Inspector Ghote Draws a Line

by H. R. F. Keating

  And with those words a wild notion came to Ghote. Up to now he had treated Sir Asif with the greatest deference. He had felt that to be his duty, since he was here for the purpose of protecting the old man. But Sir Asif had made things as difficult as he could for him from the very beginning. Very well, he would see now what opposing the autocrat would do. To hell with politeness and respect, those twin taboos.

  “But, excuse me, Judge,” he interrupted. A sudden dryness in his throat had made the words come out in a curious croak, but he was determined to get out what he had to say. “Excuse me, but why, if you believe no one is ever reading Mr. Dhebar’s publication, why do you still write for it?”

  Behind him he heard Begum Roshan give a little gasp of dismay, and was aware too that Father Adam had sat abruptly forward in his high-back carved chair. And from the Saint, out of the comer of his eye, Ghote thought he had detected once again that extraordinary irradiating sun-warm smile.

  “A nice point.”

  The judge’s expression was unyielding as ever. But Ghote realised that the words he had spoken were an acknowledgement that his challenge had at least put a finger on the truth.

  “Yes, a nice point. And under the pressure of your cross-examination, Doctor, I fear I shall have to make two admissions. First, that perhaps The Sputnik has a slightly wider readership than I was inclined playfully to imply. And, second, that I myself in my old age have fallen prey to the vanity of authorship. I had allowed myself to hope that the plain expression of plain facts, however few the ears that heard them, would do some good in these dark times, that with lies and corruption all around us a few grains of truth would show up like specks of white on the universal blackness.”

  “And the memoirs, Judge?” Mr. Dhebar broke in, an inexorably puffing locomotive proceeding along its rails. “The memoirs, are they also intended to wake up India?”

  “The memoirs?”

  It was evident to Ghote that the old man—and he was after all a very old man—was for the moment quite unable to recall that he was supposed to be writing memoirs at all.

  He found himself, without thinking, coming to the rescue. But at the same time he was not above taking advantage of the situation to press home the small victory he had just gained.

  “Ah, yes, Judge,” he said, “as your assistant on the memoirs there are one or two questions I need to put to you as soon as possible. The world is waiting for your words, you know. So would it be convenient if we were to meet this evening before dinner?”

  It was an unfair thing to do to an old man. But he had arrived here expecting to receive fair dealing himself, and he had failed to get it. So if there was no other way of inducing Sir Asif to give him more information, then this was how he was going to do it. He must at least get a look at some of the other notes the judge had received, and he ought too to hear from the old man—the only person in the house, if anybody, who had reason to wish him ill.

  Well, he had made his bid. Would it succeed?

  The judge stood in silence. He was leaning on his silver-topped cane heavily now, and his eyes were so deep-sunken as to be almost closed.

  “No”

  It was not his answer. It was a cry from Begum Roshan.

  “No,” she repeated. “No, you must not do it. He is an old man, a tired old man. I cannot let you make him work when he needs to rest. I cannot.”

  He felt a glint of fury at the interruption. What was she doing? She knew who he was and why he was here. She must have realised what it really was he had been asking of her father. And to intervene like that. What were her motives? Was she not really protecting the old man but protecting herself? Was she afraid of what he might say about her now that he seemed to be less unyielding? Had she had some reason for sending him those notes herself? Or was it simply after all that she could not bear to see her aged father tormented?

  But, whatever the cause of her outburst, it had precisely the opposite effect from what she had intended.

  Ghote saw the sunken eyes between the judge’s oddly flattened nose light up again as if they were twin funeral pyres, almost extinguished, to which an unexpected gust of evening breeze had brought suddenly new life.

  “When I require your assistance, Begum, I shall know that my tomb is really ready for me.”

  The words were harsh. Ghote found himself wishing violently that he was anywhere other than in this big, dim, heavily furnished, faded room. Anywhere. Even in the worst Bombay slum. But he nevertheless felt impelled to turn and look at the victim of the judges harshness.

