The Body in the Billiard Room

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Pudding? It is roly-poly, yes? That is some sign of guilt?’ ‘No, no. But it does mean that the chap is going to get up and wander away at any moment. Seen him do it times without number. Unpredictable, you know. Unpredictable. So it’s up Guards and at ’em, eh?’

  ‘You mean I should talk to him? Now?’

  ‘That’s the ticket, my dear chap. The Poirot technique. Look forward to seeing you at it.’

  And His Excellency jumped up and plunged off in the direction of the table where, sure enough, the big Moslem was rising to his feet.

  Ghote followed.

  But what was he to say to this retired railways official? What exactly was it that was the profound belief of this Poirot fellow His Excellency kept bringing up to the fore? Talk for long enough on any subject and the suspect in question will let out some damning fact? Yes, but on what subject? And for how long?

  He had hit on no answer before he found himself face to face with the enormous, white-clad Moslem. His Excellency performed brief introductions.

  ‘Mr Ghote,’ he concluded cryptically, ‘is here for a few days at my invitation.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Habibullah replied, a wide, dreamy smile appearing on his air-blown cheeks. ‘I trust you will find Ooty as altogether pleasant as I do myself, Mr Ghote. It is, you know, pure unreality.’

  ‘Unreality?’ Ghote echoed, wondering where on earth a conversation that had started this oddly would go.

  ‘Yes, yes. You must already have noticed as much, in however brief a time you have been with us. It is England here, my dear sir. England, is it not? And we are, or so we suppose, in India. There’s unreality for you. Delightful, disconcerting unreality.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Ghote cautiously agreed. ‘I am noticing many things that seem most English. So, yes, there must be some unreality. Yes. I am quite able to see what you are meaning.’

  The balloon-like Moslem’s eyes lit up.

  ‘You are? My dear sir, a fellow soul. This is a happy chance. A happy chance in a world that often seems to me altogether too much regulated, too much ordered.’

  He beamed at Ghote.

  And Ghote, whose belief on the whole was just the opposite, did not have the heart not to smile agreement. Besides, he needed to keep the Poirot conversation going. ‘I am supposing,’ he ventured, ‘that it was your daily tasks that gave you this feeling? You were working, I understand, for the railways.’

  ‘Indeed it was, my dear sir. Indeed it was. You know, it was I, I myself and no other, who was responsible when I was in Delhi for framing the chapter on “Disallowances and Objections” in the handbook known as Indian Railway Administration and Finance?’

  ‘No,’ Ghote said, ‘I was not knowing. May I offer congratulations? It must have been a most comprehensive undertaking.’

  ‘No, sir, no. Congratulations are not proper. Commiseration would be much more gratefully received. Sir, such order, such regulation, such devising of rules: it warped my life. Absolutely. Indeed, it was only the thought that the majority of those rules were destined to be consistently ignored and regularly flouted that saved me at times from a suicide’s grave.’

  ‘Yes, I am seeing that,’ Ghote replied, unable to think of any way at all, subtle or not, of moving the conversation nearer to the murder in the Club’s billiard room.

  He could, he thought, have mentioned how his own life was ruled for the most part by attempting to see that the Indian Penal Code with all its sections and sub-sections was strictly adhered to. He could have added that this often could be managed only by discreetly ignoring the equally strict provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. But His Excellency, by the way he had carefully omitted to mention that the guest he had brought to Ooty was a detective, had put that out of court.

  ‘A friend, a sympathetic soul,’ the balloony Moslem intoned.

  Well, Ghote thought, at least I have put myself on good terms with the fellow. With this suspect. But so far he has in no way betrayed himself as any sort of murderer. So what next? What more to say?

  ‘Any family?’ he shot out at last, aware that too long a pause had already occurred. ‘That is—That is, you are having your family members here with you in Ooty also?’

  ‘Oh, no, no, my dear sir. I had children. Yes. Three. Perhaps four. Let us say four sons. But they went their ways. To tell the truth, I found the duties of a father somewhat too much. After long days striving to regulate the comings and goings of the altogether unregulatable passengers of Indian Railways I was not able to face regulating the comings and goings of my sons. So they went. Yes, they went. I do not know where.’

