Serpentine

by Thomas Thompson

  Clearing out his schedule, Tuli caught the next flight for Goa. He was not a man to squander time. He could not have achieved the nickname “Sherlock Holmes of India” by taking afternoon naps.

  In any country, in any language, Tuli would be taken immediately for a cop. He looked like one, talked like one, acted like one. In a country where men wore turbans or hair that tumbled to shoulders, Tuli had a silvery crew cut. In a city where men wore pajamas on the streets, Tuli favored bright plaid sport coats. He would have been home in the Houston, Texas, homicide office. He was lean, tough, fifty years old, and good-humored. The trouble was that his smile did not convince. It clashed with his eyes, dark brown and cold, the eyes of all veteran cops, like a faith healer who takes on the disease of his patient. His ego was as substantial as a film star’s, justifiable considering his track record.

  Tuli was born in Lahore, then a city in India, later to become after the 1947 partition a major metropolis of the new nation of Pakistan. His father was a postal superintendent. There were four brothers and three sisters, all to become professional people including one a leading doctor, another a general in the Army. Tuli had completed four years of pre-med study when the world that he knew suddenly split and caught on fire. It was 1946 and he remembers it well:

  “We were Hindus and we lived next door to Moslems. There was never any trouble. We partook of one another’s marriages, sorrows, deaths, and triumphs. We worshipped different gods, but we had no grievance for that. Then some fool in London proposed a Pakistani nation and the blood started to flow.” After six thousand people were massacred in Calcutta in 1946, riots broke out all over the subcontinent. In Tuli’s quiet neighborhood neighbors turned against neighbors and corpses fell to the street where they bloated in the sun. Tuli’s father, sensing that millions of Hindus would be fleeing Pakistan and seeking refuge in India, arranged a transfer in the postal service and moved his family to Delhi in 1947. They traveled by plane, train, and bullock cart, able to take but a few possessions from a fine house and a lifetime in Lahore. As they fled the city, the house was burned by Moslem fanatics, some of whom had once drunk tea in the Tuli garden.

  Although Tuli had been an exceptional student in Lahore, he was unable to enroll in a medical school in Delhi, as the city and all of its institutions were overwhelmed by the chaos of war, national rebirth, and millions of refugees. At the age of twenty-two, Tuli could not wait for a second chance. He was an impatient young man, eager to make his mark. If he could not be a doctor, then he decided to be a policeman. His father was appalled. The police he knew were creatures of bureaucracy, often corrupt, usually ignorant, and scarcely removed from brutes. Nonetheless, Tuli was one of a thousand applicants for eighteen positions on the Delhi force. The entrance exam was grueling. Not only did it require two days of written tests, but the physical examination required prowess in karate, hurdle jumping, rope climbing, calisthenics, and running—nine miles had to be covered in one hour. Tuli passed with ease, spent a year at the police academy, and began his career as an assistant subinspector in the Paharganj district, a thickly populated chunk of Old Delhi. There his work was routine, mainly catching bicycle thieves with an occasional opium arrest to spice an otherwise bland cake. He earned 150 rupees a month, less than twenty dollars, for working seven days a week.

  Strange how reputations are built. In this first year, Tuli was offered a bribe of 1,000 rupees from a prominent contractor under investigation for receiving stolen goods. He refused. The contractor doubled his offer. Two thousand rupees was more than the young cop made in a year. But Tuli not only said no to temptation, he arrested the contractor, an act of notable integrity in a country where baksheesh (a bribe) is as common as grains of rice. Thus did a young police officer earn the reputation of being honest.

  Over the next decade, Tuli moved quickly up the police hierarchy, serving in the Criminal Bureau of Investigation (India’s FBI), then earning an appointment as Deputy Superintendent of Police and head of the Crime Branch, the cream job in law enforcement. India’s press picked up on him, affixing labels such as “ace” and “supersleuth.” Delhi usually has about four hundred murders a year, but few qualify as interesting enough for a Tuli investigation. These are the routine killings—neighbors quarreling, tenants falling out with landlords, marital violence. In a rare interview, Tuli said he chose his cases carefully. Before he would personally undertake investigation of a crime, it had to (1) involve important people, (2) have considerable mystery, and (3) contain an element of sensationalism.

