Ring and report the murder anonymously. That would go some way, too, to satisfying his police officer’s conscience.
Taking one last look around, he wrapped the bottom of one of Dolly Daruwala’s pink silk curtains round the telephone receiver and, using his pen to dial, made the call.
Then he left, taking care not to close the outer door. Let the investigating officer who came make what he liked of that.
He decided to take the stairs again, even though it would be almost as toilsome as it had been to climb up. The last thing he wanted now was to be seen by any resident returning home who might later describe a man apparently leaving the scene of the crime. Slowly and thoughtfully he made his way down the poorly lit flights, the realm of the servants of the flats and such people as tailors or jewelry repairers summoned by the residents. The reek of urine was occasionally sharp in his nostrils.
It occurred to him shortly before he reached the bottom that it was more than likely that Burjor Pipewalla would in fact be waiting in his cousin’s flat on the ground floor. What should he tell Mr. Mistry?
He halted for a moment at the dark turn of the next flight down and thought.
One thing was certain. He was not in any circumstances ever going to tell Mr. Mistry that Dr. Commissariat was Dolly Daruwala’s killer. Even if Burjor Pipewalla was not waiting in his flat he would have to say that the murder had taken place. All too soon the news of that would be everywhere. But there was no reason why he should not say he had entered the flat and found Dolly Daruwala lying stabbed to death on the floor in front of her safe with all its contents fire-blackened. That was all Mr. Mistry, and Burjor Pipewalla, needed to know. They would be delighted to hear it, too.
Down at length at ground level, and happy in the thought that he had avoided being seen, he rang at Mr. Mistry’s bell. After a little the door was opened, not by the servant with the terrible squint he had seen before but by Mr. Mistry himself.
“Inspector Ghote?” the Additional Secretary said in surprise, a tinge of anger already coming into his voice.
“Sir. Sir, it is most urgent. Is Mr. Burjor Pipewalla inside?”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, he is. But it is fifteen minutes at least before he is due to go up to that flat there. Why have you deserted your post? This is a serious matter, you know.”
“Yes, sir. But something one hundred percent unexpected has occurred. May I come in, please?”
Mr. Mistry stood back and allowed Ghote to enter. As soon as the door was closed he gave the Additional Secretary the version of the circumstances he had contrived.
“Sir,” he concluded, “I think it would be altogether best if Mr. Pipewalla was immediately leaving this vicinity. My colleagues from the local station will be here in a very few minutes.”
“Yes. Yes, Inspector, you are right. You have handled all this well. I shall remember.”
The Dolly Daruwala murder, as Ghote had foreseen when he was thinking what to say to Mr. Mistry, very rapidly became big news. But what he had not foreseen, his mind full as it had been of the terrible event he had witnessed, an ominous black boulder poised to tumble forward, was that the murder would also very soon come much closer home for him. Yet the death of a person suspected of being the blackmailer of a good many influential Bombay citizens was a matter that naturally was referred with all speed to Crime Branch.
So when he arrived for work next morning, still experiencing moments when he doubted that he had seen what he had seen, it was to find the whole place buzzing with the affair and its consequences.
Not the least of those was the question of to whom would it fall to be the officer charged with the parallel investigation to that of the local police station which Crime Branch customarily made in important cases of this sort.
Suddenly, and sickeningly, Ghote thought: Will it be me?
But that fear at least was soon ended. Inspector Arjun Singh was allocated to the case.
For a few moments after he had heard this, Ghote was prey to sharp anxiety. Would Singh, who was a real hunter in his pursuit of criminals and would never have thought of letting even as patently fine a man as Dr. Commissariat go free, somehow come to learn that he himself was involved? The very frequency with which, as fellow officers on the same team, they were likely to meet might, in some extraordinary way, provide that hunter with some tiny clue to snuffle up.
