Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker Read online

  He looked across at Desai for a reaction. The sergeant was sitting still on the edge of the heavy little chair staring at him intently. His lower lip had drooped a little open. His expression radiated solemn awe. And not a glimmer of anything else.

  Ghote resumed his spoken thoughts.

  “No help from the science boys last night, of course,” he said, “and not even enough of a fingerprint on the cartridge I found up in the tower to be of any use, even if we had something to match it against. So we shall just have to consider the business from the point of view of possible motives. Why should anyone want to kill those flamingoes? That is our best bet to go on.”

  He thought he saw a trace of liveliness in Desai’s wide eyes and stopped to wait for an answer to his question.

  Desai leant forward and put his left leg relaxedly across the knee of his right.

  “Talking of bets, Inspector,” he said, “I hear Cream of the Jest is a good thing at Mahalaxmi this afternoon.”

  Ghote stared at him.

  “What did you say?”

  “Talking of bets, Inspector, I hear-” the sergeant began again, as if the gramophone needle had been put back exactly the right number of grooves.

  “No.”

  Ghote brought his open palm slamming down on the scratched surface of the desk in front of him. Sgt. Desai jumped a little but continued to regard him with the same truth-seeking expression.

  “We were not talking of bets,” Ghote said. “We were talking about the killing of the Minister’s four flamingoes. I was about to say that there are two possibilities: either it was an act of political demonstration, or it was a simple practical joke. Which of those alternatives do you consider the most likely, Sergeant?”

  Desai blinked.

  “Well? Which?”

  “Could you tell me what the two of them were again, Inspector?”

  Ghote drew in a deep breath.

  “The birds could have been killed because they were a gift from the American Consul,” he said. “Or they could have been killed as a mere practical joke. Which do you think most likely?”

  For a few moments Ghote sat watching the blind panic on the sergeant’s face. He decided he would count very slowly up to ten. But when he had got to eight the sergeant suddenly pounced.

  “The second, Inspector,” he gabbled.

  “The second?” “The one you said second, Inspector.”

  “And which was that?” Ghote asked.

  “Which?”

  Desai’s question was put in a spirit of pure inquiry. Ghote conscientiously fought down a desire to yell.

  “You mean you think it was just a practical joke?” he said.

  “Yes, yes, Inspector. Thank you.”

  “Well, I think just the opposite,” Ghote countered out of sheer peevishness. “How could it be just a joke? How could anyone possibly take so much trouble just to make a joke? They could not. It would be a ridiculous waste of time. So we are left with the political angle.”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  Desai was back to the awed look.

  “I do not much like it, I can tell you,” Ghote said, finding himself now more than half-convinced by his own arguments. “But I suppose it does have one advantage : it does mean we do not have to deal with all of Bombay’s four and a half million inhabitants. We have only got to deal with known anti-Americans. And we can narrow it further too. We know at least one thing for certain about this fellow.”

  The spectacle of Desai following this train of thought like a pilgrim plodding out the road to Rishikesh was not helping, but Ghote ploughed on.

  “We know that our man is an expert marksman,” he said. “And if we put these two factors together we really do narrow the field.”

  He felt a gleam of excitement. It seemed to infect Desai too, causing him to shift about on the heavy wooden chair.

  “That’s the point, Inspector,” he said. “Narrow down the field.”

  “Yes,” said Ghote. “And we must follow it up.”

  “Yes, you see, Inspector. The field is narrow for that first race to-morrow. Besides Cream of the Jest there is only one nag that stands a chance, and that’s Trencherman. By Digger out of Fat Lady, you know. And you must have heard what they say about Digger as sire.”

  “Sergeant!”

  “You fancy something each way, Inspector?”

  Ghote leant forward across his desk and fixed the sergeant with an unblinking cold gaze.

  “I fancy a little concentration on the matter in hand, Sergeant. I was in the middle of explaining that it is possible to narrow down the- It is possible to reduce the number of people who might have committed this crime to a quite small number. Violent anti-Americans who know how to use a .22 rifle with extreme accuracy. There cannot be so many. And I think I know how we can find them. Gunsmiths and shikar outfitters, that will be the way.”

  He was pleased with this thought. He looked across at the sergeant. It was plain the sergeant was miles away, up at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse thinking about the going and the handicapping and all the rest of the ridiculously serious factors that obsessed the habitual punter. Well, perhaps he was better lost in daydreams of sudden wealth than interrupting and causing confusion here on the spot.

  “Yes,” Ghote resumed. “This is what we will do: visit the main shikar places, shops like Hunter and Hunter in Altamount Road. You can do half, Sergeant, I will do the other half. Let’s start making a list.”

  He jerked open the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk and eagerly pulled out half a dozen sheets of scrap. This was it: real progress.

  He wrote at the top of the first sheet. Shikar : Hunter and Hunter.

  Then he stopped. He had pictured for an instant Sgt.Desai entering that august establishment to which the American millionaires hurried on arrival in Bombay to get themselves properly kitted out for tiger-hunting or teal-shooting. He saw Desai tackling perhaps the manager himself, failing to get to the point, blundering in his English, building up a huge reservoir of indignation. No, it was out of the question. It would be impossible even to go round after him picking up the pieces.

