Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes, page 23
“Colonel, I am near the end of the whole business.”
“Near the end? And what precisely do you mean by that? You’ve picked up those damned dacoits, I suppose. Well, I’ve heard nothing of that. I was supposed to be kept bloody well informed.”
He glared round as if there might be someone in the bare room to be put immediately under close arrest.
“No,” Ghote said, “it is not that. The dacoits have not been picked up yet. It is that I know who gave them their orders.”
“You do, do you, Inspector? I shall believe that when I hear it.”
“Very well. Then may I ask how it was that Professor Strongbow was sent to meet an apparently accidental death within minutes of my having informed you, and no one else, that he had in fact seen his brother after the Trombay visit?”
Colonel Mehta did not answer.
He looked up at Ghote from under his bristling eyebrows, steadily and hard. Then he dropped his glance and began fiddling with the button of his trimly fastened jacket. Eventually he looked up again and spoke.
“Let me get this bloody well straight, Inspector,” he said, in a voice lacking its former fieriness. “You’re saying that I was the only person who knew Professor Strongbow had learnt his brother’s secret, and that the orders to kill him went out so quickly that it could only have been me who gave them? Is that it? Have I got it right?”
He sounded almost humble.
“Yes,” Ghote answered, “I am saying that the head of Special Investigations Agency is head of India First also. The simple policeman you thought would keep you ahead of any awkward inquiries has found out the truth.”
“I see. But why have you come to me with all this? Surely you should have gone higher up? It should have been a visitor from Delhi I was receiving and not a mere police inspector. Unless what you’ve been telling me is a mere cock-and-bull story?”
“No, it is not,” Ghote said. “But who could I go to higher up? You know there was no one. You told me yourself it would be like that. I think no one in Delhi knew about Hector Strongbow’s visit to Trombay even. I heard you telling my DSP not to breathe a word about it. Who would believe me then? And if they did, might it not be to another traitor I was talking?”
Colonel Mehta gave a sharp grunt.
“So what have you come here to do then?” he asked.
“To arrest you, Colonel, on a charge of conspiring to murder Hector Strongbow on or about the fourth of September last.”
And Colonel Mehta laughed. A sudden splutter of mirth, as if he could not help it.
Then he slipped the heavy Service revolver from his under-arm holster and pointed it straight at Ghote.
“You bloody incompetent fool,” he said.
The shots rang out in the hot stillness of the big, deserted building like a series of minor explosions.
Gregory Strongbow came in through the slightly open door from the outer office.
“Thank you, Gregory,” Ghote said. “I knew I could trust your shooting.”
He looked down at the body of Colonel Mehta, officer in charge of the rootless Special Investigations Agency, head of the self-centred India First group. It lay sprawled back against the bare wall of the totally bare, recordless little office.
“Unknown assailants have killed another person,” he said. “The crime figures will be bad this month.”
H. R. F. Keating, Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes
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“Near the end? And what precisely do you mean by that? You’ve picked up those damned dacoits, I suppose. Well, I’ve heard nothing of that. I was supposed to be kept bloody well informed.”
He glared round as if there might be someone in the bare room to be put immediately under close arrest.
“No,” Ghote said, “it is not that. The dacoits have not been picked up yet. It is that I know who gave them their orders.”
“You do, do you, Inspector? I shall believe that when I hear it.”
“Very well. Then may I ask how it was that Professor Strongbow was sent to meet an apparently accidental death within minutes of my having informed you, and no one else, that he had in fact seen his brother after the Trombay visit?”
Colonel Mehta did not answer.
He looked up at Ghote from under his bristling eyebrows, steadily and hard. Then he dropped his glance and began fiddling with the button of his trimly fastened jacket. Eventually he looked up again and spoke.
“Let me get this bloody well straight, Inspector,” he said, in a voice lacking its former fieriness. “You’re saying that I was the only person who knew Professor Strongbow had learnt his brother’s secret, and that the orders to kill him went out so quickly that it could only have been me who gave them? Is that it? Have I got it right?”
He sounded almost humble.
“Yes,” Ghote answered, “I am saying that the head of Special Investigations Agency is head of India First also. The simple policeman you thought would keep you ahead of any awkward inquiries has found out the truth.”
“I see. But why have you come to me with all this? Surely you should have gone higher up? It should have been a visitor from Delhi I was receiving and not a mere police inspector. Unless what you’ve been telling me is a mere cock-and-bull story?”
“No, it is not,” Ghote said. “But who could I go to higher up? You know there was no one. You told me yourself it would be like that. I think no one in Delhi knew about Hector Strongbow’s visit to Trombay even. I heard you telling my DSP not to breathe a word about it. Who would believe me then? And if they did, might it not be to another traitor I was talking?”
Colonel Mehta gave a sharp grunt.
“So what have you come here to do then?” he asked.
“To arrest you, Colonel, on a charge of conspiring to murder Hector Strongbow on or about the fourth of September last.”
And Colonel Mehta laughed. A sudden splutter of mirth, as if he could not help it.
Then he slipped the heavy Service revolver from his under-arm holster and pointed it straight at Ghote.
“You bloody incompetent fool,” he said.
The shots rang out in the hot stillness of the big, deserted building like a series of minor explosions.
Gregory Strongbow came in through the slightly open door from the outer office.
“Thank you, Gregory,” Ghote said. “I knew I could trust your shooting.”
He looked down at the body of Colonel Mehta, officer in charge of the rootless Special Investigations Agency, head of the self-centred India First group. It lay sprawled back against the bare wall of the totally bare, recordless little office.
“Unknown assailants have killed another person,” he said. “The crime figures will be bad this month.”
H. R. F. Keating, Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes
