Doing Wrong (Inspector Ghote)

by Keating, H. R. F.

‘Inspector, this was some time ago. How can—’

  ‘Sir, it was six days ago only.’

  Damn it, he is right. Damn him, damn him.

  ‘Yes. Yes, six days ago.’

  Spin it out. And think. Think, think, think.

  ‘Thank you for pointing it out, Inspector. It helps me to bring it back to mind.’

  To bring back what? What, for God’s sake? What?

  ‘So, sir, where were you?’

  Where? What can I say? Where could I have been that he cannot prove I was not?

  ‘I was— Let me see . . .’

  Ah. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

  ‘I was, of course, here. In the house.’

  Yes, this will do. I believe I can get away with it.

  ‘But it is my custom to work in this room and down in the office also. One or the other.’

  Yes, yes. This is good. The right, right answer, surely. The proper way to do it.

  ‘Impossible to say where at any one moment.’

  ‘Very good. I am taking it there are people who could confirm same.’

  Ah, yes. You are as much as saying you know this is something that can hardly be fully confirmed, one way or the other. I have hit on it. Definitely. The right answer.

  ‘There are clerks in your office? Your peon?’

  Raman? Yes, mongoose is getting near to one small weak place. That good-for-nothing, Raman. He would like to say whatever will please the policewalla. But, damn him, he will say whatever pleases me also. And in the end he is owing me more than he could ever owe anybody from the police. Bombay police especially.

  But try to hide Raman somewhat if I can. One danger place.

  ‘Yes, yes. I expect the clerks see me coming and going, though they may not know whether I was there on one day rather than the next.’

  Enough? No, I see him ready to pounce on Raman. He will have seen what sort of a fellow he is. Give the mongoose that much of credit.

  ‘Or I could call Raman some time later.’

  Give him the idea that I know Raman is out, taking a message or getting me a paan to chew. Not very good. But perhaps it will do. So long as I can get to Raman first. I will need one word only. One look.

  And it seems to be enough. He is not insisting on seeing Raman now at this moment.

  ‘Then, sir, you were in the house. But for how long? Did you leave at all that day, just six days ago? You must be able to remember.’

  Oh, yes, I can remember. I can remember every minute of all that time, from the moment old Srivastava spoke those words, Perhaps you are not knowing Mrs Popatkar. Sir, she is not a person it is possible to refuse, to the moment my hands went round her throat.

  But what to claim that I remem— Hah, got it. Got it. Got it.

  ‘Oh, but, yes, Inspector, you do not expect me to remain captive in my own house all night?’

  Yes, this will do excellently. Could not be better.

  ‘So, sir, at what time precisely were you leaving?’

  Ah, that is a little problem. The time I was leaving? When to say? Be careful. Tell him nothing that will allow him to trap me.

  ‘Really, Inspector, you are demanding too much. Who keeps time to that extent in our easy-going Banares?’

  Ah, yes, this is good. Remind the fellow where he is. In Banares. Where truth itself should reign.

  ‘Yes, I can tell you the exact hour I leave the house every morning because I take a holy sunrise dip. But after that, who knows?’

  Yes. Make him think. Is this, after all, a man of truth, of right-doing? Perhaps he is not in the end a liar.

  ‘Very well, sir. I am understanding it is not always possible to say to one minute where one is, especially after some days.’

  Yes. Plain to see. He is wavering. Doubting himself and that belief of his. Yes, I am coming out of it all now.

  ‘But you can at least remember where you went.’

  No. A leap like a panther.

  But I am ready for him. Altogether ready.

  ‘But, yes, Inspector, I can easily remember what I did six days ago. We were then at the fourth Ram Lila night. I, of course, went out to Ramnagar to watch that play.’

  There. Try to catch me out in that. All the crowds out there at Ramnagar. A lakh of people, more. And in the darkness. How could anybody have seen me there? Or not seen me?

  And if he tries asking what I was seeing, why I can remember from last year that day in the cycle. Or from the same day the year before, and ten, twenty, thirty, forty years before that. Going with my father as a child hardly old enough to understand.

