TEN
Ghote was, however, not surprised to find Johnananda ready to keep their afternoon appointment in his office in the ashram’s administration block, a room with its walls covered by radiant-coloured designs interspersed with pictures of the Hindu gods, while the floor was occupied by Johnananda’s large functional-looking orange plastic desk, a number of luxurious orange tweed-covered armchairs, a couple of smooth steel tables over which were scattered piles of clean, brilliantly white stationery and no fewer than three sleek electric typewriters and half a dozen calculators.
Ghote thought, with a pang of envy, how useful some of the items would be at his Crawford Market headquarters.
But this was no time for idle covetousness. Before the interview began there was a small, but important, matter to be arranged.
“Sit down, gentlemen, please,” Johnananda said, gesturing vaguely towards the tweed-covered armchairs set at a distance from his orange desk.
This was the moment. Ignoring Johnananda’s gesture, Ghote snatched from against the wall near him a small plastic-seated office chair, tipped the little pile of pamphlets on it to the floor, swung it across and planked it down squarely opposite Johnananda and close up to his desk. To his delight, the quick manoeuvre paid off. Fred Hoskins subsided into one of the more distant armchairs.
Now, with any luck, the fellow would keep his promise not to intervene, extracted with some difficulty on their way back from the motel after a couple of hours’ sleep on the gurgling waterbed.
For a long moment now Ghote looked at the man opposite him before attempting to ask the first of the seemingly innocent questions he hoped would lead him to finding out more about the first of the people who had known that the swami would be in his house at the time he had died.
Yes, the fellow looked pretty well like a proper Indian holy man. His head was shaven, all but a tuft at the back. His eyes were deep-sunk in his almost fleshless face, indicating that the pleasures of the body had long since been abandoned. On his forehead was the spot of sandalwood paste most swamis put there, the spiritual eye as they called it. He was wearing his orange garments with obvious ease and familiarity. And he was sitting with that very upright back which was said to allow Kundalini, the serpent coiled at the spine’s base in the subtle, spiritual body to travel unimpeded to the brain. But, damn it, he was not a holy man, not a yogi. He could not be.
But all the same it might be clever to give him the respectful form of address a holy man was entitled to.
“Johnanandaji.”
Johnananda inclined his shaven head.
“Johnanandaji, I have been sent here, as you know, by the father of one of Swamiji’s disciples, Nirmala Shahani. Mr. Shahani is very, very anxious about her welfare. Am I right, please, to understand that, now that Swamiji is no longer among us, you would be in charge of the ashram?”
Johnananda flapped a long-fingered hand over the scattered papers on his big orange desk.
“One doesn’t like to go on about this,” he answered, “but Swamiji had chosen one. Over the years, you know, one had made one’s progress. However unworthy one is, one is one. And one must take up the burden that has been laid upon one.”
“Yes. And it must be a heavy burden, a heavy burden in material matters also, isn’t it? All the land belonging to the ashram, that was in Swamiji’s name? Does it all come to you now?”
Johnananda sighed.
“My dear fellow, if only you knew. The responsibilities, the responsibilities. Swamiji did make a will, you know, some time ago. By an awfully lucky chance one of the disciples here is a top lawyer, and he insisted that a proper will was vital. It seemed terrible, but money is money, you know, and land is land. And, do you know, the land here is even more valuable now than when it was given to Swamiji? There was a change in the law, something I would never come within a million miles of understanding. But apparently the area can be used now to build a senior citizens’ community on, only Swamiji—well, oh dear, that’s all got to be decided now by poor littie me. With the help of the ashram council, of course. Only, while Swamiji was here that never was much of anything, if you understand.”
“Yes,” said Ghote, “I understand.”
He did. With Swami With No Name at the head of affairs, no democratic council was going to get a look-in.
“Tell me, please,” he added quickly, “was this matter of selling the ashram’s land what Swamiji was going to meditate on last night?”
Johnananda spread his long-fingered hands wide.
“That I just could not say,” he answered. “Swamiji liked to keep a lot of things to himself, you know. And he simply hadn’t told me what the problem was, just that he would spend all night in the Meditation Hall and then make an announcement at six in the morning. It might have been about anything. Anything. And in any case, as perhaps you know, he changed his mind and decided he would go back to his house. That was why it was there that he was found. Well, you found him, as I understand.”
“Yes, yes. Yes, it was me.”
Here was dangerous ground. Would Johnananda want to know how it came about that he had entered Swami’s house?
He shot out the first thing that came into his head.
“I can see you are going to be very, very busy. There must be many other matters you will have to decide.”
“My dear chap, you have no idea. There’s Swamiji’s book. I mean, I gather from Emily who, for whatever reason she came here, really was a tower of strength to Swamiji, that there isn’t anything like a manuscript. It’s all just notes. Notes and jottings and ideas. So what is one to do about that?”
He looked at Ghote across his brightly smart plastic desk as if he hoped to get some firm literary advice there and then.
Ghote found he had nothing to offer. But he must keep this so usefully talkative fellow on the boil.
“Excuse me,” he said, lamely he felt, “but I must ask about Miss Shahani. She has told that Swamiji was going to summon her to his house at some time during last night, though in the end he did not do so. Please, for what do you think that was?”
