Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker

by H. R. F. Keating

  Ghote thought about this. He knew on the one hand that it was not true: Bunny Baindur had cared enough about the people he had played his joker’s tricks on to select with deadly accuracy what would hurt them most. On the other hand a man in Harbaksh Singh’s position would know a very great deal about a person they had served like the Rajah. A palace officer meant a palace: a palace meant intrigue and intrigue meant the need to know.

  He looked over towards the open french windows and the rapidly cooling body of Bunny Baindur.

  “You seem highly certain,” he said to Harbaksh Singh. “I got drunk with his father when the boy was born,” the captain said. “It was my duty. I taught him to use his first gun. I made the necessary arrangements for his first dancing girl.”

  “And you say he cared for nobody?”

  “He cared for his father. And his father died when he was ten. He never cared for his mother. The palace women began to gossip about it when he could hardly walk. He has no close relatives. He never married. He had hundreds of affairs, always with some sort of dancing girl. They never lasted a week.”

  “Relatives?” Ghote said. “Do you know then who inherits the title?”

  “No one,” said Captain Singh. “It was part of the terms of the Instrument of Abdication when the State was made over to India. There was to be no Rajah of Bhedwar after this one, and no income for any successors.”

  “Who will he leave his money to all the same?” “There won’t be more than a few rupees to leave, old man. Bunny spent every penny of his income and he’d eaten up all the capital by the time he dispensed with my services.”

  “Yes,” Ghote said, “and why did he do that?”

  The battered young-old captain smiled. Crookedly.

  “Look at me, old boy. What use do you think I’d be to Bunny Baindur? I was lucky he hung on to me as long as he did. And that was pure forgetfulness.”

  “Lucky? You liked him then?"

  “Liked him? No, you couldn’t like something that was as incapable of human feelings as that boy. No, I was lucky he kept me on because I'm fit for nothing else."

  He looked down at the spreading heap of his stomach jutting out in front of him as he sprawled on the big chair.

  “And why did you come here to-night ?” Ghote snapped out.

  He put the question fiercely not because he expected to catch Harbaksh Singh out. It did not sound as if his alibi would fail. But there was a need to say something, and quickly.

  Harbaksh Singh rolled his bloodshot eyes towards Ghote.

  “I came to see if I could borrow a few hundred rupees," he said.

  Ghote pounced.

  “From this man who cared for nobody? I think you have been telling a pack of lies, Captain Singh."

  But Harbaksh Singh was not to be shaken. He shook his head wearily. The grizzled hair under the neatly wound white turban.

  “He might have lent me something,” he said. “Or he might not. He didn’t care enough about me to refuse, and he didn’t care enough about all the things I've done for him since he was three or four years old to agree."

  It was convincing. Ghote felt so passionately curious about its implications that he would have put his next question whether it had been useful or sensible or not.

  “What would you say if I told you that in the last six months this man who cares nothing either way for anybody had gone to an immense amount of trouble to play certain expensive practical jokes on certain people, choosing with infinite pains just what would hurt them most?”

  It took Harbaksh Singh some while to take it all in. He sat in the big chair opposite Ghote, slumped almost as if he was asleep. But in due time he did reply.

  “I would never have believed it.”

  But there was a small frown on his time-marked forehead under the white turban.

  “Of course,” he went on slowly, “I have not seen him more than from a distance for the last six months and more. It is nearly a year since he dismissed me.”

  The frown was still there, persistent as a midge.

  “There is something,” he said, teasing the words out. “Something.”

  Then he sat up straight, with an echo of his first, hard-kept militarism. He looked intently at Ghote.

  “Yes,” he said, “I would believe you. There was always something there, deep, deep down. I refused at times to think about it. But I knew really it was there. I wonder what started it off?”

  Ghote looked at the sprawled corpse.

  “I would be most surprised if we ever knew,” he said.

