The Perfect Murder: the First Inspector Ghote Mystery

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Service cannot always be responsible for all faults,’ the operator said. ‘They occur sometimes –’

  ‘Quick,’ Ghote said. ‘Get me that number. Or I’ll get you sacked if it’s the last thing I do.’

  The threat miraculously appeared to work.

  In a few seconds he heard the voice of the C.I.D. switchboard man. He got himself transferred to the transport section.

  A lot depended on who was in charge that morning.

  And the inspector was in luck. It was Head Constable Chimanlal. A friend.

  ‘Listen, Chimanlal bhai,’ he said, ‘this is Ghote here. I’m in a terrible jam. I’ve got to go and see the – Well, a very important person, and my appointment is for nine o’clock. Well, I’m at home, and –’

  ‘But I have no transport left. Absolutely none.’

  Chimanlal sounded genuinely sorry.

  Ghote groaned.

  ‘I had just one truck left, bhaiji,’ Chimanlal explained, ‘and then that big Swedish fellow, you know, the one –’

  ‘Did he take it?’ Ghote yelled.

  ‘Yes, yes, I was saying.’

  ‘And is he waiting in it?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I was saying –’

  ‘And is he waiting in it?’

  ‘Yes. I can see him through the window. He is looking pretty impatient too. You know the way these Westerners –’

  ‘Chimanlal. Do me a favour. Run out and tell him that I am here. He is waiting for me, Chimanlal. And he is right to be impatient.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Chimanlal said. ‘Right away, bhai.’

  Inspector Ghote let the receiver drop on to the rest thankfully. He turned and snatched up his clothes from the floor where he had left them the night before and scrambled into them. They looked badly crumpled, but there was no time to do anything about that. He would have to try smoothing them out in the vehicle. Once the vehicle had arrived. And if all went well it could arrive in minutes.

  Buckling on his belt he ran into the garden and looked up and down the service road. Amid all the noises of the city, the chatter and shouting of neighbouring houses, the wild cawing of crows, the tinny caterwauling of radio sets, the murmur of distant traffic, he thought he could make out the angry highpitched note of a police truck.

  He would have liked to have had a couple of minutes to ring up the Varde house. The thought of his dreams weighed heavily on him. But a luxury like that had to be relinquished.

  He patted his pockets to make sure that he had got pencil and notebook and carefully re-set his watch and wound it up.

  He looked round for his son.

  The boy was crouching in a corner pretending to be very absorbed in making a chain of marigold flowers.

  ‘Hoi, little one,’ Ghote said, ‘aren’t you going to speak to your father today?’

  The boy said nothing. For a few moments he went on playing with the wilting marigolds and then Ghote saw him look slyly out of the corner of his eye up in his direction.

  ‘So, you can hear me, Veddy,’ he said.

  The boy did not answer.

  Inspector Ghote looked down at his rounded back and the frighteningly slight smooth neck. He frowned puzzledly.

  Behind him came the sudden roar of a car engine and the squeak of brakes jammed on hard.

  The boy glanced up.

  ‘Ved,’ Ghote said, ‘Ved, don’t you know what that is? It’s the truck come to fetch me to work. Aren’t you going to say good-bye even?’

  The boy, still looking down at the dusty earth of the garden, shook his head.

  Ghote crouched down beside him.

  The truck driver, the same impassive speed maniac he had had the day before, gave a respectful but sharp toot on the horn.

  ‘Listen, Ved,’ Ghote said, ‘what’s the matter? Why won’t you talk to me?’

  The boy kept obstinately still. His fingers now had ceased to fiddle with the flower heads.

  ‘Ved, what is it? Have I done something to you? Tell me if I have, my little boy, and I’ll put it right.’

  In a flash the boy wheeled round on his haunches till his face was within inches of his father’s.

  ‘You have gone away all the time,’ he said. ‘Don’t go now, Pitaji. Stay here today.’

  Ghote looked at his face, wide-eyed with pleading. From the road behind him he heard Axel Svensson calling.

  ‘But, Ved,’ Ghote said, ‘but, Ved, you must understand. Look, you know what a policeman is, don’t you?’

