The Body in the Billiard Room Read online

  High above the sweltering plains of South India sits the tiny hill station of Ootacamund. “Ooty,” as it is known, is quite out of place in modern India: a bastion of the Empire, it remains very British and boasts rose gardens, zebra-striped pedestrian crossings, some “Colonel Blimps” who stayed on, and the famous Ooty Club. And in this club, filled with silver trophies and stuffed tigers and portraits of the Queen (Victoria, that is), the unthinkable happens. On the very billiard table where snooker was invented, one of the Club’s servants is found lying very neatly on the dark green felt, dead as a cue ball. Ooty is shocked by the murder (for it so proves to be), and Inspector Ghote, the great detective and lovable bumbler, is summoned to solve the crime.

  Ghote finds himself cast in the role of the new “Great Detective,” spiritual heir to Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, required to perform superhuman acts of analysis and deduction. Secretly cursing his luck, he dutifully sets about with Surinder Mehta—his irrepressible and tireless Watson—in tow to investigate a true detective-story list of suspects: the efficient secretary, Iyer; the voluptuous Maharani and faithless Maharajah; the mysterious Lucy Trayling; the puzzling Professor Godbole; and the elusive retired railway official Mr. Habibul-lah. Taxed by the ingenuity of the killer—and the oddness of his surroundings—Ghote struggles with the puzzler that is his most charming and hilarious appearance to date.

  The Body in the Billiard Room

  H.R.F. Keating

  VIKING

  Viking Penguin Inc.

  40 West 23rd Street New York, New York 10010, U.S.A.

  First American Edition Published in 1987

  Copyright © H. R. F. Keating, 1987 All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Keating, H. R. F. (Henry Raymond Fitz-Walter), 1926-The body in the billiard room.

  (A Viking novel of mystery and suspense)

  I. Title.

  PR6061.E26B6 1987 823'.914 87-40038 ISBN 0-670-81744-9

  Printed in the United States of America by Areata Graphics, Fairfield, Pennsylvania Set in Baskerville

  Author’s Note

  The setting for this story is not so much the South-Indian hill resort of Ootacamund, familiarly Ooty, as Dream-Ooty, a mingling of Ooty as it ought to be with some of Ooty as it is and as it was. Consequently, none of the people portrayed not even Inspector Ghote himself - is anything other than an upswelling of imagination.

  1

  Kringg-kringg, kringg-kringg, kringg-kringg . . .

  The strident shrilling of the telephone at last penetrated Inspector Ghote’s head. He came to with a start, pushed himself up from the lotus position in which he had been seated on the floor and made his way stiff-legged towards the faded black, quiveringly vibrating instrument.

  Had he, he asked himself, been in a proper state of dharana, as defined in Dr Joshi’s book on yoga in daily life? Had his thoughts stopped running after objects of enjoyment and focused solely on the point at the tip of his nose? Was he making progress in clearing his mind of its accumulated rubbish so as to perform his task in life all the better?

  Or had those thoughts been wandering vaguely in swirling trails as they so often turned out to have been when he sat to meditate?

  He could not be sure.

  Kringg-kringg, kringg-kri—

  He picked up the receiver.

  ‘Ghote, is that you? Inspector Ghote?’

  He recognized at once the incisive voice: the Assistant Commissioner, Crime Branch.

  ‘Yes, sir. Yes, ACP sahib. Ghote here, sir.’

  ‘Ah, Ghote. Good. Now, listen. I have received a request for your services. To act in the capacity of OSD.’

  ‘An Officer on Special Duty, sir?’

  What could this be? He had plenty-plenty on his plate already, even if nothing of Number One priority. But why was he being made an OSD? And what special duty could this be?

  ‘You’re to go to Ooty, Inspector.’

  ‘To go on duty, yes, sir. Which duty, sir?’

  ‘Not duty, Inspector. Ooty. Ooty. Ootacamund. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Ooty.’

