And no answer coming.
‘Let me tell you something of myself; Gopal Deb said, settling in his chair, knocking the ashes from his pipe into a large ashtray beside him, then taking from his jacket pocket a yellow pouch and slowly stuffing the pipe with tobacco. I often find it necessary to go back to beginnings whenever I am faced with some more or less intractable problem. It's a method I frequently found useful in my working life as a Government officer.'
Another roundabout, talk-talk-talk Bengali, Ghote thought.
But he said nothing.
‘So,' Gopal Deb went on, 'let me start indeed from that. My life as a civil servant. Because until something over a year ago that was all my life. I was left a widower at an early age, a widower with just one daughter whom I had to send away to be looked after by her mother's family. So I devoted all my days and all my efforts to doing my duty to the Indian Civil Service, to my fellow countrymen. A limited life, you will say. And I have to admit now, looking back, that it was such, though I hope that by it I made the lives of those it was given to me to affect somewhat better. But it was a life that taught me little of what the lives of those outside my circle were like.'
He leant forward, took the now smoke-drifting pipe from his mouth.
'It is only now, in my retirement, that I have really seen the mess that many people live in. Oh, of course, I had had glimpses of that world. An officer in Government service cannot go for long without being offered some sort of bribe. But, well, I was brought up in the shadow of what we thought of as the strict code of the British. I have always been punctual to the dot. I have always known what is right. I never had any difficulty in rejecting such approaches. I have always kept my conscience clear. My father, an ICS man like myself, and in the days when there were precious few Indians in the service, used to say to me that if you had a good conscience you could digest what you ate. He used to cite Henry Ford in America saying that there was a man so single-minded in building up his motor-car empire that he ended by not being able to digest even a simple boiled egg. Wheras the Viceroy of his day, Lord Linlithgow, always had two quarter-boiled eggs for his breakfast, and never suffered so much as a pang of indigestion. And so my father, too, ate his quarter-boiled eggs every morning and saw to it that there was nothing on his conscience to disturb his digestion. And, yes, I have always eaten two quarter-boiled breakfast eggs.'
A sudden smile as the pipe was removed from between his teeth.
'And I digest them. But just now, when you told me what you did, I begin to wonder whether tomorrow morning those eggs will digest quite as easily as they usually do.'
Ghote felt puzzled. And not only by all the Bengali nonsense about quarter-boiled eggs. Gopal Deb was giving a wholly unexpected picture of himself. And how was all this talk-talk going to lead to A. K. Dutt-Dastar having apparently offered Protima's house to this brown sahib, as he and his like were often called?
But it seemed he was about to get the answer.
‘Well now, that much said, let me move on to this house of your wife's. Believe me, Mr Ghote, I had no idea when I learnt that it was for sale that anything underhand was involved. Dutt-Dastar was someone I had simply met playing golf at the Tollygunge Club. I had mentioned to him that with my retirement I had some funds at my disposal and felt I ought to put them to use for my daughter’s benefit. You know, I have seen fellow officers of mine, men I had thought of as beyond reproach, when they were getting to within, say, five years of the end of their service, yielding suddenly, with sons to send to college, daughters to get married, to the temptation of receiving money. Holding out their hands, even. But I had been brought up with certain principles and wouldn't take a step down that primrose path. However, when Dutt-Dastar told me he could put me in the way of a good investment that might yield a quick return, I simply said I was willing to go ahead. I had no idea you and your wife had such a strong attachment to the house in question.'
And now, against his better judgment, Ghote did break in.
‘Not myself, sir.' The words tumbled involuntarily out. ‘It is not my wish to live there.'
‘No? But it is your wife’s, I believe you said. Her earnest wish. Very well. Let me say that, had I known that, I would never have said for a moment I would buy the place. Dutt-Dastar told me your wife had unexpectedly inherited it and had no idea what to do with it. He said it would be a service to her to buy it for a reasonable sum, and added in strict confidence that he had a possible further buyer, someone not wanting to lay out money at this particular juncture.'
A possible buyer.
Ghote thought he was beginning to see the light. The Eventual Assignee, whom he had thought he was about to confront as he stood outside the door of the apartment, was certainly not this quarter-boiled-egg-eating brown sahib. Gopal Deb was no more than the innocent nominee buyer Khokon Roy had talked of. But the Eventual Assignee? That could be the man A. K. Dutt-Dastar, doubly proven liar, had said did not want to pay for the house at this particular juncture.
How these Bengalis loved their long words and roundabout expressions.
But, more important by far, can I to get from this brown sahib, who has been told that name in strict confidence, who it is?
Try.
'Sir, thank you for telling me so much as you have done. And I begin to see that, yes, you have been in good faith involved in what I am thinking is a hundred per cent serious matter. Sir, I have to tell you I believe the person Mr Dutt-Dastar found for you to sell my wife's house to is wanting same not at all to be his home. Sir, I do not know if you are aware of what is proposed for the wetlands beyond the house?'
'Wetlands? I know nothing about the wetlands. Beyond the fact every Calcuttan knows. That they exist.'
