Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker

by H. R. F. Keating

  INSPECTOR GHOTE PLAYS A JOKER

  by H. R. F. KEATING

  A Dutton Novel of Mystery and Suspense BY H. R. F. KEATING

  Inspector Ganesh Ghote is back home in India, on assignment to prevent a murder. A most unusual murder, for a flamingo is the suspected target - the last of four birds presented to the Bombay zoo by the U.S. consul. And Inspector Ghote fails his mission: he is on the scene when the flamingo is shot through the heart. The culprit has escaped unseen, and the Inspector is left to decide whether the killing was an anti-American act or a practical joke.

  When he learns of two other very elaborate practical jokes recently played in Bombay - one turning the Derby favorite into a donkey, and the other turning a distinguished scientist into a laughingstock - he gives up politics as the motive. That leaves him with the double mission of finding the joker - and then of finding the joker’s murderer.

  H. R. F. Keating has produced a truly imaginative and intriguing tale — one in which India comes through in full color with a full-bodied story to match - a mystery delightfully worthy of the ingenious and ingenuous Inspector.

  First published in the U.S.A. 1969 by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

  Copyright © 1969 by H. R. F. Keating

  All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

  FIRST EDITION

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 69-13341

  A 16635

  CHAPTER I

  Inspector Ganesh Ghote stood too stiffly at attention in front of Deputy Superintendent Naik’s desk in the Bombay C.I.D. headquarters. The Deputy Superintendent was considering a letter. It seemed to be causing him some trouble. It was not long, Ghote could see. Two short typed paragraphs on a single broad sheet of official notepaper. But it evidently posed considerable problems, to judge by the way D.S.P. Naik was simply staring at it puffing laboriously through his rather protuberant lips under the soft blur of his moustache.

  At last he looked up.

  “Ah, Ghote,” he said. “Good.”

  Ghote tried rapidly to decide what exact inflection he had heard given to the word “good.” Had it been said in a way that indicated the D.S.P. was genuinely glad to have him here? Or, had the overtones of pleasure he thought he had detected merely been indications that the D.S.P. was pleased that the lamb had come to the slaughter juicy and well-fed?

  There was a glint in the dark brown eyes that looked up at him. That was certain. There was an odd look in the round face which normally was either quite expressionless or wildly choking in a sudden outburst of rage. It looked as if the butcher was about to swing his cleaver.

  Ghote straightened his thin shoulders to receive the blow.

  “Inspector,” the D.S.P. said, “I want you to stop a murder.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The D.S.P. looked up at him steadily.

  After a long silence he spoke again.

  “Well, man, no comment?”

  “Comment, D.S.P.?”

  “I suppose it’s not every day you’re asked to stop a murder, Inspector?”

  “No, sir. No.”

  Ghote realised that more was required.

  “It is most unusual, sir,” he said.

  “Good. So then . . . ?”

  Ghote experienced an odd sense of events failing to take their usual course in some way which he was unable to account for. As far as he could make out he was being given instructions on a new case. D.S.P. Naik had summoned him for this purpose before times without number, and the procedure was invariable. He would knock on the office door, wait to hear the barked word “Come,” enter, stand to attention in front of the desk till the D.S.P. was ready and then listen hard while a stream of new facts was poured out in front of him. If D.S.P. Naik was open to criticism, it might be said he tended to go into too much detail.

  But now there was this silence, these silences.

  With a definite sense of relief Ghote noticed a familiar symptom beginning to manifest itself on the Deputy Superintendent’s rounded features. The blood was coming pounding up into his cheeks, turning the pale brown smooth skin several shades darker. He was brewing up into one of his rages.

  “Ask, man, ask,” the D.S.P. suddenly snapped. “If I say you are to stop a murder, Inspector, haven’t you the simple gumption to ask whose murder you are to stop?”

  “Yes, sir. No, sir.”

  Ghote recovered himself triumphantly.

  “Whose murder am I to stop, D.S.P. sahib?” he asked.

  D.S.P. Naik leant very slowly back in his wooden armchair while the rage-blood slowly ebbed from his podgy cheeks. When he had leant as far back as he could, he looked Ghote blandly in the face and answered his question.

  “You are to stop the murder of a flamingo, Inspector.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  D.S.P. Naik bounced up as he sat. The blood began to swoosh into his cheeks again.

  “Yes, sir,” he mimicked. “Yes, sir. All you can say is ‘Yes, sir' when- Oh, never mind.”

  The rage drained out of him and he slumped his elbows heavily forward on the dark-brown, leather-covered desk top in front of him.

  And then Ghote realised that the D.S.P. had been attempting a joke. There could be no doubt about it. It might never have happened before: the D.S.P. was a serious man. But there could be no getting past it now : he had definitely been trying to make a joke. And it had been allowed to fall absolutely flat.

  Would a smile of farewell for it be in order? No, it was too late even for that.

  But this new silence could not be allowed to last any longer.

  “You were saying, D.S.P. sahib?” Ghote ventured.