  : : : :

  Sgt. Desai reported to him in his office early next morning. He was all eagerness. A moon-struck magnet looking for iron. Ghote, after a night of supervising police surgeon, fingerprint men, photographers, ambulance men, looked at him grimly.

  “Where do we go, Inspector? Who’s the first suspect we see?”

  It stung Ghote more than he expected.

  “How do you think a murder inquiry is conducted?” he shouted. “Do you think the officer in charge just sits making up theories and goes rushing off accusing one person after another?”

  “No, Inspector," Desai said, looking like a bullied schoolboy.

  Ghote glared at him. He stood in front of his desk totally silent.

  “You do not think that, do you?"

  “No, Inspector."

  “Then what do you think?"

  “Don't know, Inspector."

  Gritting his teeth, Ghote made himself reach down to his drawer of scrap paper and take out a wad. He picked up a pencil. He wrote, “Death of the Rajah of Bhedwar" at the top of the first sheet.

  He looked up at Desai, who had tiptoed—every creak of his boots maddeningly audible—over to the heavy little chair against the wall and was sitting on it now, face vacant as ever.

  “At least we know this," Ghote said. “Murder is not a joke. Nobody kills a person as a joke. You have to be serious, if only for a short time, to commit a murder, to take a human life."

  He paused, his thoughts hesitating.

  After a few seconds Sgt. Desai leant forward on his heavy chair.

  “Yes, Inspector," he said reverently.

  “Damn it," Ghote shouted at him. “Do you think I have nothing better to do than to spend all my time thinking about what causes people to kill other people. The way to deal with a murder case is to find out who had the opportunity to kill the victim, where he was killed and when and exactly how, and then the identity of the killer is often plain enough. And bas. Enough. Make sure of every step of your evidence and get him into court.”

  “Very good, Inspector.”

  Desai, idiot Desai, actually began to rise to his feet as if he was going off at once to carry out the orders given.

  Ghote slammed his open palm down on the surface of the desk in front of him with a resounding bang.

  “None of which helps when your man was shot from a distance, in a place where in the middle of the night there is hardly anybody about, ever.”

  “No, Inspector.”

  “You know the only thing that has come into my head?”

  “No, Inspector.”

  Those wide, wide stupid eyes.

  “It is this: that almost anyone could have shot him and that no one—no one—had any reason to except those people he had made victims of his damned jokes.”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  Desai licked his thick lower lip.

  “Who’s the first subspect we see, Inspector?”

  : : : :

  Anil Bedekar, sometime street urchin, owner of last year’s favourite for the Indian Derby, was not exactly willing to be interviewed, especially as Ghote thought it wisest only to say he wished to see him “in connection with the theft of the racehorse Roadside Romeo.” It took half the morning to get him to the telephone to discuss making an appointment at all.

  “I cannot see. I am at stables.”

  “But I could come to your stables, Mr. Bedekar.”

  “Come to
Poona to talk a matter that is finished?”

  Ghote gulped a little.

  “But certainly to Poona, sir.”

  “All the same, I am very busy."

  “Perhaps I could come early, sir? Early to-morrow? Before you have other engagements?"

  “Early?"

  “Yes, Mr. Bedekar. I would come as early as you wish.”

  There was a long pause at the other end. Tiny, nearly audible conversations flickered to and fro. Ghote began to wonder whether he had been left hanging on to a mere nothing.

  “Mr. Bedekar?" he said tentatively.

  “Very well, Inspector. You can come."

  “Thank you, sir. It is most kind. What time shall I make it?”

  “I am up at four, Inspector, to watch the gallops. Come then.”

  “At four, sir?”

  “Yes, man. Four. Four a.m. See how you like that, Inspector.”

  Ghote had not much liked it. It had meant waking in the middle of the night to drive the hundred and twenty miles to Anil Bedekar's stables just outside Poona and arriving there as the very first grey light began to seep into the sky. It was cold—not just pleasantly fresh, but cold. And this was something that Ghote had not taken into consideration. He shivered as he approached the low range of white buildings where once a horse called Roadside Romeo had set off to take the Indian Derby for his owner and had come back all unknown when his place had been usurped by a donkey.