  He felt a spasm of renewed irritation. He looked up.

  “Listen, Sergeant,” he said, “go for a walk, get out, run away. I have a lot to do and you are putting me off.”

  He might have known it would not be as simple as that. First the sergeant looked at him, taking in what he had said drop by drop. Then he looked pained again. And then he began expostulating.

  “But, Inspector, I can’t do that. Inspector, I have to be here with you. The D.S.P. sahib said so, Inspector. What would happen if he caught me just sitting about somewhere?”

  Ghote gave in.

  “Oh, stay then. Stay. We will take a break. Call for some tea. There’s a good chap.”

  Desai jumped up with alacrity. This was something he understood. He hurried over to the door, just bumping into the bamboo set of shelves on top of which Ghote kept his edition of Gross and slightly altering the position of the sacred volume. Outside he shouted in an altogether unnecessarily noisy way to the peon, and then he marched up and down with maddeningly clumping feet till the tea arrived.

  At last Ghote got him back on his chair dangerously balancing his cup and sipping at the tea with, naturally, the maximum of noise.

  Wearily Ghote searched about for something to say.

  ‘‘Tell me, Sergeant, are you married?”

  “Oh, yes, Inspector. Yes, I am. Four children, Inspector.

  Three boys, one girl. No-”

  He stopped himself.

  “No, I mean three girls, one boy, Inspector.”

  He looked pleased to have sorted the matter out.

  “You can’t help them coming, Inspector,” he said, with an appalling grin, half sly, half self-congratulatory.

  Ghote did not reply. But he allowed himself a short inner tirade: Can’t help them coming. Lack the damned brains to stop them coming, you mean. It is for people like you they set up B
irth Control Centres. Except that people like you would look on the operation as something completely terrifying. Why, oh why, could they not have invented it before you were due to be born, and spared us all ever afterwards?

  “And they cost a lot, you know, Inspector. Only you having only the one would not know how much.”

  Yes, Ghote thought registering the half-expressed jibe, I could not be expected to know how to multiply by four since obviously the feat would be far beyond you.

  But it was time he spoke, and said something that sounded friendly.

  “Yes, on a sergeant’s pay rate you must find it hard to manage,” he said.

  “Bloody hard, Inspector, bloody hard,” Desai replied with a pathetic attempt at a man of the world grin. “Only one thing for it, man.”

  “What is that?” Ghote asked, immediately wishing he had not.

  “The horses, Inspector. They are the only thing.”

  This is what comes of trying to be friendly, Ghote thought furiously. Back to the idiocies of horse-racing.

  Desai was obviously delighted to be back there.

  “It is the only way, Inspector,” he went meanderingly on. “You have to get a red-hot tip and put every anna you can lay your hands on on it.”

  He sighed.

  “But even then, Inspector, you can come unstuck, you know. Even when you have a horse you know is going to win.”

  He cast around for a really impressive example. And surprisingly hit on one almost at once.

  “Take the Derby this year, Inspector. Now that was something very unfair, isn’t it?”

  “Was it?” Ghote asked, taking a long cooling drink of tea.

  “But, Inspector.”

  Desai sounded genuinely shocked.

  “But, Inspector, even you must know about that.”

  Even you. The idiot lacked the sense even to show a little tact to the man he was supposed to be working for.

  “Know about what, Sergeant?” he asked, no longer able to keep the irritation out of his voice again.

  “About Roadside Romeo, the odds-on favourite that disappeared on the morning of the race and they found a donkey in its stable, Inspector.”

  Ghote banged down his cup.

  “What did you say?”

  “. . . morning of the race and they found a donkey in its stable, Inspector,” Desai repeated in his gramophone way.

  “And this was the Derby this year?”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  “When is that?”

  “When is what, Inspector?”

  “The Derby. The Derby, you fool.”

  “But everybody knows that, Inspector.”

  “I do not. When was it? Quick.”

  “It was—let me see-Funny the way I forget things.”

  Ghote clenched his fist.

  “January the twenty-ninth, Inspector. I knew I would remember sooner or later.”

  “Just under three months ago. You realise what this means?”

  “No, Inspector.”

  And cheerful about it.

  “It means,” Ghote said, more for the pleasure of spelling it out for himself than for Desai’s enlightenment, “it means that in a period of three months we have had two very elaborate practical jokes played in Bombay. First this donkey business you told me about, and then the shooting of four flamingoes. It is the same hallmark, Sergeant. And it has nothing at all to do with politics.”

  Desai took all this in.

  “But, Inspector,” he said, “you told it had to do with

  politics. We were going to Walker and Walker’s to-”

  “Hunter and Hunter’s, man. And we do not need to go there any more. We need to go to Records.”

  “Records? Inspector?”

  “To see if there have been any other jokes like this, you fool. To trace the hallmarks of this criminal of ours.”

  CHAPTER III

  But before Ghote could hurry along to the C.I.D. Records Department to build up on this chance discovery that a monstrous practical joker was at work in Bombay the telephone on his desk pealed out sharply. He picked up the receiver.

  “Inspector Ghote here.”

