Inspector Ghote and Axel Svensson leapt forward. Side by side they stood in front of the incoherently weeping Goan peon.
‘You stole from the Minister?’ Ghote said.
‘Oh, yes, yes. By god, yes. I stole every damn thing I could. Oh, by god, yes, I am a wicked man.’
‘Every damn thing?’ Ghote said.
‘Every damn thing, by god. I stole with the utmost damned rapidity.’
Axel Svensson’s clear blue eyes shone with a pure excitement.
‘The mysterious East, the mysterious East,’ he said. ‘I knew it.’
‘You stole a one-rupee note from the Minister’s desk yesterday?’ Ghote asked implacably.
‘Everything, everything. I damn well stole every – No, no, no, no. I never took that bloody damned one-rupee note.’
Axel Svensson gripped Inspector Ghote’s knobby elbow.
‘Is he saying he didn’t?’ he asked passionately.
Inspector Ghote relaxed. He turned to the bear-like Swede.
‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘that’s just what he is saying.’
‘But is it true?’
‘Yes,’ said Inspector Ghote, ‘it’s true. You heard him. He said “no” four times at least. That means “no”. If he’d said it once it would have meant “yes”. Twice would have meant “perhaps”. Three times “no”. And he said it four times or more.’
‘So it’s “no”,’ said the Swede. ‘We are back to the beginning once more. He didn’t steal the rupee.’
‘Oh, yes, sahib, by god, that’s right,’ Felix Sousa said from down on the filthy ground. ‘By god, that’s right. All the time I am stealing from the Minister. One, two, three, four. Just like that. But yesterday I couldn’t steal nothing. That damned Mr Jain he wouldn’t let me go into the Minister’s room. Not never, not damned once.’
Inspector Ghote looked round the busy streets running each way from the corner where Bhole Nath had put on his act. As he had hoped, watching the scene covertly from a distance was a police patrolman. The inspector beckoned to him. For a few seconds the constable tried to pretend he was looking the other way, but eventually he broke down and came over at the double.
He saluted.
‘Take this man to your nearest chowkey,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘Lock him up there, and charge him with theft from Shri Ram Kamath, Minister for Police Affairs and the Arts.’
‘Yes, sir, Inspector sahib,’ said the constable.
He seized Felix Sousa and hauled him to his feet. Inspector Ghote watched them go and sighed.
He turned to Axel Svensson.
‘I think there would be a telephone in that big shop over there,’ he said. ‘I have to make a call.’
The big Swede tramped along beside him to the shop and waited while he asked for the sickeningly familiar Varde number. He wished he could have stopped himself. He knew it was wrong to have allowed this totally illogical link to spring up between his success with the case and the life or death of the old Parsi, but he could not suppress it. It was stronger than even the best of his intentions.
His anxiety was neither allayed nor worsened when he got through. The bearer who answered had just seen Doctor Das go up to Mr Perfect’s room. He had been hurrying, but looked cheerful.
So presumably Mr Perfect was still alive. But the doctor had been hurrying. Inspector Ghote felt suspended, waiting.
He paid for the call and looked at Axel Svensson.
‘I don’t know about you,’ he said. ‘But I am hot. Let’s relax a moment and have a drink somewhere.’
The Swede unexpectedly groaned.
‘That is something I cannot learn to tolerate,’ he said. ‘Always my Indian friends are suggesting a drink, and nine times out of ten it is sticky coloured water, or sherbert or buttermilk, or orange juice they are drinking.’
‘This time it is sticky coloured water,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘There’s a halwa stall over there. Let’s go.’
‘To a sweetshop when one wants a drink,’ said the Swede.
He groaned again.
A few people from the crowd round Bhole Nath had got to the stall before them, although during the bull’s performance the enormously fat merchant who presided over the stall, aided by a pathetically thin boy, had been completely deprived of custom. It appeared that the merchant had not liked to desert his post in case of wholesale pillage, but he had made up for this by tormenting his young assistant. The two or three customers standing in front of the stall drinking buttermilk from tall brass tumblers did not keep him so busy that he was unable to continue this pleasurable activity.
It consisted of shouting an order to the emaciated brat to move one of the many trays of variegated sweetmeats, yellow, green, white, pink or prettily covered in silver foil, to a position on the stall supposed to be more advantageous to trade, and before the boy had had time to adjust the trays and dishes to order him to move something else to somewhere else. Even before the inspector’s arrival this had produced considerable confusion in the not noticeably well ordered stall. Dishes of one sweet had been placed precariously on top of dishes of another. Trays had been left here and there on the ground round about while the xylophone-ribbed boy had dashed to the other end of the stall in obedience to a fresh bellow from its owner. Jars of buttermilk and jars of fruit juice had become inextricably confused.
