The Perfect Murder: the First Inspector Ghote Mystery

by H. R. F. Keating

‘My friend,’ he said, ‘should I have told Mr Athalye that it was his duty to answer whatever question you put to him?’

  Inspector Ghote smiled a little.

  ‘I think Mr Athalye believes he knows what his duties are,’ he said.

  He relapsed into his previous state of deep, almost compulsorily melancholy thought.

  A vision of the tall, old Parsi secretary lying in his confined upstairs room beneath the lazy, ineffective little fan seemed to haunt him. He could see as vividly as if he was really present the long form in the white atchkan with its tiny pink stain where the red ball-point had leaked, and, laid neatly and safely on the floor by the charpoy, the pair of workaday spectacles with the one cracked lens.

  No change. From what he had been able to gather this was the present verdict. For how many days, or weeks even, would it be the same? No change. Still teetering on the edge of death. Still able in one moment to make all the difference to his own life and prospects.

  The thought drummed darkly in his head.

  With Mr Perfect still alive, however tenuously, the possibility was still open of patiently working a way through the complexities and intricacies of the whole business till at last an answer emerged, till the facts yielded up, as they must, to logical and calm examination.

  And, on the other side of the coin, Mr Perfect dead. The Perfect Murder weighing down on him and oppressing him. Dark and insoluble, dragging him and his whole career down to the depths. A continual reproach, a failure at the onset, a crippling disaster.

  Firmly he tried to stop himself entertaining such notions. There could not be any real logical connexion between the facts of the case and the old Parsi’s physical state. Yet for all his efforts the sombre black thoughts rolled out.

  Back in his office he could see only one refuge.

  He raised his head and looked up at the heavy form of the tall, ever-shadowing Swede.

  ‘Now I shall have to write a comprehensive report,’ he said. ‘Doctor Gross, you remember, is quite plain on the need to set down clearly and at length findings of preliminary interviews.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  The big Swede sounded less enthusiastic than the inspector would have liked.

  ‘So,’ Ghote said with the firmness of desperation, ‘I shall be busy for some hours, transcribing notes, you know, recollecting conversations, getting items in order, perhaps making out some time-tables even.’

  He began to feel a little less depressed.

  ‘Ah, yes, good,’ said Axel Svensson, making no move to leave. ‘But what about conclusions?’

  ‘Conclusions?’

  ‘Yes. My friend, all your reports are of no use unless from them you draw conclusions. What is your opinion, for instance, of Mr Varde senior? That is obviously of crucial importance.’

  ‘I know quite well how important it is,’ said the inspector.

  He sat down at his desk and opened its drawers rapidly one after another.

  ‘I am sure you know that, my friend,’ the big Swede replied cheerfully. ‘And I am interested to hear your views. It is difficult for me, a European, to judge such a man as Mr Varde.’

  The inspector looked round the little room with growing irritation. With the wide-shouldered form of the Swede towering in front of him the place no longer seemed a snug refuge from the difficulties of the outside world.

  ‘It is all very well to be talking of conclusions,’ he snapped, ‘but you cannot make conclusions until you have set down data. Doctor Gross –’

  He moved his head sharply to the left to try and see the familiar dark blue binding of the book with its tracery of faint white stains from successive eruptions of monsoon mildew. But the Swede’s bulky frame came between him and the top of the filing cabinet where the book always reposed.

  ‘Oh, I know that is what the text-books say,’ the Swede broke in boisterously. ‘But all the same, my friend, you cannot meet a man like Mr Varde without coming to some conclusions.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Inspector Ghote, ‘I suppose you are right.’

  He got up from his desk and stood nonchalantly in a position where he could see Gross’s manual and underneath it the set of shelves with the split bamboo decoration and the white plastic labels screwed neatly in a downwards row, ‘Songs’ ‘Dance’ ‘Piano’ ‘Sacred’ ‘Various’. This relic of some departed British family with musical inclinations had been in the office when Inspector Ghote took it over. It was not listed on the Official Inventory and there had been attempts to remove it, but ever since he had placed on it the venerated copy of Gross he had resisted all such moves with quiet determination.