  The boy looked at him and said nothing.

  ‘Well, you do, don’t you? I have often told you. What is a policeman for, Ved?’

  ‘To put bad men in prison, Pitaji.’

  ‘Yes. And if the policeman stays at home all day the bad men will not get put in prison.’

  He rose to his feet but still kept looking down at the boy, waiting for a sign that he could go without rancour.

  But no sign came. Instead from the truck Axel Svensson called out with unconcealed impatience.

  ‘Ved, if I stay at home the bad men will not be caught.’

  ‘Bibiji says that you do not have to go,’ Ved said.

  ‘And your mother told you not to talk to me also?’

  ‘Yes. And I don’t want to talk to you if you always go away.’

  Inspector Ghote drew in a long breath.

  ‘Listen, Ved,’ he said. ‘I know it is not nice for you and Bibiji to have me away all the time. But there are a lot of bad men and if I did not help to catch them they would rob people and hurt them. So that is why I have to go. Do you see that?’

  Slowly Ved lifted his head till he was looking straight at his father.

  ‘Yes, Pitaji,’ he whispered.

  Ghote swooped down on him and hugged him hard. But not for long.

  ‘Good-bye, Ved,’ he shouted as he ran out of the garden. ‘Good-bye and be good.’

  He jumped into the truck.

  Without waiting for an order the driver crashed into gear and shot off.

  Inspector Ghote looked at his watch.

  Nearly quarter to nine.

  ‘My friend,’ said Axel Svensson, ‘you will be very lucky to be in time for your interview with Mr Ram Kamath.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ghote miserably.

  ‘But I expect he shares that general freedom from the trammels of time which is so admirable here.’

  ‘No,’ said Ghote, more miserably.

  ‘No? How is that?’

  ‘The Minister is well known for not liking to waste anything,’ Ghote said. ‘You understand I am speaking as friend to friend, but he is notorious for never wasting a single minute of time or a single pie of money.’

  The truck had by now left the Government Quarters area and was beginning to meet the thicker traffic of morning Bombay. Their rate of progress got considerably slower.

  ‘I think we shall be late,’ said the Swede.

  Inspector Ghote looked at his watch again.

  Twelve minutes to nine.

  As if to emphasize the slimness of their chances an immense traffic jam suddenly built up around them like a flowing stream turning in a single instant into ice. The root of the trouble lay in a dilapidated Victoria driven by a tall Muslim with a sprouting henna-dyed beard. His horse was so skinny that it looked as if it had reached its present place only by the triumph of spirit over flesh, and now at last sheer physical inanition had prevailed. Around it big cars and little cars, old cars and spanking new cars chafed and growled. A few bicycles contrived to slip slowly forward between the stationary vehicles, but before long they too congealed into their own private tangles, adding one by one to the number of minutes that must go by before the snarl could begin to unwind.

  For as long as he could bear to Inspector Ghote prevented himself looking at his watch. When his nerve broke at last the hands said one minute to nine.

  He groaned aloud.

  ‘What is wrong, my friend?’ Axel Svensson asked.

  Inspector Ghote showed him the watch fac
e.

  ‘In exactly one minute from now,’ he said, ‘Shri Ram Kamath will ask our friend Mr Jain to bring me into his office. Mr Jain will tell him I am not there and –’

  As suddenly as it had blocked the traffic began to move again.

  ‘Hurry, hurry,’ the big Swede shouted to the stately driver.

  The driver needed no encouragement.

  He slewed in front of taxis and cars, darted ahead of the big shiny buses, brutally frightened cyclists, terrified mooning pedestrians and made progress through the teeming streets at a speed which surpassed even the best of his previous tearaway plunges.

  The Swede’s face was glazed with fright as with a howl of brakes they drew up outside the Ministry. Inspector Ghote flung himself on to the pavement and bounded up the wide marble steps leading into the building. The chaprassi he had so nearly bribed on his previous visit was there in full splendour.

  ‘The Minister,’ Ghote gasped. ‘Quick. I have an appointment for nine a.m.’

