Cheating Death

by H. R. F. Keating

  Gloomily letting this thought mill round in his mind, he made his way out of the hostel and turned in the direction of the college.

  It was only when he became aware, as a vaguely apprehended sight, of a person some yards ahead suddenly switching from progress towards him to a rapid turning back, followed at once by a reversal of the process, that he realised he was meeting none other than Dean Potdar.

  Was the little academic suddenly put out to find the joke he had played on his stupid police officer had not come off? And then had he decided to brazen it out?

  ‘Why, Inspector Ghote,’ the Dean greeted him, hurrying up. ‘And without that deplorable young man Furtado. Has Sherlock Holmes failed to pin down his prey?’

  Thoughts began to tumble through Ghote’s mind. Stupid police officer, he must remember to keep that up. And he must be careful not to tell this civilian more about the case than he had to. Should he say anything about not finding any evidence in Victor Furtado’s room? What had he said already about why he had wanted to search the place?

  And what was all that about Sherlock Holmes?

  He contrived at least to produce again the idiot grin he had found for the Dean before.

  ‘Sherlock Holmes?’ the little podgy fellow shot out at him. ‘You’re not acquainted with your illustrious, if fictional, predecessor?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he answered, secure at least now in his dumb-ox role. ‘Sherlock Holmes I am very well knowing. Master detective, no?’

  ‘But has the master detective come away from young Furtado – I was told by our security officer you had left with him – without having discovered the perpetrator of – What was it? Ah yes, the diabolical plot?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Ghote answered, ‘there is seeming to be no evidence that it is Mr Furtado who is the culprit only.’

  He produced his grin again, beginning to feel a little proud of the air of bemusement it was surely giving him.

  ‘Well, well, you cannot always hit on the arch criminal at first attempt. I seem to recall that even the great Holmes himself was sometimes wrong-footed.’

  Ghote put on a baffled look at that.

  ‘But, please,’ he said, ‘after not at all succeeding in finding one case against Mr Victor Furtado, I am very much wishing to go to the residence of either Professor Kapur or of Mrs Gulabchand. Are you by chance knowing their addresses?’

  Dean Potdar’s eyes brightened behind their little round gold-rimmed glasses.

  ‘Better than that, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Mr and Mrs Gulabchand have a flat not too far from here. Allow me to take you there. You really ought to see if that lady is your wicked murderer.’

  This was more than Ghote wanted. If the little fat man went round with him to wherever Mrs Gulabchand resided, he would want to stay no doubt while he conducted his search. Was he now going to become Sherlock Holmes to the Dean’s Dr Watson and have him at his heels wherever he went?

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I am not at all wanting to put you to troubles. If you will kindly inform me of the address, I would proceed there by myself alone.’

  ‘Not at all, my dear fellow. Wouldn’t think of it. Besides, the place is not easy to find, you know. Not particularly easy.’

  The pompous piggy was doing it again. Did he really think a police officer who had risen to the rank of inspector would be unable to find one address in Bombay?

  However, it seemed this particular police officer who had risen to the rank of inspector was unable to think of any good reason for rejecting the offer.

  ‘You are one hundred percent kind.’

  Together they walked back to the main road. It was stiflingly hot, and Ghote noticed that the Dean, who had looked uncomfortable tight-buttoned in his British-style tweed jacket even when he had come up to him, was now perspiring to a horrible extent.

  ‘Dr Potdar,’ he said, ‘it is really too much to expect you to come in all this heat. I am sure I can easily find the Gulabchands’ flat.’

  ‘No, no,’ the Dean said. ‘You would never find it, I assure you. And look. Look, there’s an auto-rickshaw.’

  True, there was visible in the shade of a tree some hundred yards away an auto-rickshaw’s yellow plastic hood.

  ‘Come on,’ the Dean said, ‘or we’ll find someone has come up and taken it.’

