Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock

by H. R. F. Keating

  “There is something else,” he said.

  They looked at him. Inquiry bright in their young faces.

  “Sometimes girls of the Peacock’s age take their own lives when they are in love,” he said.

  Renee sombrely shook her dark head.

  “No,” she said. “If you think that, you just didn’t know her very well.”

  “I have never seen her,” Ghote admitted.

  “Well then,” said Patsy heatedly, “you just can’t have any proper idea of her. She wouldn’t go and kill herself. She was too alive for that. You can’t see something bright and always shining turning and putting out its own light. Well, that was her, and she wouldn’t do it.”

  Renee added a characteristic note.

  “She was too tough to,” she said. “She could cope, that girl. That’s what makes me—”

  She came to an abrupt stop.

  “Yes?” said Ghote quietly.

  For some time she looked at him without speaking. Then she answered him, piecing together the words.

  “The Peacock was tough,” she said, “but I’m not. I mean, there are things I just won’t let myself think about. I can’t. And this is one of them.”

  She turned impulsively towards Patsy.

  “I haven’t ever told you even, Pat.”

  Patsy looked at her. The colour was noticeably draining even from her lively cheeks.

  “You mean the chance that she may be dead?” she asked.

  But Renee turned back to Ghote. Her eyes were shining with a deep current of emotion.

  “If I let myself think about it,” she said, “then I don’t just wonder whether she’s dead. I know it. Like as if it was in my bones, I know she is.”

  SEVEN

  Glumly Ghote marched next day along prosperous Sloane Street towards the tall Carlton Tower where Johnny Bull had his flat. The moment of encounter had come.

  If the Peacock was dead, he asked himself for the hundredth time, who had killed her? It could have been some unknown, chance assailant. There was probably something in what Vidur Datta had once said about the dangers of London for an attractive, dazzling young girl. But, though London might not have vultures to scent out the dead, it was not very likely the body of the victim of such an attack would go undiscovered for three whole weeks.

  So the only thing to do was to pick up the trail where it had apparently gone to ground: at Johnny Bull’s. Because, for all his strong alibi, it was to him that the Peacock had decided to go. After her friends’ testimony there could be no doubt that her “lover” was Johnny.

  He had come to this conclusion within a few minutes of leaving the girls the evening before, and had gone to bed that night in a fine old gloomy state in consequence. And with the new day he had contrived to find a series of excuses for putting off the inevitable encounter. The thought of the trouble it was almost bound to bring hung over him like a storm-cloud. Famous people when they feel themselves badgered are apt to hit out in all directions.

  So first there had been his inescapable duty of making the very fullest notes at the conference. And, when he had been driven rapidly out of the imposing hall at Wood Street police-station by the possibility of meeting Detective Superintendent Smart, he had hit on yet one more delaying tactic. Stamping hard on his bad conscience, he had persuaded himself that he ought to get his present for Protima. After all, three days of his short stay had already gone by.

  He went to a large department store, recommended by Mrs. Datta with great vigour but without the backing of experience. It had been an unsettling business.

  First, he had been unable to stop himself feeling a little overawed by the splendour of the place, with its marbled pillars, its cushiony carpeting and the careless magnificence and up-to-the-minute assurance of its pyramided displays. Then, when he had inquired several times for the china department and had at last found it, the assistant who had swept down on him had been a tall, firmly corseted goddess in a severe black dress with high-piled immaculately ordered golden hair who towered above him by a good twelve inches.

  She had given him the coldest of smiles. He had said that he wanted a tea-set in Royal Worcester, “a small tea-set.”

  “War-cess-ter?” she had echoed, looking blankly puzzled.

  It had taken them quite a long time to discover that he should have been saying “Wuster.” And then, with enormous rapidity and efficiency, he had been shown half a dozen different glittering sets. He had had difficulty making up his mind between them, but his assistant had had none.

  “So the twenty-one pieces at nineteen, fifteen, three.”

  Ghote had blinked.