  And for a moment he thought he saw in her fine-boned face rebellion and proud anger. He thought that now at last Sir Asif had overstepped the mark.

  But it was for a moment only.

  And then the eyes looked meekly down.

  “Yes, Father.”

  The judge turned to Ghote.

  “Very well, Doctor,” he said. “After we have had tea I will with great pleasure give you an hour of my time.”

  4

  For the whole of the hour or more during which the six of them had taken tea out on the broad pillared terrace beyond the drawing room windows the judge scarcely uttered a word. Nor did he eat more than a mouthful or two from the plates of cucumber sandwiches, of curry puffs, of little round cakes with a blob of pink icing on each which Raman assiduously brought round. Once when the orderly attempted with a hesitant smile and a curious skipping approach to slide onto his master’s plate a previously rejected little cake he did speak. But it was only to snarl, “Go away, you damned fool, go away.” Otherwise he sat, eyelids drooping, apparently exhausted almost to the point of sleep by the emotions of the episode indoors.

  Ghote, too, ate little. Partly this was because he found he much disliked the cucumber sandwich he had first been offered—it seemed tasteless as a water-soaked chapatty: cucumber was fit only for slaking thirst squirted perhaps with the juice of a lime when there was nothing better to be got—and somehow Raman failed to hand him the plate of tasty curry puffs more than once. But chiefly his disinclination to eat was because with every passing minute he became more and more worried about Sir Asif.

  What if the old man were to have a heart attack? From the greyness of his face, in dismaying contrast to the dazzling white folds of the tall pagri on his head, it certainly looked as if at any moment he might become ill. And if he died . . . ? How well then would the task which he had been sent here to perform have been carried out?

  But, with the first hints of swift-coming night in the unbroken dome of the sky above, the solemn ceremonious meal at last came to an end and Sir Asif at once pushed himself totteringly but determinedly to his feet, the fleshless hands clasped over the silver knob of his stick.

  “Come, Dr. Ghote,” he said.

  And slowly, he made his way over to the open windows of the drawing room and went inside. Ghote followed, hovering at the old man’s elbow expecting at any moment to have to catch the frail body as it fell. But, with an almost painful lack of speed, they went through the drawing room, down the long passage to the hall, and then onwards up the equally long passage that led to the library.

  The tall book-lined room was almost in complete darkness. Beside the judge’s customary chair, on an ivory-inlaid table, there was a single lamp switched on—from outside the wheezy sound of the old generator could be distinctly heard—and next to it the elegant shape of a hookah, put there, Ghote guessed, by Raman, who had absented himself from the tea table some time before Sir Asif had moved. If the day before had been anything to go by, the judge did not normally smoke at this hour. But perhaps Begum Roshan had suggested it as a means of calming irritated nerves.

  Only would it do so?

  At the sight of it, the judge seemed to give a little petulant groan. But in a moment this was explained.

  “That wretched fellow Dhebar, I have forgotten to give him his weekly pabulum. Inspector, may I ask you to do me a kindness? It’s there. Over on the table by the window. Would you take it to him?
Then we shan’t be interrupted.”

  Considerably uncertain as to what “pabulum” was, Ghote headed across the long room towards the table the judge had indicated. On it, by the last gleams of daylight coming through the open window, he saw three sheets of white paper covered in neat firm handwriting. Ah, the judge’s article for next week’s Sputnik.

  He gathered the sheets up. And as he did so a sudden altogether convenient notion darted into his head. He had wondered how he could get a message to Bombay asking to have P. N. Dhebar’s antecedents checked. Well, he would use P. N. Dhebar himself as a messenger. A few rapidly written lines in a letter addressed not to C.I.D. headquarters opposite Crawford Market but instead to his wife at home asking her to take them to the deputy commissioner: that would do the trick. And Mr. Dhebar would think nothing of posting such a letter for him in the town.

