sometimes I think I would be better dead myself. I think we would all be better dead."

  Ghote felt that this onset of black pessimism deserved at least some passing tribute.

  “Very true, very true,” he remarked. “There are times when one feels we would all be better dead.”

  He stood for a respectful moment staring through the bright oblong of the window.

  And suddenly the elegant long-legged bird in the circular wire enclosure jumped about a foot into the air in a flurry of abruptly ungainly feathers and then flopped over sideways on to the concrete edge of its pond. For two seconds Ghote stared at it unbelievingly. But then a faint sound that he had heard superimposed over the throbbing noise of city life slipped into place in his mind.

  “Shot,” he said. “That bird has been shot.”

  CHAPTER II

  It took Ghote barely a minute to run out of the zoo Director’s office, through an outer room clacking with typewriter noises, out into the main hall of the Administrative Building, down a broad flight of stone steps, round two corners and across to the circular wire-fenced pond where now the last remaining Red Flamingo of the American Consul’s gift lay patently dead.

  It took the zoo’s acting-Director rather longer to follow the same course, and even longer to send a young assistant-keeper back to the office to fetch the key of the flamingo cage. However, even allowing for the acting-Director’s painful, slow selection of the right key from a large numbered bunch, it was within three minutes of the shooting that Ghote was crouching beside the body of the victim.

  “Yes,” he said. “Right in the centre of the breast, just like the others. This fellow we are up against must be a pretty fine shot.”

  The acting-Director, who had been standing at the edge of the pond peering over at the body of his dead charge, stepped hastily back and gave an anxious look round. He patted at his wrinkled, triangular cheeks.

  “Well,” he said cautiously, “at least it is hardly likely to be anyone directly connected with the Zoological Gardens : none of our keepers is likely to be an experienced rifleman.”

  “No, I think you can rest assured . . .” Ghote murmured.

  His mind was busy elsewhere. He looked all round and then stepped boldly into the shallow pool up to his knees. With care he stationed himself as close as he could recollect to the exact spot at which the flamingo had been standing at the moment of its death. He faced in the direction to which the bird had presented its faintiy pink-tinged white breast. He looked up.

  The Victoria and Albert Museum. That hundred-year-old solid building, part of Britain’s heavy legacy to Bombay, fell squarely into his line of view. But something else was even more accurately in line. Just above the square-looking block of the museum he could see the thin tip of the clock tower built in front of it. That would be an ideal place. Perhaps even at this instant the marksman was looking at him from its vantage-point.

  “Come on,” he shouted.

  In two strides he waded out of the pond. He raced, dripping, out of the wide open door of the circular cage. He turned and set off at a purposeful lope through the surrounding zoo. Out of the corners of his eyes he glimpsed cages of monkeys, swinging, gibbering or huddled scratching; there was a tiger prowling rapidly across a small thickly-barred cage; the hot sun was bringing up the sharp smell of penned beasts; mothers and ayahs hereabouts were more anxious over their charges than they had been back beside the peaceful-looking flamingo, the sound of women scolding trailed across the back of his mind as he ran.

  At the exit turnstile he was held up for a few moments while a large family party filed through ahead of him—-tense-faced father in loose white shirt and baggy white trousers, two boys in neat shorts and still clean, white shirts, an older sister wearing a dark blue blouse and a blue and white striped cotton skirt, her hair in long braids, and the mother in a fierce yellow sari bringing up the rear looking sharply from side to side through big spectacles making sure they had missed not an anna’s worth of pleasure from the visit before they finally left.

  And then at a faster lope through the Victoria Gardens themselves, his sodden trouser-bottoms batting regularly against his shins now, clammily uncomfortable.

  He had been here only once in recent years, bringing his little son on a not altogether successful expedition to see the great rock-carved elephant that had once stood on the Island of Elephanta out in the harbour. Its crumbling surface had interested him himself, with its half-told story of all that it had witnessed over so many years, but it had left little Ved totally unimpressed. But at least he remembered from that visit the general lay-out of the gardens and it was easy enough to take the quickest route through them past neat flower-beds and heavy shrubberies to the museum near the west entrance and the clock tower beyond it.

  Running steadily along the gravelled asphalt paths, swinging past the strolling visitors, he even had time to notice, with dismay, the number of people who could conceivably be carrying a concealed rifle. There was a naked-chested mali stooping under a great bundle of long sticks whom he almost stopped and demanded to search, only it was unlikely that someone who looked so like a gardener would be the sort of person to shoot with a sporting rifle. A beggar with a crutch was even more unlikely, but always possible. But that serious-faced young man marching solemnly along with a folded raincoat drooping low over his arm. . . .