  Hugey Courage opened his door and was not delighted to encounter India’s most celebrated cop on his hearth. At first Hugey denied his identity, he denied authorship of the letter, he feigned illness, he put forth a score of hastily improvised excuses to shoo away the unwanted intruder.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Tuli gently. “You did a very good thing, writing that letter … Come, let’s take a walk. We can at least stroll on the beach together.” The hulking blond Belgian agreed. The monsoons were beginning, it was off-season, the day was gray and sticky, the ocean and the shore were beautiful and deserted. For two days Tuli and Hugey strolled, gradually building trust. Tuli discerned that Hugey was most concerned about being charged with robbery, for stealing Marie-Andrée’s purse and the money from the group’s hotel room.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong except steal from a thief,” said Tuli. “I don’t really blame you.”

  Hugey looked incredulous. Was this sharpie cop from Delhi conning him? “You didn’t know what you were getting into,” suggested Tuli. “And you did the right thing by breaking away and writing that letter. Now. Why don’t you tell me about these people?”

  There was one more thorn in Hugey’s side. He was afraid for his wife and children. He suspected that “Alain Gauthier” would return to Goa and kill him, perhaps his family as well. Tuli offered quick assurance that police would keep a continual eye on the Courage household until the danger had passed. “I ask you to believe me,” said Tuli. “And trust me. There comes a time in every man’s life when he must decide to put his trust in something.”

  The story spilled out of Hugey in great torrents. He told everything, how he was to be transformed from a beach bum to a pinstriped diplomat, how the girls were used to entice customers, how “Alain Gauthier” was a strange sort of father to a brood of lost children. “He wants everybody to love him,” said Hugey. “When I found out he also wanted to hurt them—I had to leave.”

  From Hugey, Tuli obtained a few snapshots of the group, including those of Charles and Marie-Andrée. He flew to Bombay, had them enlarged, and distributed them to security officers of the major hotels. “If one of these people shows up,” he ordered, “call me day or night.” And once back at his office in Delhi, he sent copies of the photos to every major hotel in India. Tuli did not know that his targets were at that moment just a few blocks away from his office, in the countdown for a caper that, if it came off successfully, would be one of the most brazen ever committed. With Hindu fatalism, all Tuli knew was that quite soon his life would collide with these people. It was karma, just a matter of time.

  The Vikram Hotel in Delhi has an air of North Africa—bamboo blinds, rattan chairs, lazy ceiling fans, riotously colored blossoms. Catering to tour groups and not considered one of the city’s deluxe inns, the Vikram has a certain charm based on cleanliness, bathrooms that work, and an aura of hygienic exotic. On the afternoon of July 5, 1976, the hotel’s public rooms were crowded with French men and women, sixty ebullient members of a tour that was crossing the face of Asia. Many of them were engineering students doing postgraduate study. They were intelligent, middle-class, hard-working, and at last embarked on a trip for which they had saved and scrimped. They were also indefatigable, save for a few who were enduring mild cases of Delhi belly, refusing to let the torrential storm of this day spoil their last hours in India. Some of them stood on the hotel steps, watching the awesome sheets of driving rain sweep even oxcarts from the st
reets; others stayed inside sipping the last drops of luncheon wine, playing cards, writing letters home that told of the Taj Mahal, where they had just spent two days examining the tomb with both the passion of Frenchmen and with the professional respect of engineers.

  Amid them, very much the center of attention, was a helpful young man the group had encountered in the gardens of the Taj Mahal. He had suddenly appeared beside them, had struck up a conversation, had led them to the best restaurant in Agra, to a souvenir shop that had low prices, chattering all the while about his happiness over encountering a busload of his countrymen in this faraway place. His name, he said, was “Daniel Chaumet” and his mission, he said, was to make their stay in India a memorable one.