  Ghote felt more than a little puzzled. Could any father be so lacking in responsibility? Was Mr Habibullah really so? Or was this some blown-about fantastical joke? And again he wondered how, how, could a conversation which had taken such a turn be continued?

  He swallowed.

  ‘And Habibullah Begum?’ he inquired. ‘She is here?’

  ‘No, no, my good friend. A wife who insisted endlessly in the house on a place for everything and everything in its place? No, no. Once I was freed of my chains in the railways I stood before her and pronounced Talaq, talaq, talaq.’

  ‘Divorce? Moslem divorce?’ Ghote stammered out, wondering more and more whether what he was hearing could be true.

  ‘My dear sir, the only possible course. Away with all cares. Away with all chains. And then, Ooty. Magical, unreal Ooty. Oh, you cannot tell how greatly I enjoy my life here.’

  Enjoyments of Ooty, enjoyments of Ooty, Ghote thought. What to say about them? Golf. There was golf. And tennis? Walking also? And was there not a big, big Flower Show? And horse racing in the season? What was there to ask about the enjoyments of Ooty?

  But he need not have racked his brains.

  With a sudden doubly beaming smile the big Moslem had somehow stepped aside and was now propelling himself out of the room with his heavy, silver-topped stick.

  Ghote gave an anxious glance at his Watson and here in Ooty, his boss. But he was spared criticism of his performance as a Poirot.

  ‘Always the same,’ His Excellency said with a shrug. ‘Start talking to the fellow about something really interesting, detective stories or something, and what happens? Bang in the middle he just drifts off. Extraordinary. Extraordinary.’

  Extraordinary enough, Ghote thought. Perhaps altogether too extraordinary. So, was what the fellow had been saying — his mind began to race — was it all a show? Had it been done to convey a feeling to all and sundry of complete irresponsibility, just in order to conceal the committing of a well-planned deadly act?

  Perhaps, after all, he himself was not such a bad Poirot. Only there were four more such conversations awaiting him.

  4

  It soon proved, however, that the time for further Hercule Poirot conversations had not yet come. While Ghote was working apprehensively through a large plate of creamy rice kheer and His Excellency was putting away a noble piece of apple crumble a youngish man dressed in a neat, tight-buttoned European suit, complete with tie, his face with its trim moustache partly concealed by a pair of large dartingly shiny spectacles, came into the room.

  ‘Ah, Iyer,’ His Excellency at once barked out. ‘Word with you, if you please.’

  He leant confidentially towards Ghote.

  ‘The Efficient Baxter,’ he said. ‘Ooty version.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Ha, don’t know your P. G. Wodehouse any more than your Agatha Christie, eh? We shall have to see to your education. Efficient Baxter, secretary fellow in the great man’s works. Iyer’s just like him, always poking his nose in everywhere. Club nearly lost a damn good cook once because of him totting up supplies in the kitchens.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I am understanding,’ Ghote said.

  And then the Efficient Baxter was with them, gleaming spectacles brightly inquiring, hands washing and washing

  themselves in an overwhelming desire to see something done down to the last detail plus a little ext
ra.

  ‘Iyer,’ His Excellency said, ‘my friend, Mr Ghote here, would like to become a temporary Member. He’s up in Ooty for a few days. On holiday. On holiday, you understand. Nerves a bit out of order. Taking a break. Recommendation, as you might say, of Dr Moore Agar, of Harley Street.’

  He turned to Ghote with a covert wink.

  ‘I make no doubt you at least know your Sherlock Holmes,’ he murmured. ‘Adventure of the Devil’s Foot, if I’m not mistaken. Holmes sent off to Cornwall to avoid a complete breakdown from overwork.’

  Ghote smiled, palely.

  ‘Ah, yes, yes, Temporary Member,’ Mr Iyer said, redoubling the speed with which he was washing his hands. ‘I will fetch the necessary form immediately, and see it posted up on the notice-board for full scrutiny by existing Members before tomorrow dawns. Yes, yes, before tomorrow is in any way dawning.’

  And he darted away.

