The Body in the Billiard Room. H. R. f. Keating
I warn you you’re up against just such a diabolically ingenious opponent here, too. A diabolically ingenious murderer.’
The aged, erect, imperious figure turned away.
‘But, come along, my dear chap. Mustn’t stand here gassing all night. We’ll walk up to the Club, it’s only a step, and I’ll send a servant for your baggage. Then I can put you properly in the picture.’
‘Thank you,’ Ghote said, acknowledging to himself defeat but resolving that it would be only temporary.
They set off in silence through the rapidly gathering dusk. There was a school, called Bucks, on the left, very British in style with its roof, made out of corrugated iron, mounting to a peak. On the right there was some sort of a Christian church, and there was another with a squat tower further on at a little distance up a turning behind double gates. There was also, as a noticeboard outside proclaimed, the Collector’s Office, arcaded and much hung with balconies. It was all very much Ooty, Ooty as he had read of it. A quiet English town in the middle of teeming India.
Soon His Excellency directed him into the turning of a lane.
‘The Club,’ he said.
And there at the crest of a small hill it lay, the scene of the crime. In the fast-fading light Ghote could still see the long, low white building, distinguished by four tall, very British pillars rising up at its centre from a flight of wide steps. Away to either side ran fine lawns, their expanse broken here and there by huge old trees.
Then he noticed close at hand an inconspicuous sign reading Private – Members Only. It was, he felt, all the more of a barrier for its very lack of threat. It was enough for the members of this awesome institution just to give the briefest message to outsiders that this was forbidden territory.
Territory which he, simply because one of those members had taken it into his head that Inspector Ghote of Bombay was another Sherlock Holmes, was about to be introduced into.
And then, just behind the sign, he saw something else. A yogi was sitting on the ground there, sitting so still in meditation as to be almost invisible, streamingly white-locked and white-bearded, bare of chest, impervious to the sharp chill of the evening air.
A holy man in a state of dhyana, Ghote thought in sudden envy. One whole step beyond the dharana he himself had such difficulty in getting near. With every impurity of thought banished. Or the stock-still figure might even be in samadhi, all consciousness of self obliterated.
‘Come on, old chap,’ His Excellency said. ‘Want to have our chat before they sound the dinner gong.’
‘Yes, yes.’
He hurried after the ex-ambassador up along a tree-lined drive. And, before he had time fully to prepare himself, they were mounting the ancient steps, passing between the white pillars, through the portico, where a huge gong waited to be struck, and were inside the Club itself.
It appeared to be altogether deserted. There were dark-wood painted rolls of honour on the walls, deep sofas covered in blue and white linen and a pervasive smell of resin from the polished floor at their feet. But no bustle of activity. No members doing whatever it was that members of such a Club did within its sacred walls.
‘Koi hai?’ His Excellency called.
Silence.
Ghote looked about him more closely. Just near there was a green baize board for notices, the scraps of paper pinned to it mostly yellowing with age. He read one. Wanted – Good Home for Three Adorable Puppies Not Pedigree.
Well, he thought with a dart of irreverence, so even here nature can thrust aside the rules.
‘Koi hai?’ His Excellency called again.
And now there did come the patter of feet in soft chappals and a bearer, in cripsly starched blue uniform, appeared.
‘Sahib?’
‘Ah, Patiyar. Is there anyone about? Mr Iyer? Major Bell?’
His Excellency turned to Ghote.
‘Iyer’s our Assistant Secretary,’ he said. ‘Does the work, you know. Major Bell is Club Secretary, one of the last few Europeans in Ooty. We gave him the post two or three years ago, though of course he’s been a member for decades.’
He dropped his voice.
‘Otherwise he would have ended up among the flotsam of the Friend in Need Society, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Sad thing when a fellow’s been part of Ooty life so long, sidesman at the church and all that.’
‘Please,’ the bearer said, ‘Mr Iyer is at own residence and Major Sahib is taking Dasher for customary evening walk.’
‘Ah, well, never mind. Just wanted to get Mr Ghote here booked in as a Temporary Member. But it’ll wait. It’ll wait.’
His Excellency turned again to Ghote, who had been wondering whether he could ask what a sidesman at a church was and had decided he had better let it pass.
‘We’ll go into the Reading Room. If Ringer Bell’s out with that desperate old dog of his – fellow knows it’s high time the beast was put down – then he won’t be having a snooze in there. And no one else will disturb us.’
‘Very good,’ Ghote said.
He began preparing in his mind a few phrases for the declaration he felt he must make before he got embroiled any further in the ex-ambassador’s detective-story scheming. ‘A police officer is working very much by knowledge of locale’ and ‘almost to one hundred per cent murder cases are altogether simple affairs not requiring much of detection, only routine inquiries’; even ‘there is no room for amateur effort in dealing with whatsoever sorts and kinds of crimes’.
His Excellency ushered him into a large echoing room. Clusters of leather armchairs were drawn up here and there, the seat of one near the door showing a wide white split. Writing tables marched down the length of the room at well spaced intervals, each with a neat pile of pale green notepaper at its exact centre. On the deep shelves along one wall there was a line of tall green books. Ghote glimpsed the title of one of them, embossed in gold, Ootacamund Hunt – Hounds Breeding Records – 1920–25. And away at the far end there was actually an open fire, quietly glowing in a wide fireplace.
Yes, this was truly Ooty. The unchanging order. The keen, clear air of paradise warmed by the cheerful glint of burning wood.
‘Damned fire,’ His Excellency said. ‘Thing’s half out. Trouble is you can’t get the logs nowadays. Too many people in the place, always scrounging for firewood. You know what they did to old Ringer Bell one night?’
‘No, Your Excellency.’
‘Crept into his garden and dug up a whole damn cherry tree. There when he went to bed. Gone in the morning. Still, I didn’t bring you in here to talk about how Ooty’s going downhill.’
Now would be the moment. Jump in at the start and tell the old man, however influential he might be, that he had not summoned any sort of a Great Detective, that this was not the way murder cases were cleared up. That—
‘Right. Well, you know, of course, that the Club billiards marker, fellow by the name of Pichu, was found dead first thing yesterday morning, sprawled out bang in the middle of the billiard table?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ghote put in quickly, seeing a way of making his case with the ex-ambassador from a sympathetic angle. ‘It was altogether sacrilege, isn’t it?’
‘Sacrilege? Don’t know about that. Point is, old Pichu was definitely murdered. Stabbed to the heart. No weapon nearby. Clear case.’
‘Yes. Yes, Your Excellency. But if it is being such a clear case, why cannot Ootacamund police deal with same?’
‘Ah, you’ve put your finger on it. Right on it. Expected as much from you. And, of course, that’s it. The police here have bungled the business. Always