Johnananda’s fingers flicked up into a wide, defensive fan.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I know just what you’re thinking. But, my dear fellow, I do assure you, you have nothing to worry about.”
“What worry is this?” Ghote said unyieldingly.
Johnananda gave him a tight, bright little smile.
“Oh, let’s not beat about the bush,” he said. “It’s the sex thing, my dear chap. That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? That’s what that very fierce policeman, Lieutenant Foster, wanted to see Swamiji about last night, isn’t it? You see, nobody really likes the spiritual, especially when they know nothing about it. So they all want to pretend spiritual activities are something else. They prefer to think all swamis debauch, my dear chap, little girls rather than admit they might be giving them the greatest gift they could ever have, the gift of knowing where they were going. People hate that, you know. Hate it.”
Johnananda had spoken with growing, if shrill, vehemence. It drew a yet more vehement response.
Fred Hoskins rose from his low tweed-covered armchair like a waterspout suddenly spewing up in a placid ocean.
“Whaddya mean hate? Are you accusing the citizenry of the Golden State of prejudice? Lemme tell you, California has a record second to none for its tolerance of all shades of opinion. Even Blacks and Mexes get a fair hearing here, provided they toe the line. You’d better cut out any more talk like that.”
Johnananda had been beating his long hands on the paper-strewn surface of his orange desk.
“But it’s love,” he managed to get out at last. “It’s love that we at the ashram feel for everybody. We only want people to understand. That was what Swamiji preached: love and understand. And his message was getting through. Disciples have flocked here. My dear chap, flocked.”
“Yeah,” replied Fred Hoskins, still on his feet, looming
tall. “Yeah, they came flocking, right? And they came donating too, yeah? Donating real heavy.”
“Really. Really, Mr.—er—er—Mr. Hoskins, I don’t see what that has got to do with it. Of course people gave to Swamiji. It was a sign of how much they respected and loved him.”
“And now you’re sitting here hoping to cash in on that flow? You want to step into the swami’s shoes? To be on the receiving end?”
Johnananda’s thin, fleshless face looked very pained.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You just don’t understand at all. Oh, good gracious me, I know that everything in the world is maya, illusion. I’ve long ago realised that. But I know, too, that I am here in what seems to be the real world, and the only thing to do about it is to act as if it was real.”
Fred Hoskins took a heavy step forward.
“You trying to tell me I’m not real?” he said. “Because if you are, let me tell you that I’m going to bust you on the nose.”
Ghote decided that it was time, high time, to cool the situation.
“Johnanandaji,” he said sharply, “Mr. Hoskins and I came here to inquire only whether you were the person now in charge of the ashram. We wished to speak to whoever could give us an assurance about Miss Nirmala Shahani.”
Behind him he heard with relief Fred Hoskins sink creakingly back into his orange tweed armchair. Across the desk he saw Johnananda, too, visibly relax.
He gave a little cough.
“Miss Shahani’s father is most keen that she should return to Bombay,” he said. “Can you kindly give me your full assurance that she is free to do so if she wishes?”
“But, my dear chap. Everyone in the ashram is free. They were free to follow Swamiji when he was here with us. They are as free to follow him through me, unworthy though I am. They are free to stay. They are free to go.”
Ghote at once got to his feet. He had already found out a good deal from what Johnananda had said. Now that Fred Hoskins had wrecked the atmosphere there was no point in remaining.
“Thank you, Johnanandaji. That is all we wished to know.”
He turned.
“Come along, Fred,” he said.
To his secret relief Fred Hoskins simply lumbered to his feet and followed him out of the office without a word.
But once they were standing out in the brisk mountain sunshine the belly-jutting private eye’s attitude was swiftly reversed. He grabbed Ghote by the arm.
“Gan,” he said, “you let him go. You let him go when I had him running. It was a bitter disappointment to me that you handled that the way you did. If I’d had just two minutes more with the guy he’d have been down on his knees begging.”
“But what for would he have been begging?”
“Begging to confess. That’s all, Gan. Just begging to confess to the murder of the man he planned to succeed.”
“I do not think so,” Ghote said.
Fred Hoskins drew himself up to his full height. Ghote was sharply conscious of the distance of more than a foot that separated that full, blood-pumped, jackal-fur-crowned countenance from his own. He had to make a strong effort to discount a feeling of being under a considerable disadvantage.
“Gan boy,” Fred Hoskins began, “I would encourage you while you’re on Californian soil to adopt an attitude of decent, honest-to-God aggression. You let that guy go, Gan. And you never oughta do that. Two minutes and he’d have been singing.”
“But what if he does not have anything to sing about?” Ghote answered, as firmly as he could. ‘We cannot even be certain that Swami was murdered. It may well be that he took his own life. What Johnananda has just said confirms that a little. He told that people hate what Swami claimed to give. So, if a charge had been brought only that he had been violating young girls, he would have been pilloried, you know. It is not beyond belief at all that he took his own life rather than face that.”
“I can’t believe that, Gan boy. And let me remind you I have had a lot of experience in these matters.”
