Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes Page 2

  Down by the banyan tree Bholu, who had succeeded in staying awake for all the oppressiveness of the heat, staggered to his feet. He shook his head a little to gather himself together and, standing astride the clumsy frame of the cart, waved his bare arm once or twice in the air. Then he turned, scrambled to his place on the butt-end of the cart’s heavy shaft, and leaning down first to the right then to the left, he seized the tails of his great, lanky bullocks and gave each a vicious twist. The huge animals, jerked out of a heat-induced doze, started suddenly forward. The cumbersome wooden wheels of the cart grated sharply out. Heavily it progressed down the road in the direction of the single-lane section where the embankment labourers were sleeping through the worst of the heat.

  The man in the dark green hired Chevrolet was pushing the car along at maximum pace once more. Irritatedly he glanced down at his watch, then took a new grip of the wheel and tensed forward in his seat. Ahead of him the dusty concrete lay in an unbroken ribbon. Never for an instant did he take his eyes off it.

  The lumbering bullock cart ceased to move just as it reached the roadworks. The squeaking of its wheels had caused two of the sleeping labourers down at the foot of the half-reconstructed embankment to stir. But when the sound stopped they went back to sleep again without having moved.

  The huge cart was still in place a few minutes later when the dark green dust-covered car came up. The driver was in plenty of time to halt when his insistently-sounded horn failed to clear the way.

  At the far end of the single lane he leant his flaming red-bearded head out of the car window.

  “Will you get the hell out of the way?” he shouted.

  Bholu, perched on the heavy shaft between his two whitish beasts, looked at him blankly.

  “Hell, I don’t speak your damned language, whatever it is,” the red-headed American yelled.

  He opened the car door and got out. He marched along towards Bholu pointing with great forcefulness in the direction he wanted to go. He glared at the bullock cart. He made it utterly plain that with its two great, pointed-horned animals it was blocking his way.

  He hardly noticed the three figures who stepped out from the shade of the banyan a little farther along the road and advanced towards him. In the soft dust their flapping sandals made scarcely any sound. The Sikh pushed the safety catch off on the Garand rifle with his thumb.

  The bullock on Bholu’s left lowered its green-tinted horns with the little glinting brass tips and the bobbing coloured thread balls round them. Softly he pawed at the ground. A long trail of heavy saliva dripped slowly down his loose dewlap. Both beasts steadily flailed their much-twisted tails, stirring the flies to motion on their dirty white flanks.

  When the American noticed the three advancing men he did not appear to take in the fact that the Sikh carried a rifle and the other two had revolvers, one a British Army issue Webley and the other an extremely old Smith and Wesson.

  “Hey, you fellows,” he called. “You speak English? Can you tell this sonofabitch to get his stinking, crummy wagon out of my way?”

  The three men did speak a certain amount of English. But they did not reply to the American’s request. Instead they walked steadily and silently forward.

  The sound of the strident New World voice caused a good many of the labourers at the foot of the embankment to stir in their sleep. But not one of them thought it worthwhile to get to his feet and investigate. For a few moments the midday quiet returned.

  Then came the sound of shots in the hot stillness.

  ONE

  Inspector Ganesh Ghote sighed for his native land. Things had come to a pretty pass. A visiting American shot down in the crudest sort of highway robbery. A dacoity taking place within fifty miles of Bombay, on a main trunk road. And that this should happen to the brother of a world figure like Professor Gregory Strongbow. Here was the world’s foremost hydrodynamics expert, a man who had conferred immense benefits on the human race, on holiday in India and his brother is brutally murdered.

  It did not bear thinking about.

  The blue Dodge police truck went thundering along the dusty Poona road. The pattern of the fields whirled past, broken only by the occasional deeply-cut, wandering nullah or the clustered huts of a village. Ghote looked steadily ahead.

  It should not be far now. And the moment he arrived he must get his teeth into the case. It would not be an easy affair. Dacoits were notoriously difficult to track down. No doubt these had carried out their robbery quite openly and had relied as usual on going into hiding until the trouble had blown over. But for once they had miscalculated. They had contrived to pick on someone too important, and they had killed him. At least for once there would be maximum backing at all levels.

  Ghote vowed not to rest till he had identified the culprits and step by step had tracked them down. He owed that much to the national reputation.

  They approached a fantastically overloaded little Fiat which had broken down by the roadside. An American family by the look of it, the children in bright T-shirts, both father and mother in jeans. Luckily there was a mechanic lying on his back under the vehicle. This was no time to have to stop and offer assistance.

  And now a momentary slow-down where the road took a sudden twist round a blacksmith’s shop and its rusty old petrol pump, and it should be about another ten miles.

  Yes, the deputy superintendent had said the dacoity had occurred where the traffic was held up by roadworks and there ahead was a place where the embankment had crumbled away. And yes, there was a dark green car stopped in the full glare of the heat. That should be it.

  His driver brought the over-heated Dodge to a screaming halt worthy of the best traditions of the Bombay Police. Ghote jumped lightly down and took in the scene with a quick glance.

