Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

by H. R. F. Keating

  When at last he was deserted by the elderly servant, at once he started off to look for someone new to talk to. This time he settled on one of the malis, already beginning work breaking up the earth in a rain-flattened flowerbed. And now he was well into the middle of the compound, too far to call to even if the gardener left him.

  It looked as if he would have spent the whole morning there too, only a shower of rain began. Ghote felt the first heavy drops striking on his shoulders as he lay spreadeagled on the high wall. But even though they penetrated his shirt straight away he was not put out: surely the fellow would make his way back to the shelter of the huts now, and if he did so …

  And, like a clockwork show, it suddenly all began to fall out exactly to the pattern Ghote had envisaged.

  The rain started to come down more heavily. Ram Dhulup looked up at the sky and then reluctantly began swinging his way on his crutches over towards the shelter of the huts. Simultaneously everybody else who had been outside got themselves in and so within a minute there was no one about at all. And the crippled dhobi, though feeling obliged to take cover from the downpour, evidently was still determined to keep a look-out for possible company. So he stayed only just inside the doorway of the hut he had entered.

  Ghote let a further two minutes go slowly by – the shirt was clamped to his back now by the force of the raindrops – and then he took his courage in his hands and softly called out.

  ‘Ram Dhulup. Ram Dhulup.’

  But the slapping patter of the rain prevented the quiet sound reaching the footless cripple.

  ‘Ram Dhulup,’ Ghote called now more urgently.

  And then the former dhobi looked up.

  He looked all round him unable to make out where this unfamiliar voice calling his name had come from.

  ‘Here, Ram Dhulup, here,’ Ghote called down.

  The man began to look quite frightened, as if he was being summoned by a heavenly avenger to be called to account for his misdeeds.

  ‘Here, you fool, here. Up on the wall.’

  At last the cripple’s darting gaze fixed on him.

  ‘Come here,’ Ghote commanded sharply. ‘I have something to tell you.’

  The cripple looked all round him to make sure nobody was watching. It was evident he had been instructed he was on no account to give away to any outsider his presence concealed inside the Chairman’s large and well-walled compound.

  ‘Ram Dhulup,’ Ghote called, as the man still hesitated, ‘I have something to tell you about your wife.’

  The cripple gave a last quick look round, in such a panic that he was not really seeing anything, and then swinging his crutches mightily he came swooping over to the wall.

  ‘What is it? What is it?’ he demanded, his face a map of half-realized and rejected fears.

  ‘I came specially to speak with you,’ Ghote said, looking down at the lined face of the cripple under a not altogether clean white head-cloth.

  He knew he had his man hooked now. He could afford to speak quietly and to play him.

  ‘I considered it my duty to come,’ he added.

  ‘Yes, yes. But what is it? What has she done?’

  ‘I cannot tell such things over a wall,’ Ghote answered with a calmness he calculated to be maddening.

  The cripple cast a fearful glance all round him.

  ‘But I cannot come out,’ he said.

  ‘You must.’

  ‘But tell, tell me only, who is it?’

  ‘I cannot say a word when I am up here like this. Will you meet me outside?’

  ‘I am not allowed to go.’

  ‘But when you have urgent private business. What is this “not allowed”?’

  The cripple plainly resented this. His well-developed shoulders writhed over his crutches.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded abruptly. ‘I have never seen –’

  Ghote silenced him with one furious ‘Shush’.

  ‘Someone coming,’ he lied in a ferocious whisper. ‘Meet me in among the first kika thorns on the road into town. Quickly, before it is too late.’

  He let himself slide down the wet and slippery surface of the wall and landed with a small squelch at the bottom.

  As far as he could judge he had surely got his man, yet it was not without anxiety that he returned at a crouching run to where his bicycle lay hidden. But it was important to get Ram Dhulup right outside the Chairman’s power. He was never going to tell what he had to tell when at any moment some loyal follower of his boss might spot him.