  “A flamingo, Inspector,” D.S.P. Naik said dully. “I have here a letter pointing out to me that during the past week three of the four new Red Flamingoes in the zoo in Victoria Gardens have been shot.”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Ghote broke in, snatching the chance to show he was not slow about everything. “I have seen that in the paper, sir.”

  “Have you, Inspector?” D.S.P. Naik said, without showing much appreciation. “And did you see where the flamingoes came from?”

  “Came from, sir? But from some swamp- Oh, no,sir. I remember now. They are a special sort of flamingo, sir. They come from America. Gift of the U.S. Consul, sir.”

  Ghote felt a moderate pride at having remembered all these details from a bottom-of-the-column story in the paper two days before.

  “A gift of the U.S. Consul,” D.S.P. Naik noted. “A gift who to, Inspector?”

  Ghote racked his brains. Obviously the gift must not have been to the Zoological Gardens themselves or the D.S.P. would not have made a point of asking. Then— Yes. Got it.

  “It was a gift to the State Government, sir.”

  “I am glad to find my officers can devote so much time to newspaper reading.”

  But the D.S.P. did not seem actually furious about this. There was plainly something more to come.

  “And which Minister in the State Government would have responsibility for such a gift, Inspector?”

  Ghote gave up.

  “Cannot say, D.S.P.”

  “It is the Minister for Police Affairs and the Arts, Inspector,” D.S.P. Naik replied, with the bitterness only just being held in check. “The Minister for Police Affairs and the Arts, the New Minister for Polic
e Affairs and the Arts, the Minister who has publicly pledged himself to step up the efficiency and good order of police work in Bombay, Inspector. And, Inspector, he has specifically mentioned your name as the officer he wishes to prevent any further outbreaks of irresponsible hooliganism at the zoo.”

  “My name, D.S.P.?”

  “Yours, Inspector. Don’t ask me why. He says he has been given your name as an officer of great resource and particularly requests that you shall handle the case.”

  “Yes, D.S.P.”

  “Very well, Inspector. There is still one more Red Flamingo left up there at the zoo. Please see that it is in no circumstances murdered.”

  “Very good, D.S.P. sahib.”

  It sounded as if the interview was over. He turned smartly on his heel. But the D.S.P.’s cup of bitterness had a few dregs left.

  “And, Inspector.”

  “Yes, D.S.P.?”

  “Do not hesitate to call for any men you want from an already over-worked and persistently underpaid police force.”

  “No, sir.”

  : : : :

  “Here they are, Inspector. Or, rather I should say, there it is.”

  The elderly little man in the Director’s Office at Bombay’s Victoria Gardens Zoo heaved on the thin cord which controlled the cane blind over the main window. Slowly and jerkily the blind went up to about two-thirds of its height and outside in the strong sunlight Inspector Ghote saw the sole Red Flaming remaining out of the gift of four from the American Consul.

  It was standing on long thin bright pink legs, beautiful but sad, near the edge of a small shallow concrete pond in which a few clumps of coarse reeds grew. The sun brought up the touch of pale pink in the white of its rounded back and just caught the astonished red under one of its wings as it stretched it down till its tip touched the muddy water at its feet in a gesture of profound boredom. Its long bendy neck twisted to carry its little head with the broad hooked pink beak round to survey the comparatively narrow confines of its present and lonely home.

  This was a circular cage about fifteen yards across, most of which was taken up by the round pool. The cage was open at the top but its sides, which were of a fairly close-meshed wire, were a good eight feet high. Round them a small crowd stood, students in couples with nothing better to do, and children accompanied either by somewhat indifferent mothers or by even more noticeably unconcerned ayahs. Apparently the general public were not expecting another outbreak of shooting. But then, if Ghote’s memory served him, only one flamingo death, the second, had been reported in the papers.and that briefly.

  He turned to his companion, still holding with both hands firmly on to the thin blind-cord as if, were he to let it go, some appallingly heavy object would descend on both their heads.

  “Tell me,” Ghote said, “have you nowhere else you can put the bird? It does not seem to me entirely safe from a determined killer out there.”

  The acting-Director of the Zoological Gardens shook his head in an emphatic flurry of disclaimer.

  “It is not safe,” he said. “Not safe at all. If I had my way that animal, which after all is valued somewhere in the neighbourhood of Rupees three thousand, would be most stringently kept from the public gaze.”

  “And why is it not?” Ghote asked.

  The acting-Director’s small, triangular-cheeked face assumed an expression of great personal pain.

  “It is on the direct insistence of the Minister,” he said. “I received a personal telephone call from a gentleman I understand to be his Public Relations Officer, a Mr. Kamdar. He instructed me that the Minister regards these incidents as a challenge. He suspects there are political overtones. He wishes the remaining birds to stay where they can be plainly seen. The gentleman was most emphatic.”

  He turned, still holding the blind-cord, and looked at the telephone on the big, old shiny desk in the middle of the cool, shaded room as if he was still hearing the barked commands that had come from it.

