by Ruskin Bond
I was beginning to hope that Leela had reconciled herself to allowing one man to remain single in a world full of husbands when, one morning, she accosted me on the veranda with an open newspaper, which she thrust in front of my nose.
‘There!’ she said triumphantly. ‘What do you think of that? I did it to surprise you.’
She had certainly succeeded in surprising me. Her henna-stained forefinger rested on an advertisement in the matrimonial columns.
Bachelor journalist, age twenty-five, seeks attractive young wife well versed in household duties. Caste, religion no bar. Dowry optional.
I must admit that Leela had made a good job of it. In a few days the replies began to come in, usually from the parents of the girls concerned. Each applicant wanted to know how much money I was earning. At the same time, they took the trouble to list their own connections and the high positions occupied by relatives. Some parents enclosed their daughters’ photographs. They were very good photographs, though there was a certain amount of touching-up employed.
I studied the pictures with interest. Perhaps marriage wasn’t such a bad proposition, after all. I selected the photographs of the three girls I most fancied and showed them to Leela.
To my surprise, she disapproved of all three. One of the girls she said had a face like a hermaphrodite; another obviously suffered from tuberculosis; and the third was undoubtedly an adventuress. Leela decided that the whole idea of the advertisement had been a mistake. She was sorry she had inserted it; the only replies we were likely to get would be from fortune hunters. And I had no fortune.
So we destroyed the letters. I tried to keep some of the photographs, but Leela tore them up too.
And so, for some time, there were no more attempts at getting me married.
Leela and I met nearly every day, but we spoke of other things. Sometimes, in the evenings, she would make me sit on the charpoy opposite her, and then she would draw up her hookah and tell me stories about her village and her family. I was getting used to the boy, too, and even growing rather fond of him.
All this came to an end when Leela’s husband went and got himself killed. He was shot by a bootlegger, who had decided to get rid of the excise man rather than pay him an exorbitant sum of money. It meant that Leela had to give up her quarters and return to her village near Agra. She waited until the boy’s school term had finished, and then she packed their things and bought two tickets, third class to Agra.
Something, I could see, had been troubling her, and when I saw her off at the station, I realized what it was. She was having a fit of conscience about my continued bachelorhood.
‘In my village,’ she said confidently, leaning out from the carriage window, ‘there is a very comely young girl, a distant relative of mine; I shall speak to the parents.’
And then I said something which I had not considered before; which had never, until that moment, entered my head. And I was no less surprised than Leela when the words came tumbling out of my mouth: ‘Why don’t you marry me now?’
Arun didn’t have time to finish his story because, just at this interesting stage, the dinner arrived.
But the dinner brought with it the end of his story.
It was served by his wife, a magnificent woman, strong and handsome, who could only have been Leela. And a few minutes later, Chandu, Arun’s stepson, charged into the house, complaining that he was famished.
Arun introduced me to his wife, and we exchanged the usual formalities.
‘But why hasn’t your friend brought his family with him?’ she asked.
‘Family? Because he’s still a bachelor!’
And then as he watched his wife’s expression change from a look of mild indifference to one of deep concern, he hurriedly changed the subject.
The Monkeys
I couldn’t be sure, next morning, if I had been dreaming or if I had really heard dogs barking in the night and had seen them scampering about on the hillside below the cottage. There had been a golden Cocker, a Retriever, a Peke, a Dachshund, a black Labrador and one or two nondescripts. They had woken me with their barking shortly after midnight, and had made so much noise that I had got out of bed and looked out of the open window. I saw them quite plainly in the moonlight, five or six dogs rushing excitedly through the bracket and long monsoon grass.
It was only because there had been so many breeds among the dogs that I felt a little confused. I had been in the cottage only a week, and I was already on nodding or speaking terms with most of my neighbours. Colonel Fanshawe, retired from the Indian army, was my immediate neighbour. He did keep a Cocker, but it was black. The elderly Anglo-Indian spinsters who lived beyond the deodars kept only cats. (Though why cats should be the prerogative of spinsters, I have never been able to understand.) The milkman kept a couple of mongrels. And the Punjabi industrialist who had bought a former prince’s palace—without ever occupying it—left the property in charge of a watchman who kept a huge Tibetan mastiff.
