Cheating Death

by H. R. F. Keating

  He looked furiously all round. And could see nothing he could use to lever the hasp of the padlock away.

  Where would the key be? Easy answer. In the pocket of one of those young anti-socials even now thumping at Amar Nath. And before too long they would have finished with that idiot, and then they would realise where it was that he himself had gone. And would come for him.

  In despair he went up to the shed door and tugged at the padlock with his bare hands.

  It had not been snapped to. The whole thing slipped clear as if it had been a simple hook hanging from the hasp.

  He hauled the thick door open.

  They had tied Dean Potdar up. He was slumped in the dark in a corner of the narrow shelter, rope wound round and round his tubby frame. His pince-nez had disappeared. His chubby face was dark with suffused blood. His necktie had been taken off and jammed deeply into his mouth and knotted at the back of his head. But in the light from the opened door it was plain to see his little piggy eyes were glittering with life.

  What to do for him? Without a knife, it would take minutes at the least to get rid of those ropes. And minutes, in all likelihood, were what he did not have.

  He bent towards the bundled figure, put his arms round him and tugged him upright. Twirling and twisting him then like some sort of barrel, he managed to get him into the full daylight.

  But there was no way out of the compound except back through the kitchen and the chaikhana itself.

  From inside he could hear shouts. Of triumph? Of continuing battle?

  He looked round distractedly.

  No, there was only one thing for it. The wall at the back was high, but perhaps not too high. It would be dangerous to heave a man with a weak heart over it. But not as dangerous as to wait where they were.

  He stooped, changed his grip on the bundle that the Dean was and lifted. The little fat man was almost too heavy for him, but he managed to stagger the few feet across to the wall.

  And there, with one enormous effort, he lifted his burden up as high as he could and tumbled it, him, over.

  He looked round again, grabbed two cold-drink crates, set one on top of the other, climbed on to them and, as they swayed and rocked, succeeded in flinging himself up on to the top of the wall. Lying flat there, he swung himself round on his stomach and let himself tumble down on the far side.

  For a moment he lay breathless, sick and exhausted on the ground where he had fallen, just aware that beside him the Dean was also lying, a dusty and battered bale.

  Then he stirred himself.

  If he had been able to get over the wall, those young men, when they had finally dealt with Amar Nath, would not have much difficulty following. And they might well still think it worth their while.

  He forced himself up on to his knees, swivelled round towards his former Dr Watson and began to tackle the ropes tightly binding him.

  Luck seemed to be on his side. The first knot he tugged at yielded easily, and, with it loosened, all the rope fell clear. He heaved the Dean to his feet and stood for a moment looking at him. Though still gagged and too cramped to be able to do more than take a staggering step or two, the little man appeared not to be too much affected by his experiences. His eyes, indeed, were blazing like two tiny hot headlights.

  ‘Dean sahib,’ he said, ‘I think, if we can, we should get away from here ek dum. Those boys may think better of it now and run off altogether. But they may still think they can deal with us and somehow get away with it.

  ‘Let me see if I can just only get rid of that gag,’ Ghote said.

  Feeling a little as if he was intruding on someone’s deepest privacy, he took hold of the Dean by both shoulders and turned him round. Then he set to work on the knot of the gag. It had been pulled together much more viciously than the rope, and for a while he thought he would have to leave the whole tie in place until they had got themselves to somewhere really safe. But at the last moment the tight twists of the knot began to give, and in a few seconds more the striped tie was clear of the Dean’s mouth. He tossed it away.

  ‘Well, Inspector,’ came the familiar precise voice, ‘you seem to have taken a dislike to that tie of mine. A pity. It is one of my favourites.’

  Ghote actually turned away, stooped, retrieved the chewed and twisted piece of material and handed it back. He cursed himself as he did so, but he did it.

