‘Inspector. Inspector sahib,’ he called out.
Ghote stopped and looked at him, panting.
‘Message from Minister’s P.A., Inspector sahib,’ said the chaprassi. ‘Minister regrets he has had to answer urgent summons. You are please to come again this afternoon. Four o’clock.’
In the bright heat half-way back down the Ministry’s sweeping marble steps the inspector told Axel Svensson what had happened.
‘So,’ said the big Swede, ‘you are free to work on the Perfect Murder?’
Inspector Ghote looked at him.
‘Even you call it that,’ he said.
A shiver of premonition.
‘Well,’ said the Swede, ‘the newspapers, everything. You get into the way of it. But murder or no murder, what’s your plan?’
‘I have been thinking about it quite a lot,’ Ghote said. ‘You know the one thing we have really learnt still is that the attack took place shortly after Dilip Varde had heard that his wife had not come to him as maiden. Two such terrific events in one evening. I am not happy that that is pure coincidence even yet.’
The Swede shrugged enormously broad shoulders.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you may be right. But I cannot see how the gentleman you have just failed to see could be connected with a humble Parsi secretary.’
‘No,’ said Ghote. ‘I admit it doesn’t seem likely. But all the same I think a word with Dilip Varde about it might open up unexpected possibilities. And there is the chance also that he believes Mr Perfect persuaded his father to bring him back from Delhi.’
‘However, that is not a very serious reason for murder,’ Axel Svensson observed as they got into the truck.
At the Varde house the constable on duty at the door told them that Dilip Varde had gone out. For a long time it looked as if no one in the family knew where he was. He had taken no luggage, nor was he at his father’s office.
At last Inspector Ghote thought of the sweeper boy, Satyamurti, with his habit of hanging about near the front door. He routed him out, and was at once rewarded. The boy had heard the tika sahib say he was going to the club. Some more inquiries and the name of the club was elicited. The inspector and Axel Svensson set off again.
The club – all clubs – constituted unknown territory for the inspector. He was glad, on the whole, that Axel Svensson still seemed to need his company; although, on the other hand, he had doubts about whether he would successfully manage to conduct himself as a man of the world with the big Swede’s unclouded blue eyes fixed on him all the time.
He braced himself for difficulties ahead.
In the high darkness of the entrance hall, where they were left to wait while a bearer of appropriate status was found to take them to Dilip Varde, he looked round with as casual an air as he could contrive. He was not going to gawp, he told himself but neither was he going to stand strictly to attention looking at the mere section of space that came immediately in front of him.
Idly he stared at the ample, dark-varnished portrait of an elderly Englishman in the unbending frock-coat of the early nineteenth century presiding over the entrances and exits of members and their visitors. No doubt he was the founder of the institution. It was plain that he had a reputation as a traveller and pioneer: his right hand was resting squarely and solidly on a revolving terrestrial globe.
Inspector Ghote looked him full in the face.
Then he felt that a general casual survey would be permissible. He let his glance travel slowly, idly round, taking in the marshalled rank of elephant-foot umbrella stands, the faded green baize letter-rack with its criss-cross of pink tapes, the equally faded green baize notice-board beside it.
There was no sign yet of the bearer. Axel Svensson was standing sombrely regarding the floor at his feet. Inspector Ghote counted the umbrellas in the elephants’ feet. There were a good many of them, brought in anticipation of the shortly expected rains of the monsoon.
He sighed.
Still no bearer.
He strolled over to the notice-board and cast a careless look at its rigidly compartmented sections, ‘General Notices’, ‘Social Functions’, ‘Sporting’,‘Stabling and Kennels’. At this last he felt it would not be overstepping the bounds to peruse the single piece of neat white paper pinned to it.
He leant forward and read, ‘Six lovely Baby Bunnies for Sale to Good Homes.’
‘Sahib.’
He started as if he had been caught stealing one of the heavy unornamented brass ashtrays on the dark wooden table close by.