The only beneficial result had been to keep the tribes of flies that beleaguered the stall in more than usual movement.
The inspector ordered a bottle of mineral water for himself.
‘I might as well have one too,’ said Axel Svensson resignedly.
‘Yes, sahib. Certainly, sahib,’ the merchant replied, bending obsequiously forward from the coil of fat that represented his waist. ‘Pink mineral, sahib, or yellow mineral?’
‘What are the flavours?’ said the Swede.
‘Very good flavours, sahib. Best flavours out.’
‘Yes, but what –’
The inspector interrupted.
‘It makes no difference,’ he said. ‘It is only coloured and sweetened water anyhow.’
The gross merchant smiled a sickly smile.
‘Then pink,’ said Axel Svensson. ‘It looks less like real liquor than yellow.’
‘Two pink,’ the inspector said.
The merchant served them, puffing and panting as he leant slightly forward from his sitting position behind the stall. And then while the inspector and his towering European companion looked on at the array of sweets – rasgullas, gulab jamuns, jelabis, chiwaras – with increasing moroseness, the fat old man turned back to his sport.
He stormed out another volley of commands at the poor emaciated boy, and hardly had the lad scuttled off to perform them than a contradictory series was bellowed after him. In the meanwhile the merchant put out an immensely podgy hand and let it hover meditatively over that section of his stock which he could reach without disturbing himself.
At last Inspector Ghote saw him pick on one particular sweetmeat, one so ravaged by the flies that no customer was likely to choose it. The merchant scooped the sticky green mass from out of its little earthenware container and conveyed it between fat-encased fingers towards his mouth. Even at this point he could scarcely bring himself wantonly to destroy some of his stock in trade. But at last greed overcame avarice, as to judge from the heavy rolls of flesh that spread downwards from his neck it must have often done before, and the great fat man took a tiny nibble.
Savouring it, his eyes fell on the scrabbling matchstick-legged boy. He smiled beatifically, and reaching forward as far as he could without toppling over he placed what was left of the green sweetmeat within the boy’s field of vision. Then he turned away and began a jocular conversation with two of the customers spinning out their tumblers of buttermilk.
But all the while he kept the corner of his eye on the green, sticky, half-consumed bait.
And at last he was rewarded. The boy, who looked as hungry as a jackal in a famine, was unable to resist any longer. With trembling caution his thin fingers stretched out towards the sweet. And the great tub of fat pounced. His squabby hand closed like a swath of fat tentacles round the almost fleshless wrist of the boy and his mouth opened to pour out a compacted stream of abuse.
‘Hey, there, halwa wallah,’ snapped Inspector Ghote. ‘Some more drink. And quick. The police force cannot be kept waiting all day.’
The merchant hastily let the boy go, heaved himself to his feet, brought two fresh bottles of his sticky concoction and poured them out into the already used glasses. While the inspector and Axel Svensson quickly drank down the slightly cooling liquid, the merchant carefully retrieved the first two bottles ready to fill them up again that evening and restore their labels to something like the state in which they had once emerged from the factory.
As the big Swede set down his glass he turned to the inspector.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose it is back to the Perfect Murder now?’
‘No, no, no,’ Inspector Ghote snapped in sudden fury. ‘No, it is not the Perfect Murder. It must not be that yet. It cannot be.’
‘Very well,’ Axel Svensson said soberly. ‘Let us say “back to the Perfect case”. I am sorry.’
‘I am sorry too,’ said the inspector. ‘And you are right: it is important to get back. Too many things have been left for too long. But first there is one thing I must do: I must arrange to see Shri Ram Kamath.’
‘See the Minister for Police Affairs?’
The Swede sounded disconcerted.
Inspector Ghote’s small mouth set in a determined line.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the Minister himself and no one else.’
‘But, my friend,’ said the Swede.
He laid a gentle restraining paw on the inspector’s arm.
‘But, my friend, is that wise? Did I not hear that the D.S.P. himself had advised the utmost tact over this matter? I am sure he didn’t intend you to see the Minister, and I am sure the Minister will not want to be disturbed by the inquiries of a simple inspector. If you don’t mind my saying this.’