  Certainly he was helpful. When “Daniel Chaumet” learned that several of the French had already purchased gemstones in Agra, he asked to see them and frowned at both the quality and the price. Cursing thieves who took advantage of tourists, he escorted his new friends back to the shops in question and with menace demanded—and obtained—refunds. “Seeing the Taj Mahal and meeting Daniel Chaumet are the two best things that have happened so far,” remarked one of the engineering students.

  He stuck to them like epoxy. And the discovery that Daniel Chaumet had two stunning girl friends, one brunette, the other blond with a diamond in her nostril, enhanced his stature. The girls were flirtatious and seemed receptive to romantic suggestion by the students. After two days, it was as if they had all known each other for lifetimes.

  Now, in Delhi, their last day in India would soon be ended. At 2 A.M. the tour would fly to Bangkok. No one wanted to sleep and the Vikram Hotel churned with festive Frenchmen. During the long, rainy afternoon, Chaumet began talking to a cluster of his new friends. The subject was the danger of disease in the Far East, specifically how tender French stomachs can easily fall victim to exotic bacteria. Any Frenchman relishes conversation about his foie, and the tourists were rapt. Horror stories fell from Chaumet’s lips, grim tales concerning Europeans he had known in Asia who were doomed to suffer forever from chronic amebic dysentery. Beside him, Chaumet’s friend and associate, another Frenchman, who said his name was Jean Mare, nodded knowingly. Jean Mare had sad eyes and a pencil-thin mustache and drove a silver Citroën.

  At day’s end, as the group assembled in the Vikram’s private dining room for the “Farewell Cocktail Party and Traditional Indian Dinner,” Daniel Chaumet drew the tour director, a man named Ribaud, into private conversation. Had Ribaud heard about the severe outbreak of dysentery in Thailand? No, answered the tour director, but he believed that every member of the group was well fortified with both prudent information and various medications prescribed by doctors in France. And Ribaud was constantly warning his charges not to drink tap water, or eat unpeeled, uncooked vegetables, that sort of thing.

  “That’s not safe enough,” warned Chaumet. He presented himself as a veteran of Eastern travel whose experience had taught that simple precautions were not sufficient to defeat the legions of bugs waiting to invade French stomachs. He asked Ribaud if there were objections to his offering medication to his friends that was “guaranteed” to forestall intestinal agonies. Chaumet was carrying a black bag and from it he produced a handful of tablets and capsules.

  The tour director declined the offer for himself, as he, too, had traveled often in Asia and had never gotten sick. But he did not object if the helpful friend gave his pills to the others. Thus did Chaumet find, incredibly, twenty French tourists who were pleased to accept his pills. They popped them into their mouths on the spot, perverse tribute to the charms of Charles Sobhraj, who passed among the celebrants as a priest dispensing communion wafers. Jean Mare, alias Jean Dhuisme, was beside him as altar boy.

  Now it was night. Dinner was over. Charles began to glance nervously about the dining salon. Tour director Ribaud suggested that everyone return to his room and ensure that baggage was properly packed and tagged and ready for the postmidnight flight. With urgency, Charles seconded the suggestion. He recommended to those sitting near him that a quick nap would be appropriate, as clearing Indian customs was often chaotic and harrowing.

  But no one wanted to go to bed. Charles’ words were drowned out by laughter, and wine splashing into glasses, and someone’s guitar. One of the women in the group tried unsuccessfully to show off a peacock-blue sari she had purchased; one of the students hurried over to wind it enthusiastically about his middle.

  In his place, Charles must have felt panic swelling. He knew when the pills would take effect. He had to convince the twenty who had taken his “medicine” to be out of the dining salon and upstairs, where they would pass out in their rooms. Then Charles could pay each of them a private farewell. He stood up and yawned. “Everybody ought to get some sleep,” he said, trying to steer the intended victims toward the elevator.

  “It’s early,” answered one of the students. “The night has just begun!”

