He must hurry along the now more familiar high-ceilinged passage—yes, no bluish map-of-Bangladesh mildew stain on the wall— and open the door.
“Ah, Dr. Ghote. We were awaiting you.”
The judge was sitting, back formidably upright, white pagri stiff above his head, both veined hands resting on the knob of his stick, in one of the tall faded velvet chairs facing the doorway. And a yard or so away stood Raman holding out his silver tray and looking distinctly puzzled.
At once Ghote realised what the situation was. The judge had ordered Raman not to begin serving drinks until all the guests were assembled, not in fact to give him his own drink, since none of the others seemed to take whisky, until this missing intrusive newcomer was present. But the exact moment when “Drinks Before Dinner” were served was customarily sacrosanct. Poor Raman. A fearful dilemma was put in front of him. And, no doubt, in telling him not to come forward with his tray the judge had been as scathing as ever.
Well, at least the fellow was used to such fury.
Even the others, he saw as he offered a stammered apology, were looking uneasily embarrassed. Or Begum Roshan and Father Adam were. Because the Saint, sitting with heels tucked neatly under himself on the velvet chair, was gazing in the direction of one of the carved wooden screens with a look of serenity.
Ghote found himself hoping that that gaze would turn towards himself and that he would be subjected once more to one of those smiles, even though he felt at the same time that if he were to receive a smile it would somehow show the others that this was the man who not long before had been creeping through the gardens doing the work of a spy.
He frowned. Surely he had been right to have done what he had? How else could he now save the judge from himself? Save, in all likelihood, the old man’s life?
He turned away sharply and made his way over to a vacant chair, holding his head a little stiffly so as to avoid seeing the saffron-robed figure of the Saint.
“Raman, offer Dr. Ghote some whisky. Don’t just stand there looking like an idiot.”
Sir Asif seemed to be in fine form. How deeply buried again was the man who had once set free a certain Vaishnavite singer of holy songs and had learnt later that he had killed again?
“Raman, Dr. Ghote appears to have been lying down on the earth somewhere. His shirt is stained. Go and fetch a brush. No, no, man, my drink must wait. There are some laws of hospitality still, little though they seem to be regarded nowadays.”
Raman produced his sudden horseshoe grin, quickly set down his tray, and hurried towards the door.
“No, no. No, please. Kindly not to bother. I cannot think how I got my shirt in this disgraceful state, but please do not trouble yourselves about it.”
“My dear Doctor, we must trouble ourselves. We cannot help seeing the curious garment. We know no gentleman would wish to appear at dinner in that state.”
“Yes. No. No, of course, Sir Asif. But— But please may I leave and put on another shirt. And, please, do please have your whisky.” “It is good of you, Ghote, to concern yourself so much with my comforts. And perhaps you had better leave us. Poor Raman is quite confused by all this.”
Ghote shot up from his chair, saw that—damn, damn—some of the earth from his shirt had left a stain on the pallid velvet on one of its arms, stooped to brush it off, decided that doing so would only draw attention to the mess, turned, looked round the long room, and caught, full on him like a searchlight beam, the Saint’s smile.
He stood still, conscious that he must look like a fool with his mouth hanging open and a stare of pure stupidity in his eyes, but incapable of moving.
At last—had two seconds only passed? had ten minutes?—he broke away, went to the door and fumbled with its knob, and found himself eventually out in the dimly lit passage.
He moved off slowly, thoughts tumbling in his mind.
The Saint. Did he really have the extraordinary power he seemed to? Or was it just that he had the trick of hypnosis and Ghote himself, cut off in this remote place, was unusually susceptible?
And what about the other three possible suspects? Which of them, now that the someone extra was no longer a possibility, was in fact the person threatening the judge? Determined Mr. Dhebar? Or Father Adam, the Naxalite? Or was it possible after all that the whole business was simply some obscure notion of Begum Roshan’s? That she wanted not to kill her father but to frighten him, and that when this had seemed not to be effective she had made the notes she had written public knowledge so as to increase that pressure?
Unless she did want to kill her father. And was trying to create for herself a kind of alibi in advance.
But until he knew more of Sir Asif's relations with all of them— why, he still had no idea what an American priest with Naxalite opinions was doing in this house, or why it was that the Saint chose to come here to sleep on the floor of that little-used musty room—he would get no further. No, his interview with the judge would be the key to it all. And the moment when he must persuade that obstinate man to give him that interview.
If he lacked courage to demand that, then before long the atmosphere of the place would envelop him as it seemed to have enveloped them all and turn him into another remote ghostlike figure gliding to and fro within it.
Shirt. Shirt. Shirt.
He raced the rest of the way to his room, tugged open the door of the almirah, pulled out a shirt, inspected it, decided it looked all right, and handed the one he was peeling off to the dhobi for washing. He then struggled into the fresh garment, carefully reknotted his tie and started down again for the drawing room. And the prospect of tackling Sir Asif.
Talk, when he re-entered the big dim room, seemed to have eddied once again to a standstill. Sir Asif looked at him gravely and took a sip from his glass. He appeared to have got through only a third of his first tumblerful. It was going to be a good long time before he finished his quota of two.
