Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart

by H. R. F. Keating

  Manibhai Desai’s question had been answered. The little scar above the knuckle of that small tube of flesh had delivered its message. It was beyond doubt Pidku’s finger that had been sent to them. And, Ghote thought, it was now beyond doubt too – how could he have ever given room to the slightest of doubts? – that there was no truth at all in that vile suggestion in the paper that the tailor himself was the master-mind behind the whole affair.

  And then the telephone rang.

  For a long moment neither Ghote nor Mr Desai was able to react properly to the sound. It was as if it was an intrusion of whose nature they could know nothing.

  Ghote was first to recover. But he lifted the receiver still feeling himself to be in a remote world.

  ‘Yes?’ he said hollowly.

  A voice spoke at the far end. A flat, familiar voice.

  Ghote clapped his hand across the telephone mouthpiece.

  ‘It is them,’ he jerked out, all alertness now. ‘It is them. The kidnappers.’

  Manibhai Desai came over with clumsily hurried strides and took the receiver.

  He had barely had time to give his name when the flat voice cut in. Ghote could not hear the exact words, but the tone was plain. Curt orders were being given.

  ‘But – but listen …’ Mr Desai said after a while.

  The voice ignored him. It spoke a few words more.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Desai. ‘I have got a suitcase. I used it when –’

  A sharp interruption.

  ‘Yes, yes, I will. It is in leather. It is quite old. It comes from the office, they have it for carrying amounts of cash. It is what is called a Gladstone. It opens in the middle instead of having a lid.’

  Another terse question.

  ‘It is brown, yes. Brown leath –’

  A burst of instructions. And then that click of finality that meant that once again contact with the men who had cut off little Pidku’s finger had been lost.

  ‘What did he say?’ Ghote burst out.

  ‘It is to be near the Gateway of India,’ Manibhai Desai answered, his deep-set eyes already looking into the future he was speaking of. ‘It is to be at Apollo Bunder tonight at 7 p.m. I am to wait under the statue of Shivaji with the money in that bag you heard me describe. And at some time it would be taken from me.’

  His right hand abruptly opened in a wide gesture as if it was already letting fall the intolerable burden it had had to carry.

  Ghote forced the policeman in him to the surface. What new elements had been put into the situation by this move from the other side? He had rapidly to concede that their idea was a clever one. He could see what the scene would be like round about the big triumphal arch of British days. There were often hundreds of people there. And just after darkness had fallen it would be even easier for some inconspicuous idler to pass in front of the figure of the proprietor of Trust-X, standing alone underneath the big statue of the horsed Shivaji, and to snatch that bag crammed with money. Then they could pass it rapidly to a confederate and perhaps on to yet another, then on again to a waiting car or taxi, or even drop it into a motor-boat puttering past the high quay. It could be spirited away within a couple of minutes. And who among the crowd of strollers of all sorts, among the sellers of postcards and of pens, among the furtive, tourist-seeking money-changers and the clamorous fortunetellers, among the vendors of roast peanuts, of coconuts, of crushed sugarcane, of chick-peas, who might not be one of the kidnap gang in disguise?

  They did not really know at all how many of them there might be in total to operate such a scheme. So far they had had descriptions, vague and part contradictory, of two men only, the one who had soft-talked the two children, who had been wearing probably a red checked shirt, and the driver of the getaway car, bearded certainly but possibly a Sikh or possibly a Muslim and, according to the Turk-like little Haribhai, without any hands.

  Either of these might be the one who had spoken on the telephone, the possessor of that flat voice. But surely there was also at least one other person involved, the mind at the back of the whole enterprise, the mind that had chosen this crowded and difficult place for the second attempt to pick up the ransom money, the man who had defeated Superintendent Karandikar’s great bandobast. And such a man might easily have at his command twenty others to take part in some complicated manoeuvre among the evening crowds in the chancy darkness of Apollo Bunder, half-lit by the naphtha flares of the vendors’ stalls.

  ‘How much?’

