The Perfect Murder: the First Inspector Ghote Mystery

by H. R. F. Keating

  In an instant the picture had been turned over. If he saw her beauty at all now it was only as adding injury to her insults.

  ‘So we are back at that refrigerator,’ he went on as each angry phrase added fuel to his spreading fury. ‘What do you want with a refrigerator? Did your mother have refrigerator? Did my mother have refrigerator? For hundreds and thousands of years people in India have got on without refrigerator, and now suddenly you can’t live unless you have. Well, you’ll have to manage all the same. Because there isn’t going to be any refrigerator. There is no money for refrigerator, and there won’t be any for many long days to come. So there.’

  His voice had risen to a shout, on the edge of becoming altogether uncontrolled.

  And suddenly Protima was transformed. Her erectness slipped instantly away, her eyes softened.

  ‘Sssh,’ she said pleadingly. ‘Sssh, sssh. You will wake my little Ved. You will wake him in the first good sleep he has had.’

  Ghote gathered himself up to jet out a reply.

  And abandoned the idea.

  ‘Let us sleep,’ he said.

  ‘I cannot sleep any more,’ Protima answered.

  She turned and walked away from him into the bedroom. Following her, he saw his son lying soundly asleep. He was breathing easily and did not seem in any way unwell. Ghote stood for a few moments looking down at him. Then Protima came and stood between him and the boy’s bed. She darted him a look of contempt and turned away to sit on the floor beside the sleeping boy.

  The limpid gracefulness with which she sank to the ground, even in the middle of this heavy display of sulkiness, melted Ghote’s heart again.

  ‘Come to bed soon,’ he said.

  He had hardly stretched his tense limbs out to their full length when she stood up and in one fluid movement was lying beside him.

  She put out her hand and rested it on his chest.

  And then with a single sigh she was asleep.

  For a few moments he was able to contemplate the complications of his waking existence without the remotest trace of worry. The Minister’s rupee and who had stolen it: the long, emaciated form of Mr Perfect lying unconscious in Lala Varde’s house, carrying obscurely his own fate in each faint puff of breath. The two facts floated in front of him for a little while, and then he too was asleep.

  To be woken after a very few hours by the shrilling of the telephone.

  And at once all his preoccupations stood up in his mind like soldiers roused from brief slumber on the battlefield, in an instant alert, probing, restless. How had that rupee note disappeared from the drawer in the Minister’s desk when no one had been into the room? What was it that young Prem Varde had been about to say when his father had come bursting in? Why really had the fat and timid Felix Sousa suddenly deserted his post at the Ministry? What was it that made Dilip Varde so touchy about anything to do with Mr Perfect? How could he convincingly explain to Axel Svensson that the Indian police forces were really divesting themselves of the spectre of corruption? Why had Lala Varde been so mysterious about the rusty iron locked gate that had shut off all his servants from the part of the house where the old Parsi secretary had been attacked? If Mr Perfect regained consciousness, what would he have to tell them? Or, would he never speak again? Would he die? Was he already dead?

  One at least of his tumultuous questions was advanced, if not answered, when he hesitantly picked up the telephone.

  The voice on the other end was the by no means hesitant one of D.S.P. Samant.

  ‘Ghote? Is that you, Ghote? Answer up, man. Answer up.’

  The persistent voice with its almost perfect English accent buzzed and spluttered at him along the line.

  ‘Yes, it is me, sir. Ghote here, D.S.P.,’ he answered. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, there is. You can do what you’re asked, if you please.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.’

  Inspector Ghote waited for orders.

  ‘Well, man? Well? I give you an order, and what do you do about it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. Didn’t quite hear your order, sir. Must be a fault on the line, sir. These damned Post Office wallahs are always causing the utmost confusion, sir.’

  ‘There is no fault on the line, Ghote. I did not give you an order this morning. I gave you one last night.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. No, sir. No fault on the line, sir. Last night, sir?’