  He set off, waddling along at a considerable rate. Ghote, following, wondered why the fellow was so keen to hire the little vehicle. If Mrs Gulabchand’s flat was not far off there was surely no need to go by auto-rickshaw.

  But as they sat side by side in the rattly machine – they had had to shake its driver awake from his noonday sleep across the vehicle’s narrow back seat with his bare feet jutting into the air – he found the Dean’s notion of ‘not too far’ was certainly different from his own. Despite the speed they were going at, rocking the light machine in a decidedly hazardous manner and sending fumes from its motor-cycle back to them in scorching waves, the trip went on and on. It was a full quarter of an hour before at last they reached Dhake Colony in Andheri, far south of the grim factory area of Oceanic College, and came to a halt.

  By this time it seemed no longer worth going into why the Dean should consider their destination as being near at hand, something Ghote had not been able to ask about over the hammering noise of the auto-rickshaw engine. He looked around instead.

  Mrs Gulabchand, he saw, lived in a prosperous apartment block, Ramaprakash Housing Society, with at its corner nothing other than a branch of Monginis cake shops. So would it be there that –

  But he was given no time to ponder that. The Dean had trotted inside at a great pace, hurried over to the lift at the back of the narrow entrance hall and pressed its call button.

  ‘You are knowing this place?’ Ghote asked, taking in the Dean’s familiarity with the lay-out.

  ‘Yes, yes. The Gulabchands and I are on visiting terms.’

  Ghote seized on the advantage this seemed to hold out.

  ‘Then you would be able to go inside if no one is there excepting only a servant?’ he asked, hoping he had made the inquiry sufficiently lacking in quickness.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the Dean answered happily. ‘So you see, Inspector, it has been worth your while after all availing yourself of my humble assistance. We shall have no difficulty in persuading the Gulabchands’ servant, a simple fellow – you will like him – to let us in. Then you can search away as much as you like for whatever it is you are, very properly, not letting me know about.’

  The lift arrived in front of them at that moment, and Ghote was able to conceal the jab of dismay he had felt at the acuteness of the Dean’s remark.

  In silence they went up to the fifth floor, got out and went to the door of the Gulabchands’ flat. The Dean rang at the bell.

  In a few moments the servant appeared, a patently thick-skulled fellow, mouth hanging open, eyes swivelling to and fro, smartly though he was dressed in a white uniform with a golden yellow cummerbund. Ghote could not decide whether he was pleased or not that, thanks to his tireless imitation of some sort of joke figure, the Dean had likened him to the fellow.

  But at least the man’s simplicity allowed the Dean to sweep them inside and on through a stuffily furnished drawing-room out to a balcony complete with two or three wicker chairs and a tall swing with a red plastic seat and bells attached to its ropes. Briskly the Dean ordered tea, something which, still sweating profusely, he plainly needed.

  ‘Now, my dear fellow,’ he said as soon as the servant had drifted off into the kitchen, ‘off you go. Hunt, hunt, hunt. And, pleasant lady though Mrs Gulabchand is, I wish you the very best of luck – with whatever it is you need to find.’

  Ghote felt a new jet of fury. Damn Dr Watson. Was he trying to take over the whole investigation? If such a tricky business as searching a flat without a warrant in the barest hope of locating a supply of Somnomax Five could be called an investigation. But, feel what he might, the chance of looking round the place was too good to miss.

&nb
sp; After all, it was still generally believed that Bala Chambhar had attempted to commit suicide and, as far as anybody knew, the existence of that Monginis shrikhand tub had not come to light. So it was possible that whoever had crushed the sleeping tablets into the shrikhand had not felt it necessary to dispose of the remains of their supply. And the tablets might, in fact, have belonged not to Mrs Gulabchand but to her husband. So she might have used only as few of the pills as she thought would achieve her end. Too few it had proved. So some might very well still be here in the flat.

  But where? Where exactly?

  The bathroom. That would be the best bet.

