Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade

by H. R. F. Keating

  Ghote stood forcing himself not to put up a hand and rub the place on his nose.

  So when he had found Krishna Chatterjee, resident social worker at the Masters Foundation, it was with no very subtle method that he went to work.

  The door of the office had a wooden nameplate on it with ‘Krishna Chatterjee’ painted in spidery black letters on a white background. Ghote gave the panel just underneath one perfunctory bang and opened the door.

  The room was very narrow and long like a cupboard, except that at the far end there was a tall window. The cupboard-like look of the place was added to by the shelves along both walls running from the door down to the window. They were crammed with books, new and old, tall and squat, some fat and glossy, others thin, starved and paper-covered. They pushed and strained against each of the partitions fitted at intervals along the shelves.

  For some reason the sight of them only inflamed Ghote the more.

  What would anyone want with so many books? Spending a whole lifetime with their head buried in useless old tomes? What was the point of that? There were things to be done in this world. Frank Masters had not wasted his time reading books.

  A figure stooping over an enormous sheet of paper spilling over the edges of a rickety typist’s table looked up. In the dim light of the tall, narrow room Ghote could make out little more than a pair of enormous brown eyes glistening like some disturbed night animal’s.

  And as frightened.

  So he began in a fashion that surprised even himself.

  ‘All these tomes,’ he said, ‘all these tomes.’

  He gestured towards either wall.

  ‘What do you want with all these tomes?’

  Krishna Chatterjee stood up, still stooping slightly as if the position was habitual.

  ‘Well, it is Inspector Ghote,’ he said.

  He seemed relieved.

  ‘Yes, it is Inspector Ghote. And Inspector Ghote is wanting words with you.’

  Mr Chatterjee bustled round his desk, which in the confined space betweeen the two book-lined walls was not an easy thing to do.

  ‘Come in, come in, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Won’t you sit down? The chair is not unsafe. I can guarantee that. Absolute, unconditional guarantee. You see, I have evidence. This chair is regularly sat upon by innumerable small boys while I talk to them in very imperfect Marathi or Gujarati. What better evidence of essential stability could you have than that? Eh?’

  He held the chair in front of him with both hands and looked up at the inspector with his big eyes bigger than ever.

  Certainly the chair did not look strong. It was a plain wooden one with a crude pattern of a lotus stamped on the seat. The rungs of the back were tilted slightly out of true.

  ‘Never mind chairs,’ Ghote snapped. ‘We have more important matters than chairs to talk.’

  Mr Chatterjee lowered the offensive chair to the ground, peered at it for an instant and shrugged his rounded shoulders.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the books. All the books. The tomes. You want to discuss them. Well now, Inspector, I must confess that you strike me on the raw there. Yes, definitely on the raw. I do not need so many books. I realize it. And yet, you know, I cannot seem to help myself buying them. And really there is very little room left for new acquisitions. Very little indeed.’

  He turned to examine anxiously the long rows of shelves.

  ‘But I promise you one thing, Inspector,’ he said, ‘bibliophile that I am, I think I can say with perfect honesty that I do not let my passion interfere with my work. Indeed, it sustains it. Yes, sustains it, I think I can say. You see, Inspector, it is absolutely necessary in a profession like mine to have the widest possible grasp of human nature. And what can enlarge one’s grasp of the infinite peculiarities of one’s fellow creatures more than the study of the many and varied books that have been written about them? What indeed?’

  Inspector Ghote caught hold of two words in all the spate.

  ‘Perfect honesty,’ he repeated. ‘Perfect honesty. I do not think you can talk to me about that, Mr Chatterjee.’

  The two big brown eyes in the round face in front of him suddenly were flooded with pain.

  Mr Chatterjee held out his two hands wide.

  ‘Inspector,’ he said, ‘that is an accusation I hoped never to hear. I am dishonest, of course. I recognize that. I talk of perfect honesty, but I recognize that there are states to which we can never attain. But, Inspector, I promise you, without one iota of unnecessary self-praise, that I do make an absolute point of keeping the ideal of honesty always in the forefront of my mind. It is not easy, you know, not easy at all. But dealing with the sort of young people who fall to my daily lot I believe it is absolutely essential. Absolutely.’

