Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker

by H. R. F. Keating

  He looked at his watch. It was early for lunch, but if they were stretching things a bit it was within their meal-break time. He could scarcely object, even though he strongly suspected that the game was actually taking place well inside what should be working hours. He shook his head and drove himself to give full attention to the files in front of him.

  But before long the voices of the card-players penetrated again—“Going down for four,” “Anna in the kitty,” “Going down for five.” They were playing Rummy, he thought.

  And a deep-down whisper of envy crossed the back of his mind. As a boy he had played cards incessantly, and at one time Rummy had been his favourite game. There was a certain amount of skill in it, opportunity for a certain amount of cool judgment. He had been pretty good. That idiot Desai would be hopeless at it.

  He pulled himself sharply together and plunged into the dusty files again. But he was aware that the card-game had lasted well into the regular lunch-hour. He decided not to bother to get a meal himself. He had to find out, and as quickly as possible, whether any other large-scale practical jokes had been played in the city recently. Otherwise he was likely to have nothing at all to say when he had to ring that man Ram Kamdar at the Ministry on Monday morning.

  It began to get to the very last moment that could possibly be regarded as lunch-hour time and still the game of Rummy went on. It was even apparent that Desai had got himself into debt beyond hope of retrieval. Ghote looked at his watch. He would give them just five minutes more. Until the hour struck, and then he would have a word or two to say.

  And with the very next dog-eared file he pulled out all thoughts of the card-players vanished. He was on to something. The case was all in a slim bundle of papers, marked in heavy capitals across the front “No Further Action.” It concerned an information laid, and later withdrawn, on the part of Sir Rustomjee Currimbhoy, the distinguished Parsi scientist.

  As soon as Ghote began reading he recalled the incident. It had happened a full six months before. Sir Rustomjee, who conducted his research in private, had let it be known that he had discovered an extremely cheap means of desalinating sea-water, a project that would make considerable areas of India independent of the treacheries of the monsoon rains. He had summoned the scientific press, who had been excited by the idea. The regular Press had begged to see the wonderful new Indian invention.

  And then one of the reporters being shown the test-plant had had the curiosity to peep more closely than was polite and had discovered a small but powerful pump which was in fact taking away the sea-water as it went into the apparatus and replacing it with Bombay’s own familiar, muddy-flavoured drinking-water. To make it worse the pump was of English manufacture.

  The respected Sir Rustomjee, who had sworn that he had no idea that the pump was there, had become, briefly, a laughing-stock. Clearly here was a case that had such an extraordinary likeness to both the affair of the shot flamingoes and the switching of the Derby favourite that it could hardly but be the work of the same hand. It had all the trademarks: it was extremely elaborate; it must have cost a lot with that special English pump to buy; it hit at a prominent Bombay figure, and it hit cruelly hard. Ghote carefully copied every detail from the file into his notebook.

  And when he looked up from this, a quarter of an hour later, it was to find Sgt. Desai at his elbow once more, looking sad but with his eyes filled with wonder.

  Under this continued silent scrutiny Ghote resumed his search of the files. But he found nothing more. As he eased apart a crowded cabinet shelf to squeeze back the last bulgy battered file, he decided that he could tell the silent, gawping Desai that the long day had still not been wasted. He had evidence now about three major hoaxes, plainly all from the same hand: with so many opportunities for the hoaxer to have betrayed his identity in some little slip or other he could not believe it would be any longer impossible to lay him by the heels. He must arrange to see his two newly-discovered victims at once.

  He turned to Desai.

  The sergeant was no longer there. The clock at the far end of the big records room said five past six. Five minutes after the end of Desai’s regular working day. Ghote felt oddly cheated.

