He sat there, staring at the page, seeing nothing.
At once it had come into his mind that it was none other than he himself who was responsible for Ramesh Deswani’s death. It must surely have been the repeated calls from someone announcing himself as an inspector of police that had made this pushful, successful businessman believe whatever secret he had had that he had paid Freddy Kersasp not to mention in Gup Shup had somehow become known. In all probability it was not, in fact, the police Ramesh Deswani had to fear so much as the income tax authorities. But no doubt, with it made clear to him through Freddy Kersasp how vulnerable his secret was, the weight on his conscience had become too heavy. So he had abruptly taken flight to distant Delhi and there in the loneliness of a hotel room he had made up his mind to end his life.
But no, he thought. Damn it, he was not to blame for that death. Freddy Kersasp was. Making those twenty thousand rupees from finding out about Ramesh Deswani’s “serious mistakes”—however that secret had been learned—was what had begun the slide that had ended in a jump to death from the sixteenth floor of a four-star hotel in Delhi. This was what Freddy Kersasp’s cheerful gossip sheet could bring about. And no doubt others over the years had paid a similar price for declining to hide the past under a long, and costly, entry in Indians of Merit and Distinction.
Back into his mind, more blackly than ever, came the vision now of Dolly Daruwala’s safe with its fat store of dangerous documents just before Dr. Commissariat had set light to them, and of Dolly Daruwala herself in her rose-pink sari lying dead at its foot.
Furiously he flapped the pages of the Indian Post together and stuffed them down on the floor beside his desk. He picked up the telephone.
Come what may, he would find one witness with courage enough to go into court and testify against a blackmailer.
But mere determination was not sufficient. Neither of the remaining two people Shiv Chand had pointed him to would even accept his calls.
“He would be ringing back.”
“She will ring back.”
How often he had heard such replies in the past few days. And not once had his telephone shrilled out.
It was not, in fact, until two days later that he contrived to contact one of the two, Major-General Kalgutkar. He, according to Shiv Chand, had gained his place in Indians of Merit and Distinction not of course for his distinguished army career, though that had been notably distinguished. Instead it was his son, also in the army, Captain Kalgutgar, who had been so indiscreet as to give Freddy Kersasp his lever. Captain Kalgutkar had taken to leading a band of young officers with nothing better to do careering around the countryside near Poona spotting girls in love trysts they would do anything to keep their parents from learning about. He had then forced the girls to take part in making blue films. Somehow these activities had come to the notice of Freddy Kersasp, known always to be on the lookout for such juicy items, and a request to the captain’s father had followed.
Trying the general’s number for the fifteenth or sixteenth time, Ghote was lucky to find it answered by the man himself. Quickly darting in, he told him what it was he wanted to discuss.
“Good God, I can’t speak about something like that on the phone.”
“No, sir. I am altogether understanding. Would you like to make appointment to talk here at Crawford Market Headquarters?”
“And what do you think my friends would say seeing me marching in there?”
Privately Ghote thought they would assume he had some minor business to conduct. But, feeling himself a monkey-catcher about to lure a timid jungle creature into his bamboo cage, he asked instead where the general would like to meet him. After a good deal of humming and hawing—“No, damn it. Promised the memsahib to go to some charity function that evening”—the general fixed on the Hanging Gardens shortly before they closed for the night. Three days ahead.
Ghote felt a ripple of anger.
Why was he making so much of a fuss? Army life must have made him security mad only.
All too clearly he saw during the three waiting days this one but last hope of his getting cold feet. Yet there was nothing he could do other than agree to both time and place.
In the intervening days, however, he did not cease trying to secure a similar meeting with the final name on his list, the lady who had recently been appointed, to some press comment, as Inspector of Smoke Nuisances, a Mrs. Amrita Nath. But he found, as he had found before, the clerks in her office possessed a sixth sense about calls she would not want to receive. Nor in two more long sessions with Shiv Chand did he manage to find any other potential witnesses about whom there were good hard facts.
So it was with more than a little anxiety that he took himself on the evening Major-General Kalgutkar had specified up Malabar Hill to the Hanging Gardens, built over the huge water tanks that fed the teeming city below. The general had suggested as a rendezvous point the children’s playground, no doubt deserted at the late hour he had chosen.
“I trust you are not going to appear in anything other than mufti, Inspector,” he had snapped.
“No, sir. Of course not, sir. Crime Branch officers are wearing uniform on special occasions only.”
“Very well. So you had better carry some identification. Bring a packet of cigarettes. Chancellor brand. Kind I smoke myself.”
Feeling not a little foolish, Ghote approached the playground, holding in front of himself conspicuously as he could the packet of Chancellors he had had considerable difficulty in getting hold of. None of the paanwallas he had tried had stocked them, and one had even assured him the brand no longer existed. Eventually he had found them at the Woodlands Restaurant in the towers-crammed Nariman Point business area. But when the waiter told him the packet of twenty cost eighteen rupees, he had looked so shocked—five or six days’ supply, he had at once thought, would be as much as squint-eyed Ranchod was demanding as his monthly blackmail—that the waiter had suggested “One stick itself is ek rupee only, sir.” And then he had had some difficulty in insisting on having a whole packet after all.