But reason soon prevailed. No, he must see to it that there was nothing in his manner that could possibly betray him. And at least he had been scrupulous in checking that he had not left the least trace of his presence in that flat. Nor had he been seen anywhere near it. Except by Mr. Z. R. Mistry, and he of all people could be relied on not to breathe a word about the man he had sent up to spy on Dolly Daruwala.
In time perhaps, he allowed himself to think, even that looming black boulder in his mind would become mist hidden into an almost-forgotten occurrence.
But he had reckoned without one side effect of Inspector Singh being put on the case.
Halfway through the morning he was sent for by the Assistant Commissioner. Could this be something to do with the last time he had received orders in the big cabin, when he had been told to see Mr. Z. R. Mistry about a matter the Assistant Commissioner knew nothing about and wished to know nothing about? Was he perhaps going to receive a commendation, informal and without details of course, passed on from the Additional Secretary?
But the summons proved to be nothing of the kind.
“Ghote,” the Assistant Commissioner said, “you may have heard that I have had to put Inspector Singh on this Daruwala murder. Very tricky implications, vital that we learn who is the culprit ek dum. But that means a certain matter Singh was due to deal with must go to someone else.”
“Yes, sir?”
“It’s a blackmail business. It was because Singh has experience in those sort of cases that I’ve put him on the Daruwala murder. Blackmail behind that almost certainly, as you must have heard. But I dare say you’ll be able to handle this affair well enough. Not a great deal to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s to do with the damn scandal sheet Gup Shup. Know it?”
“Yes, sir,” Ghote answered quickly, since like almost everybody in Bombay with a command of English he was at least acquainted with the nature of the magazine that dispensed tittle-tattle and gossip, whether purely invented or with a substratum of truth, about any of the city’s prominent people who came to its notice.
But in the back of his mind, he had some other, more immediate memory of Gup Shup. A moment later it came to him. He nearly blurted it out on the spot.
A cold chill spiked through him. What if he had actually said aloud, “Yes, sir, I was seeing one copy of Gup Shup last night in the flat of Miss Dolly Daruwala itself?”
No, it was not going to be so easy to put into oblivion that scene he had witnessed. All the more so if, as luck would have it, he was now about to handle another case in which blackmail was involved.
Dimly he listened to what the Assistant Commissioner was telling him. Apparently in the absence in America of the notorious proprietor of Gup Shup, one Firdaus Kersasp, known always as Freddy Kersasp—his personal column had a bite and vigor that made it compulsory reading for thousands of Bombayites—his office manager, left in charge, had chosen to tackle a blackmail target himself. He had proposed, as Freddy Kersasp was supposedly frequently to do, that for a considerable payment to a sister publication to Gup Shup called Indians of Merit and Distinction, an unashamed vanity volume frequently promised and never as yet appearing, the magazine would not print an item hurtful to a certain Falli Bamboat, the young heir to a successful Parsi catering business who had achieved a considerable reputation as a Western classical pianist.
However Falli Bamboat had proved not to be as soft a target as the office manager, a Punjabi by the name of Shiv Chand, had counted on. He had actually come to the Assistant Commissioner and complained, and had gone as far as to nerve himself up to app
ear in court under the name of Shri X. This, it seemed, was the opportunity, long awaited, to put a check to Gup Shup and the irritation it had been causing to people who felt they should be free of any such annoyance.
So at least Ghote gathered from the Assistant Commissioner’s somewhat guarded utterances. But to achieve this laudable aim, the Assistant Commissioner went on to point out, it would be necessary to obtain better evidence than the unsupported testimony of Shri X, Falli Bamboat. Once before an attempt had been made to convict Freddy Kersasp himself of blackmail, but thanks to a battery of high-powered pleaders, it had miserably failed.
“This time, Ghote, there will not be any mistake.”
“No, sir.”
The proposed handover of the sum that Shiv Chand had told Falli Bamboat would secure him an entry in Indians of Merit and Distinction in place of a nasty little item in Gup Shup was to be made next day. It would take place in the washroom at the Taj Mahal Hotel, believed to be the venue for more than one of Freddy Kersasp’s own better-planned extortions. Ghote was to conceal himself there and witness the whole transaction.