  ‘Well?’ said the Swede.

  Inspector Ghote licked his lips.

  ‘Lala Varde has already told me one serious lie, about the gate,’ he said. ‘And I think it possible he would tell more.’

  ‘Ah, yes, good,’ said the Swede, snapping like a voracious lizard at these flies. ‘But do you think he lied about the attack itself?’

  ‘Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know,’ Inspector Ghote answered.

  ‘Well, what evidence have you got?’ the Swede asked with dreadful briskness.

  Inspector Ghote looked shyly down at the blue mildew-smirched surface of Gross.

  ‘I have no evidence about the attack itself,’ he said.

  ‘But the locked gate to the servants’ quarters, isn’t that evidence?’

  ‘Lala Varde lied about that, certainly. But that gate was locking people away from Mr Perfect.’

  He looked at the Swede with triumph.

  The Swede sighed.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘it would certainly seem as if that was protection for Mr Perfect, if anything.’

  But this was not to be the end of the interrogation. In a moment Axel Svensson straightened his enormous shoulders.

  ‘Very well then,’ he resumed, ‘what about Mr Dilip Varde?’

  ‘Mr Dilip Varde,’ the inspector repeated. ‘He will be dealt with in my report.’

  He looked wistfully at the blank surface of his desk.

  ‘Yes,’ said Axel Svensson, ‘but what are you going to put in it about him?’

  Inspector Ghote tried a little placating.

  ‘Well, he should not have refused to answer my questions.

  That is definite. It is also suspicious. But on the other hand I do not think it ought to affect my judgement.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the Swede testily, ‘but has anything led you to believe he may have a reason for wanting to harm Mr Perfect?’

  Inspector Ghote’s mind flashed back to a certain intransigent Anglo-Indian school-teacher under whom he had once come. She had had a way of relentlessly pressing on from question to question in this way until his mind had been bludgeoned into complete blankness.

  But he had not quite reached that stage yet.

  He looked up at the Swede.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Dilip Varde perhaps fears that Mr Perfect has an undue influence over his father.’

  ‘Good.’

  Inspector Ghote drew a deep breath.

  ‘And Prem Varde?’ the Swede said implacably.

  The inspector’s mind raced again.

  ‘If Prem thought that Mr Perfect was behind his father in making him go into the office …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Axel Svensson. ‘There was discord there. I sensed that.’

  A flick of excited spittle appeared at the corner of his mouth. Inspector Ghote lowered his eyes.

  ‘Now,’ the Swede said, his voice almost at a shout, ‘Dilip’s wife, Neena, what about her?’

  ‘She is not a stable person,’ the inspector said slowly.

  ‘I was right, I was right,’ Axel Svensson shouted. ‘I was afraid this was European prejudice, but you confirm me. Good, good, good. So her possible motive is, what?’

  The Swede’s voice reverberated round and round the small airless room.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Inspector Ghote said.

  ‘But you must, you must.�
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  ‘Then she may be supporting her husband.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that is it. Supporting him and intensifying perhaps his feelings of resentment.’

  Inspector Ghote looked back at the Swede’s great high-boned face thrust to within inches of his own.

  ‘But what about Mrs Varde, Mrs Lakshmi Varde?’ the Swede bellowed.

  Inspector Ghote retreated till his back touched the wall behind him.

  ‘Mrs Varde is a very dominating woman,’ he said. ‘At least, that is my personal –’

  ‘Exactly. Exactly so. Yes, you have got it, my friend,’ the big Swede trumpeted. ‘She wishes to rule her husband with an iron rod. She fears he is getting too ambitious, too unlike her friend Gautam Athalye. And so, like a goddess she crushes this Mr Perfect who is encouraging the wildnesses.’

  Beneath the crashing and roaring of the Swede’s analysis a tiny notion crept into the inspector’s head. That is utter nonsense, he thought. If Lakshmi Varde was that sort of woman she would have forced her husband to part with his secretary long ago.

