LITMIR.BIZ

      FOUR

      For the whole of the hour or more during which the six of them had taken tea out on the broad pillared terrace beyond the drawing-room windows, the Judge scarcely uttered a word. Nor did he eat more than a mouthful or two from the plates of cucumber sandwiches, of curry puffs, of little round cakes with a blob of pink icing on each, which Raman assiduously brought round. Once when the Orderly attempted with a hesitant smile and a curious skipping approach to slide on to his master’s plate a previously rejected little cake, he did speak. But it was only to snarl, ‘Go away, you damned fool, go away.’ Otherwise he sat, eyelids drooping, apparently exhausted almost to the point of sleep by the emotions of the episode indoors.

      Ghote, too, ate little. Partly this was because he found he much disliked the cucumber sandwich he had first been offered – it seemed tasteless as a water-soaked chapatti: cucumber was fit only for slaking thirst squirted perhaps with the juice of a lime when there was nothing better to be got – and somehow Raman failed to hand him the plate of tasty curry puffs more than once. But chiefly his disinclination to eat was because with every passing minute he became more and more worried about Sir Asif.

      What if the old man were to have a heart attack? From the greyness of his crushed-nose face, in dismaying contrast to the dazzling white folds of the tall pagri on his head, it certainly looked as if at any moment he might become ill. And if he died …? How well then would the task which he had been sent here to perform have been carried out?

      But, with the first hints of swift-coming night in the unbroken dome of the pallid blue sky above, the solemn ceremonious meal at last came to an end and Sir Asif at once pushed himself totteringly but determinedly to his feet, the fleshless hands clasped over the silver knob of his stick swelling in every vein.

      ‘Come, Doctor Ghote,’ he said.

      And, slowly but inflexibly, he made his way over to the open windows of the drawing-room and inside. Ghote followed, hovering at the old man’s elbow, expecting at any moment to have to catch the frail body as it fell. But, with painful lack of speed, they went through the drawing-room, down the long passage to the hall and then onwards up the equally long passage that led to the library.

      The tall book-lined room was almost in complete darkness. Only, beside the Judge’s customary chair, on an ivory-inlaid table there was a single lamp switched on – from outside the wheezy chug-chug-chug of the newly-started old generator could be distinctly heard – with next to it the elegant shape of a hookah, put there, Ghote guessed, by Raman, who had absented himself from the tea table some time before Sir Asif had moved. If the day before had been anything to go by, the Judge did not normally smoke at this hour. But perhaps Begum Roshan had suggested it as a means of calming irritated nerves.

      Only would it do so?

      At the sight of it, indeed, the Judge seemed to give a little petulant groan. But in a moment this was explained.

      ‘That wretched fellow Dhebar, I have forgotten to give him his weekly pabulum. Inspector, may I ask you to do me a kindness? It’s there. Over on the table by the window. Would you take it to him? Then we shan’t be interrupted.’

      Considerably uncertain as to what ‘pabulum’ was, Ghote headed across the gloom of the long room towards the table the Judge had indicated. On it, by the last gleams of daylight coming through the open window, he saw three sheets of white paper covered in neat and firm handwriting. Ah, the Judge’s article for next week’s Sputnik.

      He gathered the sheets up. And as he did so a sudden altogether convenient notion darted into his head. He had wondered how he could get a message to Bombay asking to have P. N. Dhebar’s antecedents checked. Well, he would use P. N. Dhebar himself as a messenger. A few rapidly written lines in a letter addressed not to CID headquarters opposite Crawford Market but instead to his wife at home asking her to take them to the Deputy Commissioner: that would do the trick. And Mr Dhebar would think nothing of posting such a letter for him in the town.

      He walked back, calmly as he could, through the long dark book-smelling room. But the moment the heavy door was firmly shut behind him he took to his heels and sprinted down the empty echoing passage to the hallway. Thank goodness, he thought, I can find my way quickly now from the stairs to my room.

      The whole business took him less than ten minutes. The letter – to Protima – luckily he had had the foresight to buy half-a-dozen airmail forms before he had left home – was a terrible scrawl, but it would achieve his object.

      Coming clattering down the stairs again, he saw that just beyond the open wide double doors of the house Begum Roshan was saying goodbye in the newly-fallen darkness to the editor of The Sputnik. Beside them at a little distance the American priest and the Saint stood watching. He hurried through and handed Mr Dhebar first the Judge’s weekly article and after it the flimsy blue airmail form. Then he took a hasty farewell.

      ‘I trust,’ Mr Dhebar said, with evident falsity, ‘that your work on Judge sahib’s Memoirs goes exceedingly well.’

      Back at the library he saw that the Judge had fallen asleep. He was sitting in his chair beside the ivory-inlaid table with its pool of light from the lamp and he was snoring. A thin high-pitched ugly little rasping sound.

      On the table the hookah stood unused, its mouthpiece lying beside it. And beside that, startlingly visible even from the doorway, glaringly present where it had not been before, was a folded white square of stiff paper.

      He did not need to cross to the table and take up the folded square at its corners by the tips of his fingers to realize that here was another note threatening with death the old man wheezily snoring in his chair.

      Outside, above the steady chugging of the ancient generator-motor, he heard the brisk rattle of Mr Dhebar’s little scooter as it was started up and headed put-puttingly towards the river. No chance then to send this square of paper via the unwitting editor to Bombay for proper examination by the Fingerprint Bureau. No chance yet of bringing some proper police work to this damned isolated, slow, fish-in-a-tank house.

      He teased open the folded square.

       Judge. 12 days only remaining.

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