Inspector Ghote looked at him with hard eyes.
‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I shall have to see the Minister. I have only just realized it, but I shall have to do it.’
The whole expression of his face was stonily glum.
‘But why? Why, my friend? Please, please, think what it is you are going to do.’
‘Can you not see?’ Inspector Ghote said in a dreamily distant voice. ‘There is only one course of action for me.’
‘But, listen. That man, Felix Sousa, he may not have actually taken the missing note. But he has confessed to stealing from the Minister before. If you prosecute him, that will be enough. The case will be closed. Even, if you wish, you could bring up the matter of the note. No magistrate would find him Not Guilty over that, and Guilty on the other. You have no need to worry any more about the missing rupee, my friend.’
‘No,’ said Inspector Ghote, ‘I must see the Minister himself.’
He marched back to the shop where he had telephoned to the Varde house. Axel Svensson went back to the vehicle and sat beside the impassive driver, who smelled powerfully of sweat, and waited. His face bore an expression almost of pity.
Quite soon Inspector Ghote came pushing back through the milling crowds.
‘Well?’ said the big Swede.
‘I have an appointment for 9 a.m. tomorrow,’ the inspector said.
For all the length of the journey to Lala Varde’s house he remained quite silent.
As soon as they arrived he asked the bearer who opened the door, the erect little ramrod man, whether Doctor Das was still with Mr Perfect.
He did not dare to put the question he really wanted answered: whether Mr Perfect was still with the living, or whether his life had in ever slower breaths leaked at last away, leaving a black insoluble mystery as its only bequest.
But the little bearer’s face split into a silent grin at his query.
‘Doctor left, sahib,’ he said. ‘Told lady-nurse one or two nasty things. She made goddam mistake, Inspector sahib. Made doctor sahib come running for no need.’
He chuckled hoarsely, struggling to keep his utterly rigid back unquavering in spite of his mirth.
Inspector Ghote was possessed by a fierce desire to put the man to a probing examination about the exact state of Mr Perfect’s health. He wanted to know to the last tenth of a symptom whether the nurse had had any reason or none to summon Doctor Das. But the dry little bearer laughed so long that by the end of it he had had time to realize that the man would know nothing.
‘I have come to see Mr Prem,’ he said when he thought he would be heard with attention.
‘Yes, sahib. Very good, Inspector sahib.’
The little bearer, still occasionally letting out a hoarse steamjet of dry laughter at the thought of the lady-nurse’s discomfiture, led them into the house. Axel Svensson, trying comically to shorten his immense strides to the bearer’s inflexible trot, leant down to the inspector and put an inquiry in a circumspectly low voice.
‘My friend,’ he said, ‘do you think it is important, then, to find out what these two brothers were talking about on the night of the attack?’
‘But you remember what Doctor Gross says?’
The Swede’s clear blue eyes clouded in thought.
‘I do not seem exactly to recall his observations,’ he said at last.
‘Surely you cannot be forgetting “Nothing comes about which is inexplicable, isolated, incoherent”?’ said the inspector.
‘No, no, of course not. I see what you mean now. Yes, yes. It is a very good point. This conversation is indeed unexplained, and isolated. It certainly ought to be investigated most closely.’
‘And besides,’ the inspector confessed, ‘so far it is the nearest I have been able to get to anything which looks as if it should not be. Lala Varde and Dilip have denied and denied so often that I have not even begun to find out what they know.’
He walked along beside the tall Swede looking despondent. When they came to the second-string sitting-room where the inspector had caught Prem trying to overhear their conversation the little bearer pointed to the doorway, jerked out a stiff salaam, and left them.
The inspector stood and looked into the quiet room with its overstuffed European furniture. Prem was standing by the window gazing out on to the deserted inner compound of the house. There did not seem to be anything much for him to be looking at.
At the sound of the inspector’s steps on the stone floor he wheeled round.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s you, Inspector. I thought I would be seeing you again before long. Well, let me tell you straight away. I have changed my mind. I refuse to tell one word of what Dilip said to me on the night of the murder.’
Inspector Ghote thought hard and quickly. Then he answered.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have made decision, and you must stick to it. I respect it absolutely.’
Prem’s head jerked forward and he gave the inspector a suspicious glance.
‘But –’ he said. ‘But – But you must not do that. A police inspector has no right not to ask questions.’
The inspector smiled.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you think it is my duty to get information out of you somehow, do you?’
‘Yes. Yes, it is. And it is my duty not to let you have it.’