He looked about for anyone who might be the general.
In a minute he spotted a tall trim figure in an open-necked khaki bush-shirt, wearing a white flat cap, and with a neat white moustache in the middle of a sharply authoritative face. He tilted the cigarette packet till its front was clearly visible. But the general—if it was the general—did not respond.
Another dead end. Where was the damn man? Had he decided after all not to come?
All his troubles came rushing back into his mind and in a spat of fury he crushed the wretched pack of Chancellors to a mashed-up squab.
Could the general then be one of the group of men who had taken over a corner of the children’s playground as a sort of gym? They were using the slides and swings as exercise-bars, solemnly heaving themselves up and down. Was the general so afraid of being seen talking to a police officer that he had adopted such an extraordinary subterfuge? Surely not.
He looked round once more. High up against the paling sky there still circled a few vultures, always to be seen in the vicinity of the nearby Towers of Silence, where the Parsis laid out their dead so as not to defile earth, fire, or water. The sight put into his head once again the memory, as little to be got rid of as a fruit seed lodged in the teeth, of dead Dolly Daruwala. Had her funeral ceremonies taken place at the Towers, despite the way she had scorned all the traditions of her community, despite the evil path her life had taken? Or had her body been disposed of without ceremony or mourners?
A Parsi boy, years ago at college, had told him once that the souls of the dead visit their homes while the four days of prescribed prayers are being said and a lamp filled with coconut oil has to be kept burning in welcome at the head of their beds. With no lamp lit for her, would Dolly Daruwala’s icy soul forever hover around the two people who had seen her die?
A voice spoke suddenly right in his ear. He jumped in surprise.
“Are those cigarettes you’
ve got squashed up there Chancellor brand?”
He wheeled around. It was the man with the white flat cap at whom he had pointed the packet so meaningfully as soon as he had arrived.
“It is Gener—”
“Quiet, man, no names.”
He strove to suppress another spurt of amazed anger. Surely coming all the way up here to meet was taking precautions enough? Did the general think the safety of India itself was at stake?
But he must be humored at all costs. This was his best hope of securing a witness prepared to do his simple duty. An upright soldier. A gentleman.
“It is most good of you to meet, sir.”
“Well, I’ll tell you straight out. I haven’t come here by choice.”
“No, sir, I am well understanding. It is altogether somewhat embarrassing. But Commissioner sahib himself is one hundred percent anxious to put an end to the proposed volume Indians of Merit and Distinction. He is hoping for your full cooperation.”
“Then we had better have some plain speaking right away. I am quite prepared to admit to you—in private, understand—that I would never have paid so much as one rupee to have my career described in that bloody book. But that shit Kersasp—only word for the fellow—came to me with a story he had got hold of about that son of mine. Disgraceful business, and I’ve told the boy so in no uncertain terms. But I didn’t like to think of the sordid details being spread all over that beastly scandal sheet for every member of the Cricket Club of India to see. So I paid up and put a good face on it.”
“Yes, sir. I can well see it. But nevertheless … sir, isn’t it that you have a duty? A duty to put a stop to the nefarious activities of such a person as Mr. Kersasp?”
The general shot him a glance that, even in the fading light, seemed to have in it a good deal more of anger than of suspicion.
“Don’t you tell me anything about duty, Inspector,” he barked.
Ghote noted that now abruptly the general had altogether abandoned the somewhat absurd security measures he had previously insisted on. He had not faltered for an instant when he had uttered the word Inspector loudly enough to have come to the ears of the playground gymnasts now ceasing their gyrations and moving over to the rail where they had hung their clothes.
Nevertheless he must not let himself be intimidated by this new, more forceful soldier surprisingly emerging.
“Sir,” he said, “I have mentioned duty because it is one hundred percent definite that you are having a duty. Sir, it is the duty of every citizen of India to do what has to be done to bring to justice whosoever may be breaking the laws of our country.”
Evidently his firmness had had some effect.
Again the general gave him a glare from under the white eyebrows that echoed his neat white moustache. But now there was in the glare—he was certain of it, dim though instant by instant the light was becoming—a quiver of hesitation. An acknowledged doubt.
“Yes, Inspector, there is that duty. You are right. You do well to speak of it, however much it’s neglected and ignored up and down the country today.”
The general glanced down momentarily at the ground at his feet.
In the air around them Ghote was conscious of the faint coolness of the coming night.
The general lifted his head.
“I would like to think, Inspector, that I was one of those, one of the few I venture to say, who recognized the duty you’ve spoken of and did what they were called on to do.”
Again, for the space of half a second, his gaze dropped to the ground. Then he continued.
“But the fact of the matter is—damn it all, if it was only a matter of protecting a son of mine from the consequences of his own folly I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell a filthy blackmailer like Kersasp, in the words of the famous Duke of Wellington, to publish and be damned. Heard of the Duke, Inspector?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Ghote answered, feeling a sharp stab.
“Ancestor of mine fought against him here in India, you know. Long before he tackled Napoleon and was made a duke.”
The general gave an angry twitch to his neat moustache.