  Then he had realised that she was telling him the price. More than nineteen pounds. He did some fast arithmetic. One tea-set costing half a month’s salary.

  He had ventured to ask about “something a little cheaper.” The high-piled, faultless golden hair had inclined majestically.

  “We do not stock anything of that nature.”

  And in face of all the calm of that pride, Ghote had simply turned tail.

  So the antique shops of Sloane Street with their sombrely rich carpets on the window floors and their pieces of ancient, polished, superb furniture, solitary, spotlighted and stupendously priced, were more than a little depressing as he forced himself nearer and nearer to the meeting with Johnny Bull. Really, he had begun to dislike intensely certain features of the British way of life. Things were not by any means all as he had thought they would be. There were aspects of modern Britain that were not for him. Ever.

  And, from all that he had heard, Johnny Bull was going to be another of those aspects.

  Whirring smoothly up and up towards Johnny’s flat in the black-walled, gold-decorated lift, he found he was inwardly chanting a repeated half-prayer, “Let him be out, let him be out.”

  He emerged from the lift. Directly in front of him was the door of Suite B. In the middle of the door was a discreet, stainless-steel bellpush. He tramped over and delicately put his finger on it. From somewhere inside came a subdued little hum.

  And immediately the door was opened.

  A girl stood there, her hand still resting on the latch. She must have been about eighteen, certainly not much more. She was small, with a round, pale, very soft-looking face framed in sleek colourless blonde hair. The features seemed hardly to make any impression. The nose was just a tiny blob; the mouth, bare of lipstick, was hardly more than an area of faint pinkness; the eyes floated, a watery blue, under the delicate smudge of her only make-up, a dab of bluish eye-shadow. She wore a frilly white blouse and a pale lilac-coloured skirt in some shiny material, very tight-fitting and hardly covering any of her softly plump legs at all.

  Ghote decided that this must be the Sandra he had heard about.

  “Yes?” she said, in a small, fluty, weary voice.

  “I would like to see Mr. Johnny Bull.”

  She gave him a quick look, in which there was a tiny spark of irritation.

  “So would a lot of people. What do you want?”

  Ghote looked downwards for an instant.

  “It is a personal matter,” he said.

  “Listen. I’m the only personal matter Johnny’s got. See?”

  Ghote told himself firmly that even in Bombay he had been used to seeing as much of a woman’s legs as this. He had seen the girls on Juhu Beach often enough wearing swimsuits that were in fact much more revealing than this skirt.

  But somehow the garment’s calculated effrontery did all the same seem plainly indecent.

  “I am wanting to see Mr. Bull about a relative of mine,” he said. “A girl who has disappeared in mysterious—”

  “Not her again.”

  Sandra almost spat the words out for all her soft, fluty voice.

  Ghote interrupted hastily.

  “I know inquiries have already been made,” he said. “But not much progress has been reported so far. I am actually an Indian police officer, here to attend a conference, an important
conference. And I am making certain extra investigations. So if you would be so good.”

  “Well, we’ve had all the investigation we want. Thank you very much.”

  She began to close the door.

  With only the slightest reluctance, Ghote put his foot against the jamb.

  “Please listen,” he said. “I am not here to make trouble. It is just that the people the girl lived with have got it into their heads that Mr. Bull is in some way to blame.”

  “In some way to blame? Listen, mate, they told Johnny to his face that he’s keeping her locked up here, in his harem or something.”

  It came as a surprise to Ghote that the Dattas had been in direct contact with Johnny Bull. No doubt the approach had not been a success.

  “Yes, yes,” he said quickly. “Most regrettable. Quite wrong. Please do not think I believe anything like that myself.”

  Podgy little Sandra stopped trying to push the door shut.

  “What do you believe then?” she asked.

  “I do not believe anything,” Ghote pleaded. “I am just trying to find out the truth.”

  But Sandra’s pallid blue eyes remained mulishly obstinate.