  ‘So you practise honesty with the sweepings of the pavements,’ Ghote said, ‘and forget all about it when you are talking with a police inspector.’

  ‘But no, my dear sir. Are you saying that I have been dishonest with you? Inspector, there has been some dreadful error.’

  The big-eyed Bengali was every bit as voluble as before, but Ghote thought that somehow he was beginning to lack the full torrential flow of assurance.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘I am accusing.’

  Krishna Chatterjee looked round his book-lined retreat in plainly growing dismay. He reached up and pulled a tall volume from one of the higher shelves, peered at the title on its spine as if he expected it to have suddenly altered, put the book down on his little desk, trotted round to the far side, stooped and picked up a scrap of paper from the floor, examined it, shrugged, went to the window and lifted the catch, pushed at the two tall frames, realized after a little that they were held fast by the bottom bar, released it and eventually turned and faced the inspector again.

  ‘It seems most appallingly hot all of a sudden,’ he said.

  Ghote marched up and stood in front of the desk.

  ‘Mr Chatterjee,’ he said, ‘why did you lie to me in those few minutes that I saw you last night?’

  The big brown eyes clouded over.

  ‘Inspector, why should I lie?’

  ‘Mr Chatterjee, your employer, the late Mr Frank Masters, has been murdered.’

  ‘Inspector, I know it. I know it. Inspector, this is a very terrible thing. That man was an immense benefactor, Inspector. An immense benefactor. He poured out money into this city. I cannot begin to enumerate the causes that gained from his generosity. It is a totally terrible thing that he has been done to death in this appallingly violent way. Inspector, all my life I have striven to put into practice the principles of non-violence. To me, Inspector, this is catastrophe. Absolute catastrophe.’

  ‘The principles of non-violence,’ Ghote said. ‘You seem very concerned to emphasize those. Can it be that you have ceased to obey them?’

  A look of penetrating pain overwhelmed Krishna Chatterjee’s roundly mild face.

  For once he was deprived of speech.

  ‘Now,’ said Inspector Ghote sharply, ‘I think it is time you told the whole truth. What did you want with the key of the dispensary yesterday evening?’

  Krishna Chatterjee clasped his hands tightly together. He swallowed.

  ‘Inspector, I do not know what you are saying. What key of the dispensary is this? I am a social worker, Inspector. That is a very different kettle of fish, I assure you, from a medical worker like my good friend Carstairs. Carstairs is the medical man here. And of course Dr Diana. Though not a man. Of course.’

  ‘Your good friend Carstairs?’ Ghote said.

  ‘Well, that is of course only a manner of speaking. Yes, only what you might call a polite fiction. Not that I haven’t the highest esteem for Carstairs. Don’t misunderstand me, Inspector, I beg. No, I have the highest esteem for the good fellow, but I must admit in all honesty that he is not my friend. There are no common interests, Inspector. That is the whole trouble. And I do not think without some community of interest one can hope to achieve any really satisfactory relation
ship with a person. Except on a purely superficial plane, of course. Except purely superficially.’

  ‘Then Carstairs is not a friend of yours?’

  ‘Well, regretfully, I must admit it. No.’

  ‘So that you had to use methods of blackmail to obtain that key from him?’

  ‘Inspector, I do not know what you are saying.’

  ‘Mr Chatterjee, you know very well. You obtained the sole key to the dispensary from Carstairs. You entered the hut and you took from it the poison that was subsequently found in the body of Frank Masters. You administered that poison.’

  The round-shouldered Bengali glanced desperately from side to side. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came. He clutched his stomach as if he were going to be violently ill.

  ‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘Inspector, you must understand. I will make an admission.’

