LITMIR.BIZ

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again, regardless of his brother’s anxiety to say what had to be said as swiftly as possible.

      “Yes, yes. Clocks stopping, watches going. They make up the whole of that young man’s life. Not married, Mr. Director General. Thirty years of age, and not married. Except to his timepieces. Yes, yes, wedded to those. Wedded.”

      Homi Dhunjeebhoy leaned farther forward in his wide brown chair and put out a hand to restrain his brother.

      “And that is why,” he said, “my brother and I are completely unable to believe that young Rustom could have done the terrible thing he is accused of.”

      The D.G.P. seized this opportunity to produce his promised platitudes.

      “Gentlemen,” he said, rather more loudly than he might have done, “let me assure you that the officers of my force are men of considerable experience. None of them lightly brings a charge under Section Three-oh-two of the Indian Penal Code. And in this particular instance, let me remind you it has been done on the strength of a confession from the young man in question. A direct confession.”

      “But—” Homi Dhunjeebhoy interrupted weightily.

      “But—but—but—” his brother broke in, in a fine rubber-bouncing splutter. “In the newspapers, Mr. Director General. One has read … beatings, threats, humiliation. Torture even. I can give you instances. Let me see. Let me see …”

      “Bomi,” his brother broke in, booming like a bell. “We are taking up too much of the D.G.P.’s time. He is a busy man, don’t forget.”

      “Oh, yes, yes. Busy. Quite, quite. Not one moment more than—”

      “Mr. Director General,” Homi came in again. “Let us be perfectly plain. We cannot but suspect that this confession was obtained from young Rustom Fardoomji under duress.”

      “Yes, yes. Duress. Duress. It is not too strong a word.”

      “Bomi—”

      “Oh, yes. Time. Your time, Mr. Director General …”

      The D.G.P. once more seized the chance Homi Dhunjeebhoy had made for him. At more than a little length he explained how “the Indian Evidence Act, 1927, read with the Criminal Procedure Code, Section 164” made obtaining confessions by force altogether impossible, while refraining from any mention of the fact that such confessions were from time to time obtained. Then, without pause, he launched into a fearsomely detailed account of some of the triumphs of efficiency his force had recently achieved.

      “In one single day, gentlemen, no fewer than one hundred and fifteen goondas arrested, plus also eleven slumlords, plus again thirty-seven bootleggers detected and no fewer than ninety-seven thousand, two hundred and two liters of hooch destroyed. I have the figures before me.”

      He tapped impressively at one of the piles of papers on his desk. Ghote, flat against the wall in the background, suppressed the thought that the papers might contain no such figures.

      The Dhunjeebhoy brothers had been reduced to listening in silence, Homi bending at every moment into a yet more doubting mark of interrogation, Bomi excitedly tapping at his little rounded paunch with impatient fingers.

      Now Homi at last saw his chance.

      “Mr. Director General, I have no doubt all you say is true. However—”

      “However, sir, however,” Bomi popped in. “We have known Rustom since his childhood days. Yes, yes. And he was dreamy. That’s the word. Dreamy. A sweet—”

      “Mr. Director General,” Homi rode over his brother, “the fact is, we cannot believe the boy committed a crime of such savagery.”

      “Yes, yes, savagery. That’s what we understand, sir. The body was savagely attacked. Savagely. Am I right?”

      The D.G.P. consulted for an instant another sheet of paper on the desk in front of him.

      “The victim was severely battered, yes,” he said. “I have a detailed description here. It is not too much to say the attack was savage.”

      “And it is the considered opinion of my brother and myself,” Homi Dhunjeebhoy stated, “that our cousin Rustom is incapable of savagery. Let us not take up more of your time, sir. Let us state plainly that we have come this morning to ask you to make the most rigorous inquiries into this alleged confession.”

      “Oh, Mr. Director General, rigorous. Rigorous, rigorous. Not a stone unturned, sir. A stitch in time … Not a—not a—”

      “Bomi, we have made our point, I trust. Remember, the Director General has numerous duties.”

      “Good gracious, yes. Oh, forgive me, sir. I fear I have gone on. Gone on at length. But—but—but you see, Rustom means a great deal to us. The family. You understand, there are ties—”

      “Bomi.”

      “Oh, yes, yes, Homi. Yes, we must be going. Yes, indeed. Going.”

      Homi by way of agreement uncurled his long body from the deep leather armchair.

      “Mr. Director General,” he asked, “can I feel I have your assurance that the matter will be pursued?”

      “Pursued to the utmost,” Bomi hopped up out of his chair to add. “Any sign, sir. Any sign at all that that confession—”

      “Bomi, time.”

      “Oh, yes, yes. Waits for no man, waits not a minute. Going. We must be going. We are going.”

      Bomi Dhunjeebhoy’s voice trailed away as he went through the door that his brother was holding wide for him.

      It closed. Ghote came back to stand in front of the D.G.P.’s desk again, to receive his orders.

      “Sir,” he said, “you would be wanting me to follow the investigation till date on behalf of Crime Branch? To make doubly certain there were no irreg—”

      “No.”

      The D.G.P. chopped the word out like a blow from an axe.

      “No, sir?”

      “No, Inspector.”

      TWO

      Ghote felt submerged in astonishment. Surely, he thought, the D.G.P. is not going to dismiss to one hundred percent a request from such influential people as the Dhunjeebhoy brothers. It was all very well to talk about “reassurances and so forth,” but for all the details he had produced about the 97,202 liters of hooch discovered and destroyed—and, now that he came to think of it, that was the exact figure, given in the newspapers even—and for all his careful quoting of the venerable Indian Evidence Act, the brothers had not been won over. They had left seemingly believing the confession that this Rustom Fardoomji had made would be inquired into, to the very bottom.

      But now the D.G.P. apparently was ordering him not to pursue the matter at all.

      He almost asked once again if that was what had been said. But before he had gone that far the D.G.P. spoke.

      “No, Inspector. The damn thing is more complicated than that. And it is because of the complications that I sent for you.”

      Ghote felt at one and the same time worried and flattered. Worried that he would not succeed in dealing with the complications, whatever they were. Flattered that he had been picked out as capable of doing so.

      “Your name was suggested to me, er, er, Ghote,” the D.G.P. went on distantly, as if as he spoke he was trying to decide how he could say what he had to say. “Suggested as a suitable officer who, if worse came to worst, could be—”

      Then abruptly he made up his mind.

      “It is the identity of the particular victim,” he blurted out. “That is the trouble. He is one Ramrao Pendke, who turns out to be the grandson and sole heir of a certain Bhagwantrao Pendke,

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