But, though then a mercifully long period seemed to lie ahead before he had to put his pistol to the judge’s head, he found himself suddenly determined to make the move now. The bubble of indecision in which they all seemed to be floating had abruptly become offensive to him. He would pierce it. Now.
“Sir Asif,” he said with grating briskness, “it occurred to me while I was up in my room that really there are still a great many unanswered questions. About the matter we discussed earlier.”
The judge said nothing. But the cold expression on that face with the curiously flattened nose—the nose he shared with his mad son—was all the answer anyone could have wanted.
He braced himself again.
“So, sir, perhaps it would be convenient if we had a short meeting in the library before it is time for dinner tonight?”
Again Sir Asif did not speak.
But his eyes said: Young man, you have suggested altering the established practice of my house. It has been the custom for drinks to be taken before dinner in here for year upon year. Never has anyone at any time left this room before the hour of dinner. Now you have dared to suggest that someone should.
The silence lengthened.
He wondered for a moment whether he should turn to the Saint, beg from him another wave of reassurance.
But, no, he would fight this battle on his own. He had to. The Saint would not give his blessing to blackmail. And he would know that blackmail was precisely what it was.
Ghote coughed. A grating sound.
“Sir, I hope my suggestion is not upsetting.” He was having to expel each separate word as if it was a shot from a revolver. “But, sir, I am not at all clear concerning your family bio-data. And I can hardly assist with your memoirs, sir, without knowing about your own family.”
He felt obliged then to give a light laugh by way of covering up what to Sir Asif ought to have been a plain message. And, combined with those remarked-upon signs of his having recently been prowling round the gardens of the house, a clear threat.
In the big room—the light from
its single chandelier was so dim and orangey that it was hardly possible to see into the far corner by the photograph-crammed surface of the piano—the curious sound he had produced fell away to nothingness.
He stood waiting. Perhaps soon Sir Asif would join in this pretence of a conversation, and by conniving at the pretence acknowledge that a message had been conveyed to him.
In a few moments he even began to hope that one of the others would say something that would break the increasingly oppressive silence. The Saint, of course, was excused. But generally Begum Roshan was concerned to keep some sort of conversation going when they were all together. She was, however, making no effort to do so now. Simply sitting there in her high-backed chair, her long fingers, bone thin, plucking at one edge of her sari, lifting it and letting it drop, lifting it again and letting it drop once more. And Father Adam, Mort, why was he not finding some chink in which to insert his appalling Naxalite views? But he was sitting in blank silence. Had Sir Asif said something while he had been out changing his shirt that had reduced them both to furious silence? As likely as not he had.
Well, he would have to say something himself, something more. And he would do it. He would go on until he had presented Sir Asif beyond any possibility of misunderstanding with his ultimatum. “Grant me another private talk, and this time tell me everything I need to know. Or—or I will see that your insane son is transferred to some state institution and that all the world knows about it.”
He cleared his throat and took a step forward to ensure that the maximum of the grudging light from the chandelier fell on him.
“Sir Asif,” he said, “it was in considering the parts of your memoirs that deal with your earlier days that this query arose in my mind. Sir Asif, am I not right to think that some fifty years ago a son was bom to you?”
In the old man’s eyes he saw the anger mounting. At any instant, he felt, it would spill out in such a fire blast of rage as poor Raman was accustomed to endure. Would he take it as unflinchingly as the orderly?
Or perhaps he would not have to. Perhaps instead it would be clear that his duty would be not to bend before the fire storm but to battle it. To answer taunt with hard allegation.
Because, whichever way was necessary, he must obtain the judge’s co-operation. Otherwise the chances of his stopping the old man’s murder were slim indeed.
But Sir Asif was trying the tactic of silence still, suppressing the anger that so plainly boiled just beneath the surface.
“Sir Asif?” Ghote asked again, with as much sharpness as if he was livening up some reluctant witness from the squalor of the Bombay chawls.
“Yes. Fifty years ago a son was born to me.”
He softened at once with the judge’s admission.
“Yes, yes, Sir Asif. And it was what should be said in the memoirs concerning this son that I wanted to discuss. And various other matters also.”
The judge’s face showed no sign, however, of yielding one-quarter inch more. But the “Out of Bounds” declaration, when it came, was not put up by him but by his daughter.
She shot from her chair, face quivering in tiny whirlpools of uncontrollable muscular movement.
“No, Dr. Ghote. You are not to speak of Sikander. You are to leave him out of account altogether. In whatever you do. He does not exist. Not for you. Not at all.”
As suddenly as she had risen up out of her chair, a taut strip of sprung steel, to deliver her veto, she collapsed back into it.
Her father turned towards her.
“Begum, how often have I told you that when I require assistance from you I shall ask?”
And then he once more confronted his adversary.
In the set face with its squashed-down nose Ghote saw no indication yet of surrender. But the old man had yielded to the point of admitting that he had a son. So press him, press him. And to hell with any pretence of being only the dutiful assistant sent to help with the memoirs.
