The Inspector de Silva Mysteries

by Harriet Steel

  ‘Do you know how to get to Nuala?’ de Silva asked. The young man nodded. ‘If later, there is anything you think I might like to know about Velu, come and find me at the police station and there will be more for you.’

  ‘Do you think they’re telling the truth, sir?’ asked Prasanna as the young man went back into the headman’s hut.

  ‘Hard to say, but it certainly sounds as if no one liked this Velu much. If that man was right, probably his widow’s more concerned about the loss of her home than the loss of her husband.’

  ‘That’s the impression Kuveni and I also have, sir.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to take care of her.’

  ‘She’s a good woman and industrious. It’s not a hardship for us.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. I’d like to speak to Kuveni’s brother now. Can you find him for me? After that, we may as well head for home.’

  The hut where Kuveni’s brother, Vijay, and their father lived was on the far side of the village at a short distance from the others in that area. It would be a long time, if ever, de Silva reflected, before the Vedda people were fully accepted by their Tamil and Sinhalese compatriots.

  De Silva and Prasanna were far more welcome guests there. They spoke in Sinhalese, halting on Vijay’s part, and sometimes Prasanna had to help by translating words into the Vedda language he had learnt from Kuveni. De Silva had the impression the old father was taking in very little, but he seemed content to sit quietly, occasionally nodding.

  Prasanna produced a small bottle from his pocket and gave it to Vijay. ‘Kuveni sent this for your father. It will help him to breathe more easily. She got it from the British doctor.’

  Vijay took the bottle and said something to his father in Vedda. The old man eyed the bottle suspiciously as Prasanna explained how the medicine should be taken. De Silva wondered if he would use it or simply wait until Prasanna had gone then resort to whatever potion the village herbalist advised. He feared that nothing was likely to make a great deal of difference to the old man in any case. He looked extremely frail, his body wasted and his eyes dull. When he coughed, which he did frequently, de Silva heard his chest rattle.

  They came to the subject of Velu, and, when he heard that the man was dead, Vijay looked alarmed.

  ‘No one is blaming you,’ said de Silva hastily. ‘But I hope you can help us with our inquiries. How well did you know him?’

  ‘We worked together five or six times.’

  ‘Tracking for game hunters?’

  Vijay looked down and scuffed the earth floor with his foot.

  ‘Yes,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not concerned about whether it was illegal or not, although I advise you not to make a habit of breaking the law.’

  ‘Thank you, sahib.’

  ‘Did he tell you much about his life?’

  ‘He had harsh words for the headman, and he complained about his wife, but many men grumble.’

  Prasanna grinned. ‘Not about your sister.’

  Vijay returned the grin. ‘Kuveni is an angel.’

  ‘The headman told us Velu spent a lot of time away from the village,’ said de Silva, wanting to keep the conversation on track. ‘If he wasn’t working with you, do you have any idea what he was doing?’

  Vijay shrugged. ‘Working for other hunters maybe. He always talked about hunters and the work he did for them. And about the big tips they gave him,’ he added wryly. ‘The rest of us didn’t believe everything he said.’

  ‘A boastful man, eh?’

  ‘Yes, but he liked to laugh and joke too.’

  ‘As far as you know, had he any enemies?’

  ‘Some people got angry with his big talk, but most didn’t mind.’

  De Silva sighed inwardly. He didn’t really know what he had expected, but this trip to the village certainly wasn’t proving very illuminating.

  ‘We’d better be getting along,’ he said to Prasanna, after a few more questions had been equally unfruitful. ‘I’d like to get back to Nuala before nightfall.’

  They said goodbye and went out into the rain once more. The wind had gathered strength and was lashing the trees. The ceaseless motion of the jungle canopy made de Silva feel he was on a stormy sea. The thought of Florence, enjoying the sunshine in Trincomalee, popped into his mind.

  When they reached the car, the force of the wind almost pulled the door out of his hand as he opened it. Once safe inside, he and Prasanna struggled out of their sopping raingear and bundled it into the passenger footwell. Prasanna crouched in his seat, rubbing his hands together to warm them. His dark hair was plastered to his head, and his clothes were damp right through; de Silva knew he was in no better state.

  ‘I’m so wet, I shall have to wring myself out like a rag before Mrs de Silva lets me in the house,’ he remarked.

  Prasanna chuckled. ‘Kuveni too, sir.’

  De Silva turned the key. He hoped the journey back to Nuala wouldn’t be a disaster like his earlier one on this road.

  Chapter 10

  Fortunately, they met no obstacles on the way, and, a couple of hours later, he reached Sunnybank, having deposited Prasanna close to his home. The report of the day’s work would have to wait. De Silva wanted a hot bath.

  Luxuriating in the steaming water, he considered how the case was progressing. Had the villagers been lying to him? He had no evidence they were, but murder was a convenient way of disposing of an unpopular man. It would be interesting to see who ended up with Velu’s hut. It was hardly a great prize, yet a villager with no home of his own might be tempted to commit a crime to win it.

  The absence of the headman’s grandson raised more questions. As the lad had been up before the Hatton magistrate, maybe he would telephone Inspector Singh down there and find out what he had to say about the boy.