  He let the thought lie like a cool gem in his mind and said nothing.

  ‘So,’ Axel Svensson swirled on, ‘we come at last to Gautam Athalye himself.’

  Inspector Ghote found it almost easy to answer now.

  ‘Mr Athalye was out of the house before midnight,’ he said. ‘And Mr Perfect was seen at midnight. I will have the taxi driver who picked up a fare at Lala Varde’s brought in and questioned, but I do not think we will find that Mr Athalye was lying.’

  He looked up at the great Swede and smiled calmly.

  ‘And now,’ he said, ‘we have mentioned everybody so it is time I began my report.’

  The Swede seemed a little disconcerted. But he could not deny the logic of the inspector’s remark. And, promising volubly to keep in touch, he left him at last in peace.

  The inspector smiled to himself happily, opened the drawer in his desk where he kept clean paper and took out a substantial sheaf. He selected a sharpened pencil from a little brass tray with enamel decoration and began to write.

  When he had finished he looked for the first time at his watch. And discovered that it was already late in the evening.

  In an instant the balanced pyramids of thoughts which he had built up in the last hours tumbled to nothing. Their comforting solidity was swept away like morning mist. And the bleak realization of what he had just done to Protima confronted him: once more he had left her on her own without a word. Once more she had had to spend a long evening alone in the house while all around from the other homes in Government Quarters had come the cheerful sounds of family life, the calling voices, the homely clatter of cooking pots.

  For a little he contemplated commandeering an office vehicle and driver to take him home as fast as could be. But he was no longer on duty. He thought with chill of what D.S.P. Samant would have to say.

  At a trot he set off to make his own way back.

  And everything conspired to delay him. He just missed one bus. There was an interminable wait before another appeared. He failed to notice that it was not going the whole length of its route and he had to get out and wait for a following bus of the same number. A similar fate seemed to have befallen half the rest of Bombay and in the huge heaving crowd Ghote was totally unable to get near the next two buses that came along. The third he did catch, by now fuming with bad temper. And it turned out that his barely suppressed spite against the whole world was shared by most of the other passengers as well as the bus crew. There was a tremendous altercation between the latter and a bent-backed old woman carrying a squawking chicken upside down by its two legs. Neither side was willing to let the other have the last word. Epithets flew thick and fast. And the bus waited.

  When at last Ghote passed the familiar board saying ‘Government of India Staff Quarters. Class 2. No trespassers’ he was choking with black rage, sweat-stained and thirsty, grimly tired and implacably conscious of the fact that, although he was in the wrong, he would be unable to keep calm if his wife even so much as hinted at reproach.

  And when he came to the house he found it in complete darkness.

  He went quietly in and put on the light. On the floor at his feet was a scrap of pink paper with some writing on it. He stopped and read the emphatic capitals.

  AT LEAST DO NOT WAKE US.

  He stood with hanging head for minute after minute, and then barely stirring himself he dropped off his heavy leather belt and after it the rest of his clothes. He flung himself down in the sitting-room and slept where he had fallen.

  He slept long, and with wild dreams of Mr Perfect hovering in the air over his head threatening at any instant to fall down and smother him.

  And his wakening was sudden.

  ‘Well, do you want to eat today or not?’

  It was Protima.

  He staggered to his feet, bleary-eyed and thick-headed.

  ‘Well, answer,’ Protima said sharply. ‘Are you going to eat the food that your wife has cooked or are you going to pick up so-called meals in cheap eating places where you don’t know what is being given you or who has touched it?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said, waving his hand feebly in front of him as if to ward off a blow. ‘No, I will eat here. I – I am sorry. Last night I –’

  He could not think of the right words.

  He looked round. Through the open doorway he could see his son playing in the garden. Protima must have told him to creep out without making a noise. She must have given him other instructions too because the boy pretended not to see what was going on in the house although he must have heard the voices and have known his father was awake.