  Over her shoulder Ghote looked at the interior of Johnny’s flat. There was a wide corridor painted a plain white and hung with the trophies of the great man’s career—record sleeves, posters and, in a place of honour, a golden disc.

  “Well, you can go and find the truth somewhere else,” Sandra said. “We don’t know a thing about your precious Peacock here. I wouldn’t have her within a mile of the place, not after I arrived.”

  She gave her pert little bosom under the frilly white blouse an aggressive tilt upwards and looked challengingly at Ghote.

  He realised that he would have to sink his pride a certain amount.

  “But it is not only for my sake,” he said. “It is for Johnny’s also.”

  “Johnny’s?”

  “Listen, no one could be a bigger fan for Johnny Bull than I am, and all this is going to be bad for him. Bad publicity.”

  A look of calculation arrived on the soft, pudgy face in front of him.

  “You really a fan?”

  “Am I really a fan?”

  Ghote succeeded in infusing his voice with rich enthusiasm. He looked straight ahead past the girl’s shoulder.

  “Look,” he said, “I think Johnny’s rendering of ‘Love, love, love’ is the greatest.”

  The record-sleeve was not two yards away from him. It was easy. And Indian magazines’ delighted imitations of the jargon of British and American fans were almost inescapable in Bombay.

  “Yeah,” Sandra agreed. “That disc was all right.”

  “And ‘It’s Love Only Love.’ That was another magnificent disc, even though it was some time ago.”

  Underneath each record-sleeve on the white wall was a black label with a date in gold figures.

  Ghote rushed on.

  “And going back a bit further, when there were all those great successes. Things like ‘Going to my Lover To-day.’ That was really a hit.”

  “Got him a gold disc, that did,” Sandra said offhandedly.

  And Ghote knew that he had won. He allowed himself the pleasure of reflecting tartly on all the harping on sentimental love that had brought Johnny his success. Really, at times the West was just disgusting.

  Sandra swung the door wide open in front of him.

  “You’d better come in,” she said. “If all this is going to bring my boy bad publicity, we’ll have to see what can be done.”

  “We certainly will,” Ghote chimed in enthusiastically. “Nothing must be allowed to interfere with a great career.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Sandra.

  She swung round and walked away along the corridor.

  “I’ll just make sure he’s got his clothes on, my Johnny,” she said.

  In the tight mini-skirt her hips swayed like a pair of nicely inflated balloons. She went through a door at the far end.

  Ghote stood straining to hear. There was the sound of voices, Sandra’s hardly audible at all and a deep male one, saying little. He caught an occasional half-phrase. “Oh, all right,” “Quick about it.” Then the door at the end of the wide, thickly carpeted corridor opened. Sandra swung her head round it.

  “He says to come in,” she called.

  Advancing towards her over the springy white carpeting, Ghote tried to hide the anxiety he felt under a look of radiant anticipation.

  Sandra hauled the door open to its widest.

  The room that Ghote entered was long with a stretch of windows all down one side, looking out on to the tops of trees, bare twisted branches with here and there a greeny-yellow leaf still clinging. Under this window was a big square sofa covered in rough-textured chocolate-brown material. A long, low coffee table stood in front of it with a scattering of sheets of manuscript music on it, weighted down by a big green glass ash-tray.

  Then at the far end of the room his eye was caught by an object that struck him with an odd pang of familiarity. Looking sad, battered and totally incongruous on the spotless deep-pile white wall-to-wall carpet, was, of all things, an ancient harmonium. It was just the sort of instrument common in India, a curious take-over from the missionaries, seized on as a useful and portable way of making music.

  As he looked up from it with a frown of slight puzzlement, he saw Johnny.

  The well-loved singer was leaning idly back in a big, low-slung arm-chair, brother to the huge sofa. He was, it was at once obvious, a creature of bold handsomeness. Tall, well over six foot as he lay sprawled in the big chair, he wore a long coat in a very dark grey material, cut very closely fitting. It showed up, for all the careless ease of his attitude, a tautly slim waist and wide set powerful shoulders. His legs, which were long and well-shaped, were encased in very tightly fitting trousers of the same material as the coat. Beneath, his feet were bare except for a pair of heelless black leather slippers.

