Cheating Death

by H. R. F. Keating

  ELEVEN

  The evidence, Ghote thought, had really mounted and mounted from the very start of his investigation. First there had been what Sarita Karatkar had actually said to him as they had marched along side by side during that night morcha. She had said Bala Chambhar did not seem to her to be someone who would take his own life. At the time, he had put that down to the simple optimism of youth. A girl as full of young hope as Sarita would find it hard to imagine someone her own age being driven to suicide.

  Then, at the hospital, he had been told directly that Bala had attempted suicide by taking Somnomax Five tablets, and Dr Shah had even added that these were a new ‘somnifacient’ from America. But, proud of himself at that moment for guessing what the medical term meant, he had altogether overlooked the fact that it was extremely unlikely that a poverty-stricken boy like Bala could have got hold of an expensive, American-imported prescription.

  Why, something he had said to young Mohinder this very morning had even set the matter out. If anyone was determined to take their own life, he had said, it did not much matter whether they swallowed pills, hurled themselves in front of a train or threw themselves into a well. But he had been wrong. The choice of method did not matter looked at in the light of the final result, perhaps. But, looked at in the light of what choice was available to a particular person contemplating suicide, it certainly did matter. An unmarried girl out in some deep mofussil area who had found herself pregnant would throw herself into the village well. A Bombayite from the weaker sections, as they were called, would choose a train, if he could not find a rope and a place high enough to hang it. Only someone of the well-off classes would use expensive American sleeping pills or blow out his brains with a sporting gun.

  Nor had that been all. Somehow in that bare little room in Chawl No 4 off Dadasaheb Phalke Marg he had looked at the smart shrikhand tub from a Monginis cake shop up on the shelf next to the battered kerosene tin, and had thought only of how shabby it made the tin look. It had never occurred to him to wonder how a bright new tub of best quality shrikhand had arrived in the wretched little room.

  But he knew now. He knew now all right.

  That tub had been sent to Bala Chambhar, or put somehow in his way, because – surely, surely the shrikhand in it had been mixed with crushed-up tablets of Somnomax Five. Only, whoever had put them in had, by chance, not used quite enough. So Bala Chambhar had not yet died, but instead was lying in that coma.

  Nevertheless murder had been attempted. The whole business out here at Oceanic College looked altogether different now. He must report at once to the Additional Commissioner.

  But what was he to report? Coming down to it, no more than a single train of thought.

  For a moment he imagined himself standing in front of the Additional Commissioner’s desk with no more to tell him than what had just gone through his head. A whisper of suspicion. No, the Additional Commissioner would hardly give him kudos for that.

  But if he could get some evidence … Just only one decent shred of same.

  Wait. Yes, the tub of shrikhand. If that had crushed Somnomax Five mixed in, then chemical analysis of the last traces of the sweet stuff in the tub might well reveal it. That would be proof enough that Bala Chambhar’s state of coma was not the result of attempted suicide. No one with tablets to swallow would go to the lengths of crushing them into a sweetmeat.

  For a moment he contemplated hurrying down to Dadasaheb Phalke Marg and Chawl No 4 again. But the mere time the expedition would take daunted him. No, there was a better and quicker way. The local police station.

  He took the stairs up to the first floor and Principal Bembalkar’s office almost at a run. Mrs Cooper was, of course, at her desk, guardian rakshas. But a rakshas he had found earlier could be a helpful beast, almost ready to lick his hand with her fiery tongue.

  And certainly quite ready to put the telephone at his disposal. Nor was the Station House Officer at Dadar Police Station any less helpful, a rare local officer who did not resent a Crime Branch colleague. Yes, he would send someone to Chawl No 4 off Dadasaheb Phalke Marg, opposite the Vishnu Shoe Clinic, and impound one tub of shrikhand, Monginis cake shops, and hold same for Inspector Ghote. It would be one only pleasure.