  Lastly, there was Vijay. He hadn’t liked to say anything to Prasanna on the way home, but one couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the work he and Velu had done together hadn’t always been tracking. If there had been other activities, was Vijay covering up a crime? Might there even have been a reason why he wanted Velu dead? Kuveni’s brother didn’t look like a murderer, but one could never tell. For Kuveni’s sake, he hoped he was wrong, but, at this stage, he couldn’t rule Vijay out.

  Sitting up, he reached for the soap, lathered himself vigorously and then slid under the water once more for a final soak. When the water started to cool, he climbed out and rubbed himself dry, then wrapped the towel round his middle and padded to the bedroom. Jane must have heard him for she came in and sat down on the bed.

  ‘Feeling better, dear?’

  ‘Infinitely. Nothing like a hot bath.’

  ‘Was the visit worth the effort?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I learnt a great deal, but there’s a new lead to follow up.’

  He explained about the headman’s grandson; he didn’t mention Vijay for the moment. Jane would be upset for Kuveni’s sake.

  ‘It’s too late to catch Inspector Singh,’ he went on. ‘They’ll have shut up shop at Hatton by now. I’ll call in the morning.’

  Jane stood up. ‘Good. I need a word with Cook about dinner. I’d better go and do that, then I’ll see you in the drawing room.’

  After she’d gone, de Silva dressed quickly. Enough thinking about Velu’s case for tonight, he resolved. He would enjoy his dinner and take a fresh look at what little he had to go on in the morning. The happy thought occurred to him that this expedition into the jungle might be the adventure that changed everything.

  **

  The following day, however, the rain was heavy. De Silva passed the time writing up his report of the visit to the village and putting other paperwork in order, a job that was not one of his favourite pastimes but had to be done occasionally. He also telephoned his counterpart in Hatton, Inspector Singh.

  ‘I know the lad you’re talking about,’ said the inspector. ‘He’s been in trouble a few times, but murder? I’d be very surprised. So far
, his offences have been minor, although I suppose it’s possible he’s got in with a bad crowd. It’s never hard for that to happen.’

  De Silva remembered the boy’s weeping mother. He wondered whether he should have asked her more questions. Maybe he would go back to the village one day and see if he could speak to her on her own. She might respond to assurances that he wanted to help her son stay out of trouble. It sounded like he wasn’t the killer, but if he had got in with the wrong crowd, he might have an idea who was, and why the crime had been committed.

  ‘Anyway, we’ll keep an eye out for him,’ Singh went on. ‘If he turns up, I’ll keep hold of him until you get down here.’

  ‘Thank you, that would be a great help.’

  ‘How’s the case coming along?’

  ‘It’s a tricky one. Right now, there’s not much to go on.’

  ‘Well, good luck. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  **

  Mid-morning on the next day, he received a call from Gopallawa Motors to say that the Morris was ready to be delivered. Should the driver bring it to the police station or to Sunnybank? De Silva had already decided to go home at lunchtime, so he told them to bring it to the bungalow.

  Jane was lunching out and spending the rest of the afternoon at her sewing circle. Without her company, de Silva didn’t linger over his meal. He hadn’t long finished when the doorbell rang; he heard one of the servants speaking to the caller and went into the hall to join them.

  ‘Good afternoon, sahib.’

  De Silva recognised the mechanic from Gopallawa Motors. ‘She’s running perfectly now, sahib,’ he said, handing over the keys. ‘Do you wish to take a drive to satisfy yourself?’

  Peering at the rain that continued to hiss down, creating shallow puddles on the gravel drive, de Silva shook his head. ‘No need. I’ll soon be on the telephone to your boss if there’s a problem.’

  ‘There won’t be, sahib, I am confident of that.’

  ‘Good. Have you brought the bill?’

  ‘Here it is, sahib.’

  ‘Tell your boss I’ll settle it when I’m passing.’

  ‘I’ll tell him, sahib.’

  The mechanic trudged off down the drive, to where a colleague waited with another car. De Silva closed the door and went back to the drawing room. He sat down and cast his eye over the bill. Gopallawa was a bit of an old rogue but the charge didn’t seem too unreasonable. He probably expected to be beaten down a few pounds all the same, and de Silva wasn’t going to disappoint him, but it would have to wait a day or two. A trip into town wasn’t an appealing prospect today.

  He yawned. Jane was unlikely to be back much before dinner time. Maybe he’d spend the rest of the afternoon reading. Going to the bookshelves, he searched for King Solomon’s Mines. Most of the books on the shelves were Jane’s, but King Solomon’s Mines was one of his, presented to him as a school prize. How many years ago was that? More than he liked to remember. He took the book over to his armchair and settled down to reread it.

  **

  It wasn’t until one of the servants came in to serve tea that he realised he had been engrossed in the story for over two hours, living the hardships and dangers of Allan Quatermain and his comrades as they journeyed to find King Solomon’s fabled diamond mines.