‘This is a very hard view,’ Inspector Ghote said.
‘It is only possible view,’ Prem answered.
He sounded passionate.
‘It is only possible view,’ he repeated. ‘You are here to do what a policeman has to do: I am here to do what a murder suspect has to do.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said the inspector. ‘Each has to play his part, is that what it is?’
Prem stared at him sullenly and said nothing.
‘But, listen,’ said the inspector, ‘what must happen if you got hold of the wrong part?’
‘The wrong part?’
‘Yes. Suppose you are not murder suspect.’
‘But I am. I must be.’
‘You must be? I do not know why that is so.’
‘Because a murder was committed in this house. No one could get in. Even the servants were locked in their quarters. And I was one of the people in the house. I have no alibi. I must be suspect.’
‘You seem to think a great deal about this matter,’ the inspector said tranquilly.
‘But you don’t think no one has said anything since you were last here, do you?’ Prem answered. ‘Everybody has been talking about it. There is nothing else but the murder all day long.’
The inspector walked across the room behind Prem and looked out of the window through which the boy had been staring as he had entered.
‘Listen,’ Prem said, ‘you must suspect me. I was in my room alone working on my essay on the nature of beauty all evening. I was alone, except when Dilip came in and talked. And I cannot prove that he came in because he has said that he will not see you again, and I refuse even to hint at what it was we talked about.’
‘That makes it difficult for us, doesn’t it?’ Inspector Ghote said across the room to the tall Swede who was still standing by the doorway.
‘I am not going to tell you,’ Prem said.
The inspector caught a flutter of movement at the corner of the courtyard. He craned forward to see what it was. Two of the maidservants had come out to sit and pod some peas.
‘If my brother tells me something which is family secret,’ Prem said, ‘it is my duty not to tell a policeman who comes poking his nose in where he isn’t wanted.’
Inspector Ghote moved slightly so that he could see the two girls in the compound without craning. They were both pretty.
‘My brother says that he won’t let a filthy policeman bully him,’ said Prem. ‘And I agree.’
A short silence followed.
‘Mind you,’ Prem said, ‘he has had a shock. That’s certain. I don’t think he would always be as rude as that. Though of course he has been away in Delhi for some time and people change. Or, anyhow, some people change. You can divide people into two classes, as a matter of fact. Those who change and those who do not.’
‘And which class do you come into yourself?’ Inspector Ghote asked.
‘I am not sure,’ Prem said. ‘Sometimes I think one, sometimes the other.’
‘I see. And which do you think today?’
‘I too have had a shock,’ Prem said. ‘Admittedly, Neena is not my wife, but she is my sister-in-law. And when you learn something like that, even about your sister-in-law, it’s bound to affect you.’
‘So you have changed?’ said the inspector.
Prem glared at him.
‘I suppose you think I oughtn’t to have done,’ he shouted. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t turn a single hair of your head if you were told your sister-in-law had been violated?’
Inspector Ghote did not leave the window. The girls were giggling together over their pea-podding.
‘Violated?’ he said.
‘Yes. Violated. I suppose you know what that means?’
The inspector smiled to himself.
‘And when did this – this act take place?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know exactly.’
‘Not exactly? You mean you don’t know within an hour?’
‘No,’ Prem said. ‘I do not know the year even. Perhaps I could work it out. Neena is not all that old now, and she has been married to Dilip for more than two years. It was before then, so it could have happened only during a certain time. Unless she was a victim of child rape, of course.’
‘Yes,’ the inspector agreed, ‘it is important to consider all possibilities.’
‘But in any case it is no business of yours,’ Prem replied.
The inspector turned to face him.
‘Who is supposed to have violated your sister-in-law?’ he said.
Prem drew himself up.
‘I refuse to say.’
‘But you have told so much already. This is why your brother was speaking with you while you were writing your essay, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.’
‘And you told before that it was something he had learnt only then.’
‘I never said.’
The inspector smiled.
‘I am afraid you did,’ he said. ‘So, you see, it is my business. If your brother really had learnt this a few minutes before only, he may have taken certain actions. Now, who was the supposed violator?’
‘I refuse to say. Absolutely.’
‘I think it would be better if you told.’
‘It is none of your business, none of your bloody business.’
Prem glared at him.
‘Don’t you see,’ the inspector said, ‘if your brother heard this just before Mr Perfect was attacked, then it is relevant to inquiries.’
‘It is not,’ Prem said. ‘I swear to you that it is not.’