'Then, sir, let me inform. There is a plan, as yet just only some possibility, to create in the wetlands a new colony. Sir, it is a scheme that may bring crores of rupees in profits to whoever is controlling it. And it is vitally depending, I believe, on being able to make a major road where my wife's house is standing, by some chance on the only easy route to where that colony may be built. Sir, there is happening, I am certain, one dirty business. Even to the extent that I myself have been attacked when I had obtained a certain paper that was giving a clue to it.'
Watching closely, he saw dawning in the eyes behind the heavy spectacles a look of understanding.
'Corruption.'
The word fell into the quiet of the big room high above Calcutta's roar of distant noise like a sentence from the judge's bench.
'Yes, I see now, Mr Ghote, that I have been duped. Tb be frank, I never wholly liked Dutt-Dastar. But I saw no reason to let what I thought of as mere prejudice -the fellow's not exactly a gentleman, you know - stand in the way of a piece of legitimate business. But I see now it was far from legitimate. Someone plainly intends to get his hands on your wife's house by buying it, sub rosa as they say, through me for what must amount to a song, in anticipation of permission being granted to build this colony you speak of. Yes, corruption. The business stinks of it. And in high places, I don't doubt. A scheme like this would never have been entered upon unless it was known that there was someone at least in the higher reaches of West Bengal Government who was susceptible to bribery. Who, yes, could be bribed into granting whatever permissions may be necessary. This country, Mr Ghote. This country of ours. Undermined. Prey to greed of every sort.'
'Sir, I am certain now that you are right. You have mentioned highest places. Let me tell you, sir, that I was trying to get this business stopped by going to that paper The Sentinel— '
'Bit of a rag. But, yes, I believe it has exposed corruption cases in the past. Go on.'
'Well, sir, all was going very well, until suddenly the editor there was receiving orders from some altogether mysterious person that, as they are saying, the story was to be spiked.'
'Spiked? Ended? Finished? Heard no more of?'
'Yes, sir.'
Gopal Deb looked at his pipe. It had long before gone o
ut. He tapped it with a little angry tattoo on the ashtray by his side.
'What pains me, what alarms me,' he said, 'is not that bribery and corruption exist in India. They have always done that. In India and in every other country under the sun I was taught long ago, you know, to look up to the British, whatever wrongs they may have done to India, for their abhorrence of fraud and cheating in business, for their sense of fair play. But even in the UK now - you have only to read the foreign news pages of The Statesman - they are mired in corruption. No, what alarms me is that those at the top here in India who should know better are simply excusing corruption, justifying it on the grounds that everybody is corrupt. When I think of that I wince with shame. Yes, shame.'
Now, Ghote thought. It is now or never.
‘Mr Deb,' he said, ‘you can overcome such shame. I am not believing each and every person in this country is corrupt. I believe you yourself are scorning corruption. So, sir, break the strict confidence in which you were told about my wife's house. Sir, give me the name of the person who aims in the last to acquire it.'
Would the brown sahib answer?
The answer came. But it was not the one he had expected.
Gopal Deb sat in thought. Eventually he did move. But it was only to take up his pipe, look at its unlit bowl with astonishment, poke about in it with an instrument at the end of the penknife he took from his pocket, strike matches one after another and, at last, get it to draw again.
Three or four long puffs.
‘May I ask, Mr Ghote, just why you want to know this name?'
Now, for a moment, it was Ghote's turn to think.
‘Yes, sir, I think I may tell you. Sir, when I was standing before the door of this flat after I had rung the bell I was hoping that it would be answered by a servant who would say, Deb Babu not at home. Because I was almost trembling with fears. I thought I was about to face up to the man behind this corruption, the man who already had had myself attacked, who was attempting to force my wife to sell this house she was inheriting out of blue, like some three-times wonderful Diwali gift. But, sir, when I thought of that, of what he was wanting to cheat my wife out of, then, sir, I thought I must face him. I must face you, sir, as I was believing.'
'All for your wife's sake. So that she could enjoy in peace this Diwali gift, as you have called it?'
Claim the credit Gopal Deb is willing to give? No. Tell the whole truth.
'Well, sir Although, as I have said, my wife is wishing and wishing to live here in Calcutta, a true bhadrolok lady, I myself am not wishing that. If I could do what deep down I am liking, I would return to Bombay where I am inspector of police and continue as same until day of retirement.'
'Yet you ask me for that name? Why, Inspector?'
Why? I do not know. No, I do. And I must say it.
'Sir, yes, it is partly to be making sure my wife is keeping that house because she is so much wishing for same. But it is more because I am seeing before me one piece of corruption that, if I try to do my level best, I may bring to an end.'
'Yes. Very good. Very good, Inspector. To be frank, had you replied that your sole object was to make sure your wife acquired this house, then I would have simply advised you to abandon your quest, to acknowledge that you both unfortunately have come up against forces, forces of evil, yes, that are too strong for you. I would say: cut your losses and go back to Bombay.'
Ghote, at those words go back to Bombay, recalled in a flash of sharp vision Khokon Roy using much the same expression when he was suggesting how he might trick the name of the buyer of the house out of A. K. Dutt-Dastar. They had been part of a piece of trickery then, but even as Khokon Roy had spoken them he had for an instant wondered whether that was what they should do. Go back to Bombay.