  Then he looked round to see where they were. They seemed to be in a narrow dusty lane running along the backs of all the buildings opposite the college. Beside them lay a deep ditch, dry but for a few pools of black stagnant water, with a rusted fence of barbed wire on its far side.

  But there should be access somewhere, he thought, back to the main road itself. Then in a few minutes they could be safe inside the college, and with the Dean seemingly no worse for all that had happened to him.

  ‘Dean sahib,’ he said, ‘kindly come with after me. You feel able to walk?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector. I have two legs. I can achieve locomotion.’

  He made no answer. But he felt that the relationship between them was once again in full force, as galling as ever. Nor had he received a word of thanks for what he had done. What sort of a man was the fellow? And had he himself got to go back now to his role of stupid policeman? Well, perhaps that would be best after all. There might still be things to be learnt from this podgy intellectual, and, damn it, he was still far away from having an answer to report to the Centre.

  He could not bring himself to look at the man he had rescued, the icy swine, other than in the most sideways manner as they both made their way along the rubbish-strewn dusty lane. But he was able to see that with every step he was walking more easily. There should be nothing wrong with him that a little massage and a cup of tea would not put right.

  Before long they came to a gap between two of the buildings beside them, and Ghote led the way through.

  It was not without a feeling of fizzy pleasure that he saw the big white slab of Oceanic College only some three hundred yards away.

  Then, even more encouraging, ahead of them a tall figure came staggering out of the Paris Hotel and headed, limping badly but with evident determination, towards the tall gates of the college. Amar Nath. So those rich young goonda types had not succeeded in doing him any permanent damage.

  And perhaps the bruises and wrenches he had received would teach him in future not to go rushing in when he had been told to be cautious.

  Or perhaps not.

  However, the fellow had done his share, as it had turned out, to rescue the Dean. So let him have credit.

  ‘Dean sahib,’ he said, remembering to produce to the full his bonehead police officer mode of speech, ‘are you seeing who is along there? It is Amar Nath, college security officer. You are very much in his debt for becoming a free man once more. He was fighting those fellows like a tiger only.’

  But all the Dean said in reply was ‘Yes, Inspector, I do know the college has a security officer.’

  Ghote did not explode at once. For a few moments he let the remark float in his mind like a single rich spongy gulab jamun all on its own in a wide bowl of syrup. So this was the sole response the man was going to make to being told, however lumpenly, that wretched rash Amar Nath had risked limb and perhaps life to rescue him. Not one single word of gratitude, any more than he had had himself. Only that contemptuous sneering. At a police officer who, however stupid he might seem, was there to protect such people as this fellow.

  And then it came, a sudden unstoppable burning lava flow of sheer rage, spewing upwards.

  He put out a hand, seized the Dean by the elbow and tugged him round.

  ‘Now,’ he barked. ‘You listen to me for once in your damn conceited life.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ghote, despite a grating undertow that told him he was being more than foolish to alienate his best source of inside information, felt a rush of fierce delight at what he was doing to this supercilious, intolerable Dr Watson.

  ‘Ye
s,’ he repeated, letting the words rip out, ‘you damn well listen to me. I have had altogether enough of your superiorities. Do you think you got out of that mess you were in by your own unaided powers? No, you are owing that to that altogether decent fellow Amar Nath. And to me also. And do you think I was coming to the rescue out of stupidity only? Not at all. I was weighing odds and deciding if your heart condition was so bad this was one and only thing to do. I tell you, Mr Dean, a Bombay Crime Branch officer is every bit as good at dealing with life problems as any damn academic. We are knowing what is going on in world. A hundred percent better than you ivory-tower wallas. And we are able to act on what we know. Which is worth one great deal more than sitting idle and telling other people to go and do whatsoever is coming into your head. So let me be hearing no more clever remarks from you. Now, or for ever.’

  There it was done. It was out.

  Now for the whiplash back.

  But, to his amazement, all Dean Potdar said in answer, with only a trace of his customary waspishness, was ‘Well, Inspector, if you choose to take that attitude, we had better part.’