  A harassed and sweaty but stolid-looking constable was keeping back a small crowd of gaping villagers and workers from the road-mending gang. The empty car, a Chevrolet, unusually enough, stood at the point where the road narrowed to one lane. At the other end of the single lane there was a bullock-cart. Its two bullocks with their coloured horns down were dragging at the last remains of some roadside tufts of grass. A couple of paces from the car there was crudely traced in the dust the outline of a man’s body. Beside it the surface of the concrete had been darkened by a dried-up pool of blood over which buzzed some fat flies.

  Ghote went over towards the constable to get his report.

  And was suddenly startled to hear a loud shout from a little way down the road.

  “Hey, you.”

  He turned. But immediately regretted having done so. The shout might not have been directed at him. It should not have been directed at him, an inspector of the Maharashtra State Police.

  Only he knew perfectly well that it was.

  There was no doubt either about who the shouter was. Striding along the dust-layered surface of the road was a tall, broad-shouldered Westerner. Everything from the well-hung cut of his crisp, beige-coloured suit to his broadbrimmed straw hat with the coloured band round the crown proclaimed him an American.

  “You,” he called again, as he strode forward. “You, are you the inspector from the police they said was coming from Bombay?”

  Ghote squared his thin shoulders.

  “I am inspector in charge of case, certainly,” he said.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you finally got here,” the American replied.

  The thought flashed into Ghote’s mind that this was a pressman. He found the notion a little daunting. Indian journalists he could cope with, though he never much liked even their brashness. But an American reporter. A tough, remorseless conductor of special investigations. How had this one got on to the murder so quickly? It was typical of them. And what would he not make of it? The sort of reports he would file would knock crores of rupees off tourist revenue.

  Ghote licked his upper lip.

  He would be asked all sorts of details about his personal affairs. There would be uncomplimentary physical descr
iptions of himself in each day’s story, of his lack of height and his thinness. He had heard about American-style papers. They would want to mention his wife, his child. Perhaps they would say that Protima spoke English badly, that she distrusted Western furniture and clothes.

  “Now, I’d like to know right away just what you intend doing,” the American said.

  Ghote looked up at him. He seemed to be in his late forties, broad and still slim. He had a markedly handsome face with a long, straight nose, and a crisp darkening of beard-shadow along the sides of the wide jaw. Undoubtedly he was tough. And there was an angry glint in his eyes.

  “I have no time for Press affairs now,” Ghote said loudly. “I have a great deal of work ahead in the conduct of the investigation. Kindly wait until afterwards.”

  “Press affairs?” the big American said. “What the hell do you mean, Press affairs?”

  He glared down at Ghote.

  “Look,” he said, “it’s my brother who’s been murdered here. My brother. And I want to know just what you’re going to do to pin down the men responsible.”

  A hugely unsettling wave of astonishment swept over Ghote. Was this really Professor Gregory Strongbow, the world-famous scientist? If the man himself had not said so, it would have been almost impossible to believe. He did not look old enough. He looked much too active. Why didn’t he stoop? And the tously hair under that hat with the bright, coloured band, that was hardly academic. Then there was the way he had shot out those questions in that reporter’s style. But perhaps this was due to the shock of his brother’s death.

  “Professor Strongbow,” Ghote stammered. “I beg your pardon. Please accept my profound regrets. Allow me to introduce myself. Yes. Yes, of course. I am Inspector Ghote, of Bombay C.I.D. Specially detailed to investigate this case. Yes, Ghote. My name is Ghote.”

  In an onrush of desire to make up to Professor Strongbow for his original attitude, Ghote wondered whether he ought perhaps to tell him more about himself. To bring out his wife’s name and his boy’s, to state his own qualifications in full, even to explain that although he was married to someone who did not speak English well she was still an intelligent and characterful woman.

  But the professor gave him no opportunity.

  He shot out a broad, tanned hand for Ghote to shake. His grip was impressively firm.

  “Glad to meet you,” he said. “I guess I may have been a little abrupt. To tell you the truth, I’m pretty on edge.”

  Ghote’s eye went involuntarily to the crudely traced outline in the dust. He saw too for the first time that in the door panel of the dark green Chevrolet there was a dented round hole where it must have been struck by a bullet.

  “Perhaps we should go over to the shade to talk the matter,” he said.

  Professor Strongbow seemed glad to fall in with the suggestion. He turned quickly away and took out a handkerchief to wipe his face.

  “It certainly is hot,” he said. “And humid.”

  They set off towards the shade of a small banyan tree between the roadworks and the village. Ghote saw that a small car was parked under it.

  “You were not with your brother?” he asked the professor. “You were travelling in another car?”

  “No, I wasn’t with him. I was staying overnight at Poona, visiting the hydraulics laboratory there. I’m in that line myself.”

  “But you are the foremost world authority,” Ghote said. “When I was given my instructions for the case this was specifically stated.”

  The professor smiled slightly. Ghote noticed that in spite of the determined line of his jaw and the uncompromising straightness of his nose the eyes were deep-set and understanding. He wondered suddenly whether he had embarrassed him.

  “But why was your brother not with you in Poona?” he said quickly.

  Almost at once he regretted the question. He should not be drawing the bereaved man’s attention to such things in such a tactless manner.