  Having got the word out at last he seemed happier. He stood up straighter and let his hands fall to his sides.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, I see that I can no longer attempt to hide the truth. I see, indeed, that it was foolish of me to contemplate doing so. I hope you will believe me when I say that I think it was truly the first time in my life I have ever attempted to practise flagrant deception. And I fear I was not particularly adept. Well no, I suppose I am grateful for that. In the long run.’

  ‘The truth,’ said Ghote implacably.

  ‘Yes, the truth. I must tell it. Very well.’

  Krishna Chatterjee stroked at his round cheeks with the tips of his fingers to brush away some of the beads of sweat that had collected there.

  ‘Terrible humidity,’ he said.

  Ghote looked at him unblinkingly.

  ‘Very well then, Inspector, I must confess that I did indeed obtain that key from the unfortunate Sonny Carstairs. I am afraid I took advantage of a piece of inform –’

  ‘All right,’ Ghote cut in. ‘I know all about what you said to Carstairs. We need not go over all that.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I see that a person in your profession must avoid unnecessary and repetitious statements. Time is of the essence, doubtless.’

  ‘It is. Come on.’

  ‘Well then, you know that I had the key to that hut.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that in due course I returned it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then, I think that is all I can tell you, Inspector. Yes, with the greatest possible good will I do not think I have the right to add a word to that. No, not a word.’

  ‘You took the key from Carstairs, and what did you do with it next? You went to that hut, did you not? And you took the poison. And then what?’

  ‘No, Inspector. I can give you an assurance that I did no such thing. Though, of course, I realize that in the light of my past actions you cannot be expected to extend any great degree of credence to my unsupported word. No, I realize that. But that is the most I can give you. Yes, definitely the very utmost.’

  ‘Mr Chatterjee, I want to know what you did with the poison. Your exact course of action, Mr Chatterjee.’

  ‘No.’

  Krishna Chatterjee was sweating more profusely than ever now. He turned to the window and pushed it open wide.

  ‘No,’ he repeated, ‘not another word.’

  ‘The whole truth,’ said Ghote.

  He stepped sharply to the side of the desk.

  And with a cumbersome, curious wriggling sideways lurch, little Mr Chatterjee was out of the window.

  For a moment Ghote stood and gaped. The sudden physical action seemed so totally out of keeping with the scholarly Bengali’s whole mode of existence that he could hardly believe that it had taken place.

  For a moment only he stood and gaped.

  And then he was after him. Three long strides took him to the window. In one vault he was through. He looked to left and right.

  The window gave on to the side of the big bungalow. There was a narrow cement path running alongside the house wall and then a wide flowerbed full of big unkempt bushes, their leaves wilting a little in the hot sunshine. If Krishna Chatterjee had darted into these and then had stood quite still, it was going to be impossible to tell which way he had gone. And if Ghote happened to choose wrong, then before he could get back there would be nothing easier for Mr Chatterjee than to walk quietly away.

  The sunlight glared down, too, just here and made it difficult to see anything more than the varied green masses of the bushes and the dense purple shadows under them.

  Ghote blinked.

  There was only one thing to do.

  He began shouting.

  ‘You there, come out.’ ‘Come out, you.’ ‘You’ll pay for this.’ ‘Just wait till I get you down to the station.’ ‘Come out, you, I can see –’

  And it worked.

  Like a startled mouse Mr Chatterjee broke from cover not ten yards away. He ran ducking and blundering through the bushes with the dry earth under them sending up a wavy column of whitish dust. Ghote ran along the cement path until he had nearly drawn level and then plunged sideways.

  ‘You stop,’ he shouted once again.

  Mr Chatterjee stopped.

  ‘Run, sahib. Run away.’

  A sudden shrill voice darted out from just behind Ghote. He turned in fury. Krishna Chatterjee began to run again, with little waddling steps hardly faster than a walk.

  As Ghote had expected, standing at the corner of the house, once again clothed in the abominable black jacket, was Edward G. Robinson.

  ‘You wait,’ Ghote shouted at him.

  He turned to pursue Krishna Chatterjee.

