Inspector Ghote turned. Standing on the threshold a stately, solemn bearer was waiting to take him inside to begin his investigation into the death of the house’s master.
Quickly he climbed the steps.
A few minutes later the inspector was being ushered by the solemn, pear-shaped bearer into the doorway of a substantial wooden hut standing at the far end of a big garden partly hidden by a trellis on which Ghote had glimpsed in the soft darkness a gnarled wistaria tree thick with swags of blossom.
‘Inspector Ghote, Criminal Investigation Department.’
Propped on a hard, white surgery couch, Frank Masters was in no condition to acknowledge any announcement.
His well-cut white shirt and trousers were splotched and stained with the terrible effects of the poison he had taken. The grave, intent face of all those newspaper photographs was limp and finished. The large-lensed, heavy spectacles had been dabbed down at the bottom corner of the couch, one side-piece askew, indispensable a few hours ago, junk now.
The bearer, his introduction performed, had quietly disappeared.
Standing in the far corner of the room, looking into the mirrored front of a white-painted cupboard, was a tall woman of about thirty-five dressed in a stiffly starched white overall. She had not turned when Ghote had been so solemnly introduced. He coughed apologetically towards her.
‘I presume this is Mr Masters,’ he said.
She swung round with a sharp bark of a laugh.
‘Mr Masters, I presume,’ she said. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, Mr Stanley.’
Ghote realized, with some uneasiness, that he had to deal with a Westerner. By her voice, an Englishwoman.
‘My name is Ghote actually,’ he said. ‘Inspector Ghote of the C.I.D.’
She made no reply but looked at him steadily.
‘You are the doctor who attended the patient?’ he asked.
‘Dr Diana Upleigh,’ she said.
She continued to look at him in silence with a faint smile on her big, pink-complexioned, strongly-featured face and a frankly appraising look in the wide-set eyes under the dark aggressive eyebrows. She was a good six inches taller than Ghote and was enabled to direct her stare sharply downwards.
When she spoke again it was in the cool, crisp English which sent a prickle of apprehensive irritation down Ghote’s spine.
‘It’s hardly likely that anyone else would have “attended the patient”, as you put it, is it?’ she said.
‘Well, no. No, it is not,’ Ghote said.
He licked his top lip.
‘Then you can answer the questions I need to ask,’ he added.
‘Why else do you think I hung about here?’ she replied. ‘I’d have left my dispenser to look after things if it hadn’t been that someone responsible had to see you people.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
He paused to collect his thoughts, a necessary process, and looked round the room. It was painted shiny white and was dazzlingly clean and firmly utilitarian. Besides the examination couch there was a white, square sink in one corner, a weighing machine with a height measure attached, two green-painted filing cabinets, some hard wooden chairs and a glass-topped table.
At the end of his survey Ghote came back to the surgery couch.
‘This is the body of Mr Frank Masters Esquire?’ he said.
‘Who else?’
‘And – and he is dead?’
The faint, cool smile came again.
‘Do you want to make sure for yourself?’
‘No, no, of course not. I perfectly trust your judgement. Please do not think I was making aspersion.’
‘Well, I think I am just about capable of telling whether life is extinct or not. There wouldn’t be much point in ten years’ study otherwise.’
‘No. No, I see that. Exactly so.’
Once again Ghote had to haul back his mind to the well-learnt pattern of questioning.
‘And he died here, in this room?’ he asked.
‘Certainly.’
He straightened his shoulders a little.
‘It is essential, you understand, that I should get the whole circumstances perfectly clear. What is the purpose of this hut exactly?’
The doctor answered without any trace of amusement now.
‘This is our dispensary. You probably saw as you came down through the compound: it stands all by itself here behind that trellis with the wistaria on it. There’s this room, the examination room. And through there is the dispensing room itself.’
She jerked a glance at a door leading into the other half of the hut.
Ghote noted that there was no lock.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That makes it most plain. And now, what was the approximate time of death?’
‘The approximate time? I take it you’d prefer the exact figure?’
A fraction of contempt had crept back into the cool voice.
‘If you have it, I would prefer,’ Ghote answered stoically.
‘Eleven twenty-four precisely.’
‘A very exact time.’
There was hardly a questioning note in his observation, but the doctor was quick to take it up.
‘I happen to have a scientific training,’ she said. ‘I naturally realize the importance of exactness in these matters.’
‘Yes, of course, I see that,’ Ghote said.
He let his glance slip down and rest for an instant on the doctor’s well-made, low-heeled brown suède shoes.
‘We come now to the cause of death,’ he said.
‘Arsenical poisoning.’
The statement was abrupt and uncompromising. Hardly admitting the possibility of being questioned.
Though Ghote saw the need to put questions.
‘You are certain of this?’ he said. ‘Has there been time for tests, etcetera?’
‘No, there has not been time for tests etcetera. But you won’t find I’m wrong.’
‘A clinical diagnosis only,’ said Ghote.