  Yes, I begin to think I am at the end of it now. What a piece of luck to have found such an alibi. One he cannot disprove if he is questioning-questioning all the rest of the day.

  In the darkness moving slowly towards home. Riding on my father’s shoulders. My hands clutching the thick, oil-smelling hair of his head. And my mind full of the noble deeds of Rama. My soul flooded with the urge to be good. As good as the man Sage Narada described when the poet Valkmini asked, O venerable rishi! Tell me is there a perfect man in this world who is virtuous, brave, dutiful, truthful, noble, kind to all beings? To be as good, as brave as Rama himself.

  Now. Shall I do it now? Be Rama. Throw away everything. Say at last, Inspector, no, I cannot keep on lying and lying. Yes, I did kill Mrs Shoba Popatkar?

  But no. No, this is not that moment. Not when I am so much winning. Winning for myself what I most need. What I must have. Time. Time to decide what I will do, when I will do it.

  So smile a little. Show confidence.

  ‘But, alas, Inspector, I can produce no witness.’

  Oh, and add to it. Shine with confidence. The confidence of a man who knows he has done no wrong.

  ‘The Maharajah of Banares, of course, was there. He presides each night. But I do not think he saw myself.’

  Will he smile at my joke? If he does, it will be a sign. A sign he cannot help believing, in spite of all, I am a good man. I am not possibly a murderer.

  ‘That is all very well, sir.’

  No, not a hint of smile.

  ‘But I want definite proof you were here in Banares and not flying to Bombay.’

  No. No, not the smallest going-back on what he so plainly believes.

  ‘Inspector, I tell you again. I very much resent your attitude. Wherever Vikram was, I was not with him. I cannot make myself clearer than that. Now, if you please, I have work to do.’

  But he will not go. The mongoose. I know it.

  ‘No, sir. I have questions still to ask.’

  Yes. And what questions? I should not have given myself even that one firefly glimmer of hope.

  But try once more. Once more.

  ‘Inspector, I have told you where I was that evening. It is a matter of regret I did not happen to see anyone I know. And that this year I did not go to Ramnagar with a party of friends.’

  Thank goodness, I had not even arranged to do that. Because – and this hurts – because I thought in a few days I would be a Minister in Delhi itself and I should be careful what company I was keeping. But some use coming out of it. At least I have this alibi. And it will take more than a Bombay rat to break it.

  ‘But, Inspector, as it is, you will have to take my word for it. As you should. I am not without a certain reputation for truth-telling. Even when truth-telling has kept me out of Government for many, many years.’

  More bonus coming out of that act of treachery of Nagpal’s. But I can see the mongoose glint in that man’s eye there. Unchanged. Unchanging.

  ‘Very well, sir, let us assume you have remembered correctly . . .’

  What weight of mockery he put on that remembered. He might as well be pointing his finger and proclaiming me as a liar.

  ‘. . . what you did that night. But the Ram Lila episodes do not last too long. So what were you doing after?’

  What can I say? What is it likely I would have been doing? What would have kept me away from any witness?

  ‘Di
d you come home, sir? What time did you come home? To within one hour, let us say? I know you Banarasis do not go in for the clocks and the watches.’

  So now even he is accusing me because I am a Banarasi. The little gnawing Bombay rat. Well, tell him. Give it to him, hot and strong.

  ‘No, Inspector, we do not consult our watches at each and every moment like your hustle-bustle Bombayites. And on the nights of the Rama Lila itself we are even worse.’

  Yes, keep to the Ram Lila. It is my certificate of goodness. If I can make him believe in my following Lord Rama’s teachings. If I can he enough, despite those teachings. Lie about doing right.

  ‘Those plays are there, Inspector, to teach us. And I, for one, take what I have seen to heart. After the play that night I walked about asking and asking myself had I kept up to my resolutions to do good and to be good.’

  And next year? Next year if I am here to see the play that night, what will I be able to say of the year past? That during it I committed one murder? That I told lie upon lie to stop myself being found out? That I contemplated having this little rat here made away with? Even that I was forced into making the most ridiculous false statement about the age of my own grandson?