  ‘No, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, I am very much hearing of Ooty. Hill station, sir. South India. Very high up in Nilgiri Hills. Most popular resort, sir.’

  All the same, could he have heard the ACP correctly? Was it possible he was to be sent to a place as far away as Ooty? Damn it, it was more than a thousand kilometres from Bombay, right down in Tamil Nadu. It came under a different state force altogether.

  At the other end of the line the Assistant Commissioner coughed sharply.

  ‘It seems, Ghote,’ he said, ‘that you have an excessively high reputation. In certain quarters.’

  A high reputation? Ghote felt his heart give a lamb-joyous leap.

  ‘It appears you once made an arrest in a theft and murder affair in which some British novelist fellow had an interest, and he afterwards went about singing your damn praises.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  Quiet caution seemed the only possible response. What could this be about?

  ‘Well, all that tamasha eventually came to the ears of a very influential gentleman long resident in Ooty, and there’s been a Section 302 business down there.’

  ‘Murder, sir?’

  ‘Yes, man. Murder. Murder. And this gentleman, one Mr Surinder Mehta MC, considers you, Ghote, are the only person capable of finding the perpetrator.’

  Ghote felt another waft of rosy pleasure rise up in him. But there was a tiny thorn among the roses.

  ‘Please, sir. MC? You were saying after Shri Mehta’s name the letters MC, no?’

  ‘Yes, yes. They stand for some sort of British medal, a Military Cross or something. The gentleman - he’s pretty old — won it in the Second World War. I gather he likes the letters put after his name whenever he’s written to, etcetera. And there is one other thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘You had better call him Your Excellency. He became an ambassador after Independence, Indian ambassador to some damn place in Europe. I don’t know whether he’s still properly entitled to be excellencied, but he likes it, I’m told. And you’d better do it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Your Excellence. I would remember, sir.’ ‘Your Excellency, Ghote. Excellency. Get it right.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Excellency. Excellency. But, sir, what exactly is this gentleman wanting?’

  ‘He is wanting you to present yourself in Ooty and solve his damn murder for him. The body on the billiard table. That’s where the victim was found. On the billiard table in the Ooty Club. Very famous place. I think he sees it all as a kind of sacrilege, and wants the very best man there is to deal with it.’

  Ghote felt himself swallow. Was he really the very best man there was? By the sound of it the murder was not some simple killing during the course of a quarrel or anything like that. There must be some special circumstances about it for this ambassador to have used his influence to call someone all the way from Bombay.

  To call him himself. As the very best man. And he was not truly that. Oh, yes, he had had his successes. There was the business that had brought him kudos from the British author. But he was not, in fact, the very best man there was. No.

  ‘Sir,’ he said tentatively. ‘Sir, are you one hundred per cent certain it is right for me to be going? I mean, sir, for one thing only, what about the local fellows? They would resent an officer from another force coming into their territory, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ghote, you have been asked for. By name. I am not going to refuse to send you, whatever I may think. And in any case you are to go in a private capacity. There will be no question of treading on any toes. Besides, I expect the Tamil Nadu wallahs wi
ll have it all wrapped up even before you get there.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But if I am to be in a private capacity, sir, what kind of powers will I be having? Sir, it would be most difficult.’

  ‘Not at all, Ghote, not at all. Damn it, there are private detectives, aren’t there? They clear up cases sometimes. Or I suppose they must. Well, you will be a private detective down in Ooty. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But—But, sir, what about my present workload?’

  ‘You can pick up whatever you’re doing when you get back. As I said, no doubt you’ll find the whole thing’s been dealt with before you even arrive.’

  ‘Sir, but—’

  ‘Damn it, Ghote, you’re being offered a stay in one of India’s finest hill stations. Right out of the heat. Bloody fine climate. Top-class holiday place. And you’re making every sort of damn difficulty.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I am sorry, sir.’

  Yet, Ghote could not help reflecting, January in Bombay was the coolest and pleasantest month of the year. Now, if he had been offered a trip to Ooty in May or October . . .