  And suddenly went sprawling into a prickly, wiry-branched flowering shrub. He rolled, cursing, out of it and looked down to see what he had stumbled over.

  A thin noose of rope was neatly caught round one brown shoe. He followed its length back. And there was Tarzan, grinning with great cheerfulness.

  Ghote jumped to his feet.

  In a flash Tarzan disappeared round the side of the building. Ghote tugged at the rope till it came off and set out in the direction Mr Chatterjee had bumblingly taken.

  A few quick steps brought him to the driveway. The Dodge truck was standing there in a patch of shade. The driver was sitting at the wheel, bolt upright and quietly snoozing. Krishna Chatterjee, for all the ineffectiveness of his run, was just leaving the house gate.

  In Wodehouse Road outside a bus was slowing to a stop. There was nothing to prevent the little Bengali jumping on board and then getting off again wherever it pleased him.

  Ghote ran a pace or two forward. But it was hopeless.

  ‘Stop,’ he shouted.

  And abruptly Krishna Chatterjee stopped.

  He stopped, turned round, saw Ghote and began coming towards him. He was bending a little at the waist from the violence of his exertion.

  Ghote did not have the strength of will even to go to meet him. He just stood, hoping the round-shouldered Bengali would not change his mind.

  He did not.

  In a few moments he was standing in front of the inspector.

  ‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘I owe you a most profound apology.’

  SEVEN

  Krishna Chatterjee apologized. He stated at length how wrong it had been for him to try to run off. He hinted that it was only the unusualness of his situation which had made him act in this way.

  But he did not offer the least explanation of why he had persuaded Sonny Carstairs to hand over the key of the dispensary. Nothing Ghote could say would budge him.

  ‘I am very sorry, Inspector, but I just cannot divulge my reasons. I can only state as positively as possible that I did not in any way harm Mr Masters. It was the very last thing that I would wish to do.’

  ‘But you took the poison?’

  ‘Inspector, I did not.’

  ‘But you went into the dispensary?’

  Mr Chatterjee hesitated.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did.’

  ‘Then; if it was not to take the
poison, what was it for?’

  ‘Inspector, I regret profoundly but I decline to say.’

  ‘I could arrest you on the evidence I have.’

  ‘Then you must arrest me, Inspector.’

  ‘But if you say you did not kill Frank Masters.’

  ‘I do say so. Most emphatically. But I realize that you cannot, in the nature of things, proceed to act on my unsupported word alone. You would be perfectly within your rights in carrying out my arrest.’

  But, thought Ghote, I will not do it. Not however much I can see how, in spite of your strangely honest denials, you could really be the murderer of Frank Masters, a man of truth until the moment comes for the one lie. But I cannot bring myself to arrest you because I no more know for certain you are guilty than I know that Amrit Singh is. The evidence balances up. To a grain.

  Amrit Singh forcing Sonny Carstairs to hand over the dispensary key. Krishna Chatterjee blackmailing him into doing the same thing. Amrit Singh hurling the key back after keeping it for just the time needed. Krishna Chatterjee returning the same key before it was wanted for the emergency of Frank Masters’s illness. Amrit Singh’s fingerprints discovered in the dispensary. Krishna Chatterjee confessing to having been there himself.

  The balance was exact.

  There remained one hope. The Fingerprint Bureau were still testing the mess of brown glass fragments that had been the arsenic trioxide jar. If they could definitely find one of Amrit Singh’s prints on one fragment. … Or one of Krishna Chatterjee’s …

  But not both. Not both, Ghote prayed.

  Nor did a rare evening at home, spoilt only by four separate phone calls from newspapers, none of which Ghote now found easy to answer, do anything to resolve his dilemma. He arrived at the office next morning, Sunday, hoping passionately that the report from the Fingerprint Bureau might be there to provide the answer.

  And as soon as he opened the door he saw it. A single sheet of foolscap paper in the familiar style with a dozen lines typewritten on it. And the heading ‘For the attention of Inspector Ghote.’ He crossed the little room in two strides, picked up the sheet, twirled it round, and read.