  Ghote came back with a jerk from his reverie. The proprietor of Trust-X was putting a question to him. And, as he returned to reality, he realized with a feeling of suddenly acute panic just what that question was and how utterly impossible it was for him finally to answer it.

  How much? How much should now be offered to the kidnappers to release little Pidku? Well, sums could be discussed perhaps, if the matter was treated carefully. But the question itself ought not really to have even been raised. Because overriding it came the question of whether any money should be offered at all. Or, more precisely, whether Superintendent Karandikar, cold protector of those ‘other fathers’, ought not to be informed about this new development as soon as he had got back to Headquarters. If he was, it would mean, Ghote had no doubt, a firm, explicit and immediate order that the brown Gladstone bag should once again contain only dummy notes. But he himself felt by no means convinced yet that this was the right course. Something in him revolted at it still.

  ‘Sahib,’ he said cautiously to Manibhai Desai, ‘the matter of money is something that you are bound to discuss with the police, since we have been introduced into the affair.’

  ‘But I am discussing,’ Manibhai Desai said. ‘I am discussing with you.’

  Ghote would have liked to have accepted this. He forced himself to speak again.

  ‘With Superintendent Karandikar.’

  The words came out in a hoarse choke.

  Immediately the proprietor of Trust-X flushed up.

  ‘With that man I am not discussing,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Already he has been responsible for such cruelty to that boy.’

  ‘But he is my superior officer,’ Ghote answered, bleakly forcing himself on against the beating of his will.

  ‘You must forget all that,’ Manibhai Desai said, his bold features shining with fervour. ‘The time for orders and chain of command is gone. Those evil men would stop at nothing. It might have been my little Hari that they had taken.’

  The vision of that little Turk in the hands of the kidnappers in place of the beaten-down tailor’s Pidku for a moment distracted Ghote. He felt then that he might have had another view entirely of the situation if the domineering Haribhai had been the victim. But at once he knew that this was not so, that, however unlikable a child Haribhai was, here were things he ought never in any circumstances to be subjected to.

  Yet still he could not allow himself fully to agree with Haribhai’s father.

  ‘No, sahib, I am sorry,’ he said obstinately. ‘I am a police officer, and it is my duty to report developments in a case to my superior.’

  ‘Listen,’ Mr Desai replied, flinging his arms wide. ‘Listen. I am needing you. You can resign from the police.’

  ‘No. I am a policeman.’

  ‘Then go on being a policeman. Be a policeman for Trust-X Manufacturing. We are getting to be a concern on such a large scale that I can no longer oversee all myself. There are departments already I have not visited for months, even when they are doing new things. There is Regional Ordering. There is Goods Outward. I am needing a trusted assistant to check such places. Come. Come.’

  A broad and rosy avenue opened before Ghote. He longed to take it. All his dilemmas of this moment would be ended. He would in all probability better his financial position. He should be able, in such a job as Mr Desai was holding out, to act as he felt he ought, as he could not do now.

  And then black fogs of doubt planted themselves in his way. To act as his better feelings dictated? When he wo
uld have to carry out the behests of the owner of Trust-X Manufacturing? No, there would be occasions in plenty when clashes arose there. To give up the way of life that was implanted in his heart as surely as the feelings he now had for poor, protectionless Pidku?

  ‘No, sahib. No. It is not possible.’

  ‘Then you can get out. Go. Go. Go.’

  Ghote stood squarely.

  ‘Yes, I will go if you no longer require the assistance I was assigned to give,’ he said. ‘But go or stay I must do my duty and inform Superintendent Karandikar as per earliest convenience of developments to date.’

  12

  Ghote stayed. The proprietor of Trust-X gave in, with very bad grace, and Ghote made his call to Superintendent Karandikar informing him in full of the latest telephone call from the kidnappers and its new rendezvous at the Gateway of India. And, during the period of something less than two hours before the new drop was due to take place, he was busy enough.