But that of course was not all, as Ghote realized as soon as he had left the Assistant Commissioner’s cabin. It would not be enough that a solitary police officer should overhear the blackmail attempt. They were not dealing here with anyone as ignorant of the ways of the legal world as Dolly Daruwala, who could have in all probability been scared out of the country on one police officer’s word. Here it would be highly paid lawyers they would ultimately have to face. Everything must be done strictly according to the rules of the Criminal Procedure Code. And that meant that, not only would he himself have to witness the blackmail transaction, but that two independent witnesses, two panches, would have to be there in the washroom at the Taj Mahal Hotel as well.
No, it was not going to be as simple as the Assistant Commissioner had indicated.
At intervals all that day, as he dealt with the paperwork of other cases, he found himself worrying about the intricacies that would face him next day. He had, as soon as he had got back from the Assistant Commissioner, arranged with the nearby Lokmanya Tilak Road police station to have two panches, as respectable in appearance as they could find, ready for him to take to the Taj early next afternoon. Then he had got in touch with the securitywalla at the Taj and put him in the picture. But that was all he could think of to do by way of preparation.
All should be well, he kept telling himself.
And then he would remember with a sudden chill how he had thought that all ought to have been well in what he had been asked to do in Dolly Daruwala’s flat. And how badly that had gone wrong. The black boulder in his mind seemed then to lurch forward a fearful foot or two, however much he had striven to force it into the distance.
Eventually, however, his day came to an end and he made his way home. At least, he told himself, he should have a pleasant evening. Young Ved had been a little sulky ever since he had been rebuked over his smuggled home computer plan. But he had seemed gradually to be getting over it, and Protima had promised a particularly nice meal.
So it was with a doubly descending lurch of dismay that, when he had tapped for entrance, he saw on Protima’s face as she opened the door a look of plain apprehension.
“Husbandji,” she blurted out at once. “There is a man.”
“A man? What man?”
“There. There. Look.”
He turned in the direction she had indicated. And there, standing a discreet distance away, was a man he seemed to know but could not at first put a name to.
Then he realized who it was, if only from the fearful squint that disfigured the fellow’s face. It was Mr. Z. R. Mistry’s servant.
But what could he want? Had he been sent with a confidential letter? Something in writing to back up that swift word of praise last night? But, no, he had nothing in his hand. Was there some message, then? Was Mr. Mistry going to ask him to come and get that unpleasant cousin of his out of some new trouble?
Now the fellow was coming sidling up, reminding him of nothing so much as a scuttling, sharp-clawed crab. Behind, Protima pushed the door shut.
“It is Inspector Ghote.”
He remembered then with a spurt of inner fury his mistake in announcing his rank as well as his name to this fellow when he had first called on Mr. Mistry.
“Yes. Yes, what it is you are wanting?”
He found he had spoken more spikily than the situation seemed to warrant. But there was something in the fellow’s manner that had made him suddenly wary.
“Name?” he demanded, sharply as before.
“It is Ranchod, Inspector sahib. Ranchod.”
“Well, Ranchod, what are you wanting?”
“Only to show I am a friend, Inspector sahib.”
“Friend? What friend? I am not needing you as any friend.”
“Oh, Inspector sahib, I am thinking you are very much needing friend. Inspector, I was seeing you last night.”
FIVE
Ghote knew at once what Mr. Mistry’s squinting servant meant by saying that he had seen him the night before. The fellow must have caught sight of him just after he had left Dolly Daruwala’s flat. He must believe that he himself was the murderer.
It was perfectly possible that in the darkness of the stairs at Marzban Apartments the fellow had been lying there in a corner of one of the landings near the top. Hurrying down, he himself could easily have altogether missed him. Yes, no doubt Mr. Mistry, expecting to entertain Burjor Pipewalla before that planned confrontation with the most dangerous woman in Bombay, had taken the precaution of giving his servant leave. The fellow, having nothing better to do, must have taken himself off to somewhere he knew was quiet and settled down to sleep.