  Standing in the little hallway, oppressive with dark, richly-patterned wallpaper, dotted with bright specimens of tribal art and adorned with a tank of little brilliant swimming fishes, he could hear the servant banging away in the kitchen. So, rapidly one by one, he tried each of the doors beside him.

  The third one he flicked open proved to be the bathroom.

  He slipped inside. What if the tea was ready more quickly than they had counted on? Never mind, he could pretend he had needed to use the room. He slid the bolt on its door into place and turned to take a better look.

  Yes, there was a mirror cabinet above the basin. He flipped it open. But it was soon clear, wherever else the pills might be, this was not the place. Two toothbrushes, one tube of Neem toothpaste. A razor. A tube of shaving cream. Three old razor blades stuck together with orange rust and a packet of new ones. The sole bottle contained only Mr Gulabchand’s black hair-dye.

  He looked round again. There was a cupboard under the basin. Could that be where sleeping pills were kept? He lowered himself to his knees, pulled open the door and stuck his head right inside.

  Nothing but the pipes from the basin, a layer of gritty dust and, hanging from a hook, a pale pink plastic pourer which the Gulabchands must use at the lavatory bowl.

  He got to his feet. First hope unfulfilled. There was certainly nowhere else in here where anything could be stored.

  Was that a noise outside?

  He froze.

  Had the servant been quicker than he had thought possible with the tea? Well, if the fellow was outside he had his excuse ready, though then there would be no further search possible.

  He slid back the bolt on the door. And, at the last moment, remembered to use the flush. Sweating slightly at the thought of how narrowly he had escaped making such a mistake, he waited for a count of ten and then opened the door. No sign of the servant. And clinking sounds and mutterings still to be heard from the kitchen.

  So where now? Yes, the bedroom. The next most likely place.

  But if the servant found him in there?

  It had to be risked. The one advantage of his situation at the moment was that Dean Potdar, damn Dr Watson, was out on the balcony. So long as he remained there he would not see him illegally possessing himself of proof that Somnomax Five was present in the flat – if it was.

  He slipped into the room he had seen was the bedroom. Not such an easy matter to search in here. In the bathroom there had been really only one place sleeping pills would be kept. Here they could be almost anywhere.

  But most probably in one of the tables on each side of the heavily carved bed.

  He hurried over to the nearer one, jerked the little drawer at its top open.

  And there, there right in front, was exactly what he had been looking for. Not, as it happened, a bottle, but a small cardboard box, much smaller than the one that had once contained Victor Furtado’s remedy for excessive generation of foul gases in the abdomen. And clearly labelled Somnomax Five. Inside there were three sheets of foil-wrapped tablets.

  Hastily he slid one out, stuffed it into his trouser pocket.

  Now, now he had hard evidence to take to the Additional Commissioner.

  FIFTEEN

  Ghote let Dean Potdar drink the tea the thick-skulled servant eventually brought. He felt he owed his Dr Watson that much. But, beyond at last admitting under more than a little eruditely joking pressure that, yes, his search had been successful, he evaded all the Dean’s other questions, mostly by pretending not to understand a lot of what he was obliquely asked. Then, as soon as they had each finished a single cup, he announced that he must report urgently and hurried out, leaving the Dean plainly sharp with unsatisfied curiosity about what exactly it was he had found.

  But, he thought as, having hailed a taxi and shouted ‘Crawford Market’, he made his way maddeningly slowly towards Headquarters, he still had not ended his contest with the little academic with even that much of a victory. Because, just as he had pulled the door of the lift closed in front of him, the Dean, standing at the Gulabchands’ door, had shouted out something. He had not been certain with the clang of the lift jerking into motion whether he had heard what he thought he had. But it seemed the Dean had called ‘But what if our other suspect also has a supply of – of whatever you found, Inspector?’

  As the long trip from Andheri to Crawford Market wound its slow way, he asked himself time and again if that was what he had really heard. It seemed such nonsense. Somnomax Five was – he had Dr Shah’s word for it – a new American prescription hardly sold at all in India. So how likely was it that two different members of the Oceanic College staff would each have a supply?