It was the bearer.
Soundlessly they were led away to find Dilip. They passed along wide, high, carpeted corridors with here and there an open door giving a quick sight of the secret life being enacted all round them. Each door bore its wooden notice with elegant gold letters describing the mystery behind.
Through the one marked ‘Ballroom’ the inspector caught a fleeting glimpse of a wide gleaming floor surrounded by little alcoves with faded pink curtains, of a chain of unilluminated multi-coloured lights swooping irregularly above them, and at the far end he saw a squadron of tables and chairs drawn up preparatory to brisk sessions of bridge fours.
A glance into the smoking-room showed deep arm-chairs in sternly regimented huddles of three with little dark oak tables and spindly chromium pillar ashtrays attendant on them, and beneath tall windows another table, large and leather-topped, almost completely covered by rank on rank of tattered-looking newspapers and magazines.
A last look through into the billiard room revealed rows of quiet, dark green snooker tables under long tin light shades and, beyond them, a bar, its shelves glinting with silver trophies.
The bearer opened a pair of french windows and took them outside. Inspector Ghote gave a quick look to left and right. He saw a series of grass tennis courts on one of which two boys of about sixteen were playing an inept game of singles with frequent stops for shouted exchanges of mock insults and laughter. In a rose garden, its spiky bushes burnt almost to nothing by the months of sun preceding the monsoon, a handful of children were playing under the supervision of three mothers. Standing still as statues half a dozen bearers with vivid sashes and turbans of blue and silver were scattered about waiting for the later rush of activity. On the terrace a couple of waiters were languidly laying tables for lunch with starched white linen tablecloths and heavy silver cutlery.
Dilip Varde was sitting at the far end of the long verandah diligently reading a brightly covered mystery story. A glass stood on the wickerwork table beside him. At the sound of approaching steps he turned round as if irritated that his solitude was being disturbed. When he saw who it was he jumped to his feet with an angry gesture.
‘What the devil are you fellows doing here?’ he said. ‘Isn’t a chap to have a bit of peace even in his own club?’
‘Good morning, Mr Varde,’ Inspector Ghote said.
‘Now it’s no use coming the soft soap with me,’ Dilip replied. ‘I tell you I will not be interrupted here. If you wish to see me, then you must apply in the proper way.’
‘Mr Varde, the last time we met you threatened to do your best to prevent me seeing you ever again,’ the inspector said.
He did not raise his voice.
‘Well, what if I did? You chaps have far too high a notion of your own importance. It’s time you learnt that there are matters which are no particular bloody concern of yours.’
‘Like Ram Kamath and your wife, Mr Varde?’
Ghote said it quickly, before he had time to think better of it.
And the effect was dramatic.
Slowly Dilip Varde sank back into his upright wicker armchair. His hand went up to his mouth like an automaton’s and he stroked his too bushy moustache as if he hoped for comfort and found none.
Inspector Ghote was quick to keep up the pressure.
‘Now then, sir,’ he said, ‘we know that you were informed about that matter during the evening of the attack on Mr Perfect. Also scarcely had you hear
d, than this crime takes place. Well, what is the connexion, Mr Varde? What is the connexion between the Minister for Police Affairs and your father’s secretary? We think you can tell us that.’
As he spoke he had been watching the figure in the wicker chair with all the concentration of a snake watching its victim.
At one moment Dilip’s right fist had tightened convulsively, and then fraction by fraction he had relaxed it.
Now he turned and looked up at the inspector and the tall Swede hovering behind him.
And he smiled, the white teeth flashing under the dark moustache.
‘That’s the trouble with you chaps,’ he said easily. ‘If you go poking your noses into things you just don’t understand, well then, you must expect not to know what goes on.’
Inwardly Inspector Ghote cursed himself. He had gone on talking too long. Dilip had had time to regain the initiative.