  ‘Minister has gone out, sahib,’ the chaprassi said with statuesque calm. ‘It is past nine o’clock.’

  Inspector Ghote looked at his watch.

  Four minutes past nine.

  14

  Dejectedly Inspector Ghote tramped down the wide flight of shallow marble steps out of the Ministry. Axel Svensson was waiting for him at the bottom.

  ‘We’re too late?’ he asked.

  ‘Too late,’ said Inspector Ghote.

  The Swede consulted his watch.

  ‘But it’s only five past,’ he said.

  ‘I told you,’ said the inspector. ‘Not everybody in India has the habit of unpunctuality which you are kind enough to praise. The Minister has already left.’

  They got back into the truck. Inspector Ghote told the driver, sitting more righteously upright than ever, to take them to Lala Varde’s house, and with no more than his customary recklessness he screeched and swung them there.

  No sooner had the heavy front door been swung open for them than Inspector Ghote saw Doctor Das standing in the hall.

  He went cold in a moment.

  Had Mr Perfect’s crisis come after all?

  ‘Doctor,’ he said, hardly able to get the word out, ‘how is he?’

  Doctor Das bobbed and smiled.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I don’t think there can be any considerable objection to telling you that I have been visiting Mr Perfect. Yes. Mr Varde is deeply concerned and insists on frequent visits. Absolutely.’

  ‘And his condition?’ the inspector asked, unable to conceal his eagerness.

  For a moment the wide-mouthed little doctor looked at him.

  ‘There has been one minor change,’ he said.

  ‘Minor? What? What is it?’

  Doctor Das shook a plump little frog-finger at the inspector.

  ‘Now, you must remember this,’ he said. ‘Fundamentally, the situation is exactly the same as before. Exactly. The patient is still deeply unconscious. Yes, there can be no objection to telling you that.’

  Inspector Ghote felt relief seeping slowly through him from head to foot.

  ‘And his chances? What about them?’ he said.

  ‘My dear Inspector, now you are really asking too much. Not that I wouldn’t tell you if I was able. I would certainly tell you that much. But, my dear good fellow, no one could. Mind you, some of these ayurvedic fellows might claim to tell you. They will tell you anything. I have had the greatest difficulty in persuading Lala Varde not to bring them in on this case. The greatest difficulty. I have had to threaten to give up myself. To give up.’

  ‘You might tell me what chance he stood if you were able to,’ Inspector Ghote said with quickening interest, ‘but what is it that you won’t tell me and could, Doctor?’

  The doctor looked surprised for one second. Then he smiled broadly again.

  ‘Yes, you are quite right, my dear chap,’ he said. ‘There is something I feel I shouldn’t tell you. I really should not have let a hint of the matter slip. Most regrettably remiss of me. Most remiss.’

  ‘Doctor,’ said the inspector, ‘Mr Perfect is the victim of a crime which I am investigating. I do not think you should withhold anything from me which might be relevant to that crime.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Doctor Das, ‘now you are saying that in a manner of speaking Mr Perfect is not only a patient under Mr Varde’s auspices but is also under the auspices of the police department?’

  ‘What happens to Mr Perfect is very much the police department’s concern,’ said the inspector.

  ‘Then I shall regard the department as having consulted me,’ Doctor Das said briskly. ‘And of course if I have been consulted I am perfectly right to give you an opinion, Inspector.’

  ‘One moment,’ the inspector said. ‘What exactly do you mean by this talk of consultation, Doctor? Does a question of fees arise?’

  Doctor Das looked shocked.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘these things are really best not discussed in quite that way.’

  ‘But nevertheless if you tell me this about Mr Perfect at some later date the police department will receive your bill?’

  Doctor Das swept the whole business aside with an easy spreading gesture.

  ‘These matters are dealt with by my secretary,’ he said.

  Inspector Ghote stood almost to attention.

  ‘Doctor Das,’ he said, ‘I understand that in your capacity as a doctor something to do with Mr Perfect has come to your attention, and that you believe it would interest me. I require you to tell.’

  Doctor Das abruptly bent forward half an inch as if he had had a sudden attack of painful dyspepsia.