  There was something unexplained too about the garden itself. He groped round in the heavy stickiness of his mind for a clue.

  And then he realized what was the matter.

  The sunlight. It was too strong. It ought to have had the clarity and sparkle of the very early morning, and instead it had already begun to blaze.

  ‘The time,’ he said. ‘What time is it?’

  He looked at his watch, holding his wrist close to his face to penetrate the blur in front of his eyes.

  The watch had stopped at quarter to three. He must have forgotten to wind it the night before.

  ‘Listen,’ he said to Protima, ‘what’s the time?’

  ‘Time,’ she said. ‘How should I know what time it is? Other women can tell the time easily enough: they have husbands who come home when they have finished at office and go out to get there again next morning. But I have to wait at home all day, all evening and all night. How should I know what time it is?’

  A little flame of rage burned up through the thick fuzz in Ghote’s head.

  ‘I have to know the time,’ he said. ‘I have an appointment first thing this morning. At nine o’clock. With the Minister. With Shri Ran Kamath, Minister for Police Affairs and the Arts.’

  He ought to have known that Protima was scarcely the person to be overawed by this honour.

  ‘Minister, indeed,’ she flashed. ‘And what good do you think it will do you hob-nobbing with a man like that?’

  ‘Like what?’ Ghote snapped. ‘What are you saying about a Minister of the State Government?’

  ‘I am saying the truth,’ Protima shot back. ‘The truth everyone knows about your precious Ram Kamath. He is just a no good. Bribes he takes, money and women, everything. And that is the man you are so proud to be going to see. Well, I hope you are too late. I hope you are too late by hours and hours.’

  ‘Late. Too late.’

  Blind waves of panic swept over and over him.

  ‘The time, the time,’ he yelled.

  He ran into the bedroom as if he might find mysteriously there something to tell him what time it was. And then he thought of the wireless. He rushed back to the sitting-room and snapped it on.

  There emerged the devious, intricate, convoluted, intertwining sound of a softly sweet raga.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’
Protima said. ‘Rush to leave your house once you are in it. Scorn the food that has been so carefully prepared for you and don’t so much as look at your own son. Oh, for sins in my past life I am burdened with a policeman instead of a husband.’

  ‘Stop. Stop. Stop. Please, stop,’ Ghote shouted. ‘Listen. I must know the time. Perhaps there is still a moment for me to eat, to talk to my little Ved, to talk to you. I want to. Believe me, I want to. But I must not be late for the Minister. I had so much trouble to get him to see me. If I am late he will straight away report it to D.S.P. Samant. And then you will find yourself not married to inspector but married to constable.’

  ‘Oh, that would be just fine,’ Protima shouted back. ‘That would be all I wanted. It is bad enough trying to live on inspector pay, and now you are going to do your best to get made back into constable. That will be very nice. That will be just what I expected. You make so many mistakes at your job that you get sent out on the street at –’

  But the music had stopped. And the calm, limpid voice of the announcer was speaking.

  Ghote flung himself across the room and pressed his ear carefully against the brown shiny cloth stretched across the loudspeaker.

  ‘And the time is exactly eight-thirty a.m.’

  ‘Eight-thirty. Eight-thirty. I shall never do it,’ he shouted. ‘It will take half that time to get from the office to the Ministry, even if we are lucky with the traffic. And I have got to get to office yet.’

  He ran over to the telephone and dialled the office number.

  The maddening noise of the ‘engaged’ tone. Furiously he jigged at the rest.

  Damn, he thought suddenly, I could have found out the time straight away. There’s something you dial, 174, something like that and you hear the record of the hours and the minutes.

  At last the voice of the operator came.

  ‘Please, caller, show patience. The system is working at full –’

  ‘Listen,’ Ghote snapped. ‘This is a police matter. Urgent. Put me through to 264456. I got engaged note. But that cannot be right. The number is C.I.D. They cannot all be engaged.’

  ‘I will try to put you through, caller,’ said the operator. ‘But there may be fault on the line.’

  ‘But there must not be fault. Do you understand?’