  He supervised the dispatch to the C.I.D laboratory of the bird’s nest parcel and its terrible tiny contents, and telephoned at length to explain the urgency of dealing with it as quickly as possible, cunningly invoking the name of Superintendent Karandikar – ‘you are to report to him personally’ – to ensure priority treatment. He also assisted the proprietor of Trust-X in checking over a new lakh of rupees brought in person by ‘my Accounts Department’, or the much-tried Mr Shah. This new sum they added to the original lakh which Superintendent Karandikar had released, not without reluctance, now that he had been informed of the kidnappers’ latest move. And they wrote too another note in almost the same terms as the one Superintendent Karandikar had found in the white box, begging the kidnappers to accept this lesser sum.

  Altogether it was an uneasy time. Mr Desai never lost the resentment that the turning-down of his offer of a post with Trust-X Manufacturing had aroused in him. When Superintendent Karandikar rang to explain the arrangements for ambushing the new drop-point he stood beside Ghote at the telephone and hissed awkward directions at him every few seconds.

  ‘Tell that I have put paper in the bag only, not the two lakhs.’

  ‘Say something so that he would think the lakh he sent back has gone to office safe.’

  ‘Say I will not have any of his men at all near me beside the Shivaji statue.’

  Obediently Ghote relayed these requests, suitably modified. And obediently he relayed back the counter-requests of Superintendent Karandikar.

  ‘You will inform Mr Desai he is not on any account to move from his place under the statue.’

  ‘Tell Mr Desai he is to hold hard on to the case when the attempt is made to grab it and at the same time he is to signal with his free arm.’

  At this, of course, Manibhai Desai had retorted for Ghote’s own information, that he was going to do everything in his power to shelter whoever would seize the bag. Ghote thought it most prudent to bring the call to an end as rapidly as he could.

  Nor was the situation in the penthouse made any easier by the arrival, from a Lions Club bridge drive in aid of the ‘Help the Handicapped’ campaign, of Mrs Desai.

  ‘Not a word about all this,’ Manibhai Desai muttered to Ghote as her ringing voice was heard from the hall berating a servant for not coming more quickly.

  But the very first thing Mrs Desai wanted to know when she came into the drawing-room was whether ‘this nonsense about the tailor’s boy is over and done with yet’. Her husband, by way of reply, indicated Inspector Ghote.

  Ghote contrived to say something about ‘steady progress is, however, being made’. And then he had to listen to a lecture, which he felt to be somewhat justified, on how lower-grade public officials always avoid giving direct answers to questions. He might have accepted it without too much inward concern had it not ended with a pointed reference to the Commissioner and his wife.

  Mrs Desai even moved towards the refrigerator cabinet as if to take the telephone and ring her patron there and then. But her husband strode across and placed his tall frame between her and the instrument.

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘there may be important call just coming.’

  ‘It is from those men? They are asking for more money?’

  ‘No, no, no, no. It is – It is a business matter only.’

  ‘Business at this time? It is quarter past six already.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is late. But – But I have had to tell Shah to stay on in his seat. He is behindhand with his figures once more. The state of affairs in Accounts is disgraceful. Disgraceful. He has asked even to have assistant.’

  It seemed, however, that denunciations of Mr Shah were an excuse that rang true. Because Mrs Desai declared, with a shrug of her lithe and elegant shoulders that ‘in any case I have no time to be talking this and talking that, I have to find something to wear tonight’. And off she went.

  So Superintendent Karandikar’s final call detailing the last of his arrangements was received without interruption.

  ‘A small force but a good one,’ he barked down the line to Ghote. ‘Every man briefed by myself in person. Every man knowing to the last footstep what his task is. Security one hundred per cent. I myself in on-the-spot charge of all operations for the whole of Apollo Bunder. And you, Inspector, from your position in the chauffeur’s place of Mr Desai’s vehicle in constant visual contact with me. I shall be wearing the disguise of a Moslem woman in a burqa.’

  ‘But, Superintendent – But, Superintendent sahib, how shall I tell it is you when you are covered from head to foot in black?’

  ‘Do not interrupt, Inspector, when I am giving you your orders.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I shall be dressed in a burqa, but I shall also be carrying a bundle wrapped in orange cloth. Orange is the best colour for long-distance observation, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The bundle will contain my personal walkie-talkie, keeping me in full touch with every aspect of the case wherever it occurs.’

