The Perfect Murder: the First Inspector Ghote Mystery Page 5

  ‘I think you will find that the Minister will be very glad to see me,’ he said darkly.

  But the chaprassi had heard similar expressions too often before and remained splendidly indifferent.

  Inspector Ghote strolled, as airily as he could, back to Axel Svensson.

  ‘I have sent up my name,’ he said.

  Axel Svensson leant his big blond head forward close to the inspector’s.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what exactly is the nature of the crime that has been committed in the Minister’s office?’

  ‘Theft.’

  ‘Ah, theft.’

  For a time this seemed to content the big Swede. Then he leant confidentially forward again.

  ‘A big sum?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah, a small sum.’

  Inspector Ghote nodded.

  ‘How much exactly, my friend?’

  The inspector was suddenly conscious that he was sweating hard. It had been too much to hope that he could prevent this foreigner from getting to know the full details.

  ‘One rupee,’ he said.

  ‘One rupee? But that is only one krona, and five kronor go to the dollar, and –’

  ‘Yes,’ said the inspector spikily.

  ‘Ah, I see. Yes. Yes, of course. But the theft of any amount from a Minister’s office is an extremely important matter.’

  Inspector Ghote looked at the Swede with open gratitude.

  A peon, a pudgy-looking Goan, came down and started a whispered conversation with the chaprassi.

  ‘I expect that is the Minister’s peon,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘It is strange though that he should be Goan. They do not often take that sort of job.’

  He got up and walked across to the two whispering men. At an even pace and steadily.

  The peon glanced at him and went on whispering.

  ‘Are you from the Minister?’ the inspector asked sharply.

  ‘Minister’s personal peon,’ the chaprassi explained with befitting loftiness.

  ‘Very well then, don’t hang about,’ the inspector said. ‘The Minister is anxious to see me.’

  ‘The Minister has a great many important duties this morning,’ said the peon.

  Inspector Ghote came to a decision. Principles for once could go hang. He put his hand into his uniform pocket and felt for some money.

  It would be necessary now to redeem any unfortunate opinions that might have been formed. He did a little reckoning.

  Suddenly the peon broke away. The inspector looked up to see what had happened.

  Axel Svensson was striding across the great flagged floor towards them, enormous, distinguished, resolute.

  ‘The Minister is ready for us?’ he called across to Inspector Ghote.

  The peon spoke first.

  ‘Oh, yes, sahib,’ he said. ‘Minister waiting.’

  They followed the peon up to the top floor of the great building, where it was at once evident from the hushed atmosphere and the opulence of the décor that only the most senior of all the employees of the Ministry were allowed.

  Inspector Ghote found himself tiptoeing behind the chubby little Goan peon and angrily forced himself to bring the heels of his heavy brown shoes hard down on the cool stone floor. Only to discover that the approach of a very tall man in a white Gandhi cap, who looked at them coldly through an unexpectedly cheap-looking pair of spectacles, had made him creep more self-consciously than before.

  He cast a glance behind at the thin figure now just stepping into the lift, half expecting that he would be summoning the turbaned chaprassi from the entrance hall to have them thrown out. But to his relief all he saw was a glimpse of disappearing white.

  The little peon noticed his backward look.

  ‘That was Minister,’ he said ingratiatingly.

  ‘What?’ the inspector shouted.

  And then, remembering where he was, he reduced his voice to a sibilant whisper.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him who I was?’ he hissed. ‘The Minister wanted to see me on a very important matter. At once. Now.’

  The fat little Goan shook his head.

  ‘Everybody have to see Mr Jain, first,’ he declared.

  ‘Mr Jain? Who is Mr Jain?’

  ‘Mr Jain Minister’s personal assistant. Oh, my god.’

  Inspector Ghote did not allow himself to be intimidated by this unforced expression of awe.

  ‘Then take me to Mr Jain at once,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes, sahib,’ said the peon.