“Sir Asif, the future of your son is in question. Can we go now to discuss?”
But there was not the tiniest softening in the ivory-hard face.
“No, Doctor, we cannot go now—to discuss. There is no room for discussion of this or any other matter.”
And now the rage began to issue from the volcano. Not in the great spewing roar he had half expected but in small, still contained, jets.
“Doctor, I made my position perfectly clear to you earlier this evening. I had some obligations to you. Excessively small obligations. And in no circumstances did I intend to venture one step beyond them. But now you have had the impertinence to pry into my private affairs, and unless I am much mistaken you are threatening to use the knowledge you have gained as my guest here to place me in a position that you think will embarrass or even shame me. Well, learn that I now consider any obligations that I have had now come to an end. You will kindly leave my house.”
Perversely what he chiefly felt after the battering was admiration. Sir Asif had acted as he himself would have liked to have acted in the same circumstances—that is, in the altogether unlikely event of similar circumstances ever occurring in his own modest life. To stick to a principle, even one that was absurd, although sticking to it meant that a secret you had guarded with enormous care and at great expense over long years was exposed to the world: that was fine. Fine.
But it was also damnable.
It broke Ghote’s last frail link with the only source of information that would enable him to do the task he had been sent here to do, to save the judge’s life. And there was nothing now he could do to restore that link. In due course he could put in a report which would eventually result in a police detachment presenting itself here at the old house and escorting Sikander Ibrahim to a state mental asylum. And that would cause great distress to Sir Asif. But it would be no more than an empty revenge.
The judge had won, even if in winning he had perhaps put his life at yet greater risk. But there was nothing to be done but accept that victory.
“Very well, sir,” he said, “since you ask I will go.”
And he turned and walked out of the big dimly lit furniture-crowded room with what dignity he could muster.
It was a very long way to the door.
9
Up in the sanctuary of the room that had been his, Ghote sat on the edge of the high hard bed, the old fan silent above him, and contemplated his position. It was a depressing process.
Here he was, the thin end of the deputy commissioner’s wedge, an instrument placed in position with the sole object of penetrating little by little the wooden obstinacy of old Sir Asif. And the wedge had been snapped clean off. It had been up to him not only to save Sir Asifs life by identifying the sender of the notes, but, as important perhaps to the deputy commissioner, to forestall the avalanche of trouble that would descend if the judge was murdered and his influential cousin, the M.L.A., told the world that the Bombay C.I.D. had been clearly warned of what might happen.
And he had put himself beyond being able to do anything.
There was no possibility of his staying on in the house. That was certain. He had no shadow of a right to be here. He was, as Sir Asif had so scathingly pointed out, a guest. And, no getting past it, he had abused Sir Asi'fs hospitality. The fact that he had done so in order to save the old man from himself did not really put his action in any better a light.
No, he would have to go. And maybe soon.
But thinking now what he would actually have to do to leave sent his level of depression down another thick layer. How was he going to get away? The town was miles distant. It was already night. Even if he walked all the way to the village—and there was the river to get over before he did that, full of hazards shrunken though it was—he would never persuade some villager after darkness had fallen to let him sleep on the platform outside his hut or succeed in inducing the owner of a bullock cart to take him on to the town. Why, they would scarcely get there before dawn. And the village dogs. What would he have to face from them ar
riving there, a stranger and at night?
He slipped from the bed and began, because he felt that it was the least he ought to do, to collect his clothes and other possessions before packing them in the suitcase he had brought with him, a bulky old cardboard affair in a bright and unlikely shade of tan, of which he had felt decidedly ashamed under Raman’s gaze when he had arrived. He put various items into the case and then took them out again when he realised that they ought not to get crushed by the heavier things he had left out or back at home—how far away that seemed: how different a life—Protima would draw the line at having to iron again shirts she had already ironed in anticipation of his visit to the distinguished judge. Then he was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door.
"Come in,” he called, wondering whether it was a servant returning the dirty shirt that had already been taken to the dhobi.
It was not. It was Begum Roshan.
"Inspector Ghote,” she said, coming in quickly and closing the heavy door behind her. "There is no need any longer, I suppose, for the pretence of ‘Doctor' Inspector, I have come to discuss what can be done. Once again my father has gone too far.”
"I am afraid, madam, that that was altogether my fault. I had hoped to force Sir Asif into a position where he would give me maximum co-operation. I should have known that he is not a man who can be forced when he has made up his mind that he is in the right.”
"My father is a man who cannot be forced ever,” Begum Roshan replied, clenching the edge of her sari for an instant in tautly nervous fingers. "God knows in my life how often I have tried.”
“But, madam, then there is nothing to be done. Sir Asif has said I am unwelcome in his house. I am his guest. I must go.”
“And when you go, then what?’ Begum Roshan asked wildly. “You report that we are keeping a dangerous madman here and, because there are people in the town who would like nothing better than to humiliate Sir Asif Ibrahim, a force of armed police comes out here accompanied no doubt by the town photographer and they drag Sikander back with them to some disgusting hole that they claim is safer for him. That is it, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
Inspector Ghote Draws a Line Page 8