  : : : :

  He had felt increasingly cheated during the rest of that evening. First an impersonal voice at the other end of the telephone at Sir Rustomjee Currimbhoy’s house had informed him that Sir Rustomjee did not wish to see any representative of the police about “the incident in question.” And Sir Rustomjee was the sort of highly respected figure who would have to be dealt with very carefully in face of a rebuff of this sort. Then he had discovered that the racehorse-owner Anil Bedekar, the victim of the favourite-into-donkey trick, generally lived out at his stables not far from Poona and was “not available” to see anyone until to-morrow. It was only, in fact, by the exercise of considerable persistence that he succeeded in getting an appointment with the great man for next day. He was to meet him in the Members' Enclosure at Mahalaxmi Racecourse before the start of the afternoon’s racing. It was the best he could do.

  And by the time he had done it the remaining people he wished to question at the zoo and at the Victoria and Albert Museum had long before left for their homes. He himself had then gone home, where he had spent the remainder of the evening in silent brooding. And, when he did get to see the museum attendants and the junior zoo keepers next morning, it was only to confirm that none of them knew anything.

  So it was in a mood of considerable impatience with the meandering chatter of Sgt. Desai that he set off in good time for Mahalaxmi Racecourse. But at least, he reflected to himself bitterly, the man will be some use here. Because he could not disguise from himself as they parked the truck and joined the crowds advancing on the bookmakers’ stands that he did not feel at all at ease in a racing atmosphere.

  He had never in all his years in the city been up to Mahalaxmi before. The very idea of a race meeting had always seemed appallingly frivolous to him—the people entirely absorbed by a lot of pampered, too well-fed animals, or, if they were women, concerned only with their appearance, and all the money that ought to have been used to buy the necessities of life hopelessly squandered in feckless gambling.

  “Inspector, just one moment only.”

  Desai gave him no chance to refuse but blundered off instantly towards one of the bookmakers' stands. Ghote stood watching his big, clumsy form in growing exasperation. Then he lost him. He stood and waited, and waited. But there was not a sign of him. And the time for his appointment with this Anil Bedekar was growing nearer.

  He turned and marched angrily through the thickening crowds of chattering racegoers, phrases of their eager conversations battering at him from all sides—“Not a horse with red in its name in the first three races, and I always bet on red,” “But to-day I am trying a treble accumulator,” “It is all a question of numbers adding up to twelve, you see.” At last he reached the circular Members’ Enclosure, pointed out to him by Desai a few moments before he had been sucked into the bookmakers’ clutches. And he found the greatest difficulty in getting any farther. He told the tall, turbaned chaprassis on guard at the spick-and-span white-painted gate that he had an appointment with Mr. Bedekar, Mr. Anil Bedekar. But they remained unimpressed. He told them he was an inspector of police, but even then they seemed to think that preserving the sanctity of the enclosure was more important than any police business. And it was only when he had recourse to a good deal of bluster and shouting on the one hand and dipping his fingers pointedly into his pocket on the other that he got through at all.

  In the Members’ Enclosure it was at least less crowded than outside. No one here came up to him, as a gaunt, tin-spectacled fellow had done outside, and offered to sell him “tips for every race, guaranteed tips.” But on the other hand everyone looked so sleek, so contented in the way they were going about their ridiculous affairs that he began to feel himself boiling with a new rage.

  Angrily he accosted a white-jacketed bearer and
demanded to know where Mr. Anil Bedekar was to be found.

  His unusual arrogance seemed to bring results.

  “Bedekar sahib is over there, sahib," the bearer said, bobbing obsequiously, to Ghote’s redoubled annoyance. “In the shade under the tree there, sahib."

  Ghote strode off in the direction indicated without word of acknowledgement. How dare the fellow class him with these idle feckless wealthy people.

  All round the tree which the bearer had indicated there was a circular white-painted sun-roof protecting an eight-sided white bench with a sloping ornamental back to it. On the bench in quiet conversation were two men. Crossing the unnaturally smooth turf of the lawn towards them, Ghote found little difficulty in deciding which was the racehorse owner.