  ‘Right then, there’s a plane that leaves for Coimbatore Airport at twelve noon exactly. I’m having you booked on to it. See that you’re there.’

  ‘But—’

  *

  The Ooty bus, when Ghote came to board it stiff-limbed after the flight to Coimbatore, looked as if its every seat was occupied in advance of his arrival. Already having to fight back a feeling of muzzy disorientation at finding himself at such short notice in a place where even the voices around him were jabbering all the time in barely comprehensible Tamil, he shook his head in blank bewilderment.

  How was it that, when the flight had been scrupulously on time, the bus taking passengers onwards was already jammed full?

  It was just part of the illogicality of everything, he supposed. That feeling, from the sheer strangeness of his surroundings, was invading his mind more and more with each passing moment.

  Why could things not be simple? Why did life never go to plan?

  Except with this last Indian Airlines flight?

  Sharply he pulled himself together, swung up on to the entrance-step of the bus and from there made out that there was a small gap right at the back between two ample ladies dressed in rich silky South Indian saris. He took a last look at his hastily packed suitcase waiting to be stowed in the baggage compartment and pushed his way forward along the packages-crammed aisle. Somewhat to his surprise the two ladies, without a pause in the clackingly loud conversation they were having in mysterious Tamil, shifted apart just enough to allow him to sit.

  He had barely wriggled himself into place when the bus abruptly set off. Within minutes they were speeding with slewing recklessness through the bare countryside, its monotony broken only by the repeated clusters of villages where dogs and children scattered squealing or barking at their approach.

  Inside, at least, it all ought to have been peaceful. Things were now going to plan again. There was nothing to do but sit and be delivered to Ooty some fifty kilometres away up among the distant blue Nilgiri Hills, occasionally to be glimpsed beyond the driver’s impassive head.

  But Ghote could not bring any peace to his thoughts. The prospect that awaited him up in the resort ahead, which he had read about over the years here and there but never expected to see, was too full of unknown hazards. What sort of a person would this Mr Surinder Mehta MC be, someone with so much influence he could summon at no notice an inspector of the Bombay CID? And, more, what was the exact nature of the crime - the murder - he had been hurried all this way to solve?

  He knew almost nothing about it. The Assistant Commissioner had given him hardly a single detail. Except that there was a body. A body on a billiard table. What was he actually expected to do in Ooty? And where, where, would he get boarding and lodging when at last he arrived there? He had been issued with no instructions whatsoever. He had not even been given expenses and allowances. How would he pay his way?

  In the large, stinkingly hot shed-like structure that served as the airport lounge at Coimbatore, waiting for his bag to come off the plane, he had spotted, on the floor, a brightly coloured brochure for one of Ooty’s tourist hotels, formerly a maharajah’s palace. But its thumping claims had filled him only with dismay: rooms exuberating with luxury, a restaurant decorated beyond-the-words and a Lovers’ Lane intimately private for the needy couple, what had all that to do with him?

  He made an effort to attain once more the calm which he had occasionally achieved in recent months in following the precepts of K. S. Joshi, MSc, MA, PhD, author of Yoga in Daily Life, Hind Pocket Books, price Rupees 3. But, concentrate as he would on the point at the tip of his nose, his thoughts only whirled faster and faster, more and more uselessly.

  Mr Mehta. He must not forget to call him Your Excellency. Or Your Excellence? Which? Whichever was it?

  A deep flush of embarrassment came over him in the steamy hotness of the packed, racketing bus. Which title had the ACP given him such a strong advice about? Excellency? Excellence?

  Much as he repeated the two, trying them out again and again for sound and suitability, neither one seemed more right than the other.

  The tip of his nose. The tip of his nose. Concentrate. Concentrate.

  He became aware that the nature of the countryside had changed. The bus had slowed in its wild rush and was beginning to climb upwards. Now on either side there could be seen plantations of palm trees in long, ordered rows that ought to have been calming to the spirit, only they seemed somehow inhuman, unlike the random palms of other places.

