The Body in the Billiard Room

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Wait. Fatbhoy? It’s that terrible pushful Parsi.’

  ‘No. He was sometimes visiting the Club, yes, but what could Pichu have been blackmailing him for?’

  ‘Then who, for God’s sake? Who?’

  Ghote paused for a moment.

  True, he had felt that a jibe about servants in detective stories would have been unnecessarily cruel. But he was entitled to a little revenge at the expense of someone who had made his life such a misery.

  ‘You were telling once,’ he said, ‘of Shri Poirot making some list of four significant things. I think it was one smell of oil paint, one picture postcard, one visit by some art critic plus one set of wax flowers.’

  ‘You’ve an excellent memory, Inspector.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am able to remember many things. But it is not always that I am able to join them together in one, as today I have joined together the death of the dog by the name of Spot, plus one hand of bananas, plus the exact date on which Pichu died, plus the effect of the World War Two on the standard of snooker playing at the Ooty Club.’ His Excellency contracted his brow in intense thought. But not for long.

  ‘No,’ he said, with a sigh of frustration, ‘you’ll have to explain.’

  ‘Yes, I would do that,’ Ghote answered. ‘Kindly think. Mrs Trayling’s dog Spot was - what it is? - “put down” because of old age. And, Number Two, while Mrs Trayling, who is not a well-off lady, can still make many purchases at Spencer’s Stores, there is one person who has to buy with much care just only bananas down in the Bazaar. As to the date of Pichu’s death, it was immediately before the last Saturday of the month, the day when the Culture Circle is always meeting. Now, you are well knowing, I am sure, that everywhere people are always most short of money before the first of the month when salaries etcetera are paid out. So that is the time Pichu would have demanded blackmail money. And if he is killed then, it is because he has threatened to give out the secret he has perhaps kept for years should he fail to get regular requisite sum on due date. And, finally, what was the result of many, many good snooker players being away after the war? Why, that Major Bell, who was not very much of a good player and who has never played since, was that year winning trophy.’

  ‘Ringer Bell?’ His Excellency said, a look of distant understanding beginning to show in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, Major Bell. Major Bell, who won that trophy when, as you yourself were telling, no one else was watching that match. But Pichu, as billiards marker, must have been there. And when the Major was cheating perhaps, when his opponent’s head was turned by moving just only a little one ball, Pichu must have seen. And because of that, month by month for many, many years he would have had his sum in cash from Major Bell. So it was no wonder when I was mentioning his snooker success after we had met him where the silver was found he was very much glaring at me. And no wonder also he was refusing and refusing to give Pichu a sack at the request of Trayling Memsahib.’

  ‘But, surely . . . No. No, I see you’re right. A chap like Bell would pay as often as he had to rather than be branded a cheat at games. Yes, I see that.’

  ‘And, as he was paying and paying, value of money was falling and falling while any pension he had was not rising so fast. So, in the end, he was forced, burra sahib though he was, to get bananas only from the Bazaar and, as you yourself again were telling, at one time there was question of Friend in Need Society. And at last there came a day when Major Bell could no more pay the sum due at or before the month-end, and then . . . Then he must have been making use of poison he had already bought for the purpose of ending the life of his old, old dog Dasher, who should have been put down like Trayling Memsahib’s Spot.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I never somehow thought of that. But Dasher ought in all decency to have been put down well before this.’

  His Excellency contemplated the ground at his feet, thinking perhaps of the ending of lives, of time passing, of inexorable change and decay.

  Then he looked up.

  ‘So what happens?’ he asked.

  ‘Well,’ Ghote answered, ‘of that I am not altogether sure. That is why I was wanting to inform you of the facts. You see, although I am certain that this is what must have taken place, I do- not have any court-of-law proof.’

  ‘No. No, I see that. Awkward.’

  ‘So what I am thinking is: should I go to Major Bell and put whole matter to him?’

  His Excellency pondered for a little.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s the only thing to do. Can’t say I envy you. Whole affair’s an appalling business.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ghote said.

  He gathered himself together.

  ‘Well, I suppose now must be the time. I was seeing the Major going in the direction of his home after he was at church, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Always does that. Doesn’t like to leave Dasher alone too long. Wretched beast howls, you know.’

  His Excellency looked down again at the well-polished black shoes he wore with his blue suit.

  ‘Dasher,’ he said.

  ‘Then I will be going,’ Ghote said.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Well, good luck. Good luck, old man.’

  It did not take Ghote many minutes to walk out to the old dilapidated house called My Abode, even though he went at a leaden pace. At the gate he paused for a moment. But there seemed to be nothing to think over, and he pushed his way past Dasher’s incontinent messes, and went up to the front door.

  There was a bell-pull, brass and doubtless once carefully polished. He gave it a cautious tug, but at once realized that nothing had happened on the far side. So he rapped hard on the door’s blistered paint with his knuckles.

  After a little he heard - he had half hoped he would not - shuffling steps coming towards him. Then the door opened.