  Ridiculous. Absolutely unlikely.

  No doubt fat little Potdar was having one of his games with this supposedly dumb police officer. Of course, he was furious, this self-appointed Dr Watson, that he had not been confided in. And he was taking revenge.

  But it all was yet another strand of hard-to-break fishing-line wrapped round the cat in the adage. If that was the way an adage was made. If that was what an adage was.

  Yet the thought the Dean had plopped into his head, the absurd possibility, kept coming back to him until, at last, his taxi came in sight of the ancient British-built buildings of Headquarters.

  Back in his own cabin, he asked at once to see the Additional Commissioner. Only to be told he was in conference. Feeling abruptly cut off from all that he had been doing since the moment he had been shown the report from the CBI team, he sat for some time at his desk doing nothing at all.

  Then, as time passed, he found he was fighting a niggle of guilt about his actions in the Gulabchands’ flat. To steal something that might well be evidence was hardly working by the rules he had abided by ever since he had passed out from Police Training School. True, he had left two other sheets of Somnomax Five behind. As soon as he got the green signal he could go, accompanied by the necessary witnesses, and conduct a pukka search revealing again the incriminating objects. But all the same he had acted rashly. Definitely.

  But what if in the meanwhile Mrs Gulabchand made away with the evidence? Would that stupid servant have told her of his visit? No, after all the fellow did not know who it was who had accompanied the Gulabchand’s friend, Dean Potdar. But Mr Gulabchand – Dean Potdar had told him he was Recreation Officer for, as it happened, the Bombay plant of Rajwani Chemicals – might he for some reason have decided to come home early and go to bed with something to make him sleep? And if he took every tablet remaining?

  He shook his head angrily.

  This was nonsense. No one was going to swallow that many sleeping pills. Not unless they did so unknowingly, as Bala Chambhar had done.

  He looked at his watch.

  When would the Additional Commissioner call him? Time was getting on. If he was to go back out to Andheri with two proper panches to witness him finding the Somnomax Five he ought to start getting hold of them soon. He would have to question Mrs Gulabchand, too. That might take hours. And, if he carried on into the depths of the night, in court when it came to the trial her pleader would allege she had been improperly pressured into making untrue admissions.

  If she could be made to admit anything.

  After all he had little to go on. Merely that he understood Mrs Gulabchand wished to become Principal of Oceanic College and that she possessed o
r had access to the not widely available form of poison that had sent into a coma Bala Chambhar, to whom she might have passed on a question-paper stolen in order to embarrass the present Principal. No, it was a weak case. Unless Mrs Gulabchand succumbed to questioning.

  And unless the Additional Commissioner summoned him soon there would be little likelihood of that happening tonight.

  Still his telephone failed to ring. And still he found he lacked the heart to go back to such routine paperwork as he had outstanding.

  Then at last the call came. He raced up the spiral stairs to the Additional Commissioner’s office, peered hastily through the glass panel in its door to see if it was all right to enter, went in.

  ‘Ah, Ghote, yes. Now, got that report to send to Delhi?’

  ‘No, sir. No, that is –’

  ‘Damn it, Inspector, you ask to see me. I make time for you in a hellishly busy day. And you tell me you have nothing to report.’

  ‘No, sir. Yes, sir, I do have something to report. One murder, sir, I am thinking.’

  Despite the icy glare that at once showed itself in the Additional Commissioner’s eyes, Ghote plunged on with what he had to say. It did not take him long. And at the end of it he saw that the Additional Commissioner was, if anything, more coldly disapproving.

  ‘Inspector, when I select an officer to prepare a report that can be sent to the CBI in Delhi, on a subject which has aroused the greatest interest at the highest levels, I do not expect to have to listen to a lot of rigmarole about the murder of some little anti-social in a slum in Dadar. Have you or have you not found out exactly how that question-paper got passed about through entire Bombay?’