  But no. Better to take the chance that the fellow was still in the clock tower. He would after all want to observe the havoc his shot had caused. That would be the point of the joke, if joker it was: to see the quickly gathering crowd round the body of the dead bird, the hurried comings and goings, the confusion. It was very likely the fellow was still up in the top of the tower there, probably with a pair of binoculars if he was the sort who was used to a sporting rifle.

  The heavy bulk of the Victoria and Albert Museum loomed up in front of him. He swung to the left and ran round.

  And there was the clock tower, slim and tall. There was a scattering of people in front of the museum, mostly children with mothers or fathers, but no one in the immediate vicinity of the tower. Was his man still up there?

  He walked quickly across to the tower’s base. There on the far side was a narrow, low metal door painted a dull red and with a line of heavy rivet-heads running across its middle. There was a large key-hole on the right-hand side.

  Ghote put out a hand and pushed at the door. It moved back at his touch. So it looked as if he was right: someone had succeeded in unlocking a
door that should have been shut firm. But had he himself been quick enough to have outsmarted the man behind the rifle?

  He thought for a moment, and then he hooked a finger in the key-hole and drew the door closed again before moving across and stationing himself where anyone coming out would be screened from him by the opening door. He waited patiently. The declining sun was still strong enough to dry off the bottoms of his trousers and his squelchy shoes.

  Across at the entrance to the museum people began streaming out in a thickening crowd. The attendants inside must be going round saying that closing-time was near. Had his marksman taken note of this daily event, and did he intend to mingle with the people hurrying past on their way out? There were enough of them now to make it easy for anyone wishing to melt out of sight before anybody started asking questions about why they had been in the clock tower.

  But the dull red iron door stayed unmoving. Eventually the acting-Director came round the corner of the museum with three excited, chattering keepers following him. He looked like a man doing his duty, unpleasant though it was.

  Ghote stepped out from the wall of the tower.

  “Over here,” he called.

  The acting-Director and his posse came up.

  “I am almost certain that the shooting took place in the tower here,” Ghote said. “And it is just possible the culprit is still up there. I am going to look now. Will you station your men at this door, please? It is possible the fellow may be too strong for me.”

  The acting-Director looked as if he had just been told an extremely improper story.

  “Would it not be better to send for the police?” he asked.

  “I am the police,” Ghote said.

  He turned and pushed at the little reddish door. It moved slowly at his touch.

  Directly in front of him there was an extremely narrow spiral iron-work staircase, winding up round a slender central pillar. It was very dark inside, with only a faint patch of light coming from a narrow vertical slit in the tower walls perhaps ten or twelve feet up. Very quietly Ghote began to ascend.

  It took a long time. The stairs wound round and round with dim areas of light from the short slits cut every ten feet or so into the walls, now on one side now on another. At the darkest point between each Ghote waited where he could least be seen and stood listening intently. From about two-thirds of the way up he began to hear the working of the machinery of the big clock up above him, a steady, heavy echoing tock. But strain as he might he could not detect any other sound.

  As he approached the top the light grew stronger. Looking up, he was able to make out that it flooded in evenly from each side of the tower, but it was still muted and no doubt the apertures through which it came were not large. And then he became aware of something new, an extra odour superimposed on the dank smell that seemed to come from the cool ironwork. It was the scent of tobacco smoke.

  He crept a few steps higher and delicately sniffed again. Yes, tobacco. Someone had been smoking a cigarette up here and very recently too. Nor was it some rank leaf-rolled bidi. It was a cigarette of quality. Such as you might expect the possessor of a fine sporting rifle to smoke.

  Ghote strained his ears to catch even a lightly drawn breath.

  But there was nothing.

  Step by step, inch by inch he moved on up the cool iron stairway. And at last his head was level with the topmost step. He waited.

  He had no doubt that in his climb he had made a certain amount of noise, for all the care he had taken. Had someone up in the clock-winding chamber heard him? Were they waiting in absolute quiet for him now? And what about the sporting rifle? Was it even now aimed at the stairhead?

  He counted to ten, and then very quietly and easily he raised his head above the level of the top step.

  The little clock-winding chamber and the enormous works of the clock itself were all visible to him at his first glance. And they were entirely deserted.

  He clambered noisily up the last few steps and stood crouching in the low chamber at the top. He saw now that the light came in through narrow horizontal louvres running all round the top of the tower above the level of the clock. And he found it was easy enough, though a little uncomfortable, to look through them.

  From the one facing east he got at once an excellent view of the zoo and of the circular shape of the flamingo pond. There was a fairly large crowd of people gathered round it still, perhaps as many as thirty people. The man who had shot the bird would have enjoyed watching them. Even with the naked eye it was possible to sense the excitement and confusion. People were gesticulating and pointing to the white body of the dead bird; messengers were hurrying away and breathlessly arriving. The joke, extravagant though it was, had been altogether successful.