“That’s the whole point really,” he said. “Honor of the family. May seem a bit of a nonsense to you, Inspector. But means one hell of a lot to me. If that shit had printed all that about my boy in his beastly rag, we’d have had an inquiry. Bound to have done. And in the end the boy would have had to resign his commission. And he’s the only one in the line, you see. Only one left. To carry on. Do what Kalgutkars have done since—since, damn it, time immemorial.”
He came to yet another halt.
Ghote, looking at him with anxiety, guessing what was to come, thought he saw, despite the dusk, something in the general’s sharp gray eyes that must be a glistening of tears.
“Sir—” he began, not quite knowing how he was going to finish.
But the general plunged on.
“Damn it, I know what my duty is. I ought to treat that fellow Kersasp as he deserves to be treated. Duty as a soldier. Duty, as you’ve rightly pointed out, as a citizen. But the truth of it is, I can’t help feeling I’ve got a higher duty. Duty to tradition. And—and—”
He brought himself rigidly to attention as if he was facing a firing squad.
“It’s no good, Inspector,” he said, forcing the words out. “That’s the duty I’m going to stick by. Come what may.”
He let out a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a sniff.
“So, sorry, Inspector,” he said, the note of apology by no shadow insincere. “No can do. Absolutely no can do.”
Ghote did not attempt to argue. He wished the general good-night, then turned away and marched past the Pathan watchman at the Gardens gate and on down the hill to the still-busy city below.
Next day Ghote made no attempt to telephone Mrs. Amrita Nath, newly appointed Inspector of Smoke Nuisances. Instead he presented himself at her offices and sent in his card with a terse request to see her immediately and urgently.
Somewhat to his surprise he was at once taken up to her office.
The lady he saw at the other side of the wide desk was aged about fifty, sternly stout in figure, wearing a sari of a severe but rich green, with a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles glinting in the middle of a square-set face.
“Now, what is this, Inspector Ghote?” she jabbed out as soon as the peon had shut the door behind him. “I am getting messages from you three to four times a day, and when I am replying that I will return your call in proper time I find you here on my doorstep only.”
“Madam, I was already making it clear per telephone that my business is, one, urgent, and, two, confidential.”
“Urgent to you it may be, Inspector. But I also have many urgent matters.”
“Nevertheless, madam, I am here acting on the orders of the Commissioner himself, on a matter of very great importance.”
This must be the third time, he reflected, that he had taken the Commissioner’s name to secure himself a hearing. But although he had had no direct indication that his orders came from the top, it was certain enough that they did. Whoever had been made uneasy at last by Freddy Kersasp’s activities must be in a position to urge action even on the Commissioner. And as that request had been passed downward it had doubtless grown step by step more forceful.
Certainly, now the mention of the Commissioner’s name had its effect. Mrs. Nath gave him a long, assessing look through her sharp spectacles.
“Very well, then, Inspector,” she said at last, “state your exact business.”
Ghote cursed himself. He had intended to approach the matter of the blackmail Mrs. Nath had acceded to in as roundabout a manner as he could. Because the truth of it was that he was by no means sure what exactly the lady had done to put herself in Freddy Kersasp’s clutches.
Shiv Chand had been none too precise.
“Inspector, it is only that when Freddy sahib saw in Times of India her name, when she was appointed to that post, he was bursting into a be
lly laugh itself.”
“That only?”
“No, Inspector. One word also he was saying, just only one word.”
“And that was …?”
“Benares, Inspector. Benares.”
“That is not at all a help.”
“Inspector, perhaps yes, perhaps no. Kindly consider this much. The lady is widow, yes? It was stating in newspaper at time of appointment. Ten, fifteen years past she has lost her husband. Now, Inspector, you are man of world. You must be knowing what is often happening when a good-looking woman is deprived of husband at an early age. Quick-quick like bees to honeypot, the good friends of that departed husband are coming. Anything you are needing, they are asking one and all, yes?”
“Yes, yes. I know what you are meaning. Get on with it, man, get on with it.”
“Yes, Inspector. So sometimes, isn’t it, six-seven months after husband is expiring lady in question finds addition beginning to come to family? So then it is time for pilgrimage to Benares, no? And not returning home for three-four months after.”
That had been the fullest extent of the information he had been able to get out of the shark-smiling Punjabi, dubious as it was. So how was he now to respond to Mrs. Nath’s sharp demand to him to state his business?
“Madam,” he said, advancing cautiously as a pi-dog approaching a butcher cutting up a goat, “I was informing telephonically, you would remember, that the matter I am wishing to discuss concerns one Mr. Freddy Kersasp, owner-editor of the Gup Shup magazine.”
“Yes, yes. But what had that man to do with me?”
It was not quite the right reply. If she really had nothing on her conscience, she would surely have sounded more bewildered than she had. He felt heartened.
“Madam,” he said, “I think you are all too well knowing. Mr. Kersasp was threatening to print in said Gup Shup magazine something to your discredit, isn’t it?”
On the other side of the wide desk with its piled files and heaped papers, Mrs. Nath’s eyes behind the spectacles with which she faced and intimidated the world wavered.
The Iciest Sin Page 8