  Yet, replacing the telephone receiver, he once more experienced plummeting depression. Even with the evidence of the doctored shrikhand secured, how could he link up the stolen question-paper to the poisoned boy? Bala Chambhar could not, unless at last he was to recover, tell how he had come by that tub. Any more than he could tell how he had received the question-paper he could not himself have taken from Principal Bembalkar’s chamber. But it was to prevent him saying this – he was certain of it in his own mind – that the poison had been put in Bala’s way. The poison that had so nearly succeeded in ending his life.

  Who had put it there? If, standing at attention in front of the Additional Commissioner, he could perhaps produce a likely name, with good reasons why the person should have needed to silence Bala, then what he had to say would be listened to with somewhat of respect.

  But who had done that? Who? No name at all sprang to mind. It could have been anybody almost. Anybody in the whole of the college here.

  Or perhaps not everyone in the college. To begin with whoever it was must be someone who, unlike Bala, could afford Somnomax Five. All right, there might be dozens of boys or girls with parents well-off enough. But why, when you came down to it, would a well-off student want to steal that question-paper and make money from it. Yes, there might be someone in the BCom course worried about passing the Statistical Techniques exam and they might have daringly entered the Principal’s office. But they would not have removed the question-paper. It would have been enough for them to have seen what the questions were.

  So why would someone not only have taken the paper but have contrived to hand it to Bala in the knowledge that he would make what money he could by distributing it? It was very likely, after all, that sooner or later it would have come out that copies had been widely sold. The exam would be annulled. No gain would come to anybody. The trick would have worked only because it was certain that Bala would be careful not to tell any of his prospective clients that other copies existed.

  Why then, why had the thief passed the question-paper on to Bala?

  In a moment he thought he had the answer. The whole business, surely, had been designed with one object. To get rid of Principal Bembalkar. Because that was what had been achieved, or would have been achieved except that influential Mrs Rajwani wanted to keep Dr Bembalkar in his seat and had spent most of a morning persuading him not to give in to calls for his resignation. And how beaten down he had looked after that long session. Scarcely capable of answering the simplest question.

  Well then, who would benefit if Principal Bembalkar resigned? Easy answer. Whoever thought themselves most likely to step into his shoes.

  A sudden vision of fat little Dean Potdar presented itself in his mind. Yes, surely the man most likely to succeed the Principal of a college must be its Dean. And even someone as low in the college hierarchy as securitywalla Amar Nath had hinted that Dean Potdar of the many daughters despised the Principal. So who more likely to want his chair?

  But evidence. More than supposition would be needed before he could go to the Additional Commissioner, even with a good suspect in mind. Where to get some evidence? Anything that would confirm his suspicions.

  Yet surely he had at least one good hostile witness ready to hand. If there were things to be learnt about the man who wanted to step into Principal Bembalkar’s shoes, then the person who so plainly had a soft corner for the Principal would surely supply them.

  He turned back to Mrs Cooper.

  Hardly pausing to calculate whether it was wise to put his theory to anyone other than the Additional Commissioner, he found himself beginning to pour it out to the fierce guardian of Principal Bembalkar’s peace. It looked certain now, he said, that Bala Chambhar had not tried to kill himself but
was the victim of a murder attempt that had come within an inch of succeeding.

  Mrs Cooper jerked back in astonishment.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he went rapidly on. ‘And, you are knowing, that attempt was made for just only one purpose. To prevent Bala saying how the stolen question-paper was coming into his possession. You see, I am believing the paper was taken for no other reason than to force Principal Bembalkar to resign.’

  Mrs Cooper took a moment or two to absorb this. Then she nodded slowly in agreement.

  ‘Yes, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Some drama is being staged behind the curtain. That I can tell you.’

  ‘That only?’

  He gave her a knowing look, as much as to say he was sure she could say more if she would.

  Mrs Cooper smiled down into her typewriter.

  ‘Well, mind, I don’t know everything,’ she said.