  But the professor seemed only too anxious to explain.

  “It’s like this,” he said. “My brother and I decided to come to India together. I had some vacation due and I thought he ought to get away for a bit. But we don’t have all that many interests in common. We didn’t have, that is.”

  He took a few paces in silence, and then resumed with a jerk.

  “Yes, that’s how it was. We split up. We decided to split up for a while. He went out yesterday to see some things that primarily interested him, and I went over to Poona to see the hydraulics lab there. A pretty fine set-up too.”

  “Thank you,” said Ghote, “thank you.”

  He coughed a little.

  “And you had arranged to meet to-day in Poona?” he asked.

  “No,” said the professor.

  A trace of a frown appeared on his wide forehead.

  “No, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t exactly expecting Hector to come on to Poona. The arrangement was I would see him to-morrow when I got back to Bombay.”

  “But he changed his mind?”

  For a little Professor Strongbow did not answer.

  “I guess he must have,” he said at last. “Hector was somewhat impulsive, you know.”

  He fell silent again.

  From something in his tone Ghote deduced that impulsiveness was not part of the professor’s make-up. And the professor himself seemed to realise the implications of what he had said almost at once.

  “Not that impulsiveness isn’t a fine thing,” he added. “I sometimes think a good many of us are liable to think so long we finally don’t act at all.”

  “There is a great deal to be said on both sides,” Ghote observed, feeling torn between supporting the professor in his eulogy of his dead brother and not appearing to criticise the man himself.

  The professor grunted.

  “Your tourist people in Poona were certainly very nice to me when the news came through,” he went on. “They put this girl, this Miss Brown, in touch with me right away. And she fixed up a car and got us out here.”

  Ghote noticed that in the car parked in the shade of the banyan a girl was sitting. She appeared to be wearing a sari.

  “Miss Brown?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the professor. “I guess she must be some kind of a Eurasian, though she looks pretty British and talks that way. But she told me her first name was something Indian.”

  He laid a hand on Ghote’s elbow and halted him a moment.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I didn’t exactly catch what she said when she told me. It sounded like Shack—something. Is that possible?”

  “Was it perhaps Shakuntala?” Ghote suggested.

  “Yes. Yes, that’s it. Shakuntala, you say? Thanks, Inspector. I didn’t want to have to hurt the girl’s feelings by calling her Miss Brown all the time.”

  Sitting sedately at the wheel of the little grey Hindustan she had provided for the professor, Shakuntala Brown smiled a little when she saw the two of them approach. Ghote noticed that, in spite of her sari, her hair was a light brown and her complexion distinctly pink and white. He wondered for a moment where she could come from. But he had no time for much speculation. As soon as the professor had introduced them, bringing out the Shakuntala with noticeable clarity, he felt obliged to start putting all the right questions. It was important to give this foreigner the correct impression of Indian policework.

  “Please tell,” he said, “something of your brother’s habits. Was he for example a great free spender? Was he accustomed to pull out his wallet and offer to pay in notes for the least service?”

  The professor considered gravely for a moment.

  “No,” he answered. “No, I don’t think you could say that about Hector. He might have got excited some place and waved a lot of money about, but he certainly didn’t give the impression of being loaded.”

  He gave Ghote a quick, appraising look.

  “You’re wondering why anyone should have picked on him to rob?” he asked. “Did you know that th
ose guys had been waiting over there by that tree all morning?”

  “All morning? Waiting?” Ghote said, with a sharp frown.

  “That’s what your patrolman told me,” said the professor.

  He looked steadily at Ghote.

  “Is that what you’d have expected?” he asked.

  But, unexpectedly, it was Shakuntala Brown who answered.

  “Mr. Strongbow,” she said, “you will have to get used to the idea that India is a very different country from the United States. People have a different time-scale here. They are prepared to wait hours for the very slightest of reasons. You couldn’t be expected to understand that.”

  She spoke with vehemence. Ghote once more wondered about her. Was this her usual manner? Or did this unexplained behaviour on the part of the killers cause her to feel furious for some reason?

  But there was no time for side-issues. He turned back to the American.

  “The car your brother was driving,” he said. “It is an expensive model and unusual. Had you bought it for the length of your stay in India?”

  “No,” Professor Strongbow answered thoughtfully. “No, I don’t know anything about the car. I guess Hector must have rented it just to-day.”

  “To go to Poona to see you?”

  “That I can’t say for a fact.”

  “But it is likely? He was driving on the Poona road. You were in Poona.”

  “It looks like a reasonable assumption certainly.”

  “But you told you did not know why exactly he should come to meet you?”

  Ghote noticed a sudden blankness in the cool eyes opposite him.

  “No, I don’t know that,” the professor said. “I guess he suddenly wanted company or something.”

  Ghote shrugged his shoulders slightly.

  “Perhaps he told someone in Bombay,” he said. “You are staying at the Taj Mahal, or perhaps you prefer the Nataraj?”

  “No,” said the professor. “As a matter of fact we settled for a place called the Queen’s Imperial Grand.”

  “Surely that is a very old-fashioned hotel for Americans?” Ghote said.