  He walked back, calmly as he could, through the long, dark room. But the moment the heavy door was shut behind him he took to his heels and sprinted down the passage to the hallway. Thank goodness, he thought, I can find my way quickly now from the stairs to my room.

  The whole business took him less than ten minutes. The letter to Protima—luckily he had had the foresight to buy half a dozen airmail forms before he had left home—was a terrible scrawl, but it would achieve his object.

  Coming clattering down the stairs again, he saw that just beyond the open double doors of the house Begum Roshan was saying good-bye in the darkness to the editor of The Sputnik. Beside them at a little distance the American priest and the Saint stood watching. He hurried through and handed Mr. Dhebar first the judge’s weekly article and after it the flimsy blue airmail form. Then he took a hasty farewell.

  “I trust,” Mr. Dhebar said, with evident falsity, “that your work on judge sahib’s memoirs goes exceedingly well.”

  Back at the library he saw that the judge had fallen asleep. He was sitting in his chair beside the ivory-inlaid table and he was snoring. A thin high-pitched ugly little rasping sound.

  On the table the hookah stood unused, its mouthpiece lying beside it. And beside that, startlingly visible even from the doorway, glaringly present where it had not been before, was a folded white square of stiff paper.

  He did not need to cross to the table and take up the folded square at its corners with the tips of his fingers to realise that here was another note threatening with death the old man wheezily snoring in his chair.

  Outside, above the steady chugging of the ancient generator motor, he heard the rattle of Mr. Dhebar’s scooter as it was started up and headed towards the river. No chance then to send this square of paper via the unwitting editor to Bombay for proper examination by the Fingerprint Bureau. No chance yet of bringing some proper police work to this damned isolated, slow, fish-in-a-tank house.

  He teased open the folded square.

  Judge. 12 days only remaining. May the Lord have mercy upon your sotd.

  Short enough. But it said all that it needed to. That there were twelve days only now till the thirtieth anniversary of the day on which old Sir Asif, then still quite young Sir Asif, must have pronounced in public the identical words to the note’s last sentence.

  He thought rapidly.

  Yes, any one of the four possible English-speaking typewriter users could have put the note where he had found it. The window over by the big table was half open. Any one of the four of them out in the garden beyond the open house door could have slipped away from the others in the darkness for a few moments. Begum Roshan would be particularly skilled in not waking her father. Mr. Dhebar might have come into the room for the quite legitimate purpose of asking the judge for his article and then have taken advantage of finding him asleep. Father Adam had been standing, when he himself had come out, at the greatest distance from the others. The Saint, wildly unlikely though it seemed, could on his bare feet have crept up least noisily to the sleeping judge.

  As soon as there was a chance he would have to make discreet inquiries about what each of them had seen during the short time he had been up in his room himself. But there would be difficulties over that. Embarrassing difficulties. He was not here in this cursed crumbling place as a public servant authorised to question. He was only Dr. Ghote. Of Philosophy.

  No, it was still through the judge that his way to bringing the case to a proper conclusion must lie. Unless . . . Unless here in this sheet of paper he had a way of by-passing that stonelike obstacle. If only he could get the paper quickly to Bombay and the Fingerprint Bureau.

  “Well, Inspector, let me see it. It is after all addressed to me, is it not?”

  He looked down. The judge’s eyes were wide open and bright with awareness and command.

  “Yes, sir, the note is addressed to you. But may I keep it and tell you what it says. It is quite short only.”

  “And addressed to me.”

  A flesh-shrunk hand was held out.

  He put the sheet of stiff paper into it. He had considered for a moment begging Sir Asif to hold it as delicately as he himself had done, but at once he had realised that the old man would never tolerate the thought of what he would consider his private correspondence being pored over by Bombay technicians. In fact, it was most unlikely now that the note would ever come back into his own hands.

  He watched the judge read those few, all too clear words and tried to quell the anger he felt at the old man’s useless obstinacy. An explosion of protest would get him not one inch further forward.