  ‘No. But there are some things a lady in your seat cannot help knowing. When you are in a position of trust …’

  The rakshas positively simpered now.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it is certainly true there have been demands for Principalji to step down. And the scandal of that question-paper being taken – how could anyone do such a thing to Dr Bembalkar? – has made things altogether worse. The University itself even is sending LIC here tomorrow.’

  Ghote found himself then in a minor dilemma. He did not know what ‘LIC’ stood for. But if he stopped the flow of information, hardly as yet hardly much more than a trickle, would it start again and reach the point he hoped it would get to?

  ‘Please,’ he burst out, before he had come to any decision, ‘what is LIC?’

  Luckily the opportunity to give instruction seemed to outweigh for once the chance of darting out a rebuke.

  ‘LIC is Local Inquiry Committee,’ Mrs Cooper said, with a proud lift of her bosom under her red blouse. ‘It is appointed by the University when there is reason to believe affairs at any one college are not as they should be.’

  She blushed suddenly then.

  ‘Not that there is truly anything to sorrow about here,’ she said quickly. ‘We are victim of nasty rumours. That is all. Mrs Rajwani is very very disgusted at what is being done.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Ghote chimed in, relieved that the Anglo-Indian seemed as willing as ever to talk. ‘It seems to be altogether a bad business. But, tell me, if attempt is being made to force Principalji to quit, who can be behind it? Who would step into his seat?’

  ‘Oh, Inspector,’ Mrs Cooper said, looking modestly down again, ‘it is not for me to name names.’

  Ghote thought he knew how to deal with that sort of reluctance.

  ‘You are right not to indulge in gossip and rumour,’ he said. ‘Hundred percent correct behaviour.’

  His ploy worked.

  ‘But all the same, Inspector, when it is official police inquiry …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, they could always bring in some person from outside …’

  ‘But …?’

  ‘But I am thinking Mrs Rajwani would prefer angel she is knowing.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Ghote pounced. ‘Let me say to you then just only one name. Dean Potdar.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, Inspector. Dean Potdar is altogether out of question as successor to Principalji. You see, he is already age-barred.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ghote agreed, reluctant still to see such an obvious candidate, however getting on in age, struck out. ‘But surely officers everywhere who are age-barred have been known, with somewhat of influence, to gain promotions.’

  ‘Oh, that is true, yes. It is often happening. But, you see, with Dean Potdar it is a very, very different matter. If he was to go up to Principal his application would have to go to University itself. Authorisation must be granted. So there it would come to light that he is already past statutory age.’

  ‘You are certain?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes.’

  Mrs Cooper once more drew herself up with modest pride.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘there has been question of him taking Principalji’s seat before. It was the first time that Dr Bembalkar was wishing to devote himself altogether to writing his book. Mrs Rajwani even was agreeing to it then. And Dean Potdar had convinced her he would not – well, she was accepting him. Letters were passing through my hands. And in them it came out. No possibility to do it. So Mrs Rajwani was having one word with Dr Bembalkar himself, and no more was heard of matter.’

  Ghote thought briefly that Mrs Rajwani’s ‘one word’ must have been multiplied by several thousand when she had persuaded poor Principal Bembalkar that he could not retire to devote himself to Hamlet. But he had no time for such idle speculation. A thought more to the point had come to him. If Dean Potdar was really not a possible candidate for the Principal’s seat, and it truly seemed that he was not, then the fat little malicious fellow was certainly a candidate for something else.

  If he himself could keep up his act as a totally stupid police officer, then Dean Potdar, happily convinced he was all the time running rings round him, would be a first-class choice as informant. Far better than Mrs Cooper, willing only to defend her soft corner.

  ‘Madam,’ he said hastily as soon as this thought was fully formed in his mind, ‘kindly excuse me now. I have important appointment.’

  He hurried out, raced along the balcony outside to Dean Potdar’s office, barged in, hastily asked the Dean’s placidly knitting secretary if he was disengaged and, almost before he knew what he was doing, found himself, breathing a little rapidly, once more facing the tubby little academic.