  Cautiously thrusting his way underneath the devilishly sharp thorn bushes, their fan-like leaves catching the rain and directing it all down, it seemed, on to his already soaked garments, he heaved and pushed himself to a point where he could watch the road and remain unseen.

  Would Ram Dhulup succeed in wheedling or tricking his way past the chaprassi at the Chairman’s gates? In all probability the fellow had orders not to let this particular dependant out in any circumstances. How would he keep to them?

  On the muddy, puddled surface of the road the raindrops splashed ploppingly. Ghote strained to see as far along towards the houses as he could. But raising himself more than an inch or two off the ground sent a network of thorns prickling bloodily into his unprotected back and he had to flop back and content himself with a limited field of vision.

  And then, above the irregular splashing rhythm of the rain, he detected another splashing rhythm, heavier and perfectly regular. It was the cripple’s crutches, making frantic haste along the squelchy road.

  Victory.

  Ghote wriggled downwards out of the thorn patch, his small sense of triumph jerking out of him with every new twist and scrape of his body. All right, so he had persuaded the fellow out of the Chairman’s power, but would it have all been in vain? How much would he prove to know about what had gone on at those Coroner’s Committee meetings fifteen years ago?

  Ram Dhulup appeared at the edge of the road, looking down over the kika thorns in a state of evident anxiety.

  ‘This way,’ Ghote called.

  Manoeuvring himself with remarkable dexterity, the cripple made his way down along the narrow path that Ghote himself had taken when he had come to meet Vasant. One thing was certain: his luscious young wife had not been lying when she had said that his crutches hardly interfered with his progress.

  And in less than a minute Ram Dhulup was tossing the crutches down on to the wet ground and was crouching on his footless stumps waiting to hear what Ghote had to tell him.

  ‘My wife,’ he said, ‘what is it that you know?’

  ‘I have seen your wife since you have been kept hidden at the Chairman’s house,’ Ghote answered ambiguously. ‘On two days I have seen her.’

  ‘Yes, yes. And what was it that she was doing? Who was there with her?’

  Stuffing his implied confirmation that Ram Dhulup had been kept out of the way by the Chairman into a safe place in the corner of his mind, Ghote released one more driblet of information.

  ‘Yesterday I saw her towards evening,’ he said. ‘You know a green sari she has with blue circles on?’

  ‘The one with the gold border,’ Ram Dhulup said, as if this alone confirmed his worst fears.

  ‘Yes, it had gold border. And now I want you to tell me some things I need badly to know.’

  ‘But was there someone there in the house also?’ Ram Dhulup demanded.

  ‘I will tell you everything I saw,’ Ghote said. ‘But later. First you must tell me what I want to know.’

  ‘What do you want to know? What do you want to know about? Who are you?’

  ‘I am a police officer. My name is Ghote.’

  In the shadow of the thorn brake Ghote saw Ram Dhulup’s face go suddenly taut. The cripple cast around urgently for his crutches and seemed as if he was going to heave himself to his feet there and then and make off as fast as he could.

  ‘Stop,’ Ghote snapped out. ‘You wish to hear what I saw of your wife?’

 
Ram Dhulup was caught by the words literally off-balance. His right hand swayed as he scrabbled round on the damp earth for one of the crutches and he kept his eyes imploringly fixed on Ghote’s.

  ‘But – But if – But they would kill me,’ he said at last.

  ‘Who would kill you?’ Ghote demanded.

  ‘The goondas. The Chairman’s goondas. I have seen them. They came in secret to the house two days ago, very early in the morning. I only was awake. I could not sleep. I had such dreams about –’

  Ram Dhulup stopped abruptly. His eyes left Ghote’s and he looked down shamefacedly at the ground beside his stump legs.

  ‘Such dreams about my wife,’ he whispered.

  ‘And you saw the Chairman talking with these goondas?’ Ghote asked. ‘You knew that they were goondas?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I heard a little also. From that I was able to tell what manner of men they were. There was talk of putting someone out of the way, and they agreed to it.’

