Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock

by H. R. F. Keating

  “Shan’t,” she yelled. “Shan’t. Dirty old nig-nog.”

  Apparently the yell was the only form of expression she allowed herself. Ghote thought of her voice ringing up and down the comparatively deserted street. Nothing could be better calculated to attract the maximum of attention.

  “Listen,” he said rapidly, “will you go if I give you sixpence?”

  The button-eyed girl almost thrust her red-cheeked face through the railings in her pleasure at having provoked such a reaction.

  “Sixpence each?” she asked.

  That had not been Ghote’s intention. And he suspected that she well knew it.

  “Yes,” he said. “Sixpence each.”

  “And one for Melv’s brother what’s got the cough?”

  “And one for him.”

  For a moment the girl calculated.

  “Make it a bob for me, and we’re on,” she said.

  Ghote delved into his pocket. He could find only two two-shilling pieces. He pulled them out and held them up to the girl.

  “You can have this,” he said.

  He had no doubt that whatever division of the spoils she decided on, she would have no trouble in enforcing her will.

  A grubby little hand scraped the two coins from his palm.

  “Coo, thanks, mister.”

  And, a bargain being a bargain, in a moment the whole gang had vanished.

  Ghote looked up at the sky. It was still a deep, gay blue with clouds whisking across it under the impetus of the chill wind. He looked over at the archway. Still not the least sign of life.

  The minutes crawled by.

  A bigger cloud than usual moved over the sun. In the damp area it seemed even colder. Ghote shivered.

  And then it began to rain. The cloud that was blotting out the sun was greyer than the ones that had preceded it and from it long spearing drops of cold rain fell in a rapid crescendo. Ghote’s regret for his big green-and-yellow checked overcoat touched poignancy.

  In a moment it became even keener. Before his astonished eyes the pavement in front of him turned in a matter of moments into a sheet of the purest white. His first thought was that this was snow, and he felt, in spite of the way he was getting colder and colder at every instant, a curious thrill of delight. So this was snow, the snow he had read about, wondered about, and even been made to learn a poem at school about, “On Linden when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.”

  But then the stinging force with which he was being lashed at from above made him realise that this was not in fact snow at all. It was only hail. Every bit as cold, more penetrating to the unprotected clothes, not unknown even in Bombay, and not at all reminiscent of the merry old England of long ago.

  He bowed his head and suffered the battering.

  When it finished, after what seemed hours but was in fact less than ten minutes, his jacket was wet right through to the skin of his shoulders and the slow, cold dampness was spreading inexorably downwards. The blood seemed to have stopped running in his veins entirely. His fingers were numb to the knuckles and his feet were like two lumps of frozen lead.

  He did not think he could be more miserable. And on the far side of the road the archway was obstinately blank and empty. He gritted his chattering teeth and vowed that, come what might, he was not going to budge from his post. It would be getting dark before long, but he was not going to give up. He would wait through the evening, until midnight, until midnight had struck to the last stroke. And only then would he allow himself to go.

  Along the street in front of him a mother, pushing a battered pram piled high with groceries from the Portobello Road and trailing a howling child, came hurrying by. But she would be on her way home. A stoked-up fire would greet her.

  And then, just as the last of the day was disappearing from the now once more blue sky, there was a sudden movement in the blank archway. Ghote stirred, stamped his feet a little and peered hard across the roadway.

  From out of the dark rectangle of the arch there came a dog, Pete’s dog, the low-bellied black cur. Ghote watched it with mounting excitement. Did this mean that Pete himself was on his way out? He might even be coming with Jack and Billy, off to spend a Saturday evening on the tiles.

  The dog nosed its way on to the pavement and stood sniffing the hail-cleaned air. Then it trotted across the road almost straight towards him.

  Ghote hardly paid it any attention now. His eyes were riveted on the archway. Was Pete going to follow?