  They were two such very different looking people. The man who must be Mr. Anil Bedekar was young, perhaps about thirty-five, and had about him all the signs of wealth and confidence. His cream-coloured suit looked as if it had just come from the hands of the cleaner's, his slightly wavy hair was beautifully barbered, he sat on the white bench with an air of absolute ease. The person beside him—would it be the trainer of his horses ?—was a man of fifty or more, a stocky, paunchy individual wearing a shiny dark blue suit of some silky material all creased and bulging. As Ghote approached he saw that as the latter talked he was chewing a paan, vigorously and sloppingly, so that hardly a word he was saying could have been intelligible.

  Ghote came to a halt in front of the pair. But the trainer-chap went on talking without even glancing up. Ghote, restraining his impatience, looked with growing displeasure at the wide mouth, through which he occasionally glimpsed the stumps of broken teeth and the rotating ball of the half-masticated paan, and at the pock-marked cheeks and deep-set slit eyes. He wondered how Mr. Bedekar could put up with him. But then the racehorse owner must be obsessed with everything to do with the racing business to have been a suitable victim for the joker. No doubt he would tolerate a good deal from someone he believed was training his horses well.

  At last there came a pause in the fellow’s half-intelligible monologue about various horses and their troubles.

  “Mr. Bedekar?” Ghote said.

  Neither of the two men on the octagonal bench replied. The older man simply snatched up an expensive-looking pair of racing glasses that hung from his neck and began searching the crowd at the fence round, the enclosure, while his employer sat contentedly looking at the immaculate polish of his brown brogues. However after a little the latter did turn and glance up at Ghote.

  “Can I help you, my dear fellow?” he said.

  “I hope you can, sir,” Ghote said. “I am a police officer, and I am making some further inquiries about the most unfortunate disappearance of the Indian Derby favourite on the day of the race.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Certain circumstances have recently come to light which make it look possible we shall be able to make more progress in the matter,” Ghote said cautiously.

  He saw one lazy eyebrow lift.

  “More progress?”

  “Yes,” Ghote answered stolidly. “We hope that by linking the matter with other similar incidents we shall be able to gather enough evidence to discover the perpetrator of the offence.”

  “Other incidents? Have the police been unable to prevent the theft of yet more horses?”

  Ghote reflected that it was customary for the very rich to denigrate the police, and at the same time to make sure they paid as few taxes as possible to maintain the force. But he kept calm.

  “It is not a question of horse theft,’* he explained patiently. “The other matters concern an unpleasant practical joke that has been played at the zoo in Victoria Gardens, and the recent hoax of which Sir Rustomjee Currimbhoy was victim.”

  “Really? How extraordinary ingenious of the police department to link such unlikely events together in that way.”

  In spite of the drawling tone and the extremely British accent Ghote did feel a certain pride in the achievement.

  “The three cases bear the marks of the same perpetrator,” he said. “Someone utterly irresponsible and possessed of a good deal of financial means. And at the same time a person who must have known a great amount about the security arrangements surrounding the horse Roadside Romeo.”

  “What’s that? What’s that? Who's this?”

  It was the trainer-fellow. He had suddenly let fall his binoculars, jerked round on the white wooden bench and was now glaring up at Ghote as if he was on the point of smashing him.

  “My dear Anil,” the younger man said. “You should pay attention to other people. This is a policeman. He is re-opening the investigation into the disappearance of your Roadside Romeo.”

  A flood of embarrassment swamped through Ghote. How could he have begun his inquiries on such a ridiculous misunderstanding ?

  Anil Bedekar, squat and ugly in his crumpled blue silk suit, did not seem at all put out.

  “New inquiries?” he said. “I do not want new inquiries or old. If you wanted to make inquiries, you should have made them when the horse had gone. He was safely in my paddocks at Poona when the Derby was due to be run. I could have got him back in time even.”

  •“In your paddocks?” Ghote asked.

  “Do you know nothing?” Anil Bedekar spat out at him.

  “My dear fellow,” said his companion, looking blandly up at Ghote, “you really ought to have acquainted yourself with all the subtleties of that fearful joke, you know. Poor Roadside Romeo was found that evening when the horses out grazing at Poona were brought in to the stables. They say he could have been quietly there most of the day of the Derby.”