  ‘You did not hear who this person was?’ Ghote asked.

  ‘No. But I heard the Chairman ask them to do that, and I saw by the looks of the men that they would do it. I cannot stay here. I cannot stay one more second.’

  Ram Dhulup actually took his eyes from Ghote’s face and found one heavy crutch where it lay on the soft ground.

  ‘Wait,’ Ghote said with calmness. ‘Shall I tell who that man was whose death was being ordered? It was me. And look, am I dead? Am I hurt even?’

  Slowly Ram Dhulup’s fingers released the crutch and it dropped again to the sodden earth.

  ‘It was you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, it was me. You see, nobody is as powerful as they would like people to believe.’

  Ram Dhulup took it in.

  ‘And now,’ Ghote said briskly, ‘think about your life as it was fifteen years ago.’

  ‘Fifteen years ago?’

  For a moment Ram Dhulup was puzzled.

  ‘It is fifteen years and a little since the accident,’ he said wonderingly. ‘When my first wife was killed, and I also nearly. When I lost the feet of both legs.’

  He looked down at his rag-protected stumps.

  ‘And it is fifteen years also,’ Ghote put in, ‘since you were a member, one of five, of a certain Coroner’s Committee.’

  ‘No,’ said Ram Dhulup aghast. ‘Not that.’

  ‘Come,’ Ghote answered. ‘That is why you were taken from your home three days ago, is it not? Of course I am wanting to know about that time.’

  Ram Dhulup was silent. He darted a glance over his shoulder into the thorn brake as if he feared that even in its depths someone would be crouching listening.

  ‘Now,’ Ghote said briskly, ‘how was it that you came to be on that committee? You were a dhobi then, or, worse, a dhobi who had just lost both feet in an accident. Why were you chosen?’

  ‘I do not know, sahib.’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Sahib, it was because I had lost my feet, because I was poor. He knew I needed money most of all.’

  ‘Who knew?’

  ‘He, sahib. The Chairman.’

  It was a whisper of admission.

  Ram Dhulup looked up into Ghote’s face now it was made.

  ‘Sahib,’ he said more courageously, ‘in those days he was not Chairman. It was his father-in-law, the man who was to become his father-in-law who was Chairman.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘So it was just Vinayak Savarkar who came to me.’

  ‘He came himself?’

  ‘Sahib, this was matter in which one does not trust even one’s closest friends.’

  ‘I see. So he came to you himself, in secret? And what did he ask of you?’

  ‘Yes, sahib, it was in secret. And he asked me first just to be on this what-they-call committee. And to tell everything to him that was said. And then to be ready, sahib.’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘To do whatever he said, sahib.’

  ‘I see. And were you in the end asked to do anything?’

  ‘Oh yes, sahib.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘It was when we had heard much talk already about the lady who was dead.’

  ‘What was it he asked?’

  ‘I was to say something, sahib. Without fail I was to say.’

  ‘And what was it?’

  ‘I was to say that because he was a good Brahmin and she also – But, sahib, he was not good Brahmin. Everyone knew. I also knew. I had seen him with my own eyes do such things. Outcaste people he would touch even, sahib.’

  ‘But what was it you were asked to do?’ Ghote hammered.

  ‘To say that, sahib. That he was good Brahmin and the dead lady also. To say how terrible it would be that she should not go to the burning ghats, sahib.’

  ‘Go on, go on.’

  ‘Well, this I did, sahib. All that he told me. I said he was good Brahmin, though, sahib, sometimes since I have wondered at what his parents must have been. Such things he does, sahib, such things he dares to do. What did they ever teach him as child?’

  ‘And you suggested that the body should after all be burned?’ Ghote prompted. ‘And what happened?’

  ‘It was agreed, sahib. It was agreed that in one month it could be taken from the earth and burned.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And that was done too, sahib. I was there. I helped, as if I had been brother to her. There was no one else who knew, and who was allowed.’