‘It would be best if you told.’
‘I can’t. It was someone very important. Someone it is better not to talk about. It is a family secret.’
‘Then it was not Mr Perfect?’ said the inspector.
Suddenly Prem laughed.
‘Mr Perfect,’ he said, ‘that dry old pea-stick couldn’t have violated a fly.’
‘All right. But you still won’t tell me who this person is.’
‘It is absolutely family secret.’
‘Well,’ answered the inspector, ‘I said a few minutes ago that I would respect your decision to stay silent, and I will.’
He turned on his heel and left Prem, looking decidedly bewildered and a little apprehensive, standing in the middle of the stuffily furnished room. Axel Svensson, caught on the hop, stood there too for a few seconds and then hurried after the inspector.
‘Well, congratulations, my friend,’ he said. ‘You certainly went the right way about getting information out of that young man.’
‘Doctor Gross is most emphatic, as you will recall, about the necessity of correctly estimating the character of a witness,’ the inspector replied.
‘Ah, yes. Yes, of course,’ said the Swede. ‘But where does what we have just learnt leave us?’
He spoke quickly, as if he was changing the subject.
‘I mean,’ he added, ‘it is difficult to see how what happened to Dilip Varde’s wife two or three years ago can be anything to do with the attack on Mr Perfect which has only just taken place.’
‘If anything did happen to her,’ said the inspector.
‘If –’
‘Doctor Gross has a whole section on the unreliability of young people as witnesses,’ the inspector said.
He gave the Swede a searching look.
‘So,’ the Swede said hastily, ‘you are going to check with Neena Varde herself. An excellent precaution. Shall we call a servant to show us to her?’
‘No,’ said the inspector, ‘I think it would be a good idea not to. I think we will just go about the house looking for her. I am very interested in this house.’
‘In this house?’
‘Yes. In this house where one night quite suddenly an old gate is shut and locked so that the servants’ quarters are cut off, and where a husband learns suddenly two years after his marriage that his wife did not come to him as maiden, and where attempted murder is committed.’
They walked along in silence for a little. But they were not destined to see much of Lala Arun Varde’s house. Because Lala Arun Varde himself caught them prowling.
‘Ho.’
They heard his enormous shout from somewhere behind them and both wheeled like sneak-thieves caught red-handed.
‘Ho, policemen fleecemen,’ Lala Varde shouted. ‘What are you doing creeping about my house like that? Ha, are you seeking out my womenfolk, you never-satisfied ravishers?’
His advance upon them had brought him within striking range. Like two darting pythons his left hand and right went out, and the pointing forefingers jabbed hard into the ribs of the inspector and the Swede.
Lala Varde roared with laughter.
‘Oh, Inspector detector, forgive me,’ he said, the tears beginning to stream down his generous cheeks, ‘but you really both looked so like a pair of goondas that I had to say something. Oh, you robbers, you rapers, you ravishers.’
He rocked forward with laughter.
And suddenly stopped.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘We were looking for your daughter-in-law, Lala Varde sahib,’ said Inspector Ghote.
‘My Neena Peena. Ah, then I was right. You were seeking out my womenfolk.’
Lala Varde resumed his laughing. But the inspector and the Swede were unable to efface looks of considerable wariness.
‘So,’ Lala Varde said, when he had had his laugh out, ‘so, and what do you want with my Neena?’
‘It is necessary to interview all members of the household,’ the inspector said.
‘Interview? Yes. But what do you want to interview my Neena about?’
The inspector jumped in quickly in case his Swedish friend said anything he would prefer kept from Lala Varde.
‘It is routine, sahib,’ he said. ‘It is necessary to ask every member of the household certain routine questions about their whereabouts at the time of the attack.’
‘Attack? What attack?’ Lala Varde said.
He looked at the inspector with sharply pig-like eyes.
‘Of the attack on – That is, of the Perfect Murder, as they call it,’ the inspector said.
‘Ha, so you suspect my little Neena of killing that old long fool of a stick?’ Lala Varde said. ‘Well, you are right. She did it. That’s certain. Certain sure. And look, she has just come into the compound. Now’s your chance. Get her, Inspector sahib. Get her.’
The inspector darted a look out of the corridor window beside them. Sure enough a third person had joined the two maids and was evidently berating them for the slowness of their pea-podding. This would be Neena Varde. He decided he could leave her be for a few moments. She was obviously enjoying herself at her scolding and would be there for some time to come.