  As far as he could make out the old man had experienced no emotion whatsoever in reading this new threat to his life.

  A short grunt was the only acknowledgement that the message had been absorbed. And then the sheet had been folded—he knew it—and put firmly into the inner pocket of the beautifully cut white silk jacket.

  But now was the time to tackle him. It could be put off no longer.

  He gave a short cough.

  “Sir,” he said, “it is becoming more and more clear that the individual who is writing these notes intends to carry out the threat he has repeatedly made.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course, sir? Sir, have you some other evidence of the firmness of this person’s intention? Isn’t it that you have in fact some good idea who the person actually is?”

  “Inspector, I was merely making the reasonable assumption that if someone declares unequivocally that he intends to do something he must be presumed to be going to carry out whatever action it is.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  But “No, sir” was what he would have liked to have said. No, Sir Asif, the world is not all peopled with men and women of your unbending cast of mind. Yet it did hold one supreme example of inflexibility: Sir Asif himself. Who, from the way he had just taken possession of that one piece of solid evidence, was plainly as determined as ever not to co-operate in any way.

  However he must go on making the attempt.

  “Please, sir, may we now have a thorough discussion of the whole situation? A person is threatening your life. That to begin with is a criminal offence. Your daughter is aware that this threat has been made, and she is most naturally concerned for your safety. I have been sent here with the two duties of, number one, protecting you from any possible assault, and, number two, discovering who it is who has been making these illegal threats. Now, sir, surely I am entitled in this to your maximum co-operation.”

  “Inspector, I have never requested police protection.”

  “No, sir.”

  Ghote paused, then took his life, he almost felt, in his hands.

  “No, sir, you did not request protection. But all the same, sir, you have in fact consented to have me in your house.”

  The judge’s eyes came swivelling round to him with the swiftness of a vulture’s.

  “Inspector—Doctor—Whatever I am to call you. I agreed to the ridiculous charade of having you here because I knew that my daughter would make my life more of a misery than she habitually is apt to do if I did not. But
you are free to leave at any moment that you wish. Free to pack your bags and go.”

  Battered though he felt, flogged even, he brought himself once more to state the full truth of the situation.

  “And free also to remain, sir?”

  Silence.

  In the high, hardly lit room the only sound to be heard was the muffled chugging of the generator engine down in the tin shed under the tamarind tree at the far end of the gardens by the ruin of the old fort.

  “Inspector, understand this. I am perfectly willing to face the consequences of my own actions. I am aware that the sentences I passed in the Madurai Trial brought on me a storm of opprobrium scarcely equalled before or since. I am aware that a great many people believed, and still believe, that I ought not to have condemned those men to death. But, Inspector, it was my duty to do so. They had been found guilty of a crime that carried a sentence of death and there were no mitigating factors I could properly take account of.”

  In the circle of light from the lamp on the ivory-inlaid table the old man’s face, which had looked as if it too had been made out of ivory, broke into a small smile.

  “Inspector, my duty then was harder, you know, than that of Allah above. He is all powerful. He can at His will let the wicked go unpunished, but I am only human. I could not then, as a duly appointed judge under human law, go one step in mercy beyond the bounds of that law.”

  A cough. A dry little cough.

  “I passed on those men the only possible sentence.”

  Looking down at the old man, Ghote endeavoured to suppress any least show of emotion.

  “Let me tell you something, Inspector,” the judge added, with a palpable change of direction.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “It is a matter I have not put before another living soul for fifty years. It concerns one of the very first cases that came before me. I was then a sub-judge. It was a trial in a remote area, a case that had its origin in a village which, in those distant days, hardly came into contact with the outside world at all. And it was an affair about which there was scarcely a scintilla of doubt. But you know what things are like in those deep mofussil areas. Every witness is likely to be related in some manner to either the victim or to the suspected perpetrator, and there is a tendency always to improve upon the evidence. To burnish up the already bright.”