  Then suddenly, appalled at the extent of his betrayal of his patron, Ram Dhulup positively grabbed his two thick crutches and thrusting their ends into the squelchy ground heaved himself to his feet.

  Ghote calculated rapidly. He could try and force the man to stay and then squeeze more details out of him about just what had gone on in the Coroner’s Committee. But keeping him here increased second by second the chances of his being caught by someone from the Chairman’s house.

  He rose to his feet as well.

  ‘How did you get past the chaprassi?’ he asked Ram Dhulup.

  ‘Sahib, it cost me much money. But sahib I must know. My wife, who was she with?’

  Ghote came to an abrupt decision.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘your wife was wearing that green and blue sari with the gold border last night. But there was no one with her and I said such things to her that she will dare have no one.’

  Ram Dhulup seized his hand in his own, made horny by the long use of his crutches. But Ghote shook himself free.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘quickly, get back to the house. Let no one know you were here. The chaprassi will dare say nothing with you there to see he keeps his word. Go now.’

  And like a flapping horn-winged creature the cripple hoisted himself at top speed up the narrow path to the roadway and away along the puddle-splotched surface of the road in the direction of the Municipal Chairman’s house.

  Ghote stood where he was in the shelter of the kika brake and blew a long sigh. He was soaking wet. His shirt and trousers, clean and white only a couple of hours earlier, were mud-smeared from head to foot with his vigil on the wall and his spying under the thorn bushes. But he was content.

  There could be no doubt now that the Chairman had gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that Coroner’s Committee did just what he wanted. He had virtually seen to it himself that his dead wife’s body was taken to the burning ghats instead of being buried and subject to exhumation. All right, doubtless Superintendent Chavan would say that this was simply because someone unknown had poisoned her and the Chairman feared to have suspicion cast on him, but it could equally be that it was because he had poisoned her himself. It was in fact much more likely.

  Certainly this discovery meant he had taken another good step on the road to getting an ultimate conviction. And there would be other steps to come, steps freed from even the least shadow of doubt.

  15

  So it was at a decidedly swift pace that Inspector Ghote approached the town police
-station again that morning. It was becoming more and more urgent to get from the Eminent Figure in Bombay the answers to the various questions he had put to him, and especially he wanted a reply to the inquiries that were being made, he hoped, in Nagaland about the whereabouts of Hemu Adhikari, the pathologist who had actually handled the body of the Municipal Chairman’s first wife, who had failed to dispatch the organs he had removed to the Chemical Examiner in Bombay and who so soon after undertaking that routine autopsy (in which the routine had mysteriously gone astray) had been firmly posted away to distant Nagaland. With cast-iron confirmation that the Chairman himself had made sure his poisoned wife’s body was burned at the ghats, it became more than ever crucial to find out what had happened to the missing organs and how exactly they had been disposed of, if indeed they had been disposed of.

  Another telephone call to Bombay was urgent.

  He brought his dreadnought bicycle to a skiddy halt in the smelly lane at the back of the police compound, dismounted, leant the machine against the wall and began unstrapping the brightly-lettered egg-box before rattling for admittance on the narrow old rusty gate.

  ‘Inspector Ghote.’

  It was a lisping toothless voice from behind him.

  He turned. The hair-sprouting crone he had first encountered as he had arrived in the town was standing there again, still clutching her huge Ovax jar of pathetic possessions. In his hurry to get to Ram Dhulup’s house when the rioting had died down the evening before and in the excitement of finding out just where the Chairman had hidden the missing dhobi he had totally forgotten his curious meeting with her at this very spot then.

  Why had she wanted to see the Inspector Ghote she did not know she had already actually met?

  Well, he had no time to find out now.

  He took the egg-box off the bicycle carrier, tucked it under his arm and gave the iron gate a rattle.

  ‘Inspector Ghote it is you,’ the old woman mumbled at him through toothless gums.