  A gleam of copper at his feet attracted his attention. He stooped. It was a cartridge case. He would have thought a .22. The team from the laboratories would have to come up and collect it and see what they could do about fingerprints. But he doubted if he was going to catch his man that way. This fellow was hardly the sort who would figure in the records, and a .22 bullet cartridge would not tell them very much until they had found the gun that had fired it.

  He looked carefully round for a cigarette butt, though that would scarcely be more helpful. There was nothing. The man must have left the tower still smoking, a cool customer. And already the smell of that cigarette was fading away.

  Ghote felt that he was losing the last tantalising connection with the joker who had killed the Minister’s flamingoes. Would he ever get this near him again?

  :: ::

  During the rest of that day he had got no closer to any hint of the elusive personality of the joker, and eventually he had given up and gone home, bad-tempered and dispirited. But next morning he made a point of arriving at Headquarters good and early, just on half past seven, so that he could sit in undisturbed solitude and go over all the possibilities with a fresh mind and with the sage advice of his treasured copy of Hans Gross’s “Criminal Investigation” to hand. If he tackled every angle that arose in a systematic way, some lead worth pursuing would certainly turn up. It had to.

  He opened the door of his office with feelings of pleasurable anticipation bubbling quietly inside him.

  And the little room was not empty and awaiting him. Sitting on the corner of the desk, his desk, was Sgt. Desai. Ghote looked at him in fury. Sgt. Desai was an error. He was an error on the part of someone who had allowed him into the C.I.D., and Ghote sometimes wondered how on earth they had made it since his complete lack of talent had come bursting to light within days of his arrival. He had been in every department in the building, briefly: the Fingerprint Bureau, Records, Administration, each in turn had eventually sworn they would not have him back. He was certainly not going to moon about in here.

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” Ghote said briskly. “And now, if you do not mind, I have got work to do.”

  Sgt. Desai—eyes round in his dark-skinned, smudgy-nosed face—jumped hastily off the desk.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” he said. “A very good morning, sir.”

  A wide undirected grin slowly spread across the lower half of his face, showing big, very white teeth. He made no attempt to leave.

  “Work,” said Ghote sharply. “There's work to be done."

  “Yes, Inspector. Right away, Inspector. Anything you want.”

  Ghote looked at him sharply. The dunderhead.

  “I want you to go," he said. “To leave me in peace."

  “But no, Inspector. I can't."

  “Can’t? What do you mean ‘Can’t?”

  “I’m allocuted to you, Inspector. D.S.P. Naik allocuted me."

  Ghote felt as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown in his face.

  “Allotted to me? By D.S.P. Naik?”

  Desai’s grin broadened even further.

  “That’s right, Inspector. Help you on your new case.”

  Ghote stood and looked at him. A great burning feeling of rage colou
red to brilliant orange everything in his mind.

  What on earth did the D.S.P. mean by doing this to him? Saddling him with this fool, the resident idiot, when he had a business of this sort on his hands? The new Minister personally expected results. It was his flamingoes that had been shot. The utmost tact might be required at any moment.

  He glanced involuntarily at the phone on his desk. What if it began ringing now and the Minister summoned him? Was Sgt. Desai going to come tagging along too? And stand grinning all over his face throughout the interview?

  It was nothing less than criminally irresponsible of the D.S.P. Giving him help on his new case, indeed.

  He directed a look of pure fury at the grinning Desai.

  “A fat lot of help you will be,” he spat.

  And the look of pained astonishment that appeared on Sgt. Desai’s simple face at once brought a sharp tongue of regret flicking up at Ghote.

  “Well, you had better sit down,” he said, in a less withering tone. “If the D.S.P. has allocated you to me, we will have to see if there is something you can do.”

  In an instant the look of pain on Desai’s face was replaced with the slow beginnings of a new grin. He looked carefully round for somewhere to sit, spotted eventually the little heavy wooden chair which was reserved for visitors, backed towards it with his eyes now intent on Ghote and lowered himself down slowly on to its edge.

  Resignedly Ghote set himself to think over the case aloud in front of Desai rather than commit his thoughts to the big pile of scrap paper that he always kept ready in the lowest drawer on the right-hand side of his desk.

  “There is one thing clear about this business, Sergeant,” he said, “and that is that I am not very likely to get anywhere, or rather we are not likely to get anywhere from the point of opportunity to commit the crime. Any single one of a thousand or more people could have slipped into the clock tower in the Victoria Gardens and shot those flamingoes. The key is kept on a hook just inside the Museum, you know. Anybody who kept his eyes open could have got it.”