  ‘Yes, man. I told you last night to find that chap, what’s his name, that chap, Costa, the Goanese peon at the Ministry. What they want with a Goan in a job like that I don’t know. Bound to cause trouble. And I told you to bring him in, Ghote. So what do I find when I come to work this morning?’

  Ghote assumed this question to be rhetorical. He waited patiently, listening hard at the receiver to a multitude of varying sounds – the faint jabber of two meaningless conversations in English and Gujerati, buzzings like the whine of a tribe of mosquitoes, sudden outbursts of angry clicking, the persistent rhythm of an unanswered phone in some other distant part of the city.

  ‘Well, man?’

  Ghote came out of a trance of misery with a thump.

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, D.S.P.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry, man. I want to hear why you didn’t obey your orders. When I was a young policeman I’d have been shot for that. Shot. The British may have been a race of imperialists, as we’re so often told nowadays, but at least they understood the value of discipline.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Another short pause. Enlivened only by the mournful voice of a telephone engineer intoning the words ‘Testing, testing’ as if he knew they would never be heard by an even more depressed distant colleague.

  ‘Ghote,’ came the D.S.P.’s sharp tones again. ‘Ghote, I did not ask for your agreement on the merits of British rule: I asked why you hadn’t arrested this man Costa.’

  ‘Sousa, sir.’

  ‘Damn this line. It’s about time the Telephone Department had a charge of dynamite put under them.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Ah, you’re there again. Well, what’s your explanation, man? And you’d better be quick about it before that lunatic comes between us again.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Well, sir, as I indicated in my memo of the 12th inst., sir, I closely questioned the man Sous – That is, Costa, sir, and I formed the opinion that he could not possibly be responsible for the theft, sir.’

  ‘I see. So you did nothing about him?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And you expected him to resume duty forthwith, eh?’

  ‘Oh, yes, D.S.P. Definitely.’

  There was a tiny pause at the far end of the line. A moment of gathering tension. Then came the terrier bark of the D.S.P. again.

  ‘Then I suppose it won’t surprise you to hear that not only did he fail to report this morning, but that a special motorcycle messenger failed to find him at the address you told me he lived at?’

  ‘Failed to report, sir?’

  ‘Inspector Ghote, I do not wish to have to repeat every single thing I say to you.’

  ‘No, sir. Of course not, sir. No, D.S.P.’

  ‘Well, man?’

  ‘Well, sir, it does look a little strange, sir, certainly.’

  ‘No, Inspector, it does not look a little strange. It looks bloody strange. And what’s more, Inspector, it is bloody strange. And furthermore again, Inspector, you’re going to do something about it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Inspector?’

  Ghote thought hard, and quickly.

  ‘I’m going to get hold of the fellow, sir, if I have to turn the whole of Bombay upside down to do it.’

  ‘That’s a bit better, man. So get started. Move, man, move.’

  ‘Yes –’

  ‘Inspector. Inspector. Wait, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, sir? Yes, D.S.P.?’

  ‘The Minister, Inspector. I trust all this fine t
alk about turning the city upside down doesn’t go as far as the Minister, Inspector. He is not to be disturbed. Is that understood? Not to be disturbed on any account.’

  ‘Of course not, D.S.P. You can count on me for that. And I’ll have this chap Costa inside in no time at all, sir.’

  ‘You do. And, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘When you get hold of him this time, don’t just talk to him, Inspector.’

  The D.S.P.’s voice was patient, pleading.

  ‘Don’t just talk to him, Inspector. Get what you want out of him. Get a confession.’

  ‘Very good, D.S.P.’

  ‘Wait. Come back. Come back, Inspector. Are you there? Are you there, man?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m here, sir.’

  ‘Good. Well, listen, Inspector, how are you going to get this confession?’

  ‘I shall press the prisoner very hard, sir. I’ll keep at him, D.S.P.’

