The Body in the Billiard Room - H. R. f. Keating An Inspector Ghote Mystery

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Ringer’s never put cue to ball since. Daren’t, I suppose.’

      But Ghote was busy examining the ravaged cupboard. Would it be possible to tell whether any damage had been caused by a real dacoit, or by some amateur imitator?

      It was a sturdily-built piece with glass doors on its top section and a broader bottom half forming a wide shelf. Certainly it was clear that the top doors had been recently levered apart. The wood round the lock was splintered and still light-coloured and fresh. It looked, too, as if some sharp, pointed instrument had been used.

      But, again, it was impossible to tell whether the harm had been done by a determined thief or an ingenious faker.

      But could it really be true, Ghote thought, that the theft had been a subterfuge only? After all, despite what His Excellency had said, silver was actually valuable. It was by no means unlikely that some local dacoit would have heard of the rich haul to be made here: if firewood looters could steal a whole tree, then trophies at the Club could no longer be considered safe.

      And His Excellency’s theory, looked at in a calm light, was surely too fantastic. To murder an old man for some reason and afterwards to break open the cupboard of trophies, pretend to force the window and take away all the silver cups and bowls just to make it look like a killing in the course of a dacoity. Really, there was too much of elaboration there.

      So could it be – the idea slipped traitorously into his head – could it be that His Excellency simply wanted there to be a mystery here at the Club? A mystery for a Great Detective to come and solve?

      ‘You can see the grease mark where old Pichu laid his head,’ His Excellency said abruptly, causing Ghote to give a little jump of surprise. ‘No amount of polish will ever remove that, I dare say.’

      Ghote, recovering, turned to face him.

      ‘The cupboard is cleaned every day?’ he asked.

      ‘Oh, yes, definitely. The Club still keeps up its standards, you know. Damn great army of sweeper women come up from the lower town at crack of dawn each day.’

      ‘Then there will not be much of clues remaining.’

      ‘Well, no. No. Dare say not.’

      Then His Excellency’s face brightened again.

      ‘But it’s the psychology we’ve got to rely on here,’ he said. ‘Unless of course, you yourself have already noticed something the significance of which has escaped everybody else?’

      Ghote turned to his wistful companion and looked him straight in the eye.

      ‘As you have said yourself, sahib,’ he replied. ‘The Great Detective is never giving away his thoughts. Not even to such a person as you were calling his Watson.’

      FIVE

      For half a second His Excellency had looked disconcerted at such a sign of rebellion from the Sherlock Holmes that, Watson though he was, he had had summoned here to solve the mystery. A tiny flush of anger had begun to come up on his leathery cheeks. But it was quickly suppressed.

      ‘Well,’ he said mildly, ‘that seems to be about all then, for the time being. I dare say you’re tired, Inspector. Travel and all that.’

      Ghote, though well knowing that an excuse was being made for barely acceptable behaviour, realized that he was in fact extremely tired. Worn out. Being a Great Detective was decidedly a strain.

      ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I would very much like to sleep early.’

      But he did not get to bed in the enormous room he had been allocated – the contents of his suitcase were ridiculously put to shame by the two huge almirahs he distributed them between – before he had admitted at a knock on the door a salaaming servant saying ‘Hot-water bag, sahib’ and had watched that object being carefully placed in the wide, white-sheeted, blanket-covered bed.

      Nor did he finally secure peace and privacy without being presented by His Excellency with a copy of Agatha Christie’s Mrs McGinty’s Dead.

      ‘Thought this would be best for you to begin on,’ the old man said. ‘Poirot in top form for one thing, and then there’s a remarkable similarity to the present business. In both, you see, the vital question is: what was the weapon that was used?’

      Ghote had almost replied that here in Ooty there was no question at all about what the murder weapon was. In all probability it would be whatever the dacoit who had broken in and stabbed Pichu had happened to be carrying. But he was too exhausted to risk venturing into a dispute.

      ‘Weapon?’ he said simply.

      ‘Yes, old man, the sharp instrument. As opposed to blunt instrument, ha. That fool Meenakshisundaram kept going on about the crime having been committed with a sword. Had to say that, of course, just to back up his absurd notion of a dacoit being responsible.’

      Ghote smothered the groan that rose up inside him.

      ‘But I prefer,’ His Excellency went bouncing on, ‘to think of that weapon simply as a sharp instrument. A sharp instrument of as yet some undetermined sort. Something that the murderer had to have immediate access to, and could equally hide away rapidly once it had been cleaned of blood.’

      To this Ghote was too tired to do more than offer a temporizing reply.

      ‘Then tomorrow it would be most important to look into the matter.’

      And he had ushered His Excellency out, clambered up into the big, blanket-covered bed and, with a grimace, opened Mrs McGinty’s Dead. But he was able to get through only its first two pages before, his head filled with Hercule Poirot’s lamenting the lack of order and method in the world, sleep welled up over him.

      The next thing he knew he was being wakened by a soft-footed servant bringing him – wholly unaccustomed luxury – bed-tea. And it was not any thoughts about what unlikely weapon might possibly have been used to kill the Club billiards marker that came into his mind then but the simple necessity of seeing as soon as he could Inspector Meenakshisundaram, local representative of the rough simplicities of everyday police work. A few hard facts from a fellow professional might well send all His Excellency’s speculations sky-high.

      The earliness of the hour, and the chance of consuming an enormous English breakfast, a little delayed the consultation. But before long Ghote set off for the Urban Police Station, fortified by a steaming bowl of porridge (peculiar, and darkly reminiscent of a fact learnt at detective school, that it was the only substance in which white arsenic could be concealed), followed by fishcakes (less peculiar and scarcely needing the Dipy’s Tomato Ketchup thoughtfully provided) and a large rack of freshly made toast, served with thick marmalade from somewhere in the UK called Dundee (demolished in its entirety).

      The Police Station, another British-looking building not far from the ornate and impressive Collector’s Office, had each of the pitched roofs of its three sections studded by a high round window set in solid white stone. They seemed to Ghote, as he stood outside gathering himself together, like three watchful benelovent eyes looking out over the calm and quiet order of the town around.

      Would Inspector Meenakshisundaram in his office behind one of them be somehow equally Ooty-like and British-patterned? Not, of course, a British police officer of the old days, but a true Indian successor, reserved, just, dignified?

      Two minutes later he found out.

      Meenakshisundaram, seated at a table in front of the Crime Board found in all police stations, with its disposition table of Personnel Available, Personnel on Casual Leave, Personnel on Annual Leave, Vehicles Available, Vehicles Under Repair, Dogs Available, Dogs in Kennels, all carefully enumerated, proved to be a big, sprawling man running noticeably to fat.

      And an enthusiastic greeter.

      ‘Wah, a Bombaywallah. It is good to see. You boys up there know how to run things.’

      Ghote wagged his

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