  ‘Excellent, Superintendent. A first-class stroke, sir.’

  ‘In the event of unexpected moves I shall be able to order immediate counter-action. I do not think that case of false bank notes will get very far, Inspector, even if it leaves his hands.’

  ‘No, sir. I shall see you at the Gateway then, sir.’

  Ghote looked across at the top of the big radiogram on which there rested the Gladstone bag, safely containing packet after packet of real fifty- and hundred-rupee notes. Mr Desai followed his gaze.

  ‘We must go,’ he said, looking up at one of his sunburst clocks. ‘It is twenty past six already.’

  ‘I think we ought not to leave too early,’ Ghote replied, wondering nevertheless whether he really needed to oppose the proprietor of Trust-X once again. ‘It is possible that the superintendent will have some last-second orders still.’

  ‘But what if there are traffic delays?’ Mr Desai said, moving over anxiously towards the money bag.

  ‘Half an hour is more than time enough to reach the Gateway only,’ Ghote answered, finding himself determined, against his own beating, inner inclination, to act in the calm manner Superintendent Karandikar would expect.

  ‘I think we should go now,’ the manufacturer of Trust-X said, with an excess of his formidable coldness.

  ‘I am sorry, sahib, I must await any possible final orders. But I will go and make sure I have your chauffeur’s cap and coat.’

  The white, high-buttoned coat and the white cap with the glossy black peak had been ready in the hall for the past hour, waiting to be snatched up. But Ghote knew that to stay in the same room as Manibhai Desai now was to risk another explosion.

  Outside in the hall he stood and waited. It was not very likely really that Superintendent Karandikar would ring up again with some last addition to his orders, though it was possible. But what he really hoped, he recognized now, was that somehow the superintendent would undergo a change of mind and that he would ring to say that if the proprietor of Trust-X really wan
ted to let the kidnappers have some sum of money then he could do so.

  Yet if the superintendent did do this, as he never would, he would as likely as not be wrong, Ghote acknowledged sadly to himself. When all was said and done, the rational thing was to refuse to give in to grasping and evil men. Even if the kidnappers were going to be given as much as the whole twenty lakhs that would put Trust-X Manufacturing on the verge of financial collapse, they would quite possibly simply demand yet more. With men without principle, as men who would steal a child must be, there could never be any safe dealing.

  And yet … And yet …

  But then the telephone did ring.

  Ghote, quite forgetting that one of Mr Desai’s cherished swarm of instruments was in the hall, rushed back to the drawing-room. The manufacturer of Trust-X had already picked up the receiver.

  ‘Yes? Yes?’ he was shouting. ‘What is it?’

  Ghote stepped up beside him to take the call, unable not to hint in his attitude at a slightly contemptuous coolness, though he was far from feeling cool.

  Would Superintendent Karandikar possibly after all allow the soft alternative?

  And then he heard the voice coming from the receiver. It was not Superintendent Karandikar’s: it was the flat tones of the spokesman of the kidnappers.

  ‘Change of place to meet. Go instead in car to GPO. Have the money beside you in back. Tell chauffeur to drive all the way to K.E.M. Hospital. Go by Crawford Market, Bhendi Bazar, Nair Hospital and Victoria Gardens. Somewhere you would be stop. Leave at once. Now.’

  The far-end receiver was jammed sharply down. Nerves were once again stretched in the enemy camp.

  Manibhai Desai looked at Ghote. Ghote looked back at him.

  ‘He said to depart straightaway,’ Mr Desai proposed, sudden elation shining in his deep-set eyes.

  Ghote gave one brief spurt of thought to Superintendent Karandikar and all the men he would have already mingling alertly, yet perhaps conspicuously, among the evening crowd round the Gateway of India. Quite soon now the superintendent, his spare and upright form draped from head to foot in the unlikely thick black flowing folds of a burqa, would be taking his place among them. Perhaps he had already left to do so, and would be at this moment out of contact …