  His face was long and darkish complexioned with good, bold features and dark brown, deeply set, eyes. A mane of dark hair curled a little over his jutting forehead and swept thickly backwards down to the very collar of his odd-looking coat.

  He did not move when Ghote turned to him.

  “Good evening,” Ghote said carefully. “It is very good of you to see me.”

  “I need to see you, feller,” Johnny Bull said.

  He had a deep, rather resonant voice. Ghote decided not to be put out by the hint of a sneer in it.

  “Yes, Mr. Bull,” he said quietly, “I think you do need my help. I tell you frankly—”

  “Mr. Bull?” said Sandra from the doorway. “Call him Johnny. You got to call that boy Johnny.”

  “I tell you frankly,” Ghote ploughed on, “that I am most worried about what effect these rumours will have on a fine career.”

  Johnny Bull suddenly swung upright in his big square chair.

  “Damn and blast it,” he said, his voice less deep now, “damn and blast it, why does this have to happen to me now? Now of all times?”

  His fine dark eyes clouded with pain, like a hurt child’s. He darted a look up at Ghote.

  “Oh, bloody sit down, man, for heaven’s sake,” he snapped.

  Ghote sat on the edge of the deep, chocolate-brown sofa.

  “This is a bad time for you?” he asked.

  And something which had been tapping at his senses ever since he had entered the luxurious though somehow bare room succeeded abruptly in registering itself. There was a faint but definite odour everywhere, an odd, half-sweet, half-acrid smell which he felt he recognised but which he could not at that moment place.

  He pushed the nagging query it raised firmly to the back of his mind and listened attentively to Johnny.

  “Of course it’s a bad time for me. It’s the image. Don’t you know?”

  “Your image is having a bad time?” Ghote asked, stepping as delicately as he could.

  “I thought you were meant to
be a fan?”

  Johnny made no attempt to conceal the note of hostile suspicion.

  “But I am a fan,” Ghote said with a touch of desperation. “I am a most keen admirer, most damnably keen.”

  Johnny looked him up and down along the length of his beautifully straight nose.

  “If you say so,” he answered. “But it takes all sorts.”

  “Oh, but, yes,” Ghote said earnestly. “I assure you, you have many followers in India among people of my generation.”

  “India,” said Johnny, “that’s it. India’s the new image I was talking about.”

  He darted Ghote a sudden newly suspicious glance.

  “But you ought to know that, if you’re a fan,” he said. “It’s been in all the papers.”

  “Ah, that accounts for it,” Ghote said quickly. “I have had little time to read the papers recently. I was sent over here at very short notice, to attend an important conference.”

  “Yeah?”

  Johnny could not have conveyed less interest. He shifted himself a little more upright.

  “I’ll tell you how it is with me,” he said.

  A shine of excitement sprang up in his deep-set eyes.

  “When the career began,” he said, “it couldn’t have gone better than it did. That golden disc came at just the right time. After it I couldn’t cut records fast enough. They wanted me everywhere, the London Palladium, Reno night-clubs, everything. Those were the days, the great days.”

  He came to a halt. His eyes had taken on a deep, dreamy look. After a little Ghote felt obliged to give him a slight nudge.

  “But now there is the problem of your image?” he said.

  Johnny’s sensual mouth curled disgustedly.

  “They began to drift away, the fans,” he said. “They thought I was getting too old. I’m twenty-five, over twenty-five. I don’t disguise it. But I had to do something. So that’s when I got that thing.”

  With the toe of one dangling black leather slipper he indicated the old harmonium against the far wall.

  “It is a harmonium?” Ghote asked with double caution.

  “Yeah, it’s a harmonium all right. You ought to know, I picked it up in your neck of the woods. It’s a genuine old Indian harmonium.”