  ‘No, you won’t, Inspector. You’ll do more than that. You’ll stop the fellow getting any sleep, Inspector. You’ll put a bit of treacle on his face, Inspector, and handcuff his hands behind his back till the flies come and do your work for you, Inspector. You’ll give him plenty to eat, nice spicy, salty food, Inspector, and somehow or other his water bowl will be just out of reach the other side of his cell bars, Inspector. You’ll take a nice, redhot chilli, Inspector –’

  ‘But – But, D.S.P. –’

  ‘Yes, Inspector?’

  ‘Gross’s Criminal Investigation, D.S.P. –’

  ‘What’s that? What’s that, man? This line’s going all to pieces again. What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing, D.S.P. I’ll catch this Costa chap for you, sir. Never worry.’

  ‘Costa? The man’s name is Sousa, Inspector. You’d better get that right for a start.’

  ‘Yes, D.S.P.’

  Ghote decided that this was a moment he could ring off, and did so before anything worse happened.

  He waited for a few moments, in case when he picked up the phone again the D.S.P. should prove to be still mysteriously connected up to him, and then cautiously and quickly he rang C.I.D. headquarters back and arranged for a vehicle to pick him up and take him to the place where the night before he had left the chubby and evasive Goanese peon.

  Again he replaced the receiver and waited for the line to clear. Waited with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Waited to ring the Varde house.

  A wrong number.

  With deliberate, forced patience he dialled again. And got through. Only to have the call answered by an almost invincibly stupid servant.

  At last his patience cracked.

  ‘Get Mr Perfect’s nurse,’ he yelled down the instrument. ‘Get Mr Perfect’s nurse. Jildi, jildi, jildi.’

  He tried to relax. At least the stupid idiot on the other end of the line had not put the receiver back on its rest.

  The silence grew longer.

  Then came a woman’s voice he did not recognize.

  ‘Is that Doctor Das on the line? Doctor, I am glad to hear. Patient is showing symptoms of deterioration, Doctor. Breathing is getting slow. Pulse is getting slow, too.’

  ‘No, it is not Doctor Das,’ Ghote shouted down the line. ‘Get hold of him. Get hold of him quickly. What were you put there for, woman?’

  ‘Who is that? Who is that?’

  The voice at the other end buzzed peevishly.

  Inspector Ghote took a long breath.

  ‘Listen,’ he said with great calmness, ‘listen carefully. Your patient is showing poor symptoms: it is your duty to ring up Doctor Das at once and tell.’

  ‘Yes. Certainly. I will ring.’

  The voice was chastened, subdued.

  In a sudden flush of sweat Inspector Ghote let the receiver fall back into place. With anxiety flicking and gnawing at him at every other instant, he got dressed as quickly as he could and tried to eat something.

  The news of the D.S.P.’s attitude to the Sousa affair must have got round very quickly because he had scarcely swallowed any of his food when he heard a police vehicle draw up outside the house. He kissed his son hastily on the top of his head and was rewarded by a face looking up briefly from munching a crisp puri to smile at him, and then he rushed from the house.

  It appeared that the news of the D.S.P.’s views had spread even farther than Ghote would have thought possible: sitting beside the driver, looking alert and formidable, was the huge form of Axel Svensson.

  ‘Ah, good morning, my friend. I hear we misjudged our man last night,’ he said jovially.

  ‘Yes,’ said Inspector Ghote.

  ‘It begins to look as if some mysterious power will have to be considered after all,’ the Swede went on cheerfully. ‘You see, my friend, that would explain everything. This man, Sousa, would only have to –’

  He stopped abruptly. Ghote had put his finger to his lips and was looking hard at the driver, the same impassive fellow he had had the day before.

  Axel Svensson looked abashed.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said. ‘Of course. The details are confidential. Yes, quite so. Well, luckily, I did not say anything.’

  His nearness to a gaffe seemed to silence him temporarily.

  They reached the crowded mill district and plunged into the turbid streets. Patiently they wove, jostled and bullied their way forward. And suddenly a totally undeserved bonus fell into their laps.

  The Swede abruptly clutched the inspector’s bony arm in a grip like a steel claw. The inspector tried to slip away from him.

  ‘There. There, my friend,’ the Swede boomed excitedly. ‘Look, there.’