  ‘Well, Inspector, what brings you here in such a hurry? You have found how that question-paper was stolen from poor Bembalkar? You want to recount your triumph?’

  ‘No, sir, no. Very regret I have no such good news. I am here only because you were so much of helpful before, and I am thinking you could be very-very helpful again.’

  He hoped he had managed to set himself up once more as the half-educated police officer needing guidance from this academic mastermind.

  It seemed he had. Dean Potdar’s eyes twinkled merrily behind the pince-nez half-way down his podgy little nose.

  ‘We must all do what we can to aid and assist our gallant police force,’ he said. ‘Sit, sit, and tell me your trouble, Inspector.’

  Ghote perched himself on the edge of the same chair he had pulled out before from the row drawn up in front of the Dean’s desk. He put a heavy frown on to his face.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he said. ‘It is like this only. You see, from informations we are having it is now looking like as if that young fellow Bala Chambhar by name was not at all committing suicide.’

  Dean Potdar looked as surprised by this as Mrs Cooper had done a few minutes earlier. Ghote, however, had little difficulty in deciding the air of astonishment was exaggerated for the benefit of this idiot police officer.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he went on. ‘Such is seeming to be the case. We are believing now that someone was giving the boy poison only. They were not wanting him to be saying that they had handed to him that question-paper they themselves had taken from the Principal’s chamber with their own hands.’

  ‘With their own hands, Inspector? Remarkable. Truly remarkable.’

  ‘Yes, sir, it is one only diabolical plot.’

  ‘I should say it is, Inspector. A diabolical plot. You put it very well.’

  Ghote contrived to produce a smirking sort of smile.

  ‘Oh, sir,’ he said, ‘there is more even to that plot.’

  ‘More, Inspector? You astonish me.’

  Ghote gravely wagged his head.

  ‘Sir, do you know what it is we are thinking?’ he said.

  ‘Inspector, I cannot guess. You police fellows are so clever. Diabolically clever, if I may put it that way.’

  Ghote produced the same smirk, a little disappointed that he could find no variant of it.

  ‘Sir, it is like this,’ he went on. ‘We are asking what would be the obj
ect of this person unknown in handing that question-paper to a harijan student always in need of money. And this is what we are thinking. Sir, someone is plotting and planning to force Principal Bembalkar to resign.’

  ‘You don’t say so, Inspector? Plotting? And planning? That is altogether monstrous.’

  ‘Yes, sir, yes. But this is why I am requesting and requiring your assistance, if you are able to give it. Sir, we are believing this person who is wanting Principal Bembalkar to quit his seat is seeking to take same.’

  ‘To take same? Inspector, I think you have hit on the very motive. The very motive for – what did you call it? – that diabolical plot.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Very-very diabolical.’

  Was he overdoing it? But the Dean seemed to be sitting there enjoying himself to the full. So keep going.

  ‘Now, sir, you must be knowing that a college like this is altogether difficult for me. I am not at all knowing what is making tick academic gentlemen in any way whatsoever.’

  ‘Oh come, Inspector. I’m sure your native intelligence will help you out.’

  Ghote sadly shook his head. Should he risk letting his mouth hang open? Perhaps not.

  ‘Oh, no, sir. It has not at all helped out. I am floating in very-very deep seas, sir.’

  ‘Well, my dear chap, if I can in any way help?’

  ‘Oh, please, sir. That is what I was hoping to one hundred and one percent.’

  ‘Very well then, Inspector, tell me what you want to know? Or can I guess? You want to know who would step into Principal Bembalkar’s shoes were he to leave his post in disgrace. Is that it?’

  ‘Sir, you have hit screw on head only.’

  ‘Yes, well …’

  Little Dean Potdar hesitated. Or appeared to hesitate.

  ‘You know, Inspector,’ he went on, ‘you are putting me in a very awkward position. What you are doing, you see, is asking me to – to peach, I think is the word, on one or more of my colleagues.’