  Excellence? Excellency? Good evening, Your Excellency? Good evening, Your Excellence? Excuse me, is it that you are His Excellence Mr Surinder Mehta? His Excellency? Why, oh why, were there strict rules of precedence and protocol?

  Damn it then, when the time came he would just say whichever came first to his lips. And if it was wrong, it would be wrong.

  But all this was nothing compared to the real business that awaited him. Summoned as the very best man there was to investigate - what? A murder. A dead body on a billiard table in a club, some sort of sacred club apparently. It would be full of Englishmen, of white sahibs.

  But no. No, surely all or most of those had long ago gone back to the UK. And even those who had stayed on would, many of them, have died off by now. It was more than forty years since Independence after all. Things had changed. Time had bit by bit battered away at the old rules and regulations, the order and dignity of the British Raj.

  Outside now there were in the distance tea and coffee gardens, with bushes in long neat lines. The wildness tamed.

  Yet, it seemed, this body in the billiard room was still considered so important that he himself had been brought here, with the fearsome reputation he had earned only through one success that happened to have been witnessed by a British writer of crime novels. So, surely there must be special circumstances about this murder - but who was it even who had been murdered? - that made the case a difficult and especially complex affair. Otherwise the CID from Madras, or even the Ooty police themselves, would surely have been capable of handling it.

  Now the climbing road had begun to wind instead of charging straight ahead. The bus’s engine had taken on an unvarying, determinedly chugging note.

  And would not the business up there in Ooty be as twisted and tortuous as the road? And even their ultimate destination had now become, in a way, less clear. The signpost he had last glimpsed said in English letters above the meaningless, to him, Tamil script, not Ooty or even Ootacamund but Udhagamandalam. To what mysterious place was he going?

  But no point in letting his thoughts go aimlessly round and round. Better to prepare himself internally for what might lie ahead, in so far as he could. What other techniques besides concentrating on the tip of the nose had Dr Joshi recommended so as to arrive at that state of purely concentrated dharana in which the mind gathered to itself its true strength? Concentrating on the
mid-point between the eyebrows? On an attractive idol of Lord Shiva?

  No hope of getting at the book in his suitcase somewhere underneath the steadily grunting bus.

  And in any case unremitting concentration did not seem possible with the sudden doubling-back twists in the road now coming every few minutes, sending the soft flesh of either one of the ladies on each side of him - both had lapsed into light sleep - flooding warmly against his own bony body.

  He looked out of the windows ahead.

  The landscape had changed once more. The neat tea gardens had abruptly ceded to jungle. At either side a wildly growing mass of creepers obscured and confused the tangled trees in a chaos of different greens and sudden bright flowers. Overhead, high branches cut out the light.

  And in that riotous jungle would there be tigers lurking?

  Well, perhaps not. But there would be panthers certainly. Panthers waiting to spring. And snakes. Venomous, unpredictable snakes.

  Again he could not help feeling it was into something like this jungle that he himself was going. He saw trails of logic that would peter out almost at once as other trails superimposed themselves. He imagined sudden glimpses of the bright flower of suspicion, but no way of telling what plant it sprang from. He envisaged a mysterious darkness over all, and somewhere in it a murderer, a person past all the rules.

  A gloom equal to the greenish mist under the tall trees' shade settled into his mind.

  Time passed. The bus engine roared unceasingly. The sleeping ladies on either side swayed into him and away again as the road hairpinned yet higher.

  Then he saw, with a dart of apprehension, a large roadside notice boldly warning in English Sleeping While Driving Is Prohibited. He raised his head and peered at the outline of the driver in front. Was the fellow fully awake? Was prohibition only enough to stop sleep overcoming him?

  He could not tell.

  They must have been going now, he calculated a little desperately, for two and a half hours, or three. Perhaps more. He would have liked to look at his watch. But his left arm was wedged down by the weight of the silkily sari-clad lady beside him.