He might then have had no more than a glimpse of this man he knew going quickly past on his way down. Only later would he have realized, with the arrival at the murder scene of the local police, what it must have been that this inspector whose name he had learned was apparently hurrying away from.
That squint-eyed face had so telegraphed menace that there could be no doubt about what the fellow had meant. But a moment later at least the notion that he believed he himself was responsible for the murder was dispelled.
“Inspectorji, if you are wanting to help that man who was killing Daruwala memsahib, then that is okay by me.”
No, this was worse. Ranchod must first have been wakened by Dr. Commissariat as he had departed by way of the stairs. Would he have recognized him? Had he perhaps been standing one evening in the doorway while Mr. Mistry was watching television, in the way that servants often did, and had seen on the news that same often-repeated shot of the famed Parsi scientist arriving in Bombay from America?
Again, however, his blackest fears proved unfounded.
Ranchod plastered an ingratiating half smile onto his face.
“But I am thinking it is altogether unfair if I am not sharing with you,” he said.
“Sharing? What sharing?”
For a moment Ghote genuinely did not understand what the leering fellow was saying. But then he realized. The damn swine believed he, a police officer, was actually blackmailing Dolly Daruwala’s murderer—thank God, he could not after all have seen enough of Dr. Commissariat as he had clattered past to know who he was—and he was brazenly asking for a cut.
He very nearly gave the fellow a slap that would have sent him sprawling.
But sense intervened.
After all, the impudent jackal must be certain that he himself had been in the flat at the time of the murder. If he was made an enemy of, it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to inform the local police station that a certain inspector knew the name of Dolly Daruwala’s murderer and was choosing to keep his knowledge to himself. And there was never much love lost between station officers and Crime Branch men. Someone would get a lot of pleasure, and a lot of kudos, out of passing on to Vigilance Branch such a juicy piece of information.
“Well,�
� he said cautiously, “perhaps we can talk.”
Ranchod’s squinting face broke into a lopsided grin, revealing a row of brown-stained stubs of teeth.
“Nothing to talk, bhai,” he said. “Rupees one hundred needed only.”
Inwardly Ghote boiled. How he would like to teach this badmash not to call him “brother.” But at the same time, a cooler voice within considered the actual amount the fellow had mentioned.
It was not a very great deal. He could even produce it, though it would hurt a bit, simply by going inside and taking out the money they kept in a safe place for emergencies. Had it been only himself in question, he would, he was sure, have nevertheless acted on that famous Duke Wellington advice. Damn it, he had said to Ved it was the only answer to give to a blackmailer.
But it was not himself only he had to consider. It was Dr. Commissariat as well. The entire safety of that good and noble man was at stake. Refuse Ranchod that hundred rupees and he would almost certainly go around at once to his nearby police station, if only out of revengefulness. From there the matter would be passed rapidly on to Vigilance Branch. But it would not end simply with one Crime Branch officer being thrown out of the police. Any investigation was bound to be carried on to the point where the name of Dolly Daruwala’s actual murderer came to light. Then Dr. Commissariat himself would be arrested and brought before the courts like a common criminal. It was unthinkable.
No, if handing over a hundred rupees would protect the brilliant scientist who had actually given up the prospect of great wealth to come to the aid of his poorer brothers, the sacrifice would surely be worth making.
Yet would a hundred rupees be all he would eventually have to hand over? Did he not have, still clanging in his mind, an example of how every blackmailer was tempted to operate? Dolly Daruwala and her repeated and repeated demands on Burjor Pipewalla. For that matter, he had heard Dr. Commissariat himself tell Dolly Daruwala he well realized that the one payment she was demanding was hardly likely to be the last.
The Iciest Sin Page 5