  But the archway remained tantalisingly empty, and the little low-bellied black dog came nosing its way along the railings. He gave it a quick glance. The animal, attracted by the sudden movement at its own level, moved towards him briskly. It came right up to him. Ghote looked at it. It looked back at him. He hoped nothing would make the creature decide that he was something suspicious. If it took it into its head to put back its legs and start off barking, Pete might well come lumbering across to see what was the matter. And, down in the pit of the neglected area, there would be no chance of escape.

  But the dog seemed content with what it had seen. It turned indifferently away as it to move off. Then it came to an indecisive halt. It sat down and scratched itself behind the ear. Then it got up and stretched. And then it lifted its leg against the rusty railings.

  Ghote felt a strong-smelling warm shower gently pattering down on top of him. He shut his eyes.

  Quite soon it stopped. Ghote opened his eyes. He was seized with a sudden panic that during his brief moment of humiliation the three brothers might have for some inexplicable reason made a concerted dash out of the archway. But the dark street was silent and empty. The black dog was the only living thing in sight, wandering unconcernedly towards its home.

  Another hour wore by. Two or three cars swished past in either direction. At the end of the street there was the sound of a sudden quarrel between two loud-mouthed women. But it ended as quickly as it had begun.

  Every now and again Ghote allowed himself the luxury of shifting his position and of holding up his wrist so as to see his watch in the light of the nearest street-lamp. He found that on average he went for six minutes between each such moment of respite.

  And then, just as he had imagined it would during all the long spell of waiting, it happened. Into the black oblong of the archway there came an abrupt stirring of noise and movement and the three Smith brothers walked nonchalantly out, turned in the direction of the Portobello Road and, chatting loudly together, strolled happily away.

  Ghote gave them only five minutes.

  He reckoned that the sooner he began trying to persuade their mother to talk the better. Her sons would hardly turn round and come back straight away but they might well content themselves with a single drink at the Duke of Wellington and then come home. And, besides, the quicker he got to Mrs. Smith the quicker he would feel the warmth of those paraffin stoves he had heard her talking about.

  Stiff with cold, he hobbled across the road, in at the archway, still thick with milk-bottles although they had all been set upright once more, and across to the painfully familiar broken-edged steps of the Smith house.

  He hammered hard on the paintless door.

  FOURTEEN

  For a long time Ghote’s tattoo on the paintless door remained unanswered. Could old Ma Smith have been out of the house the whole time he had been watching it?

  But at last there came a dragging, swishing sound from inside. He imagined Mrs. Smith in her soft slippers slowly making her way towards him. And a moment later the door was opened and there she was, looking so exactly as he had seen her before that he wondered if she ever removed the huge closely-flowered apron, the sagging purple cardigan and the battered but bright red slippers with the one missing pom-pom.

  She glanced up at him and vaguely pushed aside the trailing lock of dark grey hair from in front of her broad, snub-nosed face.

  “It’s a bloody black,” she said in a tone of mild wonder. “You’re not the one that came roun
d the other night, are you?”

  “Yes,” Ghote admitted. “I was here.”

  He attempted a friendly smile before making his request.

  “Could we perhaps go inside?” he asked. “I have a matter I would like to discuss with you.”

  Mrs. Smith blinked at him slowly.

  “Look, mate,” she said, without rancour, “just hop it, won’t you?”

  She put her hand to the door to close it. But she was by no means a quick mover, and Ghote had plenty of time quietly to lean his shoulder against the jamb.

  “Please,” he said, “it will only take five minutes, and it is very important to me. It is about a girl who is missing. My niece.”

  He decided that a certain simplification of his relationship with the Peacock was justified.

  “I can’t help that,” Ma Smith replied, not uncheerfully. “I mean, if it’s one black the fewer, well, it’s good riddance really, isn’t it?”

  She looked at Ghote with some curiosity, as if to see what form his agreement would take.

  “But she is missing, missing,” he pleaded. “Please imagine. What would you feel if one of your children suddenly disappeared?”

