Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

by H. R. F. Keating

  And soon, with the shouting and fury from the main street just audible as a distant background to his thoughts, he was in touch first with a secretary in Bombay and then with the Eminent Figure himself.

  In a jocular mood.

  ‘Is that my mysterious correspondent that I am speaking with?’

  ‘It is, sir,’ Ghote replied, with a touch of sobering grimness.

  ‘And have you sold a further quantity of feeding-stuff?’

  ‘I think I may say so, sir. In fact –’

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ the familiar precise voice interrupted. ‘And I too have some profitable dealings to inform you of. You requested a check to be carried out for a certain missing receipt. Well, I can report conclusively that neither that receipt nor the missing sample – the missing sample, you understand? – were ever received at this end.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I understand,’ Ghote replied, finding the enjoyment the Eminent Figure was so clearly deriving from his subterfuges more than he could easily take.

  He was tempted to shout ‘Organs, organs, the deceased’s organs’ down the line, which for once was extraordinarily clear. But he managed to hold himself in. Just.

  ‘And you?’ came the precise voice again. ‘You have something to report also?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ghote said cautiously. ‘I have to tell that I have learnt a certain fact with regard to the person-in-question. It concerns his relationship with a certain figure, a religious figure.’

  He hoped that the excitement in the main street was distracting the operator in the exchange above the post office from his unofficial, though doubtless well-paid, listening duty.

  ‘A religious figure? A religious figure? Inspector, what on earth are you talking of?’

  Old fool.

  ‘The inspection in question has been carried out, sir,’ Ghote said, leaning heavily as an elephant on the word ‘inspection’.

  He quickly continued so as to give the Eminent Figure time to pull himself together.

  ‘As to the second person, sir, he is the person causing a certain obstruction. You doubtless received reports of a campaign that was being mounted even before I arrived here, sir.’

  He left it at that to see what reaction he got. The line was still beautifully clear and he felt he could almost hear the angry silence at the far end. But when at last the Eminent Figure spoke it was in quite a reasonable way.

  ‘You have made a discovery, you say, about the relationship between this person and the main object of our inquiries?’

  As neatly wrapped up as could be. He was learning, at last.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ghote said. ‘A relationship of family, sir. They are closely connected.’

  He took a quick breath and shot out the next words in a quick gabble.

  ‘Brother of the deceased’s father, sir.’

  There was, clear to hear, a gasp of delight at the far end.

  ‘Also, sir, our man made a personal and confidential request for the assistance.’

  ‘He did, did he? Then I shall see that this gets known. It will be the end of all opposition to you.’

  ‘I am afraid that is not necessarily so, sir. I have already put the facts before the certain figure and he has refused to alter his attitude.’

  ‘He will do so once it is generally known. Mark my words.’

  ‘Yes sir. Yet I have a feeling he will not be too much censured for supporting a member of his family only, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense. What nonsense.’

  The querulous voice positively spat along the line.

  ‘Nonsense, man,’ it repeated. ‘Once it is known that all this objection has been purely a disgraceful instance of nepotism then everyone will turn against it.’

  Ghote looked at the bright cardboard egg-container resting on Inspector Popatkar’s desk.

  ‘I hope it may be as you say, sir,’ he replied. ‘But in any case I assure you I shall remain here.’

  ‘You are most certainly to stay,’ the over-particular voice said firmly. ‘If a murder has been committed you are to put the man responsible behind bars.’

  Ghote thought of the likely listening ears at the exchange.

  ‘Yes, sir. The line is murder,’ he said quickly. ‘These telephone-wallas should be put behind bars, I most certainly agree.’

  It calmed the old man wonderfully.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘As I was saying the line is murder. Yes. You are quite right, Inspe – you are quite right.’

  ‘Sir,’ Ghote put in, ‘have you been able to act on the other matters I requested when I spoke to you last?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes,’ the thin voice said, still apologetic. ‘I have put them all in hand. I have insisted on the utmost urgency. You need have no fears over that. But you yourself, my good sir, have you made any other progress?’