  Ghote turned to His Excellency.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I am noting that you are telling all and sundry I am here as a person recovering from illness only. But, sir, if I am to investigate into the murder of the man Pichu I do not at all want that.’

  ‘Eh? Not want it? But it won’t do to let the murderer know the Great Detective is on his track. Or her track.’ ‘Oh, but, yes, sir. In so far as I am this person it would be altogether better if the miscreant is knowing there is someone besides Inspector Meenakshisundaram investigating. Then he would no longer be laughing in his sleeves all the time but would perhaps make some move that would show him up for what he is.’

  ‘By Jove, you’re right, of course,’ His Excellency said, looking, to Ghote’s secret pleasure, somewhat abashed. ‘Damn silly of me. Exactly what Poirot said in the MrsMcGinty case. Flush the murderer out, eh? But then you and Poirot are two of a kind, aren’t you?’

  Ghote’s secret pleasure evaporated.

  But he was saved from pursuing the subject by the speedy return of Mr Iyer, flourishing a Form of Application for Temporary Membership.

  It took some time to get it filled in, largely because of Mr Iyer’s excess of zeal.

  But the long-drawn-out business gave Ghote the opportunity of making a quiet assessment of the Club’s assistant secretary. He was, he thought, a type he knew: the painfully over-conscientious type, which would possibly make him an extremely useful witnesss.

  So when at last the form was complete down to the last comma he put out a hand and detained him.

  ‘One moment,’ he said. ‘His Excellency has referred to Mr Sherlock Holmes and the matter of a devil’s foot, a story in which that most notable detective was sent off to recover from some sort of nervous illness. I suppose, however, that this was a case he was also investigating into and solving with uttermost brilliance.’

  ‘It was indeed,’ His Excellency put in.

  Ghote looked steadily at the Efficient Baxter, waiting to see if his point had sunk in.

  ‘So perhaps,’ he added, ‘it would not be much of surprise to you if I myself am asking questions about the murder of one Pichu, billiards marker at this Club.’

  But it did seem to surprise Mr Iyer, despite Ghote’s carefully planted warning.

  He started back from the table as if he had dropped the soap from his ever-washing hands and it had landed on his toe.

  ‘But—’ he said. ‘But—But I was understanding that Pichu was done to death by a dacoit only. That is what Inspector Meenakshisundaram was saying. But—But is it that now it is suspected that some person—Some person in the Club is the culprit? That it is a Member even?’

  ‘You are very much astonished at such a possibility?’

  ‘But no one is becoming even a Temporary Member without the recommendation of one who is already a Member.’

  Ghote put on a smile of heavy cynicism.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘such is not invariable guarantee of always first-class behaviour?’

  Mr Iyer swallowed.

  ‘Perhaps you are correct, sir,’ he said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.

  A look of swift calculation came on to his face. Ghote imagined that his machine-like mind was running through the total list of the Ootacamund Club membership.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘tell me, Mr Iyer, can you think of any circumstance whatsoever, that is in any way unusual, concerning any Club member who was sleeping in these premises during the night in which Pichu was killed?’

  The look of calculation on the assistant secretary’s face settled suddenly as if the whirring wheels in his head had locked together in one particular combination.

  ‘Well?’ Ghote said sharply.

  Mr Iyer bent forward even more over their table.

  ‘I was reading article in The Hindu newspaper about one year back,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  Mr Iyer gave a strangulated cough.

  ‘Yes, Mr Iyer?’ Ghote said.

  ‘Well, I am not at all knowing if it is in any way relevant to the matter under discussion.’

  ‘You are bound to tell,’ Ghote said.

  Mr Iyer swallowed. Once.

  ‘It was a case of smuggling,’ he stuttered. ‘The smuggling of drugs. In Cochin. There was a consignment of catfish, most strongly smelling, as you no doubt know. But, thanks to an informer, the Cochin police were able to raid that place and discover rupees three crore worth of heroin concealed therein. Only . . .’

  He gave another strangulated cough.

  ‘Only the mastermind of the whole affair was absconding under the MISA,’ he said.