  “Ah.”

  The man on the other end of the line seemed very pleased to have got hold of him.

  “The name’s Kamdar,” he said gustily. “Ram Kamdar. I’ve been very much wanting to meet you, Inspector, if only over the phone.”

  Kamdar, thought Ghote. Where have I heard that name?

  “Yes?” he said cautiously.

  “Yes. I see this as a position for maximum co-operation. It could be a major departure in correcting a tendency to mutual opposition between our two departments.”

  “You are wishing to speak to Inspector Ghote, Inspector Ganesh Ghote?”

  “Ganesh,” said the man on the other end of the line in a tone of overwhelming satisfaction.

  “I am afraid I do not know who I am speaking to,” Ghote said.

  “To Ram, old chap. Ram Kamdar, the Minister’s P.R.O.”

  That was where he had heard the name. The acting-Director at the zoo had mentioned it. And there had been a circular letter too, he remembered now. He had pushed it away somewhere. And then there had been some gossip when it had arrived : something about the chap being a cousin of the Minister, not the new Minister but the old one, the one who had had to resign. But old Minister or new, he was talking at this moment to the Minister’s own personal spokesman.

  “Very sorry, sir,” he said hastily. “There seems to be something wrong with this line.”

  That excuse at least was always safe—unless you were speaking to the P.R.O. for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

  “Yes. Well, as I was saying,” came the cheerful voice from the Police Ministry, “I regard this as an open-ended opportunity to set up a new pattern in inter-department relations, Ganesh, old man.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Er—Mr. Kamdar.”

  “Ram, old boy. Please. Ram.”

  “Er—yes.”

  “Well, old man, delighted to have established contact. Very important to set up a high level of personal intercommunication, I always say. What?”

  Ghote thought it would be safe to make a sound which could be taken for a murmur of agreement, or not. But what on earth did the Minister’s P.R.O. exactly want?

  The rackety voice started up again.

  “Exactly. Exactly. So we must meet. A social occasion would be in order, I think. I regard it as a sub-function of my post to make person-to-person contact with as many people in your department as possible. Though not forgetting the Arts boys, eh? Police Affairs and the Arts, that’s the brief. Never forget it.”

  “No.”

  “It’s a question of establishing a general climate of acceptance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, splendid to have heard from you, Gopal—er— Ganesh. And I look forward ... as I say.”

  “Yes.”

  “Till we meet then.”

  “Good-bye, then,” Ghote ventured.

  “Good-bye, old man. Oh. One thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Minister. You will have a result for him soon, won’t you, old chap?”

  “Soon?”

  “Yes. You know how it is at our end. Quick results always help. So make it first thing Monday, eh? Call me at 9 a.m. I’ll fix an appointment with the burra sahib. He’s in Delhi just now, but his flight gets in early on Monday. Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Ghote found it impossible to infuse any enthusiasm whatever into the reply.

  The line went dead.

  He put the receiver down slowly. This was Friday: that left him only just over forty-eight hours to find the joker. Unpleasant thoughts began emerging like wriggly things from stagnant water.

  “Come on, Sergeant,” he said to Desai, forcing himself into briskness. “Let’s see what we can get out of Records.”

  With the sergeant trailing irritatingly a couple of yards behind he made his way rapidly
to the Records Department.

  And there he found it was indeed a question of “getting something out” of the department. No one seemed prepared to listen to him. They would talk about anything rather than the dull business of extracting information from the innumerable battered files in their dull green-painted cabinets. They talked about their health and their families, perfunctorily asking after Ghote’s first. They talked about sport and about what they had read in the paper. A hathayogi was to walk on water somewhere in the city, a feat that was constantly being attempted somewhere or other, and this seemed to have taken the fancy of everyone Ghote spoke to. Everybody seemed to have taken it into their heads to go and see him, though they were about equally divided over whether he was actually going to achieve the feat or whether there would be some last-minute hitch. No one would get down to business until they had talked up and down it all at least once. Listening to them with what appearance of polite interest he could manage, Ghote thought about the P.R.O. to the Minister for Police Affairs and the Arts and the deadly last few words of his telephone call.

  But at last he got some co-operation. Only to find that practical joking was a classification which the Records Department did not recognise. So depressedly he set himself to whisk through every one of the likely Case Reports for the last six months in an effort to find if any of them were the work of the man who had shot the Minister’s flamingoes and kidnapped the Indian Derby favourite.

  He was not helped by having Sgt. Desai watch him, as though working one’s way laboriously through sheaves of paper was some hitherto unattempted conjuring trick. Luckily the trick was so dull that at last even Desai wandered away. For a quarter of an hour or so Ghote was able to work in concentrated silence. The dust-smelling files went banging back into their cabinets as he finished with them with satisfying frequency. But he came across nothing which looked even remotely like a large-scale practical joke on the lines of the flamingo shooting or the horse-into-donkey trick.

  It was at the end of the quarter-hour that quite suddenly he realised that Desai had inveigled most of the Records staff into a game of cards. It was quite blatant. They were squatting in a remote bay between two rows of the tall green-painted cabinets with the cards on the floor. Their voices came quite clearly to him as he worked.