  But if I had not told these lies, told the lies I am telling even now, then I would not be here to see the Ram Lila once more. I would have been hanged as a murderer. Hanged outside of Holy Banares. With my next life destined to be as the lowest and vilest of the low.

  No. I cannot endure that.

  Lies it must be. Lies and lies and lies. Till at last lying saves me, the truth-telling man that used to be.

  Oh, and are you coming at me again, sharp-toothed mongoose?

  ‘Sir, while you were walking and pondering also did you perhaps stop and buy a paan? I am knowing you Banarasis are so much liking to munch your India-famed paans . . .’

  What is he saying? What is this-all about paans? Am I going mad? Has he driven me mad with his questions-this and his questions-that?

  But listen to him. Listen. Beware of some trap, even in paans. India-famed paans. He is trying something with his flatteries.

  ‘. . . Sir, you are one well-known figure in this city. Will some paanwalla have recognized?’

  Ah, does he hope I will find some paanwalla, bribe him? And then does he think he could break the fellow down? Well, I am not so easy to catch, Mr Inspector.

  ‘Inspector, after watching that play I was altogether too concerned with the state of my soul to go buying paans.’

  Oh, I am too old to be caught by such a schoolboy trap. You must do better than that, my fine inspector.

  ‘Then, sir, after however much of pondering, you were returning at last here?’

  Quickly, think. No, must be safe to say I came back here. But keep it vague. Vague.

  ‘Of course I came back home. What else should you think I would do? I came back. I went to my lonely bed. You know my wife was expiring some years past? And in the morning I rose up and went, as always, to Mother Ganga.’

  Who has lost the power to bring me, cleansed of sin, to the new day. Yes, admit that.

  But not to him. Not to that rat. For him the look of calm and confidence. As if I had indeed just stepped from Ganga Ma, renewed.

  ‘And you cannot say, at all, when it was you were returning here?’

  The best you can do, little mongoose? You are losing the scent itself.

  ‘Not at all, Inspector. Not one least little bit.’

  ‘But someone will have seen you come in, no? You have servants, isn’t it?’

  Yes. And, thank God, they go to bed early. I can speak the plain truth here.

  ‘All sound asleep by that time. Whenever it was.’

  Unless one of them was up, knew I was not in my bed. But they cannot have done. They would not dare come into my room. No. No, I am safe here. Safe.

  So where will he go poking-poking next? Or is it over? No, do not hope. Wait. Be ready.

  ‘You do not keep a watchman?’

  Ha. Karim. So, thank goodness, I was getting rid of him. They will never find him now, not however far they are looking.

  ‘Why, yes, I do. Or rather I did. A fellow by the name of Karim, something of a rogue. A Pathan. But, I am sorry to say, the fellow has vanished. Some articles missing. Nothing of value.’

  That should do it altogether nicely. Tie up the whole business. No ends left to be picked at.

  ‘Vanished, sir? You mean he is absconding altogether?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly, Inspector.’

  How right I was to chase that blackmailer out. And no sign of him since. You will not get anywhere in this line, mongoose.

  ‘But you have an address for him in his native place? That is the procedure police are recommending to all with servants in Bombay.’

  This will get you nowhere, my little friend. Nowhere at all. Why don’t you go home to your Bombay and its procedures-procedures?

  ‘But here, Inspector, with Nepal not so far distant there is no point in keeping such details.’

  So your way blocked, I think, my friend. Gaps in the defences filled. If only with more and more puffings of airy lies.

  But he is going to try something more, I see. Well, try. Try, little mongoose.

  ‘Mr Verma, you have stated you have never met Mrs Shoba Popatkar.’

  Well, he has chosen a good place. Give him that. If there is anywhere I am truly weak, it is with her. If Srivastava should ever tell him that when I telephoned he reported to me that she had read the Recollections and that at once I was furious, then he will begin to guess perhaps why I— Why I had to do what I did. Perhaps then he would be able to go to the High Court, or to somewhere, and get legal permission for the hundred-and-one year ban to be broken.