  It was the Major, with Dasher looking more decrepit than ever at his heels.

  For a long time the old man just stared at him, his mottled red face second by second going greyer and greyer.

  At last he spoke.

  ‘It’s you. Inspector Ghote, Bombay. Thought at first it might be somebody else, though God knows no one comes to the door any more now.'

  ‘Yes,' Ghote said.

  For want of anything better to say.

  ‘Yes. Well, I suppose you'd better come in.'

  ‘Please.'

  The Major turned and, followed by Dasher, shufflingly led the way through a hall bare of all furniture with only a sola topee resting on the floor.

  There was a strong smell of mildew.

  ‘Drawing room,' the Major said.

  He pushed at a wide teak door, but was able to open it only by little more than a foot as, sagging from its loosened hinges, it scraped on the floor. He squeezed his way through. Ghote, turning sideways, prepared to squeeze after him but had to wait while Dasher made his way in step by dragging step.

  ‘Must get that door seen to,' the Major muttered.

  Then, quite suddenly, he turned round and faced Ghote, his patchily mottled face barely nine inches distant.

  ‘Well, no,’ he said more loudly and clearly, ‘the time for that sort of thing's gone, hasn't it? Rest of my life in gaol, I suppose. If they don’t hang me.’

  Ghote, standing just inside, saw that the room behind was half-denuded and almost in ruins. The single remaining armchair had its stuffing trailing feebly out. From a long bamboo bookcase a length of edging cane swung forward. The few books on its shelves were uniformly greened-over with the damp of many past monsoons. A row of photographs in frames on its top had faded almost to plain rectangles of pale sepia.

  ‘So I am right,’ he said, in answer to the Major’s declaration, wishing there was something else to say.

  ‘God knows how you got on to it,’ the Major replied. ‘But, yes, in the end I had to get rid of the fellow. After all those years of paying, paying, paying. But when I thought it was all going to be wasted, I decided I had to do what I could. Of
course, I knew he took whisky from Major Jago’s Room each night. I tried to tick him off about it once, but he only said it was nothing like as bad as moving a ball on the snooker table. S’pose he was right.’

  ‘That was just only breaking one rule of a game,’ Ghote said.

  ‘Well, but the rules are the rules, you know. No point in playing games otherwise.’

  Ghote sighed.

  ‘No, I am supposing not.’

  The Major lifted his sagging shoulders a little.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I thought I was going to get away with it. Thought I’d managed the whole thing rather well, as a matter of fact. When I was down in the Bazaar, buying some bananas - more or less live on the damn things nowadays - I spotted a fellow I knew was a fearful blackguard. Dacoit, ready for any easy money. So I deliberately said something in a loud voice to the vegetablewallah there about the silver in the Club billiard room, and what a fearful old duffer our watchman was. And the hint worked. Fellow came up that night, stole the silver and even added to everything by sticking a sword into Pichu’s body. But . . . But you saw through it all, eh?’

  ‘Well, yes. Yes, I did.’

  Dasher, Ghote noticed, was sniffing morosely at the corner of the bookcase which, judging by deep stains on the floor, he had often visited before.

  ‘So what next?’ the Major said.

  ‘Well, I must ask you to accompany me to the Urban Police Station where I would inform Inspector Meenakshisundaram of the full circumstances.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, s’pose that’s the ticket.’

  At the corner of the bookcase Dasher, perhaps somehow scenting catastrophe, suddenly flopped back on to his haunches and uttered a feeble howl.

  ‘Dasher,’ the Major said. ‘Poor old boy. What shall I do about him?’

  Ghote felt the complication as one last almost overwhelming burden thrust on to him.

  ‘I—I do not know,’ he said. ‘Oh, wait, yes. Yes, I think I can see what to do. Mrs Trayling. If I am telling her, she would, I am sure, come and rescue Dasher. Yes, I am sure.’

  ‘Lucy Trayling? Yes. Yes, she’d do it. She’ll get him put down for me too, I expect. Thing I should have done myself, only . . .’

  Ghote stood by then while the Major manoeuvred himself past the door, keeping it as little open as possible. Then he wriggled out in his turn, holding Dasher back with a carefully placed foot.

  When they had got the door shut on the decrepit animal they both stood looking at it. From inside there was silence. Silence more nerve-wracking than any feeble moans of protest.

  At last the Major turned, picked up his sola topee from the floor, placed it carefully on his head and gave Ghote a look.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘better be off, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They went out into the rioting, overgrown garden.

  ‘Shan’t bother to lock up,’ the Major said. ‘Not a damn thing to steal now, and Lucy’ll be able to get in all the easier.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ghote said once more.

  They set off.

  The Major walked with incredible slowness, head lowered, back stooping.

  When they had gone about fifty yards along the lane, from the house behind them without any warning there came the sound of Dasher lamenting.

  The Major came to a halt.

  He stood where he was in silence. Ghote, after one glance, kept his gaze resolutely looking forward. He thought he had seen glistening tears on the greyish, mottled cheeks.