  He had not, Ghote reflected. All he had done since he had last reported, was to have suffered under the Chairman’s wiles, first escaping with his life from goondas, second finding that his one ally in the town was a spy.

  ‘Most satisfactory progress, sir,’ he nevertheless forced himself to reply, ‘though I have no more new facts for you as of today.’

  ‘Well,’ said the faint voice, recovering some of its querulousness now, ‘I trust I do not have to remind you that time is perhaps against you?’

  ‘I know it, sir,’ Ghote replied grimly. ‘But kindly remember also that there are still steps to be taken at your end. There is the inquiry in a certain distant part of the country.’

  ‘What distant part of the country? What is this? Are you still there?’

  Silly old fool.

  Ghote snapped the word out in one quick blip.

  ‘Nagaland.’

  ‘What did you – Oh, yes. Yes. That. Yes, I assure you that is being pressed as hard as all the other matters.’

  ‘Then I will say good-bye, sir. And we will see what effect your other calls here may have.’

  ‘They will do wonders, I promise.’

  ‘We shall see, sir.’

  And Ghote laid down the receiver.

  He sat for some little time staring at the chart labelled ‘Pickpocketing Offences’ though without seeing it. His mind was busy thinking over the last few minutes.

  The Eminent Figure might be only a mere irritation on the far end of the telephone, but if things went unsatisfactorily here in the end he could become a potent bringer of wrath back in Bombay.

  Ghote felt suddenly hot to melting point.

  Yet such a lot depended on what was done in Bombay. Alone in this town he himself might be able to achieve little, but he had the enormous advantage of having at call powerful assistance which could if necessary stretch all over India, to Nagaland where perhaps the missing pathologist might be found, to the highest and lowest reaches of Bombay where bit by bit enough evidence to bring a case might yet be assembled.

  If only the Eminent Figure would act like a conscientious policeman.

  Ghote jumped up determined that, whatever shortcomings his illustrious collaborator might betray, he himself would not let anything go by default here in the town for lack of thrustful investigation. He would go to that buxom liar Mrs Dhulup in the dhobis’ quarter and force the truth about her husband’s whereabouts from her.

  But his vigour was to be checked like a damned river.

  The police-station had been surrounded.

  Setting out for the compound with his protective egg-box held in front of him, he had hardly bothered to think about the method of his departure. And then he found the high back wall of the compound lined by half a dozen lathi-armed constables scuttling about beating at the heads of lively figures popping up at different points. One of these he thought he recognized, indeed, his old acquaintance of the checked shirt and belt-stuffed knife who had actually succeeded in heaving himself chest-high across the top of the wall before a pair of constables at either side sent him squirming back with a rain of lathi blows. A heavy shower of stones from the far side of the wal
l followed this discomfiture.

  So there was nothing for it but to spend champing hours in the station waiting for a chance to sneak out somewhere.

  It came, in the end, quite suddenly. The skirmishing over the back wall seemed to have reached a steady pitch when a loud shouting voice was heard on the far side and abruptly the attackers up on the wall dropped down. They did not reappear.

  After four or five minutes, during which the sounds of activity on the far side had gradually died right away, Ghote cautiously heaved himself up and put his head over the wall. The attackers had disappeared, every one. Indeed the sole human being to be seen was an old woman crouching not far from the corner of the compound, perhaps hoping to find something useful to her in the debris of the battle.

  So, Ghote thought, a certain telephone call from Bombay has been made to certain unnamed individuals in the town and certain news is spreading.

  He felt reassured and called out a cheerful bulletin to the constables waiting below leaning on their lathis.

  ‘I will be going now,’ he ended.

  His bicycle was quickly brought by one constable while another, somewhat reverently, carried out the egg-box. He received first the dreadnought machine and then the box, thanked the constables and prepared to set off.