  Ghote, his heart at the mention of political overtones sinking even farther than it had done already, also stood looking at the big desk in silence. He had found the acting-Directer sitting at it when he had been ushered in a few minutes before, sitting not at the high-backed, heavy, cane-seated arm-chair that was ranged squarely in front of the desk knee-hole, but at a small round-backed bentwood chair which he had drawn up uncomfortably to one side. Evidently he was a man determined to make his position clear : he was not the Director, he was no more than acting-Director, and nor did he mean to be anything else.

  Resolutely Ghote thrust out of his mind those incidental words about political overtones. If he was going to get enmeshed in the activities of anti-American hotheads, then he was. But at the moment what he wanted was a few simple facts.

  “Very well,” he said, “if the bird is to remain out there, it is to remain out there. But was that where the other ones were when they were shot?”

  “It was, exactly,” replied the acting-Director, turning back to give the brightly sunlit scene outside an intent look.

  “And when did the first incident take place?”

  Ghote pulled a notebook from his pocket. Details, and as many of them as possible, were what he wanted now.

  The acting-Director swivelled round on the taut blind-cord.

  “It was ten days ago,” he said. “At much about this time of day, the late afternoon. Perhaps about twenty minutes before the public were due to leave the gardens.” Something in his tone indicated that the departure of the public from the neighbourhood of the zoo was the high spot of his day.

  “And what exactly happened?” Ghote asked methodically.

  “That of course I cannot say. The Director was here himself at that time. I understand that the bird fell down, and that after a while one of the keepers noticed and entered the cage to effect an inspection. He found that the animal was dead.”

  “I see. And the second case?”

  “That was four days later. By then the Director had left for Nepal where he is undertaking some business for the zoo. I was in here. As a matter of fact, I happened to be looking out of the window just as I am now.”

  The acting-Director gave a small hitch to the blind-cord which must, Ghote thought, have been cutting into the palm of his hand in a decidedly painful manner for quite some time now.

  “Good,” Ghote said encouragingly. “Then you were an eye-witness to the incident.”

  “Yes, yes. I saw the bird fall. It gave a slight jump in a wholly uncharacteristic manner and then it toppled—yes, I think that would be the word—it toppled down on to its side. I left the office at once, you understand, and hurried to the pool. The bird was quite dead. It had been shot through the heart.”

  “And there was no sign of any person bearing a gun?”

  “None at all. None at all. The shot quite clearly came from a considerable distance.”

  The acting-Director drew his small mouth suddenly together as if he had just bitten into a lemon.

  “It was then that I decided to inform the Minister,” he said. “And of course, the Director—by telegram. I fear, however, that the Director did not altogether agree with my action.”

  He sighed.

  “He has since told me by telephone he has no intention of returning from Nepal until the whole affair is cleared up,” he said.

  Ghote decided it would be a kindness to return briskly to details.

  “And the third case occurred yesterday?” he said sharply.

  “Yes, and again at the same time. Only on this occasion I was not able to witness the occurrence. However, our deputy Head Keeper (Avians and Small Reptiles) happened to be on the spot, and he reported that the bird was also killed by a shot in the heart.”

  . . . and Small R, Ghote scribbled in his notebook.

  “Yes,” he said. “I shall have to see that man to get a full report. But one thing struck me. You say both birds were shot through the heart?”

  “All three were, as subsequent post-mortem exami
nation has confirmed.”

  “But this implies that a bullet was fired. It was not a shotgun matter?”

  “No, no. The birds were killed by a rifleman. Quite definitely. They tell me that it was a weapon of small calibre.”

  “But the marksman might have operated at some distance?” Ghote asked.

  “Oh yes. Oh yes. Look.”

  The acting-Director pointed with one free hand through the bright oblong of the window beside him.

  “We are very much surrounded by the city here, as you know,” he said. “It is a location by no means suitable for a properly conducted zoological establishment. So you see, up there: mill buildings of various sorts. Anyone on the roofs of any of those places could shoot down into the gardens. Anyone at all. Or they could shoot from the main body of the Victoria Gardens. From anywhere.”

  Ghote sensed a great cloud of heavy despondency hovering over him. But he made up his mind that he would fight it off.

  “Very well,” he said briskly. “For the time being we will abandon the approach by opportunity, and we will tackle the approach by motive. Would you be good enough to obtain for me a list of any personnel recently dismissed?”

  “There is no one.”

  “No one? But surely-”

  “Three years ago we dismissed an assistant keeper. There was a strike. The animals suffered severely. It is now not our policy to effect dismissals.”

  “I see,” said Ghete.

  He carefully turned to the other end of the scale and flipped to a new page in his notebook.

  “Well, can you outline for me the offices and duties of the senior staff here?” he asked.

  If it was impossible to dismiss a lowly assistant keeper, it was certainly possible to remove a Director who had allowed valuable birds to be shot. And with the Director dismissed an attractive vacancy would be there for the filling.

  “Yes, senior posts are a very simple matter,” the acting-Director replied. “We are not a large organisation, disgracefully small in fact. But other branches of science appear to receive priority.”

  “So there are how many senior posts?” Ghote asked quickly.

  “There is the Director, who, naturally, has a deputy. And then there is only myself, my official title is Head of Research, and I am at present, as you know, acting-Director.”