‘You see, my dear chap,’ Dilip continued, ‘there’s simply no connexion there. Absolutely none. How could there be? Between a scrubby Parsi clerk and the Minister who, incidentally, has complete control over hundreds of chappies like you, Inspector.’
The flash of insolent white teeth.
‘Mr Varde.’
It was Axel Svensson’s voice coming from behind the spare form of the inspector. Axel Svensson’s choked, indignant voice.
‘Mr Varde, I wish to state that it is absolutely contemptible to threaten the inspector in that way.’
Dilip looked up. Inspector Ghote turned round and looked too. The great tall Swede stood glaring down, a heavy hot flush spreading awkwardly across his high-boned cheeks.
‘Look –’ Ghote began.
But Dilip cut across him.
‘My dear chap,’ he said, ‘no need to get worked up, you know. I’m afraid you don’t still quite understand the situation in this country of ours nowadays. We just have to do things a bit differently.’
‘Then you should not,’ the big Swede replied with increasing heat. ‘You should not trample upon so fine a police officer as Inspector Ghote. It is intolerable.’
‘No, Mr Svensson –’ the inspector said.
But the amount of contradiction Dilip could take was limited, and Axel Svensson had come to the end of his quota. Before the inspector could finish his remonstrance Dilip had leapt up and placed himself facing the tall Swede.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you can’t come along in this way and tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. Just you keep well out of affairs that are no business of yours.’
‘But yes. They are my business. Justice is the business of every honest man. You are threatening the inspector in a most unjust way. And I am telling you that you will not get away with it. No, sir.’
Inspector Ghote slipped between the two antagonists.
‘Mr Varde, please understand,’ he said. ‘Mr Svensson is not quite himself. He has had an unfortunate experience this morning. He ought perhaps to be in bed.’
‘No, no, my friend,’ Axel Svensson boomed. ‘No, too long I have been silent when such things are said to you. But this time I declare myself. If any trouble happens to you, then I shall make such – such –’
He looked from side to side as if the English word he could lay his tongue to might be hovering somewhere near in the air.
At last he found it.
‘I shall make such stinkings you never heard of.’
Dilip’s face paled with anger.
For a moment he said nothing, and when he spoke it was with ominous quietness.
‘Are you threatening me, old chap?’ he said.
Inspector Ghote almost jumped in the air to get up to the big Swede’s level.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you must not do this. Mr Svensson – Axel sahib – Axel, my friend, you are to come home now. At once.’
The Swede shook his head from side to side as if to clear away obstructions.
‘It is time to speak,’ he said. ‘Too often I have let things go by. But now it is the time to speak. There is such a thing as a justice which is the same for all men, the same in Sweden, the same in India. And if I see that justice being trampled in the mud, then I will fight for it. Without stopping I will fight.’
‘No, you are wrong,’ Ghote shouted.
He knew his voice had got out of control. He knew he was beginning not to behave as a police officer ought in such surroundings. He saw the sashed bearers stir from their immobile poses.
‘No, you are wrong,’ he shouted again. ‘That is not the way life is. It is too much to expect. Let things be as they are. My friend, you are trying to do too much.’
The pleading note in his almost incoherent tirade got through at last to the tall-framed Swede. His blue eyes lost their piercing anger and clouded over.
And Dilip, strung tautly, looking at him, saw the change.
‘Yes,’ he said with a sneer in his voice, ‘you are trying to do too much. Your little friend here is quite right. You’d better go and lie down somewhere till you’ve cooled off.’
It was all Axel Svensson needed.
‘You dare to tell me to cool off,’ he roared. ‘You have not the right to tell anybody anything. You perverter of justice, you should be silenced. Silenced for ever.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Dilip said.
He was no longer quiet.
‘I am not threatening you: I am telling you. It’s time you and your like learnt a few home truths. You dare to try and get a man like Ghote here into trouble, just because he uncovers a few miserable details of your private life. He’s worth ten of you, twenty of you. I have waited and waited to say this, and now I will tell you all of it.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ Dilip shouted back. ‘You’ll leave this club immediately, or I’ll have you thrown out.’