  Crouching a little before the inspector’s wrath, he opened a door a few yards farther on and ushered them through.

  Mr Jain got up from a desk which was entirely bare except for a single very small piece of paper on one corner of which he had written a few words in tiny, neat handwriting. He gave an impression of being pared down to the minimum in every possible way. His bones were covered with flesh, certainly, but not a fraction more than necessary to sustain life. His clothes were decent and not even particularly threadbare, yet they were so entirely without excess of any sort that they looked skimpier than a beggar’s. His very movements were calculated to achieve their object with the least possible displacement.

  But, to Inspector Ghote’s secret relief, he realized at once who they were and what their business must be.

  ‘Unfortunately the Minister has had to leave,’ he said. ‘A conference in connexion with buying land for the new police training college. Rather an urgent matter. But if I can in any way help …’

  He saved himself the rest of his sentence by employing a delicate gesture of the right hand, the fingers of which moved as much as an inch and a half.

  ‘If you can give us the fullest possible details,’ Inspector Ghote said, ‘perhaps it will not be necessary to trouble the Minister after all.’

  ‘The fullest details, yes.’

  Mr Jain looked less happy.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he added. ‘We want this business cleared up as quickly as possible.’

  He picked a tiny wisp of thread off his sleeve and carried it between finger and thumb to a wastepaper basket near the bare desk.

  ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘I can only tell you what I know.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Inspector Ghote.

  He felt cautiously happy. There was much less opposition than he had expected.

  ‘Very well then,’ Mr Jain said. ‘The situation as I understand it is this. The Minister came into his office very early this morning. As soon as he had arrived he took a ten-rupee note from his pocket and sent his peon to get it changed into singles. He said he wanted small change, you understand?’

  Inspector Ghote felt pleased. Plainly he was going to be given a clear and courteous explanation of what had happened.

  ‘I take it the Minister liked to have some small change always to hand,’ he said helpfully.

  Mr Jain’s eyes suddenly went blank.

  ‘I imagine so,’ he said.

  After a moment he recovered himself.

  ‘But perhaps it would be easier if I took you into the Minister’s own office,’ he said.

  They followed him into a great, airy room, quiet with rich carpeting, fresh with discreet air-conditioning and softly lighted from cane blinds that screened huge windows looking out over a jumble of roofs and the distant noise of scrambling traffic far below to the grey-blue of the Arabian Sea on the horizon.

  Mr Jain moved round till he was standing between the Minister’s ornate chair and his enormous, glowing polished wood desk.

  ‘This is the drawer,’ he said.

  ‘Stop,’ said Inspector Ghote.

  Mr Jain had been about to pull it open.

  He looked up and then smiled.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘fingerprints. Of course. But you will already find my prints on the drawer, Inspector. The Minister asked me to close it for him when he had counted out the notes into it.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And he has asked Felix, his
peon – you saw him, I believe – to open it,’ Mr Jain continued. ‘So you will find his prints too, and of course the Minister’s.’

  ‘It will be necessary for us to take your prints, sahib,’ Inspector Ghote put in. ‘Purely for purposes of elimination, you understand.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Mr Jain smiled again. Coolly.

  ‘The elimination should be easy, Inspector,’ he said. ‘This room is thoroughly cleaned early every morning and the desk is polished. I inspect it myself before the Minister arrives.’

  Inspector Ghote looked up.

  ‘And you inspected it this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘I never do otherwise, Inspector. And I can promise you that the wood of the drawers was gleaming.’

  ‘Then if we are lucky we shouldn’t be very long,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘We have records of all the sort of fellows who are likely to pick up sums of money from desk drawers.’

  He felt an uprising of solid contentment. This was how police work ought to be. Theft reported, area of theft located, fingerprints taken, innocent parties eliminated, guilty party left, records compared, thief identified.

  Mr Jain leant forward and removed a speck of dust from the white telephone on the desk.