None of these dogs looked like the ones I had seen in the night. ‘Does anyone here keep a Retriever?’ I asked Colonel Fanshawe, when I met him taking his evening walk.
‘No one that I know of,’ he said and gave me a swift, penetrating look from under his bushy eyebrows. ‘Why, have you seen one around?’
‘No, I just wondered. There are a lot of dogs in the area, aren’t there?’
‘Oh, yes. Nearly everyone keeps a dog here. Of course, every now and then a panther carries one off. Lost a lovely little terrier myself only last winter.’
Colonel Fanshawe, tall and red-faced, seemed to be waiting for me to tell him something more—or was he just taking time to recover his breath after a stiff uphill climb?
That night I heard the dogs again. I went to the window and looked out. The moon was at the full, silvering the leaves of the oak trees.
The dogs were looking up into the trees and barking. But I could see nothing in the trees, not even an owl.
I gave a shout, and the dogs disappeared into the forest. Colonel Fanshawe looked at me expectantly when I met him the following day. He knew something about those dogs, of that I was certain; but he was waiting to hear what I had to say. I decided to oblige him.
‘I saw at least six dogs in the middle of the night,’ I said. ‘A Cocker, a Retriever, a Peke, a Dachshund and two mongrels. Now, Colonel, I’m sure you must know whose they are.’
The colonel was delighted. I could tell by the way his eyes glinted that he was going to enjoy himself at my expense.
‘You’ve been seeing Miss Fairchild’s dogs,’ he said with smug satisfaction.
‘Oh, and where does she live?’
‘She doesn’t, my boy. Died fifteen years ago.’
‘Then what are her dogs doing here?’
‘Looking for monkeys,’ said the colonel. And he stood back to watch my reaction.
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘Let me put it this way,’ said the colonel. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘I’ve never seen any,’ I said.
‘But you have, my boy, you have. Miss Fairchild’s dogs died years ago—a Cocker, a Retriever, a Dachshund, a Peke and two mongrels. They were buried on a little knoll under the oaks. Nothing odd about their deaths, mind you. They were all quite old, and didn’t survive their mistress very long. Neighbours looked after them until they died.’
‘And Miss Fairchild lived in the cottage where I stay? Was she young?’
‘She was in her mid-forties, an athletic sort of woman, fond of the outdoors. Didn’t care much for men. I thought you knew about her.’
‘No, I haven’t been here very long, you know. But what was it you said about monkeys? Why were the dogs looking for monkeys?’
‘Ah, that’s the interesting part of the story. Have you seen the langoor monkeys that sometimes come to eat oak leaves?’
‘No.’
‘You will, sooner or later. There has always been a band of them roaming these forests. They’re quite
harmless really, except that they’ll ruin a garden if given half a chance . . . Well, Miss Fairchild fairly loathed those monkeys. She was very keen on her dahlias—grew some prize specimens—but the monkeys would come at night, dig up the plants and eat the dahlia bulbs. Apparently they found the bulbs much to their liking. Miss Fairchild would be furious. People who are passionately fond of gardening often go off balance when their best plants are ruined— that’s only human, I suppose. Miss Fairchild set her dogs on the monkeys whenever she could, even if it was in the middle of the night. But the monkeys simply took to the trees and left the dogs barking.
‘Then one day—or rather one night—Miss Fairchild took desperate measures. She borrowed a shotgun and sat up near a window. And when the monkeys arrived, she shot one of them dead.’
The colonel paused and looked out over the oak trees which were shimmering in the warm afternoon sun.
‘She shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.