  Already it was getting on towards evening. Crows were flapping their way homeward under a sky of huge slowly moving grey clouds. Their cawing seemed to be the only sound to be heard.

  There was no time now to be lost. He swung his foot over the crossbar of the ponderous cycle.

  ‘Inspector Ghote. Inspector Ghote.’

  In the very act of putting his foot on the bicycle’s far upraised pedal he halted, frozen.

  His name. Shouted after him. When he had already assumed his disguise. Known.

  He twisted round.

  It must have been the old scavenging woman who had called out to him. Had she been left by the rioters as a spy?

  She was coming towards him now, hobbling and bent. He looked at her carefully.

  She was carrying something, a glinting pot-shaped object, which it was difficult to make out clearly in the poor light.

  Then, with a sudden little start of recognition, he knew who the old crone was. The pot-shaped object was a huge Ovax jar. It was the aged harijan woman he had tripped over in his first moments in the town, when he had so nearly broken his eggs and had seen that disturbing copy of Time magazine.

  How on earth had she discovered his name? Had something during their brief encounter three days ago betrayed him? It could not have done.

  He saw the scimitar-nosed, hair-decorated face he remembered looking up at him.

  ‘I must see Inspector Ghote. He is in police-station?’

  He hardly realized in his agitation what the import of the old crone’s words were. Then it came to him. She did not know who she was talking to.

  ‘I have no time, no time to be answering questions,’ he shouted at her.

  And he forcibly jerked the ironclad bicycle upright, leant his full weight on one pedal and with a fearful swerve right across the whole width of the narrow lane he shot off into the dark greyness of the late day.

  As he headed at a great rate towards the river and the dhobis’ quarter, it began to rain again, though not very hard. Evidently this put a final end to any demonstrating for the time being. The only people he saw on the whole ride were honest citizens hurrying about their business under beetle-like black umbrellas.

  Ram Dhulup’s wife was not this time seated outside her small house, but she was just inside the open door, sitting there on a mat looking dreamy and far-away with a more colourful sari on even than at his first visit and smelling strongly of Queen of the Night scent.

  Ghote did not need to ask her whether her husband had returned. Plainly she was expecting some other visitor.

  ‘Well,’ he said, violently interrupting her reverie, ‘let me tell you straightaway that I am a policeman. An inspector, C.I.D.’

  To his delight he obtained an immediate response to this slapped-down threat, a look of sudden blankly uncomprehending fear. Plainly whatever had been said to the girl by the Chairman’s henchmen in the spiriting away of Ram Dhulup had not been enough. She had been taught how to be a little insolent to anybody making inquiries and she had been told she could give them the false address in Nagpur, but she had not been strengthened against really pointed questioning.

  Ghote stood over her now, legs apart, blocking the low entrance to the mud-walled house.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘an inspector of the C.I.D, and you have told me lies, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, no.’

  But the denial was so obviously offered as a mere hurriedly snatched up shield that it positively constituted an open admission.

  ‘Yes,’ Ghote said, remorselessly putting on the pressure, ‘you have told me lies. You have told that your husband is in Nagpur. He is not. Where is he?’

  ‘I do not – He is in Nagpur, yes.’

  She began feebly bleating out the fictitious address once more, as if it were some sort of charm that might protect her from this assault.

  ‘Stop that,’ Ghote snapped. ‘Nagpur was cut off by floods at the time you said your husband was making the journey. Do you think police inspectors are absolute fools?’

  ‘No. No. I do not know.’

  In the darkness caused by his body blocking the doorway Ghote could see the girl’s large nose-jewel flashing and bobbing in her agitation.

  ‘You know very well where is your husband,’ he thundered. ‘And you are going to tell me. Now.’

  ‘I do not know. I cannot say.’

  ‘You know and you will say.’

  Something inside her, some untapped well of strength, gave her a sharp access of strength. He saw her teeth flash once more in an insolent smile and prepared himself for an impudent answer.