  But if Ghote was unprepared for the cold, Sgt. Desai was ridiculously struck down by it. He marched along half a pace in the rear and his teeth chattered. Loudly.

  “Stop that damned noise, man," Ghote snapped at last.

  Before the sergeant had time to enter on any long explanation, Ghote tapped sharply on what seemed to be the main door to the buildings.

  It swung open with a jerk that took him entirely by surprise and he found himself staring straight into the ominous twin barrels of a steadily held shotgun.

  “Good morning," he said.

  He spoke quickly, to get some unprovocative words out as soon as possible. He tried not to speak too quickly, so as not to send out dangerous waves of nervousness.

  “What do you want?" said the man holding the gun.

  He was a square-faced, grey-haired fellow of sixty or so, dressed, for all the coldness, in cotton shorts and a flapping-tailed raggedy shirt. But, in spite of the poorness of his clothes, he looked as if he well knew how to use the expensive shotgun in his hands. And at a range of four feet his pronounced squint would hardly affect the Lssue.

  “I am wishing to see Mr. Bedekar. By appointment," Ghote said.

  He had been on the point of adding his name, but a last moment thought made him hesitate. A police officer is not popular everywhere.

  Without moving the gun by so much as a millimeter and without taking his squinting gaze off Ghote’s own face, the grey-haired man called out: “Says he wants to see you, sahib."

  From somewhere inside the building a voice Ghote recognised as Anil Bedekar's shouted back.

  “Wants to see me? At this time- Wait. Ask him if his name is-Oh, I do not know what. Ask if he is

  police inspector."

  “Inspector Ghote from Bombay," Ghote called back.

  He heard Anil Bedekar laugh. It sounded like a hyena, even though there was a grudging note in it.

  “Let him in," he called.

  The pointed gun curtly waved both himself and the anxious-looking Desai into the building. A warm smell of horses and straw assailed his nostrils, and he was grateful for it.

  Anil Bedekar, short, pock-faced, carelessly dressed was standing among a small knot of men peering intently at a horse. Ghote saw that Jack Cooper—once a suspect as the joker—was among them together with a jockey holding a round white racing helmet loosely in one hand and two attendant syces, one holding either end of a rope bridle round the horse’s head.

  “Inspector,” Anil Bedekar said as he caught sight of him, “how do you like getting up early in the morning?” “If I can just have ten minutes to talk that matter,” Ghote answered, “I do not mind.”

  But Anil Bedekar had turned back to the horse. “Perhaps, perhaps,” he answered in a distant voice. Ghote stood and waited. Desai, standing a little behind him, was looking round at the warm stalls, each with its thoroughbred in it, with an air of dumbstruck wonderment. But it was a long wait. The group round the horse in front of them talked in low voices and in a jargon Ghote hardly understood. He gathered that something seemed to be wrong with the horse and that it was a question of whether it was permanent or temporary, but what exactly it was he could by no means make out.

  After a while he noticed a gentle moaning sound from behind him. He turned. Desai was no longer dumbfoundedly wondering. He was propped up against a much-stained white wall behind them, sound asleep.

  And then a sudden decision was taken. Almost before Ghote realised it, the horse that was the centre of discussion was being led outside by the two syces and the others were going with it. Ghote shook himself and followed.

  He took one look at Desai and decided to leave him where he was. If he was given a pretty sharp awakening, so much the better.

  Outside it was still cold. Anil Bedekar and Jack Cooper were wearing thickish trousers and coloured windcheaters. Ghote’s trousers were deplorably thin and his jacket no better. He flapped his arms vigorously. The nervous thoroughbred started and reared up a little. Anil Bedekar swept round and gave him such a furious glance that he thought his chances of an interview without creating a lot of fuss must have come practically down to zero. Making every effort to move with perfect discretion he tiptoed after the rest of the party.