  ‘MISA?’ His Excellency interrupted. ‘Never can remember what that is. See it often enough in the damn newspapers.’

  ‘It is Maintenance of Internal Security Act,’ Ghote explained, furious at the loss of impetus in his questioning.

  ‘And the said absconder,’ Mr Iyer mercifully went on, ‘was described as being a Moslem gentleman of considerable size and weight.’

  His hands, which had twisted and turned as he had come out with his story, now dropped to his sides.

  ‘That is all?’ Ghote asked.

  ‘Yes. No.’

  ‘No? What more is there?’

  ‘It is that Pichu, the late Pichu, had always to my feeling too much of money for one in such lowly occupation. He was the possessor of one transistor radio of great power wherewith he was able to obtain Test match commentaries from foreign. And I myself was constrained to show him certain favours to be able to listen also.’

  ‘I see,’ Ghote said.

  So, he thought, perhaps His Excellency has more weight to his case than I was believing. It seems altogether likely now that Pichu’s behaviour is stinking of a blackmailer, and had been such for possibly many years.

  ‘There is one thing more,’ Mr Iyer whispered, bending yet closer.

  ‘Well, you are bound to state whatever you are knowing to fullest extent.’

  ‘It is drink. Pichu was frequently partaking of spirituous liquors. Perhaps from some illicit source in the Bazaar, perhaps even from one of the Club bars.’

  ‘Good God,’ said His Excellency.

  ‘I was never able to obtain one hundred per cent proof,’ Mr Iyer went on, ‘or otherwise it would have been a question of instant dismissal. But I had my most strong suspicions. Every night that I was in a position to do so I have smelt alcohol on that fellow’s lips when he was retiring to his sleeping place.’

  ‘That is finally all now?’ Ghote asked.

  ‘That is everything.’

  ‘Very good. You have done well to say what you were knowing. Very well.’

  The assistant secretary smiled, bowed, gave one last quick wash to his hands and left them.

  ‘Well,’ His Excellency said, ‘Habibullah arriving about a year ago; that drugs affair taking place at much the same time; the fellow, the mastermind, escaping; and Pichu here needing money for drink I suppose, and confirmed as a blackmailer. It all adds up, you know. It certainly all adds up.’

  He gave Ghote a look of quick ad
miration.

  ‘Had a small bet with myself,’ he said, ‘That you’d have the whole thing wrapped up within twenty-four hours, Ghote, but I never thought—’

  ‘But,’ Ghote broke in firmly, ‘a police officer is never proceeding on allegations only without checking the veracity of same.’

  ‘Quite right, my dear fellow. Quite right. And what steps do you propose by way of doing that?’

  ‘I shall talk with Inspector Meenakshisundaram in the morning,’ Ghote replied.

  His Excellency blinked.

  ‘Meenakshisundaram? That tomfool? My dear chap, I don’t think—’

  ‘But, yes, it is necessary. And, besides, it is my bounden duty when I am in his territory.’

  His Excellency pulled a long face.

  ‘Well, I suppose you’re right,’ he said. ‘So you won’t want to go talking to the others who were on the list now, will you?’

  ‘No,’ Ghote said, trying to contain his relief.

  And then, almost without willing it, he added something.

  ‘But what I would be liking to do,’ he said, ‘is to examine scene of the crime itself.’

  ‘The billiard room?’

  ‘Yes, the billiard room.’

  ‘The observance of trifles, eh?’ His Excellency said. ‘The final nails in the case? I look forward to seeing a Great Detective at work on that. Yes, indeed.’

  Ghote cursed his own over-conscientiousness. It had occurred to him that if Inspector Meenakshisundaram had really been completely fixed on the crime being the work of a dacoit, he might have overlooked some useful piece of confirmatory evidence in the billiard room. But he had not at all counted on having to give a demonstration of observing trifles, whatever that implied.

  Sullenly he followed His Excellency out. He had a fleeting impression of dark walls with animal heads hanging from them, of pictures everywhere, pale views of Ooty and group photographs of cheerfully grinning white faces, or of hunting scenes with Englishmen dressed in red coats happily falling off horses. And then they were at the door of the billiard room.

  There His Excellency paused.