‘Never shoot a monkey. It’s not only that they’re sacred to Hindus—but they are rather human, you know. Well, I must be getting on. Good day!’ And the colonel, having ended his story rather abruptly, set off at a brisk pace through the deodars.
I didn’t hear the dogs that night. But the next day I saw the monkeys—the real ones, not ghosts. There were about twenty of them, young and old, sitting in the trees munching oak leaves. They didn’t pay much attention to me, and I watched them for some time.
They were handsome creatures, their fur a silver-grey, their tails long and sinuous. They leapt gracefully from tree to tree, and were very polite and dignified in their behaviour towards each other— unlike the bold, rather crude red monkeys of the plains. Some of the younger ones scampered about on the hillside, playing and wrestling with each other like schoolboys.
There were no dogs to molest them—and no dahlias to tempt them into the garden.
But that night, I heard the dogs again. They were barking more furiously than ever.
‘Well, I’m not getting up for them this time,’ I mumbled, and pulled the blanket over my ears.
But the barking grew louder, and was joined by other sounds, a squealing and a scuffling.
Then suddenly, the piercing shriek of a woman rang through the forest. It was an unearthly sound, and it made my hair stand up.
I leapt out of bed and dashed to the window.
A woman was lying on the ground, three or four huge monkeys were on top of her, biting her arms and pulling at her throat. The dogs were yelping and trying to drag the monkeys off, but they were being harried from behind by others. The woman gave another bloodcurdling shriek, and I dashed back into the room, grabbed hold of a small axe and ran into the garden.
But everyone—dogs, monkeys and shrieking woman—had disappeared, and I stood alone on the hillside in my pyjamas, clutching an axe and feeling very foolish.
The colonel greeted me effusively the following day.
‘Still seeing those dogs?’ he asked in a bantering tone.
‘I’ve seen the monkeys too,’ I said.
‘Oh, yes, they’ve come around again. But they’re real enough, and quite harmless.’
‘I know—but I saw them last night with the dogs.’
‘Oh, did you really? That’s strange, very strange.’
The colonel tried to avoid my eye, but I hadn’t quite finished with him.
‘Colonel,’ I said. ‘You never did get around to telling me how Miss Fairchild died.’
‘Oh, didn’t I? Must have slipped my memory. I’m getting old, don’t remember people as well as I used to. But, of course, I remember about Miss Fairchild, poor lady. The monkeys killed her. Didn’t you know? They simply tore her to pieces . . .’
His voice trailed of, and he looked thoughtfully at a caterpillar that was making its way up his walking stick.
‘She shouldn’t have shot one of them,’ he said. ‘Never shoot a monkey—they’re rather human, you know . . .’
A Case for Inspector Lal
I met Inspector Keemat Lal about two years ago, while I was living in the hot, dusty town of Shahpur in the plains of northern India.
Keemat Lal had charge of the local police station. He was a heavily built man, slow and rather ponderous, and inclined to be lazy; but, like most lazy people, he was intelligent. He was also a failure. He had remained an inspector for a number of years, and had given up all hope of further promotion. His luck was against him, he said. He should never have been a policeman. He had been born under the sign of Capricorn and should really have gone into the restaurant business, but now it was too late to do anything about it.
The inspector and I had little in common. He was nearing forty, and I was twenty-five. But both of us spoke English, and in Shahpur there were very few people who did. In addition, we were both fond of beer. There were no places of entertainment in Shahpur. The searing heat, the dust that came whirling up from the east, the mosquitoes (almost as numerous as the flies), and the general monotony gave one a thirst for something more substantial than stale lemonade.
My house was on the outskirts of the town, where we were not often disturbed. On two or three evenings in the week, just as the sun was going down and making it possible for one to emerge from the khas-cooled confines of a dark, high-ceilinged bedroom, Inspector Keemat Lal would appear on the veranda steps, mopping the sweat from his face with a small towel, which he used instead of a handkerchief. My only servant, excited at the prospect of serving an inspector of police, would hurry out with glasses, a bucket of ice and several bottles of the best Indian beer.