The doctor’s heavy eyebrows rose a little at this use of the correct term.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A clinical diagnosis. But you’ll find I’m right. The symptoms were very clear.’
‘There will have to be a check made at the laboratory of the Chemical Examiner,’ Ghote said.
‘Of course.’
A jet of abruptness.
‘But in the meantime we can certainly proceed along the lines you have suggested.’
‘Lines I suggested? Now, don’t get this wrong. I haven’t suggested anything. You’ve got your job, I’ve got mine. And, make no mistake, I’m going to leave you to get on with yours just as soon as I can.’
It sounded as if the doctor was hardly optimistic about the results.
‘Very well,’ said Ghote calmly. ‘So will you please tell all the circumstances of the death that you know.’
The doctor considered for a moment.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think I can give you a pretty reasonable account.’
She strode over to the glass-topped table and perched on the edge, thrusting her hands deep into the patch pockets of her white overall.
‘Frank – Mr Masters – started to feel ill, I believe, about a quarter past ten.’
She looked quickly across at Ghote.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘only hearsay, I know. But I don’t think you’ll find it disputed. I asked him a few questions to get the picture. He managed to say that he’d begun to feel sick about a quarter of an hour before I saw him. The symptoms had developed pretty rapidly – abdominal pain, vomiting, you know the sort of thing.’
‘Yes,’ said Ghote.
He would certainly know from now on, anyhow.
‘Well, by a stroke of luck I happened to be on the premises when it happened. I was having a talk to a couple of the boys, trying to get into their heads some sort of idea of decent behaviour. We’ve had a lot of trouble recently.’
‘I see,’ Ghote said. ‘And who were these boys?’
‘Where there has been a violent death almost anything may be relevant to the case,’ Ghote said firmly. ‘That is an accepted principle of police procedure.’
‘Oh. Oh, all right then, I’ll tell you who your boys were.’
But, quite unexpectedly, the doctor looked suddenly almost totally disconcerted.
‘Well, that is …’
‘Yes?’ said Ghote.
She gave a short, barking laugh.
‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I can’t give you their names.’
Ghote lifted his head for battle.
‘It’s quite simple,’ the doctor went on. ‘I just don’t know what their names are. I could find out, of course, but I just don’t happen to know.’
Ghote looked at her steadily.
‘You must call them something,’ he said. ‘You must have heard them call each other something. First names only would be quite adequate.’
‘All right,’ said the doctor, ‘I’ll give you them.’
Ghote slipped a notebook out of his pocket and waited with ballpoint poised.
‘Their names, as far as I remember them, are Edward G. Robinson and Tarzan.’
Ghote lowered his notebook.
‘Those are the names of film stars only,’ he said accusingly.
The doctor smiled.
‘That’s exactly it,’ she said. ‘They choose to call themselves by those names: there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s quite a common thing. When they get any money they waste it at the pictures. And they talk of nothing else.’
‘Tarzan,’ said Ghote. ‘Tell me something about him, please. He is a very acrobatical boy? About twelve years old?’
‘That’s him. He goes in for not speaking, for some reason or other.’
‘I think I have met him, and the other boy you mentioned,’ Ghote said.
‘Met them?’
‘Yes. They were waiting for the truck to arrive. Outside the front door.’
‘What did they say to you?’ the doctor asked abruptly.
‘Say? What do you mean?’
‘Oh, come, man. I meant what I said. What did those boys speak to you about?’
Ghote frowned sharply.
There were limits. A police officer in the course of his duties did not have to submit to cross-examination of this sort.
‘They did not speak,’ he said. ‘I saw only. You told you were called to see Mr Masters at what time?’
The doctor shot him a quick glance.
‘At the time I mentioned already,’ she said.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Ghote, without acknowledging that he had set the little trap, or that it had been so scornfully leapt over. ‘At ten-thirty, you said.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And what were your preliminary observations?’
‘My preliminary observations? I didn’t need anything as fancy as that, I assure you. One look and I saw that Frank was in a pretty bad way. For a bit I thought it might be severe food poisoning. But he kept muttering about a feeling of burning. That was when I began to suspect.’
‘That it was poison, arsenic, you had to deal with?’
‘That it was arsenic I had to deal with.’
Ghote ignored the elaborate mimicking of what he knew to be an over-preciseness in his use of English.
‘You commenced the appropriate treatment then?’ he asked. ‘You administered an emetic or some such thing?’
‘Don’t be a bloody fool, man.’
Ghote was unable to prevent himself drawing back in sudden anger.
‘Oh, don’t get on your high horse now, for heaven’s sake,’ the doctor said. ‘When you know me better you’ll know I call anyone a bloody fool who says something bloody foolish.’
Ghote paused for a moment.
‘You were describing the treatment of Mr Masters,’ he said.
The doctor leant backwards against the glass-topped table, her hands still pushed deep into the pockets of her white coat.
‘I wasn’t describing the treatment,’ she said. ‘You were. That was precisely what I was objecting to. Emetic. You’ve got a lot to learn. There wouldn’t be much point, you know, in giving an emetic when the patient is sicking up his entire guts every two minutes, would there?’