  It would do her no good, he thought. She was the sort to break sooner or later. The only doubt was whether in fact she really did know more than that some followers of the Chairman had come and whisked the inconvenient Ram Dhulup away and had fed her with a few lies to tell any questioners. However he would find out soon enough. In the meanwhile let her have her moment of impudence.

  The kohl-darkened eyes glinted up at him.

  ‘He is gone to Nagpur,’ she said. ‘Do you think there is one way only of going? If the railway is cut then he can go on foot. You think because many years ago his feet were cut off he cannot walk? I tell you he can go faster than you can, Mr Inspector.’

  Ghote swung right round in the low doorway and left her. After all, he reflected, what need to bully if he had accidentally just learnt more than the girl probably knew herself?

  14

  Ghote almost rushed off there and then to act on the discovery he had made. His mind bubbled with ideas.

  If the crippled servant he had glimpsed at his last visit to the Municipal Chairman’s house, scuttling away from the gates on a pair of wildly swinging crutches, really was Ram Dhulup – and the more he thought about it the more he was convinced, for why else but as a method of concealment would the Chairman employ such a cripple? – then the problem ahead was somehow to get inside the Chairman’s compound to talk with the missing dhobi.

  Or to get Ram Dhulup out.

  But both courses presented considerable difficulties. The Chairman’s house was very much of a fortress. There was that high wall surrounding the whole compound and topped with barbed wire. There was the fact that in its whole length, as he had learnt from young Vasant, there was only the one pair of gates and that these were always kept closed. And there was the tall chaprassi who guarded these gates, and doubtless a fair number of other toughs always at hand.

  Reluctantly Ghote in the end postponed any attempt to take advantage of his lucky discovery until the next day. Other people’s watchmen slept, but he doubted very much whether the Chairman’s did.

  He propelled the battleship bicycle along to the railway station and t
here once more occupied an illegal bed.

  But he set off in the morning – the sixty-fourth day of the Swami’s fast, he told himself as he woke – while the light was still coming up in the sky and zoomed his weighty bicycle along towards the town and through it busy considering the details of a plan that had planted itself in his head during the night.

  There was nobody in sight as, at the same kika-thorn patch where he had learnt from Vasant about the relationship between the Swami and the Chairman, he dismounted and concealed his machine. There was no one around to see him and quite soon he was able to get up right to the sloping irregular mud-plastered wall at the back of the compound and listen to the sounds of the extensive household inside beginning its day. Before long he had located, he hoped, the part of the wall that gave on to the servants’ quarter. He hurried back to his bicycle and from the little leather pouch that hung from the back of the saddle he extracted the larger of the two tyre-levers it contained. It was only a small strip of metal, four or five inches long, but he thought it would serve his purpose.

  He took it back to his chosen spot on the high wall and began to hollow out two toe-holds for himself in the impacted mud. When he was certain they were deep enough to give him the little extra support he calculated he would need on the slightly sloping surface of the wall, he put the lever in his pocket, stepped back a few paces, took a quick run up and jumped.

  His fingers found the broad tiled top to the wall and a moment later his scrabbling left foot struck against one of his newly-made toe-holds. He dug this foot in, fished round with the other foot until he had located the companion hold and felt himself to be safe. Then he ventured to peer over the wall.

  The servants’ quarter, a row of hut-like dwellings, lay just underneath his eye.

  Now to see whether Ram Dhulup would come within call, and would come alone.

  He spotted him within two minutes of his watch beginning. But, in spite of the former dhobi having no apparent duties in the household, he did not seem ever to be alone. First he had stopped to chat with one of the elderly women servants from the house, and, to Ghote’s fury, even when she kept telling him that she ought to get back inside or things would start to go wrong, he persisted in talking to her. And it was not as if his conversation was about anything either. It was all too plain that he had nothing to do and was badly bored.