  After what seemed a long while the Major spoke.

  ‘Choclox’ he said.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Choclox. I could give the old fellow the last of the Choclox. His favourite, you know. Haven’t been able to afford them for a long time now. But kept a few in the box. Treats. Christmas and all that.’

  ‘Can I go back and give?’ Ghote asked. ‘You are looking most tired.’

  ‘No, no. Better do it myself. Might force his way out and go on the rampage.’

  Ghote thought how unlikely that was. And how unlikely it was that the Major, if allowed to go back into My Abode on his own, would contrive a daring escape.

  ‘I will wait,’ he said.

  ‘Good of you. Shan’t be long.’

  ‘Do not hurry. Please.’

  The old man shuffled off. Even before he had reached the gate of the house Dasher had stopped his lament.

  Ghote stood where he was, trying not to think of anything. Especially of his strict duty as a police officer.

  Minutes passed.

  He looked at his watch. How long had it been since the Major had gone in search of Choclox?

  He decided to give him another five minutes. He looked at the hand of his watch with scrupulous care.

  At the end of the measured time there was still no sign of the Major.

  Ghote turned and strode rapidly back. The lopsided garden gate had been left fully open. He looked at the house. The front door was slightly ajar.

  Careless of Dasher’s leavings, he sprinted up the path, pushed his way into the house, looked round the empty hall.

  The drawing-room door was open, as far as it would go. He ran across and thrust his head in.

  The Major lay, face down, on the floor. Near him was an empty carton labelled ‘Choclox’. Dasher was standing beside him, slowly poking with his nose at a place by his master’s neck.

  Ghote went and knelt beside the dog.

  He was not surprised to find, when he thrust a hand underneath the Major’s inert body, that the heart had stopped beating. He recalled that at the time they had inspected the missing silver in the churchyard the Major had said something about his old ticker being likely to let him down.

  He got to his feet.

  ‘Well, Dasher,’ he said, cursing himself for doing it as soon as he had begun, ‘this must be the end. For your master. For you soon also. For me in Ooty.’

  *

  Inspector Ghote watched the little blue-‘and-buff-coloured train come chuffing into Ramgar Station ready for its return trip down to the plains below.

  When he had learnt from the ever efficient Mr Iyer that no bus left for Coimbatore for several hours the evident rage and disappointment on his face had prompted the assistant secretary to mention the train. There would be just time to catch it.

  Ghote had actually run to his room then, hauled his suitcase out of the enormous almirah in which it had occupied a corner and almost frenziedly had stuffed his clothes and possessions into it.

  The tail of a shirt, he saw now, was still sticking out at one side. He decided he had time to put the case up on to the concrete bench just behind him - it was underneath Tree No. 3 inside the spiked railing, the number painted on a neat yellow square cut in the trunk - open it and tuck the offending piece of red-and-white check out of sight.

  Order restored, he picked up the case and made for the oddly tall, square-looking carriages of the waiting train. He selected the carriage labelled Seats A 1-6, one that no one else among the handful of passengers waiting to leave paradise Ooty had chosen, since he was filled with an intense desire to be alone with his thoughts.

  To his relief he was not joined by any scurrying late arrival before there came the clang of one of the red-capped porters striking the dangling departure-signal iron bar. The guard then put his whistle to his mouth and blew a thin, piercing shriek. In answer the train’s engine produced a hollow musical boom and they slowly began to roll forward.

  I am leaving Ooty, Ghote said to himself in a sunburst of unalloyed delight.

  Then, almost at once, he thought that there had been times in hell Ooty when he had experienced feelings of high pleasure. Not, certainly, during the past few hectic hours as he had reported the death of Major Bell to Inspector Meenakshisundaram, telephoned Lucy Trayling to arrange for her to take care of Dasher, informed His Excellency about all that had happened and had contrived to say goodbye to him without making it obvious that he intended to shake the dust of Ooty from hi
s feet as rapidly as possible.

  But he had felt intense, almost overwhelming, awesome pleasure in the out-of-the-world world he was leaving when he had succeeded, twice, in actually becoming, for a few minutes only, a Great Detective.

  He had put himself into a yogic trance and had seen how it had come about that the wretched Pichu had died: had died once and then died again, though which death was the first would never be known. And he had, if not by means of a Sherlock Holmes tobacco-filled pipe, entered into another trance and had found himself at last walking in the hunched and peering manner of that sad murderer, the Major.

  And he had eaten porridge and Dundee marmalade.

  The train was now descending rapidly, passing alternately through cuttings hacked out of the solid rock barely wider than its locomotive and winding down the mountainside with huge precipitous views of wild tumbling valleys and distant spiny ridges stretching out for mile upon mile. Soon the deep green of the hill forest had begun to change to a lighter colour. The stations of the route had been ticked off one by one, Lovedale, Wellington, Runnymede, Hillgrove.

  Ghote had hardly noticed them and their out-of-place English names. A world that was not frozen in the pages of a detective story awaited him in the steamy heat below.