‘I am sorry. I am not very well acquainted with arsenical poisoning.’
‘No, I can see that. It’s a bit of a pity as this happens to be a case of exactly that. They might have sent someone who knew something about it.’
Ghote looked at her steadily.
‘Such cases are extremely rare,’ he said. ‘The police department cannot provide special personnel in such circumstances.’
The doctor tilted up her chin.
‘Then it won’t be much use telling you what treatment I used, will it?’ she said.
‘Nevertheless I would like to hear,’ said Ghote.
He turned to a fresh page in his notebook.
The doctor shrugged.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘As soon as I realized the likely cause of the trouble I ordered my dispenser to prepare a quantity of ferric hydrate. It’s a question of adding alkali to tincture of ferric chloride – a damnably slow business but by far and away the best thing to do, even with only two of us here.’
‘Did you have no ferric hydrate ready prepared?’ Ghote said.
‘Wouldn’t have been any use if I had. It has to be fresh, you know.’
Ghote did not allow himself to be snubbed.
‘I have already told,’ he said. ‘I am not highly acquainted with the procedures for arsenical poisoning.’
‘No, evidently not.’
‘This dispenser you mentioned. What is his name, please?’
The doctor bounced off the table.
‘Are you intending to check up on me?’ she snapped. ‘Because if so, you can damned well whistle for his name.’
‘Yes,’ said Ghote. ‘I would naturally ask the same questions to him as I have to you. What is his name, please?’
The tall, white-coated figure stood looking down at him, legs apart, feet planted firmly on the well-scrubbed floor.
At last she spoke.
‘His name’s Carstairs,’ she said. ‘He’s an Anglo-Indian. He has a little room over in the bungalow, perched up on the roof. If you want him.’
‘I will interview in due course. Please continue your account of events.’
The doctor slumped back on to the edge of the table.
‘There’s not a great deal more to tell,’ she said. ‘The fact of the matter was that we didn’t get the ferric hydrate prepared in time. There’s nothing you can do to hurry a scientific process, you know.’
‘I suppose it is a case where shouting is of no avail,’ said Ghote.
She darted him a furious look but made no reply.
‘And at eleven twenty-four Mr Masters died,’ Ghote said.
‘Yes. At eleven twenty-four. The time I gave you before. As soon as I saw that death had occurred I left Sonny Carstairs here and went and got in touch with you people. Got hold of a man called Naik eventually. Seemed to understand what I said, more or less.’
Ghote decided to pass over such cavalier treatment of the Deputy Superintendent. It might perhaps be best for his own peace of mind if he forgot the remark had ever been made.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘we come to the possible causes of poisoning.’
‘Murder,’ said the doctor.
She sat unmoving on the glass table top. Her hands were once again stuck into the patch pockets of her coat.
‘That is obviously one possibility,’ Ghote said. ‘However, we must also consider the possibilities of suicide and accident.’
‘There are plenty of easier ways of killing yourself than swallowing anything as unpleasant as that,’ the doctor said brusquely. ‘And besides what would a man like Frank Masters want to kill himself for?’
Ghote pricked up his ears.
‘A man like Frank Masters,’ he said. ‘What exactly then was Mr Frank Masters like?’
The doctor gave him a long, steady look.
She got up abruptly and strode across the room until she was standing beside the examination couch where Frank Masters’s body lay uselessly propped.
She looked down.
‘Frank was a good man,’ she said. ‘Simply that. A good man.’
She swung away, grasped for the door handle and in an instant was outside leaving the soft night air billowing in through the open doorway.
THREE
For some minutes Inspector Ghote stood quite still in the clinically harsh examination room alone with the broken body of Frank Masters. He forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly.
Calm, he told himself. That was the first thing. Calm to think out everything he had learnt. He must not allow himself to be swept away by the attitude of this arrogant English doctor. Who was she –?
He stopped himself.
And by standing still in the middle of the room and concentrating hard he did at last succeed in getting calm enough to go over quietly and rationally all that he had heard and seen. He was just thinking how little the doctor had really said about Frank Masters himself when a curious faint scratching noise distracted him.
He checked an impulse to dart out into the darkness of the compound to investigate and made himself stand stock still apparently gazing into space.
Without having to exercise much patience he was rewarded. Down at the bottom corner of the open doorway he became aware of a slow, very stealthy movement. Without turning his head even a quarter of an inch he looked as far downwards as he could.
Second by second there crept into the range of his vision first a small brown hand, grimy and ill-kept, then a thin wrist and finally a section of a ripped-up, ragged black plastic jacket.
Ghote took a long, slow, deep breath.
And pounced.
Successfully.
He felt his fingers grip with satisfying hardness into the lean and stringy flesh of the leader of the boys’ gang.
Unable to suppress a faint triumphant smile he hauled the urchin into the hut and on to his feet.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘and what do you want?’
The boy twisted round in his grip.
Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade Page 2