  Ghote gave him a suspicious look. He had still to recover from the debacle of the start of this conversation.

  “My dear chap, I have quite failed to introduce myself. Let me repair the damage. The name is Baindur, known to my friends as Bunny Baindur, and rejoicing in the somewhat splendid title of Rajah of Bhedwar, given to me as an ironic reminder of past glories.”

  Ghote could not repress a prickle of anxiety. A member of the smart set. He had hitherto succeeded in avoiding such people. Well, perhaps he could continue to do so. This person, after all, had nothing to do with the matter in hand.

  He shifted his stance slightly so that he was directly facing the squat racehorse owner.

  “Certain matters have come to light which have enabled us to link the disgraceful business of your horse and other affairs,” he said. “I am hoping that by learning the fullest details of each case I shall be able to lay the perpetrator by the heels.”

  “Go away,” said Anil Bedekar.

  But the words were so muttered and so interfered with by the still smackingly chewed paan that Ghote felt he could reasonably ignore them.

  “Unfortunately,” he resumed, “I am not what is called a racing man myself. So a great deal will have to be explained to me.”

  Anil Bedekar simply picked up his field glasses again and swept them round the crowd out beyond the neat hedge that cut off the Members’ Enclosure.

  “Where is that bloody Jack Cooper?" he shot out to no one in particular.

  Ghote, unable even to guess whom it was Anil Bedekar was looking for, kept bravely on.

  “I had brought a sergeant with me who has a degree of knowledge of all this business," he said. “But he appears to have gone off somewhere on his own.”

  “Hoi.”

  It was a blasted shout from Anil Bedekar. Ghote stopped and looked at him, blinking.

  “Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper,” the racehorse owner roared. “W'here the devil have you been?”

  Ghote turned to see who this Mr. Cooper was. A tubby-looking European, a man well into his fifties with a mop of purest white hair and an extraordinarily suffused red complexion, was advancing towards them over the smooth turf. He wore a pair of white trousers, open by one button at the front, a blue blazer with chirpy metal buttons, a white shirt, which had a large brown stain on the left-hand side and was al
so open by one button beneath the creased and stringy striped tie.

  The Rajah of Bhedwar glanced up at Ghote.

  “Poor Anil’s trainer,” he said. “Knows his horses, but a sad trial in many ways, old Jack Cooper.”

  Jack Cooper came up to them. He smiled with sharply twinkling eyes. Ghote saw that these were of the very brightest blue. The smile radiated warm cheerfulness.

  “Yes, yes,” Jack Cooper said. “Sorry about that. Met an old pal. Had to have a noggin, you know. And then he told me this extraordinary story about a chap that can walk on water. He’s off to see it happen, too. Fascinating. Had to listen.”

  “And what about my bloody horse? In the first bloody race?”

  Anil Bedekar’s pock-marked face did not show any effects from his trainer’s happy friendliness.

  “I’ll toddle along and see to it, never you worry,” Jack Cooper said to him, giving his white-plumed head a cheerful nod.

  Anil Bedekar’s mouth set trap-like over his stumpy broken teeth.

  “You’d better, Mr. Cooper,” he grunted.

  “Will do, will do.”

  The tubby trainer wandered round in a circle and made his way, weaving slightly, towards a door at the side of the tall, low-roofed building behind them. A thought struck Ghote. He turned towards the Rajah.

  “Good lord, yes,” the latter said, in answer to the question Ghote had not yet formulated. “Drunk as can be. Almost always is.”

  Ghote frowned. It was the sort of behaviour he was beginning to expect from anyone connected with horse-racing. His mind came unswervingly back to the subject of Sgt. Desai.

  “Yes,” he said to the Rajah. “As I was telling, I brought this sergeant with me, but he has wandered off. He knows all about this business. But a feckless fellow, as you might expect.”

  The Rajah’s full, gravely handsome face was lit by a sudden sharp grin, which vanished as quickly as it had come.

  “Then perhaps you will permit another feckless fellow to do what he can to enlighten you?” he said.