He turned back to Lala Varde.
‘No, sir,’ he said, ‘I know your joking manner. But, really, you must be careful. You should not accuse lightly a member of your own family of such a grave crime.’
‘Lightly rightly,’ said Lala Varde. ‘I tell you, Inspector, that woman is dangerous. She is a she-demon. No one is safe from her wiles. When I arranged for her to marry my poor Dilip, though there were good reasons, it was the greatest mistake I ever made in my life.’
His great cheeks drooped and his whole face took on an expression so woebegone that it looked as if it would never recover.
‘The greatest mistake,’ he repeated.
He sank to the ground where he was and sat cross-legged on the stone floor of the corridor.
Inspector Ghote coughed delicately.
‘What exactly is it that makes you describe her as – Well, as a she-demon?’ he said.
Lala Varde’s head jerked up.
‘Ah, you are poking prying now,’ he said. ‘Into the very heart of my family you go with your prying poking. But you won’t do any good, I can tell you. Oh, no, my Inspector, if you want to find out about Miss Neena you must find out for yourself. But watch out. Watch out.’
Under his thin uniform Inspector Ghote’s shoulders took on a straight line.
‘Very well then, sahib,’ he said. ‘If you will excuse.’
He turned and walked quickly along to a doorway leading out into the courtyard. Neena Varde had her back to him and was still scolding the two maids, but he gained the impression that she was perfectly aware of his approach.
Three or four yards away he stopped and took a good look at her. Doctor Gross would have approved his caution.
Neena Varde was a short slight girl with something oddly elusive at first in the way she stood and in her gestures. Inspector Ghote found her hard to put into any category for all that both in the extravagant way she was lecturing the maids and in the clothes she had chosen to wear – a bright orange blouse with a sari in a red which clashed horribly – she seemed determined to assert her personality.
Under the lash of her tongue the two maids only giggled spasmodically, though had she meant everything she had said they ought to have been on their knees taking the dust from her feet and heaping it on their heads. And, as if to prove her lightning was without power to burn, in the middle of a towering denunciation she swung suddenly round and addressed the inspector.
‘I know what you’re here for,’ she said. ‘And I tell you it’s no use.’
Inspector Ghote could not prevent himself blinking once at the unexpectedness of the attack. But he blinked once only.
‘Good morning,’ he replied. ‘Am I right in thinking I’m addressing Mrs Neena Varde? My name is Ghote, Inspector Ghote, Bombay C.I.D. and this is Mr Axel Svensson, the distinguished criminologist.’
Neena’s manner changed as suddenly as if a completely different person had been substituted for her in front of their eyes.
‘A criminologist,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, how marvellous. Always I have wanted to meet a criminologist.’
She fluttered her eyelids a little in Svensson’s direction. He licked his lips and found no reply.
‘Then I am glad to have gratified your wish,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘Mr Svensson is helping me with my inquiries into the attack on Mr Perfect, and he would very much like to know how you yourself spent the evening in question.’
‘Me?’
Neena looked up at the tall Swede.
‘Yes, if you please,’ he said in an unusually subdued voice.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘think of me interesting a great criminologist.’
She said no more, but looked modestly down at the ground.
‘You would interest him more if you answered the question,’ Inspector Ghote said.
‘Oh, you don’t want to know what a creature like myself was doing.’
‘We do,’ Inspector Ghote said.
Neena looked up intensely at the towering Swede.
‘Yes, we do,’ he said.
‘Oh, but it’s all so perfectly simple,’ Neena said. ‘I was in my room from the moment dinner was over. I had a terrible, terrible headache. I just lay there. On my bed. I was too weak even to move.’
All this was directed vehemently against Axel Svensson. And he, evidently picturing as vividly as was intended Neena lying helpless on her bed, was unable to prevent a dull blush marring the freshness of his Scandinavian cheek.
‘And did you see anyone there?’ Inspector Ghote asked placidly.
‘Only my maid. I told her on no account to let a soul come near me,’ said Neena. ‘I just couldn’t have borne it.’
‘I see,’ Inspector Ghote said. ‘And now perhaps you could tell us something about Mr Perfect. Did you know him well?’
‘That man. That man.’
Neena’s voice rose abruptly almost to a scream.
‘No, no, no, no,’ she said. ‘I cannot bear to think of that man. My head, my head. I must go.’
And whipping the corner of her sari across the lower half of her face she turned and ran in a series of curious little jabs of speed back into the house.