  Mrs. Smith broke into a deep chuckle.

  “What, one of my boys disappear?” she said. “I’d like to see it, really I would. Those boys couldn’t no more disappear than what Nelson’s Column could.”

  The sheer pride in her voice seemed to spread out in waves into the night air.

  Ghote saw at once that this was what he had to latch on to.

  “Well, no,” he agreed heartily, “I can see that they are hardly the sort to disappear. Three such fine, big men as they are.”

  “You won’t find bigger,” Mrs. Smith said comfortably. “And you won’t find better.”

  Ghote felt a little shock of surprise. Surely Mrs. Smith must have some idea of her sons’ mode of life. They plainly were not the sort to go out every day to steady jobs, and yet they must always have enough money for drinking and going dancing. Had she really contrived not to know they were criminals?

  “Yes,” he agreed, rather hesitantly, “they seem to be really good men.”

  “Good as they come,” Mrs. Smith said. “Why, you ought to see the way they furnished this place for me in the past few years since my old man passed on. Come in. Look.”

  And, smiling to himself inwardly, Ghote followed her into the house, down the dark narrow passage where Billy had so nearly beaten him up, and in through the first door they came to.

  He found himself in a kitchen-cum-living-room, and in such overwhelming warmth that it was like stepping back into somewhere in steamy, humid Bombay again. He thawed in seconds.

  On two of the walls, he saw, there were smart, double-burner paraffin stoves, the air above them shimmering with heat, and in the fireplace there stood a big three-bar electric fire, each bar pulsatingly aglow.

  Ma Smith waddled across to a low, cushion-filled arm-chair beside the fire and sank gratefully down. She saw Ghote looking round.

  “Yeh,” she said, “it’s a lovely room, ain’t it? And every blessed thing in it nicked by one of my boys or another. Look at that telly. Did you ever see a telly like that?”

  Ghote looked across at the television set standing on the shelf of a big old dresser among an incredible clutter of other objects—cornflake packets, plates and dishes, half-empty bottles, dirty tea-cups, a loudly ticking alarm-clock. The set certainly looked magnificent. It had a huge screen, a gleaming polished wood cabinet and a glinting array of smart black-and-gold knobs.

  Then his eyes widened. Standing on top of this luxurious monster was the most enormous glossy calendar he had ever set eyes on, a splendid plastic affair showing the whole year at a glance and rainbow-coloured with various pictures of landmarks of London—Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and, of course, the Tower that he had yet to get to see. But more magnetically attractive to him than even this was a single dark-pencilled ring round one solitary date, a day late in October. He strained towards it but he could not for certain make out which.

  “Yeh, my Billy noticed the set in a shop-window,” Ma Smith continued happily. “He saw it was better than the one what we had. And, do you know, he did the place that very night.”

  Ghote felt at a loss for a reply. He did not want to condone burglary: but he was more than anxious to keep on the right side of Mrs. Smith.

  “It certainly looks a fine set,” he compromised at last.

  “Yeh, well, you wouldn’t know,” Mrs. Smith said cheerfully. “Not coming from where you come from, being savages and that.”

  In view of the fact that at any moment Mrs. Smith’s light-fingered, heavy-fisted sons might choose to come back home, Ghote thought he would not mention India’s achievements in the field of technology. Mrs. Smith would take a long time to convince.

  A way of leading the conversation in the direction of the ringed date on the big calendar, still tantalisingly too far away to be certain of, occurred to him.

  “With such sons as you have,” he said, “do you ever worry that they will get married and leave you?”

  “Married?” Mrs. Smith laughed richly. “What would they want to get married for? They can get all the girls they want without marrying.”

  “Ah yes, I suppose so. It would be a very strong-minded girl indeed who would be able to resist them.”

  “That’s right. Been like that since they were thirteen or fourteen, they have. Ah, we’ve had some good laughs when they’ve told me some of the things they’ve done. Some good giggles we’ve had over it all.”