  He put the book aside and set about eating his tea. Munching a slice of butter cake, he pondered the feelings the book aroused in him. Inevitably, there was plenty with which to find fault. He deplored the passages that glorified the hunting of elephants for their ivory, even though he was aware that, when the book was written in Victorian days, even more than today, no one questioned the morality of it. The narrator’s, and by extension the author’s, unquestioning assumption of the superiority of the white man over the rest of humanity grated too, even if Rider Haggard did have the grace to praise the courage and skill in warfare of the natives of the fictional Kukuanaland.

  Undeniably, though, Haggard spun a good yarn; the story thrived on action and adventure. Yet at times, Haggard allowed his hero a moment of reflection. Then there were passages of prose that verged on poetry and compelled de Silva to go back and read them again. Quatermain, the narrator, was a bluff adventurer who prided himself on his ability to survive in the harshest of circumstances, but he also appreciated beauty. His description of the great ice cavern at the entrance to the treasure chamber, where the slow drip of water had, over the centuries, formed stalactites and stalagmites that eventually met, creating gigantic columns as awe-inspiring as those of any medieval cathedral, was thrilling. Quatermain’s meditation on the fate of the thousands of warriors who fell in the battle for Kukuanaland also surprised de Silva. He read it once more:

  Only the old moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses, and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did aeons before we were, and will do aeons after we have been forgotten.

  Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains, His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited today; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends – the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!

  Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again forever.

  The book resting in his lap, de Silva pondered those words. Velu had gone to join that great company of spirits; had he left behind echoes of his life that would reveal the secret of his fate?

  Unburdened of his philosophical thoughts, Quatermain had resumed the role of man of action, regretting that “the detestable habit of thinking” seemed to be getting hold of him. Action not contemplation: it was the secret of British success. Wherever the British went, they brought their urge to build and organise with them. In some respects, it was an excellent thing, yet there were times when it sowed discord.

  He glanced out of the window. It was already dusk. Was it his imagination, or was the rain slackening? Tomorrow was Sunday. Clutterbuck would probably insist they waited until Monday now, but then they might have some action of their own.

  Chapter 11

  To his relief, Monday morning dawned clear and bright, the sky a soft, pale blue that was a welcome change from the louring grey of the last two days. Jane and de Silva were still eating breakfast when the telephone rang in the hall. A servant went to answer it then came into the dining room.

  ‘It is a call from the Residence, sahib.’

  De Silva wiped egg from his lips and pushed back his chair. ‘I’ll come.’

  Jane smiled. ‘It sounds like Archie’s eager for his adventure.’

  His ear to the telephone, de Silva waited a moment while the Residence’s telephonist transferred the call.

  ‘De Silva?’ Clutterbuck’s voice boomed down the line. ‘Perfect morning for it. I think we should get off as soon as possible before the dratted rain comes in again.’

  ‘I agree, sir.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the police station in an hour then we can drive in convoy; less likely to miss each other that way.’

  ‘Very well, my men and I will be waiting. My wife has also offered to help.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line, and de Silva grimaced. Was Archie going to take the same stand as Allan Quatermain – no petticoats welcome? It was going to be difficult to mediate between him and Jane if that was the case. Fortunately, he soon realised that it wasn’t Archie’s intention to exclude her.

  ‘I’ll bring the Hillman estate,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Plenty of room in that.’

  De Silva returned to the dining room and sat down to finish his breakfast.

  ‘Everything in order, dear?’

  ‘It seems so
. Archie sounded very bullish. He’s going to meet us at the station in an hour. He says he’ll have plenty of room in his car. Prasanna and Nadar will be pleased. They were expecting to have to use their bicycles.’

  ‘Gracious, it sounds as if he’s not planning to stand on ceremony. I wonder how Prasanna and Nadar will take to riding in one of the Residence’s cars.’

  ‘I expect they’ll find it somewhat daunting but easier on the legs.’

  Jane drank the last of her tea and put the cup back on the saucer. ‘I’d better go and get ready.’

  ‘Don’t be too long.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  She returned a quarter of an hour later dressed in a pair of light-brown cotton trousers and a jacket of the same material over a plain white shirt. On her feet, she wore a pair of sturdy walking boots.

  ‘Will I do?’

  De Silva chuckled. ‘Are we going to a fashion parade?’

  She pulled a face. ‘You know what I mean – are these clothes suitable?’

  ‘Of course, and you look very nice in them too. I’m not used to seeing you in trousers. You’ll need a hat.’

  ‘I have one.’

  The drive to the station didn’t take long. They found Prasanna and Nadar already there. A few minutes later, a rather elderly Hillman estate car pulled up outside. De Silva was surprised to see that Clutterbuck, not one of the Residence staff, was at the wheel. His passengers were Darcy the Labrador and Charlie Frobisher.

  In his early twenties, Frobisher was an athletic-looking young man with fair, curly hair and blue eyes that were currently screwed up against the morning sun. He put out a hand and shook de Silva’s with a firm grip. ‘Good morning, Inspector. I hope you don’t object to my coming along.’

  ‘Not at all, sir. An extra pair of eyes will be most welcome.’

  ‘I take it your wife will ride with you, de Silva,’ said Clutterbuck. He nodded to Prasanna and Nadar who were standing watching the proceedings with diffident expressions on their faces. ‘You men can travel in the back of my car. Hop to it.’