  Thank God, he has no idea that it was I myself who was imposing that.

  ‘But, if you would search your memory, I believe you must find some occasion when you were meeting her. She came here, so a ticket examiner was telling me, many times over the past years.’

  Hah. On the wrong trail now, mongoose. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

  ‘Inspector, how many times must I repeat? When I make a statement I tell the truth. That and nothing more. It is my lifelong habit.’

  Cannot tell him that too often. Why cannot he believe it? And get out of here?

  ‘And now when you are saying you have never, not once even, met Mrs Popatkar you are telling the truth itself?’

  Oh, you have struck hard there. You may have been repeating only one damn question, but you have showed me to myself. I tell the truth. That and nothing more. It is my lifelong habit. It was my habit. Once. Or almost my habit. I did try. I wanted to be a truth-teller. And I was. I was. For the greater part. Yes. For the greater part I was.

  But now . . . Now I must give out one full lie. About the truth itself.

  Lean towards him. Put as much of force into it as I can.

  ‘Inspector, I have told you the truth itself. Why must you keep asking and asking?’

  Is it enough? Have I done it? Will he leave me alone now at last?

  No. He is thinking. I can see it. What is he going to find to ask now? Something new altogether?

  ‘Mr Verma, the first time I came to see you it was to make one simple request.’

  What is this? He came to ask to go through the Recollections. He cannot have learnt now what is in them. Have come to know why I dare not let them be read. Why I had to stop Mrs Popatkar telling the world KK had ceased to believe all his party still stands for.

  This is the worst I had to fear. The very worst. And, now when I had begun to think it was all over, it has come.

  What is he going to say? Listen. Listen.

  ‘It was to take your permission, as chief trustee, to read the Recollections of the late Krishnan Kalgutkar.’

  Go on. Go on, damn you. Come out with what you know. What you have known all along. If it can be.

  No. No, no, no. That cannot be. He cannot have found out. He cannot.

 
‘Sir, I was informing you then I required to see the said Recollections in view of the fact that Mrs Popatkar had read same shortly before she was murdered. Mr Verma, I am now repeating that request.’

  Nothing.

  I feel nothing. I have nothing to say. There is nothing for me to do any more now.

  I suppose I must answer. Somehow. Say something. Say, Read then, read. Find out everything. Arrest me. Take me out of Holy Banares. Hang me. Condemn me to a hundred thousand more lives to be lived? Or say No? No, you may not see those Recollections?

  And what will he do then? He will only get permission some other way.

  ‘Inspector Ghote, I must tell you again. A ban is a ban. No one can read those Recollections for one hundred and one years. No one. No one.’

  But— But, yes, there is a chance for me here. A tiny chance. I send him packing now, and then, fast as I can go, to Srivastava’s library. Get hold of the Recollections. Burn them. Destroy them. Then let them suspect whatsoever they like. They will not have proof.

  Yes. Yes, that is the thing to do.

  20

  Just only one thing more to do, Ghote thought. Since I did not get the confession I was hoping for I must find one thing more to go with to the Senior Superintendent and make out a hundred per cent good case for an arrest.

  And that must lie in those Recollections. So, to the BHU and Mr Srivastava. Persuade him just to let me look. A matter of perhaps one hour only. Or should I march in like Mrs Popatkar herself and demand to see? I could do that. Mr Srivastava is not the fellow to oppose me with fisticuffs if I am seizing whatever keys he has. But . . .

  But I would not like it to come to that.

  And, if it did, there would still be problems. How would what I did affect the case when it is coming to court?

  No, better to try first the soft approach. And – yes – it would be a damn good thing to have Mishra by my side. He would know some Banarasi way perhaps to get round Srivastava. Or to persuade him to turn a Nelson’s eye to what I am doing.

  H. K. Verma did not leave it long after the Bombay inspector had left. He gave him just enough time to get clear of the immediate area – I would not put it past that mongoose to follow me – and then he heaved himself from his big chair, padded into his bedroom, took the matches – Cheetah Fight brand – that always stood by a candle there in case of a power cut, picked his stoutest pair of chappals from the almirah and set out.