  And the fat little man went off, hobbling a little still, in the direction of the college.

  Ghote stood where he was looking at him.

  He felt a spreading area of surprise. He did not know exactly what he had expected in reply, but he had been fully prepared to get as good as he had given. More and worse even. And he had received nothing more than that almost mild parting shot.

  So perhaps all was for the best. One burden was lifted from his shoulders, even though on the other hand he would no longer be able to consult this guru about the goings-on in the college.

  That, however, might still prove a considerable disadvantage. After all, he still had no answer to the mystery Delhi so urgently wanted dealt with. He could not at this moment add one single word to the report he had begun cheerfully outlining as he had stepped out of Principal Bembalkar’s chamber having discovered his keys had been left in his door.

  He was equally far, too, from knowing the answer to what, to his mind at least, was the far more important thing, the mystery of who had added crushed tablets of Somnomax Five to the shrikhand that had been put in the way of that poor harijan dupe, Bala Chambhar.

  Yes, it looked now as if Professor Kapur, spied at the time of the question-paper theft trying to break into the Student Union office, could not be responsible for the near-murder since he could not have been in possession of the stolen paper. And, again, it was hard to imagine someone as feeble as Victor Furtado had shown himself to be in the exam hall riot as ruthless enough to attempt murder, even on a sudden impulse.

  Which left only Mrs Gulabchand.

  Yet could he, simply on the grounds of that elimination, state in his report that the head of Oceanic College’s English department had stolen the question-paper? No, he could not.

  But what he could do, perhaps all the better for not being urged on by Dean Potdar, was to question Mrs Gulabchand again. To question her hard. If, when she had gone to her appointment with Principal Bembalkar to discuss this poet Hardy Thomas, she had actually entered his chamber despite her calm denial, then under pressure he might still catch her out in some small, significant discrepancy. The truth was, he thought, up to now he had let himself be overawed by the lady. It had been the effect, perhaps, of that atmosphere of academic superiority Dean Potdar had succeeded in imposing.

  Well, he had blown that sky-high now.

  So would he be able to manage better with Mrs Gulabchand? At least he would damn well see.

  He glanced along the road. Both Amar Nath and Dean Potdar had vanished into the college. At a vigorous pace, despite the heat of the sun now near its peak, he set off in their wake.

  No doubt Mrs Gulabchand would be lecturing to some class now that he wanted her. Just what he would expect in this damn business. And, after, he would be told that, although she ought to be taking another class, she had gone out of the building.

  But he would wait. He would wait till midnight if he had to. And somewhere, either in the college or back in her flat, he would get hold of her and question and question her until he broke through.

  When, however, he went to Mrs Cooper and asked where he could find the Head of the English Department she had only to consult an enormous timetable for a minute to say Mrs Gulabchand would have just finished one lecture and was not due to give her next for another hour. He would almost certainly find her in the staff common-room.

  And he did. She came to the door herself in answer to his knock. More, he could see she was there alone. Nothing to stop him asking his questions, and going on asking them until he got answers that satisfied him.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I was not altogether happy with what you were telling when we were last meeting.’

  Standing in the doorway, he took a good look at the room in front of him.

  Where would it be best to conduct this interrogation? He must not let Mrs Gulabchand, embodiment of Queen-Empress Victoria, place herself on any sort of throne. He himself was going to be the one occupying a dominating position.

  Happily there seemed to be hardly anywhere in the dark, shabby-looking room, its walls lined with battered wooden lockers, to suit a queen-empress. The greater part of its space was filled by a wide table, left dusty in a long patch in its centre and dotted here and there with small piles of dingy books abandoned no doubt by other lecturers. Only at the head of this table, where there was a tall wooden chair somewhat more imposing than those pushed in at intervals along its length, was there anywhere Mrs Gulabchand might claim.