  ‘But I very much doubt, Inspector,’ he said, ‘whether you will find any other fingerprints but mine, the Minister’s and his peon’s on that drawer.’

  5

  Inspector Ghote looked up in sudden desolation.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Why should there not be other fingerprints on the drawer than the Minister’s, yours and the peon’s?’

  ‘Because there is only one door to this room,’ Mr Jain said. ‘Because I myself was in the outer office from the time the money was put into the drawer until the theft was reported and no one else entered the room.’

  He stared at Inspector Ghote with sudden arrogance.

  The inspector’s thoughts jumped and leapt about.

  It seemed to him a long time before he was able to pin one of them down.

  ‘You say you were in the outer office all the time,’ he said at last, ‘but how long was that?’

  ‘One hour.’

  Mr Jain slapped the words down.

  ‘And in this hour,’ the inspector said, ‘no doubt you left the actual room next door for a few minutes once or twice?’

  ‘Not for one single minute.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a little –’

  But Axel Svensson interrupted excitedly.

  ‘The peon,’ he said, ‘did he come and go into this room?’

  ‘You must ask him,’ said Mr Jain.

  ‘One hour between the time the Minister put the notes in the drawer and the time he told you that one of them had been stolen,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘Was the Minister in here for much of that hour?’

  ‘No,’ Mr Jain said. ‘He told me he had some business to attend to and went out almost straight away. As soon as he came back he found the note was missing.’

  The door of the outer office opened and the peon appeared carrying a tabbed file. He put it on Mr Jain’s desk.

  ‘Come in here,’ Inspector Ghote called.

  The man came in. He salaamed uneasily.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Felix Sousa, sahib.’

  ‘And you are the Minister’s peon?’

  Felix Sousa sighed.

  ‘Yes, sahib. For five years I have been the Minister’s peon.’

  He made it sound like a prison sentence.

  ‘You changed a note for the Minister this morning?’

  ‘No – Yes, sahib, I did.’

  ‘And you watched the Minister count the ten rupee notes you brought back into that drawer?’

  The peon glanced at the drawer and groaned.

  ‘Well, did you?’

  ‘Yes, sahib.’

  ‘You know that one of the notes is missing?’

  ‘Oh, sahib, sahib, it wasn’t me. I promise you that. Oh, my god, no. I never steal nothing, sahib.’

  Tears began to well out of his eyes and mingle with the sweat on his pudgy cheeks.

  ‘The office was empty. You came in here,’ said Inspector Ghote sternly.

  He tried to think of D.S.P. Samant. There was nothing his superior liked better than breaking down a suspect. Especially one who, like the Goan, was ready to break at a touch.

  ‘You came in here. The office was empty,’ he repeated grimly.

  The Goan gulped his tears.

  ‘Oh, no, sahib. I never.’

  ‘It is no use denying. The office was left empty and you were the only one with a chance to take the note.’

  ‘But, no, sahib, no.’

  ‘Stop that, I tell you. When it is plain that you were the only one that could have taken the money it is no use to go on and on denying.’

  The man took a double-sized gulp.

  ‘But, sahib, I never went in office. Never. Please ask Mr Jain. He will tell you I never went in. Once he stopped me. I was only going to empty the Minister’s waste-paper basket, and he told me not to be a fool, sahib.’

  Inspector Ghote looked at the spare-fleshed personal assistant.

  ‘Is this true, Mr Jain?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Jain. ‘He did not have occasion to go into the Minister’s office.’

  The Goan looked immensely relieved. But his troubles were not over for long.

  ‘Oh, my god,’ he burst out, ‘and all the time there was something in the wastepaper basket.’

  All eyes turned to the open canework basket in the corner of the big room. There reposing in simple solitude was a single crumpled sheet of paper.

  The peon almost flung himself at Mr Jain’s feet in abject apology.

  ‘I would have empty, sahib,’ he said. ‘Honest to god, I would have empty if I had been in office.’

  ‘It is one piece of paper only,’ said Inspector Ghote.