So should I do it now? No. No, Gopal Deb was speaking of forces of evil. And I cannot just only run back to my safe home when those are approaching. No.
'But, sir,' he said, 'you are not advising me to go back to Bombay, yes? So kindly tell me that name you were given in confidence.'
Gopal Deb gave a grunt of a laugh, through teeth clenched on his pipe stem.
'Alas, Inspector, that I cannot do. For the simple reason that I myself was never told it. Our friend Dutt-Dastar is too cunning for that. No, all I can do, I'm sorry to say, is to give you one piece of advice.'
Ghote felt a chill of despondency slowly settling down on to him. What help could he get from this brown sahib locked in his world of long-gone British values?
'I would be altogether grateful for whatever advices you may have, sir.'
'Then simply this, Inspector. Go to The Sentinel once more and, using all the power at your command, all the guile if you like, squeeze out of those people who it was who ordered their report of this business to be - what was it you said? - spiked.'
Chapter Sixteen
Ghote, once more, found himself in the bare room in the dusty offices of The Sentinel where Khokon Roy worked, its black-rimmed fan slowly twirling above. As soon as the young journalist had finished tap-tap-tapping away at the keys of his computer he told him how his confrontation with brown sahib Gopal Deb had gone.
'At last he was giving me just only one piece advice.' he ended.
'And that was?'
'That I must come here and find out who was ordering Mr Soumitra Mukeijee to spike your story concerning himself and the wetlands.'
The cheerful smile with which Khokon Roy had asked his question slowly left his face.
'Well, yes,' he said at last. 'Good advice, all right. But easier to ask that than to get an answer.'
'I was hoping you yourself would get me same.'
A grin. A wry grin.
'Oh, yes, I could pick up this green phone, or go tramping up the stairs, and ask. But I know very well I'd get no answer. All I would get, indeed, is a drop down in my editor's estimation, a large, large drop down. Okay, I'd gladly risk that, if I thought that it would help get me the answer you want. But it won't. It won't.'
‘Then I must be myself asking.'
'I know there's nothing I can say that will stop you. But a warning nevertheless. Mukeijee Babu is a man of integrity. But only up to a certain point. You may have seen as much. However, the question for you is: up to what point? Certainly, he will not tell you the name you ask him for. He is committed to keeping that secret. He's pretty well assured that if he told you who that order came from and you then went poking your Bombay detective's nose in where it was not wanted, he himself and The Sentinel with him would be the ones to suffer. But will he go further than that? Will he feel that, to make sure of the paper's continued existence, it will be his duty - if that's not too high and mighty a word -to let this person, whose identity I can dimly guess at, perhaps wrongly, know that you are asking your questions. And if he does, then you can be sure that someone will take steps to see that you do not ask questions any more.'
Ghote once or twice had felt the need to interrupt this new Bengali cascade of words. But, partly because they were making sense, and partly because he liked Khokon Roy too much to be impolite to him, he had managed to check himself.
Now he no longer could.
‘Mr Roy,' he said, ‘kindly pick up that green telephone and inform Mr Soumitra Mukerjee that I am coming to see.'
He waited no longer after he had seen the unsmiling journalist reach out to the green phone.
He did not expect to be received with pleasure by the editor of The Sentinel. Nor was he.
'Mr Ghote, I heard you were making your way up here. And I note that you do so uninvited.'
Behind the editor, looking his most heroic in full Netaji Subhas Bose style, the tall imperious form of Rabindranath Tagore, white-bearded, long-robed, looked down from his ornate frame. In reproof?
Or - he thought - with encouragement? One defying an enemy to another managing to do the same.
'Mr Mukerjee, I will not beat about any bushes. When I was here before you were admitting to me that, for the sake of your paper, yo
u had obeyed certain instructions not to continue investigating a story that was concerning one Mr Gopal Deb. Very well. I can see you may have had your reasons. But what I am here now to demand is: who it was who was giving such instruction?'
'Mr Ghote, you have no right to make any such demand. No right at all. I was good enough before to make you privy to some confidential matters concerning this journal. I do not expect to be rewarded in this way.'
The mini-Netaji Bose puffed himself up to his full heroic extent.
Ghote, anger a little added to from his not having had time to eat since the Fairlawn's porridge, kipper, toast and marmalade, struck back with fire.
'Mr Mukerjee, I am asking who it was who told you to suppress the story you were one hundred per cent ready to print.’
‘Told? Told? Who said I was told? I decided it was in the ultimate interests of The Sentinel not to pursue a story that was almost certainly going to prove of no value. And that was all there was to it.'
'No, Mr Mukeijee, You were yourself indicating to me that you had received some instruction. An instruction you were not daring to disobey. Mr Mukeijee who was giving that instruction?'
‘You - You—, ' With an effort he checked himself. ‘I am afraid, Mr Ghote, that you somehow received a wrong impression. There was no one. No one gives Soumitra Mukeijee orders.'
But, in the face of that blatant lie, rather than banging back another fiery rejoinder, an idea came into Ghote's head. A wondrous idea.
Bribery, Corruption Also Page 15