  Inspector Ghote could do nothing less than look.

  And there was Felix Sousa.

  The driver jammed on his brakes.

  The chubby peon was standing on the edge of a small crowd gathered at a street corner. His back was towards them and he was completely absorbed by whatever it was he was watching. Inspector Ghote slipped from his seat and began quietly making his way forward. Axel Svensson followed.

  ‘My friend,’ he said in a reverberating whisper, made totally unnecessary by the unceasing din of city life going on all round them. ‘My friend, what is it that the man is watching?’

  Inspector Ghote looked.

  At the centre of a knot of bystanders stood a huge milky white bull deformed by a large extra flap of flesh protruding from its hump. The creature was covered in a rich red cloth thickly covered in shells and edged with a variety of tinkling little bells and miscellaneous pieces of ornamentation. By its side stood a little man with sharp features and quickly darting bright eyes, dressed only in a not very clean dhoti.

  Inspector Ghote turned to Axel Svensson.

  ‘It is Bhole Nath,’ he said, ‘one of the holy bulls dedicated to Siva. Most deformed bulls are given to men of this community who spend their lives touring round with them. They answer questions that people ask.’

  ‘Answer questions?’

  ‘Yes. They are specially trained,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘And as they are the bulls of Siva, who knows everything and everybody, their answers are greatly respected.’

  Axel Svensson looked at the slight form of the inspector intently.

  ‘But is it a trick like a circus dog, or is it something which we of the West cannot understand?’ he said.

  Inspector Ghote made no reply.

  Instead he moved forward to a position nearly at the edge of the circle surrounding Bhole Nath and almost directly behind the absorbed back of Felix Sousa. The bull’s performance was about to begin.

  Its keeper darted his inquisitive, sharply pointed nose all round the crowd to make sure he had the proper degree of attention and then turned to the bull.

  ‘Bhole Nath, Bhole Nath,’ he said, ‘tell me which of all the people that you see here has never told a lie?’

  The bull regarded him gravely for a moment, snorted out a soft sigh and began looking over the crowd with calm thoughtfulness.

&nb
sp; ‘If he chooses Felix Sousa we shall know,’ Axel Svensson said quietly to the inspector.

  ‘What shall we know?’

  Axel Svensson looked surprised.

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘we shall know that what we were told by him last night was true.’

  The bull went slowly round the circling crowd, every now and again looking with great luminous eyes into one person’s face or another’s. But it did not seem to be finding its task of picking out a perfect truth-teller at all easy.

  At last it stopped.

  It looked with glowing ardour at a young mother standing with her month-old baby in her arms looking on at the excitement with eyes wide in simple delight.

  Slowly the bull lowered its head and advanced one of its horns towards the shyly smiling mother. The crowd sighed as one man with respect and wonder.

  But the bull shook its head slightly.

  There was a puzzled murmur. And the bull with breath-taking slowness advanced its horn inch by inch again. Lightly it came to rest against the baby in the mother’s arms and paused.

  For a moment the crowd did not understand. Then illumination came. ‘The baby, the baby.’ ‘That’s the one who has never told a lie.’ ‘That’s the one of us all.’ People looked at each other and nudged acknowledgement of the bull’s cynical point.

  ‘Now,’ said the sharp-nosed keeper, ‘does anyone wish to ask the bull any questions? A small sum as a token of respect to Lord Siva and he will answer with perfect truth.’

  There was a polite moment of pause while all those in the crowd who would have liked to have a problem irrefutably solved waited for someone else to come forward first. But this sort of politeness did not enter into Axel Svensson’s scheme of things. Before anyone else had stepped forward he strode to the inner edge of the circle, and bowed slightly – either to the bull or its keeper.

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘could the bull tell me whether this man here has stolen money from his master?’

  And he extended a long, heavily muscled, deep pink, golden-haired arm in the direction of the unfortunate Felix Sousa.

  At the edge of the crowd Inspector Ghote, inwardly cursing Axel Svensson like a madman, moved forward a pace so that the quaking, podgy peon could not escape.