  ‘You think I should tell you?’ he said.

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He sighed.

  ‘While I was with Mr Perfect just now,’ he said, ‘the level of unconsciousness rose a little and then fell back. The patient stirred and began to mutter something. You would like to know what it was he said?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Doctor Das sighed again.

  ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘The words were these: “Will not listen to good advice. He is fool to tell a fool. Secrecy best.” And then he repeated that last phrase, “Secrecy best”.’

  ‘I see,’ said Inspector Ghote. ‘And that was all?’

  ‘You want more?’

  Doctor Das sounded outraged.

  ‘If there is more, I want it.’

  ‘Well, there was no more.’

  ‘You are certain?’

  ‘I have told you every word he said.’

  ‘There is someone with him all the time?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Lala Varde at least is paying.’

  The doctor looked at Ghote more in sorrow than in anger and departed.

  For a moment Ghote luxuriated in his feeling of relief. Surely all this must mean that Mr Perfect was no worse, perhaps even improving? Doctors always liked to make out that things were more serious than they were. It made the eventual cure more dramatic.

  Axel Svensson turned from looking sombrely at the closed front door.

  ‘Am I right in thinking he wanted to be paid for telling you that?’ he asked.

  ‘Almost everybody in India wants to be paid for everything,’ the inspector answered with a trace of bitterness.

  ‘But a doctor? Are you sure?’

  The note of incredulity. The Swede had not shed any of his Nordic conceptions of professional integrity.

  ‘Yes, I am sure,’ the inspector replied rather shortly. ‘Just because Doctor Das feels obliged to put his demands in a rather roundabout fashion it does not mean he is not making them.’

  He gave a harsh bark of a laugh.

  ‘He won’t lose on the deal in any case,’ he said. ‘You wait till Lala Varde gets his bill.’

  And, even as he spoke the words, he sensed behind him at the top of the flight of marble stairs the looming figure of Lala Arun Varde himself.

&n
bsp; ‘Oh, ho, so the policias are sending bills nowadays, are they?’ Lala Varde boomed.

  He descended the stairs like a monsoon cloud gradually approaching the parched earth as if borne down by the weight of water in it.

  Standing on the bottom step, he pointed a pudgy finger at the inspector.

  ‘I would pay all right,’ he said, ‘if I saw any sign of result. But you know Arun Varde: until he sees something he can touch he doesn’t pay out, no, not a single rupee.’

  Inspector Ghote chose to misunderstand this joking.

  ‘You must be very well aware, sahib,’ he said, ‘that the police force is remunerated from properly levied State taxes. No member of it in any circumstances accepts money from a private citizen.’

  Lala Varde’s face at once assumed an expression of extravagant piety.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, Inspector detector,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, indeed. I know that well. Who should know it if not I? No policeman ever takes money from the public. Oh, dear me, no, no, no, no.’

  Inspector Ghote looked at him stonily.

  ‘I trust you have never had experience to the contrary in your business dealings,’ he said. ‘May I remind you that in bribery and corruption cases both parties to the transaction are equally to blame?’

  ‘Oh, but, my poor Inspector, you know Lala Varde would never do a thing like that. Donations to police charities, yes. Many and often. I am thinking just now of making a donation for some furniture for that new police training college I hear they are going to build. But corruption poppuption. Never.’

  He stood upright on the bottom stair, his huge fat chest puffed out under the thin kurta.

  And then suddenly he plunged forward like a racing swimmer entering the water and strode up close to the inspector.

  ‘A donation I am considering only,’ he said. ‘Considering, you understand. If I find policemen not being polite, considering I will stop. Yes, bang. Stop.’

  Inspector Ghote looked him full in his many-chinned face.

  ‘I hope you have had no cause for complaint over my conduct, sahib,’ he said.

  A huge splitting grin replied to him.

  ‘Oh, no, Inspector. Politeness I have had from you in plenty twenty. But what I have not had is the murderer. The Perfect murderer. Where is he, Inspector? Oh, by god, yes, you ought to pull him out of this pretty damn quick.’