  He walked boldly in, almost brushing the imposing figure who had opened the door, and claimed that head-of-the-table place.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘kindly sit.’

  Mrs Gulabchand gave him a look of serene placidity.

  ‘Yes, Inspector,’ she said, ‘I will sit. It is polite of you to ask me.’

  But he was not going to be intimidated by this. He waited until Mrs Gulabchand had taken the chair on his right.

  Then he leant forward.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘when I was asking your whereabouts at the time that question-paper was taken from Principal Bembalkar’s chamber you were telling that you had gone just only into the outer office there and no more. Was that so?’

  ‘Inspector, are you doubting my word?’

  The rebuttal was put in the quietest of tones. But it was as firm as a wall of stone.

  To Ghote, however, it was like the unexpected offer of a drink of cold water after being long out in the sun. Why had this Queen Victoria answered in that way when she could have simply replied that, yes, what she had told him before was so? Why instead had she challenged him? It must be to deflect any further pointed questioning.

  But, if that was her object, she had misjudged her opponent.

  ‘Mrs Gulabchand,’ he said, not allowing the least trace of deference into his voice. ‘To doubt itself is the duty of an investigating officer. I repeat: did you do no more than go into that outer office, see those keys in the Principal’s door and leave?’

  For several moments now Mrs Gulabchand sat in silence.

  Why, Ghote thought. Why? If she really did just only what she told me before, why is she not saying so?

  ‘Madam,’ he interjected with sharpness, ‘it is no good to pretend with me. You did not just only look at those keys, isn’t it? Madam, you were entering the Principal’s chamber.’

  ‘Inspector,’ Mrs Gulabchand said, without apparently losing any of the placidity she had retained ever since he had entered the room, ‘let me explain.’

  Then, at once, Ghote knew he was not going to hear that final answer. This calm woman, quietly agreeing she had told him a serious falsehood was no would-be murderer breaking down in face of unyielding questioning.

  Inwardly he resigned himself.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Kindly do explain.’

  ‘Inspector, I went to see Principal Bembalkar that m
orning. We had, as I think you know, a long-arranged appointment. It was to discuss introducing the poetry of the novelist Thomas Hardy into our course, something I had felt was long overdue. So you can imagine I was surprised to find in the absence of the Principal’s secretary his keys hanging in his door. I knew, as did everybody else in the college, that question-papers for the examinations had been delivered for safe-keeping to the Principal himself. We hear so much of cheating these days the arrangements to prevent it are endlessly discussed.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Ghote put in, beginning to be a little irked by the continuing calmness of her recital.

  Mrs Gulabchand gave a sigh.

  Ghote thought he detected in it a trace of shame. Was he after all mistaken then? Was the thief and the would-be murderer about to admit her crime after all?

  ‘Inspector, I then did something which I have since regretted. Bitterly regretted.’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  Suspense, tense as lightning-jittery clouds, tingled suddenly in his brain.

  ‘Inspector, I decided that Principal Bembalkar should be taught a lesson. How I came to think that, why I came to think it, I shall never understand. I am not one for thoughtlessly laying down the law. I make my judgments, certainly. But I am no Dean – Well, let us say I hesitate to impose my views on others. But on this occasion, perhaps because I had allowed myself to be irritated by Dr Bembalkar’s lack of politeness in forgetting our appointment, I decided, as I say, that he should be taught a lesson.’

  Now. Now, despite everything, it was going to come, surely. She had gone in, she had seen the Statistical Techniques question-papers, she had taken the topmost copy, she had contrived to put it in Bala Chambhar’s way. And then she had tried to cover up her action by getting rid of the young harijan. Yes, that must be it.

  ‘Go on, madam,’ he said, barely daring to speak.

  ‘I saw that, although most of the newly-arrived question-papers had been put away, there on Dr Bembalkar’s table – he must have been arranging them or something of the sort – was a pile of papers for the exam in Statistical Techniques.’