  He went across to the basket and pulled it out, uncrumpled it and looked at it. It contained a simple percentage sum ending with ‘A.V. 20% – R.K. 30%.’

  The peon went on protesting to Mr Jain about his good faith in the matter of emptying the basket. Mr Jain looked at him angrily.

  ‘Oh, I know, sahib, you say basket must never be left in a disgusting state like that, but this time –’

  ‘Be quiet,’ snapped the inspector.

  The peon shrank into silence and looked at him with wide, fearful eyes.

  The inspector showed Mr Jain the sheet of paper.

  ‘Is that the Minister’s writing?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes. He often makes calculations of that sort.’

  ‘Do you know what this one would be about?’

  ‘Really, Inspector, I don’t think I can discuss the contents of a note jotted down by the Minister in his private office.’

  ‘No, no. Of course not. Please do not misunderstand. I wished simply to make sure that it was something that the Minister had put in the basket himself.’

  ‘I think you can be certain that it was,’ Mr Jain answered. ‘No doubt it was some calculations he was making in preparation for the conference which he is attending at this moment.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  Inspector Ghote felt that a tricky passage had been negotiated. He walked across the big room and allowed the crumpled slip to fall back into the pristine basket.

  ‘But if no one entered the room,’ Axel Svensson burst out in his loud voice, ‘how did the money get stolen from the Minister’s drawer?’

  Inspector Ghote wriggled his shoulders under his khaki uniform. He could have wished that the matter could have been put less uncompromisingly.

  He looked at the lean form of Mr Jain.

  ‘It is absolutely certain,’ he asked, ‘that no one entered the Minister’s room from the time he put the notes in the drawer until the time he said that one of them had been stolen? You can vouch for that?’

  Mr Jain looked at him calmly.

  ‘Yes,’ he sa
id. ‘As I told you, I was in the outer office myself, and for the whole time I was in full view of the clerks in the next office. You must check that with them, of course. But you will find it is true. I was there, and I tell you that no one came into this room.’

  Inspector Ghote licked at his lips.

  ‘Is it possible for the Minister to have made a mistake?’ he asked.

  Mr Jain shrugged discreetly.

  ‘He counted the notes into the drawer while I was here, and Felix.’

  There was a choking sound from Felix as if he would have denied his presence at the counting.

  ‘You were there? You saw the Minister count?’ Inspector Ghote asked him.

  ‘Yes, sahib.’

  The note of resignation.

  Inspector Ghote looked round the airy room. The walls were smoothly unbroken except for the minuscule air-conditioning grilles and where the big windows, protected by their bamboo blinds, looked out to the distant sea.

  He went across to one of them and pulled up the blind.

  ‘You will be disappointed, Inspector,’ said Mr Jain. ‘The walls all round the windows in this part of the building are quite smooth.’

  The inspector leant out.

  Mr Jain was quite right. To the left and the right, above and below great smooth blocks of massive stone stretched away into the distance unbroken by the faintest decorative mark that could give foothold to so much as a monkey.

  He turned back into the room and walked over towards the big, smoothly shining desk with a frown.

  ‘I have not had the honour of meeting the Minister,’ he said. ‘Can I speak frankly, Mr Jain?’

  Mr Jain smiled very slightly.

  ‘Did he forget that he had taken the money out already?’ the inspector asked. ‘Is it perhaps still there? Could he not have realized that it is possible for a note to fall down the back of the drawer?’

  ‘I can see that you do not know the Minister,’ Mr Jain said, ‘None of those things are possible. The Minister …’

  He paused.

  And was saved from the necessity of framing a disloyal reply by the chubby Goan peon.

  ‘He never gave no one one quarter anna he could help,’ he broke out. ‘Oh, my god, no.’

  ‘In any case,’ said Mr Jain, ‘he showed us the open drawer with the nine notes in it. He made us look down the back of the desk. There is no doubt the money is not here.’