  A few moments of agonizing suspense crept by. And then a woman screamed. Beside her, a student had pitched forward into his wineglass. Another suddenly slumped in his chair, sliding out and onto the floor like a blob of gelatin. People began to vomit. For a stunning few seconds, no one grasped what was happening. Bodies fell. A man grabbed the tablecloth as he lost consciousness; plates crashed around him. “They’re all dying!” cried someone. “Get the manager,” cried somebody else.

  The wife of the tour director fell to her knees and began to minister to the fallen. “Poison!” she screamed. “Assassins!” When the manager ran into the room, he threw his hands to his face in horror. A plump little man with a twitching mustache, he was in the unenviable position of having to witness his guests drop like flies. A woman crawled toward the manager and bit him on the leg. Disengaging her teeth from his flesh, he hobbled into the kitchen, fearful that mass food poisoning had occurred, Then someone yelled for him. He ran back into the dining room.

  Someone had been smart enough to discern that only those people who had taken Daniel Chaumet’s pills were passing out. Several men had grabbed Chaumet and were trying to tie him up. He broke loose and ran madly about the room, stopping to threaten his pursuers with karate chops, then hurrying on, trying to find the exit. Three French students made a flying tackle and grabbed his legs; others jumped in and sat on him. In the farcical pandemonium, Jean Dhuisme prudently fled, leaping into his Citroën and screeching away at high speed.

  When the police arrived, they discovered Charles Sobhraj pinned to a chair by several strong young students. With enormous indignation he was sputtering, cursing, threatening—and left literally holding the bag.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Tuli was rousted out of bed by a telephone call from the Crime Branch night duty officer. “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” said the policeman, “but something funny is going on at the Vikram Hotel.” A large number of French tourists passed out in the dining room after the evening meal. Ambulances had been dispatched to rush them to a hospital. The hotel management was holding a suspicious-acting Frenchman in an office off the dining room. Could this be something connected to the people Tuli was looking for? “It just might be that,” said Tuli, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  At the Vikram Hotel, Tuli discovered quiet after the storm. The sick people were all gone, their stomachs being pumped out. It appeared that none would die. Fortunately they had collapsed in public view, rather than in their rooms. The others stood around the lobby in small clusters, dazed, like survivors of a plane crash, still not sure just what had happened. The distraught manager led Tuli into a small anteroom and on the way warned that the suspect was in a steaming rage.

  An understatement.

  Daniel Chaumet was purple with anger. “This is a terrible mistake,” he snapped when Tuli introduced himself. His voice was broken English, heavily accented with French. It was difficult to understand him. One of the tourists was summoned to be translator. “I demand that you release me immediately,” insisted Chaumet, “or else you will f
ace severe consequences … I am a French citizen … I am a prominent businessman … And my embassy will not think well of this … I will file damage suits against this hotel and the New Delhi police …”

  Tuli nodded to indicate that he understood the threat—but he did not respond for a time. Instead he studied the young man carefully, seeing before him a fellow in his early thirties, dressed handsomely in well-tailored slacks and a fine cotton shirt. His eyes hid behind tinted glasses. His wristwatch was Swiss, gold, and expensive. Around his neck was a thin gold chain. He seemed authentically upper class, particularly in the imperious way he carried himself and addressed inferiors, i.e., hotel managers and cops.

  “Can you tell me what happened here tonight?” asked Tuli politely.

  “Who knows? Probably the hotel chef served poisoned food. Many of my friends got sick and fainted.”

  Tuli drew the manager outside to answer an odd question. Were there any attractive young women accompanying this man? The manager shook his head. He did not know. Then Tuli asked the same of those tourists who had not fallen ill. Yes, came the answer, there had been girls. Three of them. They had been with Chaumet in Agra. They were “vivacious” and “friendly.” But they had not been present on this night of falling bodies.

  “Oh,” said Tuli. “You only met this man in Agra? He is not part of your group?”

  “No,” said the tour director. “Monsieur Chaumet just suddenly appeared in our midst. Everybody liked him. He helped several members in our party to buy gemstones.”