  “I expect so,” said Ghote coldly.

  Then, recollecting himself, he made a hasty addition.

  “You are lucky to have such entertaining children.”

  “And kind,” Ma Smith added, looking fondly at the television set.

  “Yes,” said Ghote. “I suppose they tell you almost everything that they do?”

  “Well, I like a good gossip,” Mrs. Smith conceded.

  “Yes, yes.”

  Ghote produced something like a jovial laugh.

  “So you will know all about my niece?” he said. “Billy will have told you everything?”

  Ma Smith looked at him from the sprawling comfort of her chair.

  “Was that the one you were talking about just now?” she asked.

  “Yes, that is the one,” Ghote said noncommittally.

  “The one what’s gone missing?”

  “Yes, she is missing.”

  He tried to take out of his voice any shade of condemnation for anything that Billy might have done.

  “I don’t know about her,” Mrs. Smith said placidly.

  The suspicions redoubled in Ghote’s mind.

  “Then there are things your sons do not tell you?” he said with a touch of sharpness.

  A look of mild bewilderment appeared on Mrs. Smith’s snub-nosed face.

  “Well, I did think they told me most things,” she said. “Unless they forgot.”

  She sat looking at the blank screen of the huge television set, as if it was just possible an explanation of the puzzling circumstances might be flashed on to it in picture form. Ghote edged a foot nearer to the set, and to the great glossy calendar on top of it.

  He strained to see.

  And, yes, it was the date. It was October the twenty-first that had been ringed so heavily round.

  He felt a single swift leap of excitement.

  “’Ere,” said Ma Smith suddenly, “that’s not the girl they call the Peacock, is it? Funny name for a girl I always thought, the Peacock.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Ghote eagerly. “That is her.”

  “Yeh, my Billy did mention her once or twice, now I come to think of it. Quite fancied her, he did. I dare say he’ll make out all right in a day or two.”

  She frowned.

  “Or did you say she’s gone off?” she added.

  “But do you not know what happ
ened on the night of October the twenty-first?” Ghote burst out.

  For once Ma Smith moved with some speed. She turned round sharply in her wide-spreading chair and looked at him.

  “The night of the twenty-first,” she said. “Of course I know what happened then.”

  A tiny, subdued drum-beat of pleasure began to pulse out in Ghote’s mind. Was he at last getting to the very heart of it? He must be.

  “Please tell me,” he said. “Please.”

  “Well, I can’t see as how you’ve got all that right to know.”

  “Please, Mrs. Smith, I want very much just to hear.”

  It was a weak plea. But apparently it was enough.

  “Well, all right, if you’re so keen.”

  Mrs. Smith shrugged and settled herself comfortably in the big chair again.

  “It was more what happened all day on the twenty-first than the night,” she said. “Though of course it was the night that mattered.”

  “Yes?” said Ghote, almost holding his breath.

  “Yeh. And the next morning with that old judge. Though that turned out all right in the end.”

  “That old judge?”

  “Yeh. You know. What they called a Judge in Chambers.”

  “I am afraid I do not understand.”

  Mrs. Smith gave another of her deep chuckles.

  “Well, you’re no better off than what I am then,” she said. “’Cos I’m blessed if I understand too much about it meself.”

  “But I do not understand what you are talking about at all.”

  Mrs. Smith frowned.

  “Well, I’m talking about when the coppers thought they’d got my boys, of course,” she said.

  “And when was that?”

  Again a mild frown appeared on Ma Smith’s broad forehead.

  “Well, it was the twenty-first of October. I thought that was what we were talking about.”

  “And what exactly happened then?” Ghote asked, still groping in a sea of blackness.

  “Like I told you. The boys had been doing a job, and the coppers nearly caught ’em at it. Took ’em in, they did. And brought ’em up before the beak next day. Well, that would’ve been all right, only the old fool wouldn’t let ’em have no bail.”