  The horse was put through a severe test on the gallops. Time and again it made a short timed sprint. After each one there was much consulting of stop-watches and discussion. Even when at last the sun began to appear over the horizon and the mists to lift a little it was still very chilly. Several times Ghote had sneezed. Each time he had t successfully stifled every bit of the noise.

  And then after one sprint which seemed no different from the rest there was sudden jubilation. Jack Cooper slapped the little jockey on the back as he slipped out of the saddle. Even Anil Bedekar himself came up, unslung a Thermos flask from its strap over his shoulder and offered tea all round. Ghote was included. As the racehorse owner poured the delicious-looking steamy liquid into a plastic cup for him he looked at him humorously, stumpy teeth bared in a grin.

  “Well, Inspector,” he said, “you are cold. You have earned your ten minutes of talk.”

  “Can we step aside a little?” Ghote said.

  Anil Bedekar’s good humour persisted.

  “If you like. If you like.”

  They walked over the dew-wet grass together. When they were just out of earshot of the others Ghote opened his interrogation. He made his remark sound as casual as he could.

  “I am afraid we have both lost a friend,” he said.

  Bedekar glanced at him quickly.

  “You mean the Rajah?” he said. “I saw it in the paper. But I do not know that he was exactly a friend.”

  Ghote would not let the quick hope that sprang up at these words take fire. Perhaps Anil Bedekar did not feel that the Rajah was a friend. But all the same if he had killed him he was not going to go about telling everybody he hated him.

  He proceeded cautiously.

  “Not a friend?”

  Anil Bedekar grunted.

  “Who am I?” he said. “I am Anil Bedekar who began life in the gutters of Bombay. That is where I was born. In a gutter. And what was he? A rajah. A prince.”

  “And the last of the Rajahs of Bhedwar,” Ghote said.

  “Yes, yes,” Anil Bedekar said, joining with decent gusto in the mourning. “The last of his line.”

  He left a little silence in the chilly air. Then he laughed. Loudly.

  “And I am the first of my line,” he said.

  Ghote looked over at the substantial white-
walled stable buildings.

  “You have certainly come a great way,” he agreed.

  “And a little further only to go now,” Bedekar said.

  Ghote guessed what he had in mind. The one more step, the final ambition, the Indian Derby.

  “A little further?” he asked innocently.

  “Yes,” Bedekar said. “I am determined to win the Indian Derby. You know something?”

  Ghote turned to look at the racehorse owner. His pocked face was shining with a sort of innocent enthusiasm.

  “You know something? It is my heart’s desire to win that race because that was the first race I ever saw. I was eight, maybe nine years old at the time. How should such a man as I know when he was born? Horoscopes are for the respectable. But I was eight or nine and, I do not to this day know why, I went up to Mahalaxmi Racecourse that day. Perhaps it was the crowds that drew me. Where there were crowds there was a little to eat for a hungry boy, and I saw the Indian Derby. And that was what did it. That was what made me say for the first time ‘Push’. And ever since have I pushed. And now it is only one very little push more.”

  Ghote saw his chance.

  “But last year,” he said. “Last year when you had it in your pocket?”

  And the cheerfulness did drain away from the pug-ugly face.

  “Last year,” Anil Bedekar said, “when that happened to me I was so angry I would have killed the person who did it. With my hands I would have killed.”

  Ghote saw that his broad, short-fingered hands were even now convulsively clutching.

  “But at the time you had no idea?” he asked.

  Quite quietly.

  “At the time I had no idea.”

  Anil Bedekar drew in a long breath of the crisp morning air.

  “And now still to-day I have no idea,” he said.

  “You are certain? No clue? No suspicion even?”

  “None. None at all. But now I do not worry.”

  Ghote looked at him keenly. It was impossible to tell what was going on behind that not pleasant countenance.