For an instant Ghote toyed with the idea of saying something pointed about the experience of murder investigation likely to have been gained by a mere patrolman on the streets of Los Angeles. But he guessed that any such jibe would simply bounce off that rubber-plated exterior.
“Very well,” he said, “let us leave aside the question of suicide and consider if it is murder we have to deal with, who might have committed the crime.”
Fred Hoskins heaved in a great sigh. Like a schoolteacher contemplating his stupidest pupil.
“Gan boy, that John-whatsit guy is the murderer,” he said.
“It may be, Fred. But have you considered the position of Miss Emily Kanin also?”
“And who the heck is Miss Emily Kanin?”
“Miss Kanin, who prefers always to be called Emily only, is the young lady who acted as Swami’s secretary. But, as Johnananda has just revealed, she was something more than that also.”
“Yeah. That Emily. Well, I don’t see what she’s got to do with the case. Let me advise you about something, Gan boy. I don’t know how you go about the business of crime detection in India, but here in the U.S.A., let me tell you, we get straight to the point. We don’t mess around. We see a guy’s got all the evidence stacked against him, we don’t waste time with fancy notions.”
“Please, let me assure you that back in Bombay I am always only too happy to see who has committed a crime and to nab him straightaway,” Ghote said. “But this is an altogether different matter.”
“Crime’s crime, Gan boy. Just get that clear.”
Ghote restrained a sigh.
“Mr. Hosk—Fred,” he said, “this crime is a very, very different case from most murders. There is the matter of the weapon. Swami had his throat cut. I myself was on the scene within minutes only. There is no way out of that building except by the doors at the front, and I myself again and two deputies also were watching those doors. But the weapon that slit that throat was not there, Fred. And no one has been able to find it. That is what we have got to remember. That is why we must be always very, very careful.”
Fred Hoskins put a heavy beef-red hand on to his short-cropped jackal-red hair and scratched his skull.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”
“So that is why,” Ghote said, “we must be thinking now about Emily only.”
“Yeah, Emily. What’s with Emily, Gan?”
“Just this, Fred. When Johnananda was talking about Swami’s book, he mentioned that Emily had been a tower of strength about it. But he said one other thing also.”
“I’ve gotta tell you that there you’re wrong, Gan. Naturally I was paying close attention to every word that guy was saying. I’m fully aware of the importance of remembering every detail of a preliminary interview, Gan. And let me assure you the guy said nothing of any importance concerning that girl. He mentioned her. But that was all.”
“Well, he did say also something like: ‘for whatever reason she was coming to the ashram.’ For whatever reason. Johnananda knew that Emily did not come here, however much she may have said so, because she was attracted to Swami. I believe, in fact, before she had been here long she did become attracted to him. I myself saw an expression of deep disappointment show itself on her face when she was forced to see that Swami was telling a lie. But when she arrived here first, her attitude was altogether different.”
“May be, may be. But it doesn’t matter, Gan boy. Just compare it with the one hard fact we did find out in interrogating John-what-sit. That guy inherits, Gan. He inherits the whole darn lot. Don’t tell me he isn’t the one who did it, and remember, he’s got mystic powers. He admitted that. Came right out with it. Over the years, he said, he’d made progress. Progress in magical powers, Gan.”
“But he meant the ability to go into deep meditation only.”
“Yeah, deep meditation. A guy can do some very mysterious things when he gets deep into that. You know it, Gan. You’ve seen things that nobody in little ol
d America would believe. And that’s the way John-whatsit committed the murder. I know it. I just know it.”
“But, Fred,” Ghote burst out, hammered to a pitch of exasperation. “Emily Kanin came here to the ashram for some secret purpose. We know that too. And I think I know also what that secret purpose was.”
ELEVEN
It took Ghote and his lumbering, yammering shadow a good deal of searching to find Emily Kanin, spirit of the tennis player, secretary to the swami. But Ghote persisted, marching from place to place in the ashram grounds under the hot, clear Californian sunshine, patiently asking one dreamy, bemused, orange-clad disciple after another, young and old, boy and girl, plump matron determinedly forcing herself into something near the lotus position, bald-headed professional man with a rim of long hair caught up in a plait by a rubber band.
The more he thought about Emily the more certain he was that she would repay investigation. What Johnananda had said about her was perfectly plain, and however feeble the fellow’s claims as a yogi, there was little doubt that he was someone who kept his eyes open to what went on around him.
No, Emily had clearly come to the ashram originally for some secret purpose. Just what that purpose was might be less clear. It might in the end prove to have no connection with the swami’s death. But it must have some connection with the man. There had been that other crumb of information Johnananda had let slip. A tiny fact, hastily suppressed.
It had been when the fellow had been talking about his many new responsibilities, about the decision that would soon have to be taken about whether to accept an offer made for the ashram’s land by someone wanting to build a senior citizens’ community. That must be a project involving a very large amount of money. Americans at the end of their lives after years spent accumulating the riches of the world and seeking at last to enjoy that wealth, they would be ready to pay and pay for their comfort. So surely the concern seeking to build a retirement community would be willing to shell out a hefty sum to get hold of the ashram’s suddenly available land.
Go West, Inspector Ghote Page 12