One evening, after we had overtaken our fourth bottle, I said, ‘You must have had some interesting cases in your career, Inspector.’
‘Most of them were rather dull,’ he said. ‘At least the successful ones were. The sensational cases usually went unsolved—otherwise I might have been a superintendent by now. I suppose you are talking of murder cases. Do you remember the shooting of the minister of the interior? I was on that one, but it was a political murder and we never solved it.’
‘Tell me about a case you solved,’ I said. ‘An interesting one.’ When I saw him looking uncomfortable, I added, ‘You don’t have to worry, Inspector. I’m a very discreet person, in spite of all the beer I consume.’
‘But how can you be discreet? You are a writer.’
I protested: ‘Writers are usually very discreet. They always change the names of people and places.’
He gave me one of his rare smiles. ‘And how would you describe me, if you were to put me into a story?’
‘Oh, I’d leave you as you are. No one would believe in you, anyway.’
He laughed indulgently and poured out more beer. ‘I suppose I can change names, too . . . I will tell you of a very interesting case. The victim was an unusual person, and so was the killer. But you must promise not to write this story.’
‘I promise,’ I lied.
‘Do you know Panauli?’
‘In the hills? Yes, I have been there once or twice.’
‘Good, then you will follow me without my having to be too descriptive. This happened about three years ago, shortly after I had been stationed at Panauli. Nothing much ever happened there. There were a few cases of theft and cheating, and an occasional fight during the summer. A murder took place about once every ten years. It was therefore quite an event when the Rani of —— was found dead in her sitting room, her head split open with an axe. I knew that I would have to solve the case if I wanted to stay in Panauli.
‘The trouble was, anyone could have killed the rani, and there were some who made no secret of their satisfaction that she was dead. She had been an unpopular woman. Her husband was dead, her children were scattered, and her money—for she had never been a very wealthy rani—had been dwindling away. She lived alone in an old house on the outskirts of the town, ruling the locality with the stern authority of a matriarch. She had a servant, and he was the man who found the body and came to the police, dithering and tongue-
tied. I arrested him at once, of course. I knew he was probably innocent, but a basic rule is to grab the first man on the scene of crime, especially if he happens to be a servant. But we let him go after a beating. There was nothing much he could tell us, and he had a sound alibi.
‘The axe with which the rani had been killed must have been a small woodcutter’s axe—so we deduced from the wound. We couldn’t find the weapon. It might have been used by a man or a woman, and there were several of both sexes who had a grudge against the rani. There were bazaar rumours that she had been supplementing her income by trafficking in young women: she had the necessary connections. There were also rumours that she possessed vast wealth, and that it was stored away in her godowns. We did not find any treasure. There were so many rumours darting about like battered shuttlecocks that I decided to stop wasting my time in trying to follow them up. Instead, I restricted my inquiries to those people who had been close to the rani— either in their personal relationships or in actual physical proximity.
‘To begin with, there was Mr Kapur, a wealthy businessman from Bombay who had a house in Panauli. He was supposed to be an old admirer of the rani’s. I discovered that he had occasionally lent her money, and that, in spite of his professed friendship for her, had charged a high rate of interest.
‘Then there were her immediate neighbours—an American missionary and his wife, who had been trying to convert the rani to Christianity; an English spinster of seventy, who made no secret of the fact that she and the rani had hated each other with great enthusiasm; a local councillor and his family, who did not get on well with their aristocratic neighbour; and a tailor, who kept his shop close by. None of these people had any powerful motive for killing the rani—or none that I could discover. But the tailor’s daughter interested me.
‘Her name was Kusum. She was twelve or thirteen years old— a thin, dark girl, with lovely black eyes and a swift, disarming smile. While I was making my routine inquiries in the vicinity of the rani’s house, I noticed that the girl always tried to avoid me. When I questioned her about the rani, and about her own movements on the day of the crime, she pretended to be very vague and stupid.