He leant forward, the muscles in his neck twanging and vibrating with rage.
‘Throw me out. You. You cheater and liar and traducer of justice. I’ll see you damn boiled first.’
‘Bearer, bearer, bearer.’
Dilip’s shouts were on the edge of hysteria.
The turbaned bearers had to take notice. They looked at each other.
‘Bearer,’ Dilip shouted again.
He could not be ignored.
The bearers started to approach. Cautiously, slowly, keeping an eye on each other, no one going any faster than anyone else.
Dilip set his head at an arrogant tilt.
An actor’s tilt.
‘Bearer,’ he said, ‘see this gentleman out. And if he doesn’t go pretty quickly, boot him out.’
The bearers, in spite of their imposing turbans, were small men. They looked at Axel Svensson. The towering Swede looked round him like a monster bear.
‘Sahib,’ said one of the bearers in a voice little above a whisper, ‘please to go, please.’
‘I haven’t finished with this gentleman yet,’ Axel Svensson replied.
‘Right,’ said Dilip with a fine show of having done with the whole business, ‘throw him out then.’
He turned and dropped his pose of calm to glare furiously at Svensson.
‘By the seat of the pants,’ he said.
The little bearers hesitated.
Dilip turned to them.
‘Ek dum,’ he snapped. ‘Ek dum.’
Slitheringly the bearers advanced.
17
‘Well, Dilip, this isn’t doing any good, you know.’
It was the dryly precise voice of Gautam Athalye.
As if all the participants in the scene – Inspector Ghote, Axel Svensson, Dilip Varde, the timid little bearers – were puppets with connected strings they swung round together in the direction of the french windows where, with a faint wrinkle of disapproval on his forehead, Gautam Athalye stood.
Nobody spoke.
‘Well, Dilip, aren’t you going to say good morning?’ Athalye asked. ‘I am your father-in-law, you know.’
Dilip’s mouth under his luxuriant moustache contracted with suppresse
d fury.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have got something to say to you. Dealer in second-hand goods.’
One of the bearers, full of relief at having been saved from throwing the huge Swede out, incautiously moved half a step the better to watch what looked like a new quarrel beginning right in front of him.
The movement caught Dilip’s eye.
‘I have something to say to you,’ he repeated, looking ferociously at his father-in-law, ‘but I shall say it in my own good time.’
He swung on his heel in a gesture of high drama and strode off through the rose gardens, past a little English countryside-style summerhouse, and out through a narrow gate at the far end of the grounds.
Gautam Athalye cleared his throat.
‘I heard some sort of row going on and I thought I’d better look out,’ he said.
He patted his thigh three or four times with the rolled-up newspaper he was carrying and turned to go back indoors.
‘One moment, sahib,’ Inspector Ghote called out.
Gautam Athalye pulled out the half-hunter watch from his waistcoat pocket. He glanced at it in the palm of his hand and slipped it back.
‘Yes, Inspector?’ he said.
‘I am sorry to have to take up your time,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘But I must remind you that I am engaged on a very important inquiry.’
Gautam Athalye looked at him shrewdly.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I hope I know my duty.’
He looked up and down the length of the verandah. The bearers scuttled back to their places under his apparently mild gaze. He glanced at the little wickerwork table Dilip had deserted.
‘I suggest we settle ourselves here,’ he said. ‘I doubt if we shall be disturbed.’
Inspector Ghote hastily caught hold of two more of the upright wicker arm-chairs and placed them at the table. They all sat down.
‘I won’t go through the formalities of inviting you to take refreshments, gentlemen,’ Gautam Athalye said.
‘No,’ said the inspector. ‘I will come straight to the point. Did you hear what it was I asked that made your son-in-law so angry?’
The Perfect Murder: the First Inspector Ghote Mystery Page 19