The Very Best of Ruskin Bond, the Writer on the Hill: Selected Fiction and Non-Fiction (8 page)

One evening, after we had overtaken our fourth bottle, I said, ‘You must have had some interesting cases in your career, Inspector.’

‘Most of them were rather dull,’ he said. ‘At least the successful ones were. The sensational cases usually went unsolved—otherwise I might have been a superintendent by now. I suppose you are talking of murder cases. Do you remember the shooting of the minister of the interior? I was on that one, but it was a political murder and we never solved it.’

‘Tell me about a case you solved,’ I said. ‘An interesting one.’ When I saw him looking uncomfortable, I added, ‘You don’t have to worry, Inspector. I’m a very discreet person, in spite of all the beer I consume.’

‘But how can you be discreet? You are a writer.’

I protested: ‘Writers are usually very discreet. They always change the names of people and places.’

He gave me one of his rare smiles. ‘And how would you describe me, if you were to put me into a story?’

‘Oh, I’d leave you as you are. No one would believe in you, anyway.’

He laughed indulgently and poured out more beer. ‘I suppose I can change names, too... I will tell you of a very interesting case. The victim was an unusual person, and so was the killer. But you must promise not to write this story.’

‘I promise,’ I lied.

‘Do you know Panauli?’

‘In the hills? Yes, I have been there once or twice.’

‘Good, then you will follow me without my having to be too descriptive. This happened about three years ago, shortly after I had been stationed at Panauli. Nothing much ever happened there. There were a few cases of theft and cheating, and an occasional fight during the summer. A murder took place about once every ten years. It was therefore quite an event when the Rani of —— was found dead in her sitting room, her head split open with an axe. I knew that I would have to solve the case if I wanted to stay in Panauli.

‘The trouble was, anyone could have killed the Rani, and there were some who made no secret of their satisfaction that she was dead. She had been an unpopular woman. Her husband was dead, her children were scattered, and her money—for she had never been a very wealthy rani—had been dwindling away. She lived alone in an old house on the outskirts of the town, ruling the locality with the stern authority of a matriarch. She had a servant, and he was the man who found the body and came to the police, dithering and tongue-tied. I arrested him at once, of course. I knew he was probably innocent, but a basic rule is to grab the first man on the scene of crime, especially if he happens to be a servant. But we let him go after a beating. There was nothing much he could tell us, and he had a sound alibi.

‘The axe with which the Rani had been killed must have been a small woodcutter’s axe—so we deduced from the wound. We couldn’t find the weapon. It might have been used by a man or a woman, and there were several of both sexes who had a grudge against the Rani. There were bazaar rumours that she had been supplementing her income by trafficking in young women: she had the necessary connections. There were also rumours that she possessed vast wealth, and that it was stored away in her godowns. We did not find any treasure. There were so many rumours darting about like battered shuttlecocks that I decided to stop wasting my time in trying to follow them up. Instead, I restricted my inquiries to those people who had been close to the Rani—either in their personal relationships or in actual physical proximity.

‘To begin with, there was Mr Kapur, a wealthy businessman from Bombay who had a house in Panauli. He was supposed to be an old admirer of the Rani’s. I discovered that he had occasionally lent her money, and that, in spite of his professed friendship for her, had charged a high rate of interest.

‘Then there were her immediate neighbours—an American missionary and his wife, who had been trying to convert the Rani to Christianity; an English spinster of seventy, who made no secret of the fact that she and the Rani had hated each other with great enthusiasm; a local councillor and his family, who did not get on well with their aristocratic neighbour; and a tailor, who kept his shop close by. None of these people had any powerful motive for killing the rani—or none that I could discover. But the tailor’s daughter interested me.

‘Her name was Kusum. She was twelve or thirteen years old—a thin, dark girl, with lovely black eyes and a swift, disarming smile. While I was making my routine inquiries in the vicinity of the rani’s house, I noticed that the girl always tried to avoid me. When I questioned her about the Rani, and about her own movements on the day of the crime, she pretended to be very vague and stupid.

‘But I could see she was not stupid, and I became convinced that she knew something unusual about the Rani. She might even know something about the murder. She could have been protecting someone, and was afraid to tell me what she knew. Often, when I spoke to her of the violence of the rani’s death, I saw fear in her eyes. I began to think the girl’s life might be in danger, and I had a close watch kept on her. I liked her. I liked her youth and freshness, and the innocence and wonder in her eyes. I spoke to her whenever I could, kindly and paternally, and though I knew she rather liked me and found me amusing—the ups and downs of Panauli always left me panting for breath—and though I could see that she
wanted
to tell me something, she always held back at the last moment.

‘Then, one afternoon, while I was in the rani’s house going through her effects, I saw something glistening in a narrow crack near the doorstep. I would not have noticed it if the sun had not been pouring through the window, glinting off the little object. I stooped and picked up a piece of glass. It was part of a broken bangle.

‘I turned the fragment over in my hand. There was something familiar about its colour and design. Didn’t Kusum wear similar glass bangles? I went to look for the girl but she was not in her father’s shop. I was told that she had gone down the hill, to gather firewood.

‘I decided to take the narrow path down the hill. It went round some rocks and cacti, and then disappeared into a forest of oak trees. I found Kusum sitting at the edge of the forest, a bundle of twigs beside her.

‘‘‘You are always wandering about alone,” I said. “Don’t you feel afraid?”’

‘‘‘It is safer when I am alone,” she replied. “Nobody comes here.”’

‘I glanced quickly at the bangles on her wrist, and noticed that their colour matched that of the broken piece. I held out the bit of broken glass and said, “I found it in the rani’s house. It must have fallen...”

‘She did not wait for me to finish what I was saying. With a look of terror, she sprang up from the grass and fled into the forest.

‘I was completely taken aback. I had not expected such a reaction. Of what significance was the broken bangle? I hurried after the girl, slipping on the smooth pine needles that covered the slopes. I was searching amongst the trees when I heard someone sobbing behind me. When I turned round, I saw the girl standing on a boulder, facing me with an axe in her hands.

‘When Kusum saw me staring at her, she raised the axe and rushed down the slope towards me.

‘I was too bewildered to be able to do anything but stare with open mouth as she rushed at me with the axe. The impetus of her run would have brought her right up against me, and the axe, coming down, would probably have crushed my skull, thick though it is. But while she was still six feet from me, the axe flew out of her hands. It sprang into the air as though it had a life of its own and came curving towards me.

‘In spite of my weight, I moved swiftly aside. The axe grazed my shoulder and sank into the soft bark of the tree behind me. And Kusum dropped at my feet weeping hysterically.’

Inspector Keemat Lal paused in order to replenish his glass. He took a long pull at the beer, and the froth glistened on his moustache.

‘And then what happened?’ I prompted him.

‘Perhaps it could only have happened in India—and to a person like me,’ he said. ‘This sudden compassion for the person you are supposed to destroy. Instead of being furious and outraged, instead of seizing the girl and marching her off to the police station, I stroked her head and said silly comforting things.’

‘And she told you that she had killed the Rani?’

‘She told me how the Rani had called her to her house and given her tea and sweets. Mr Kapur had been there. After some time he began stroking Kusum’s arms and squeezing her knees. She had drawn away, but Kapur kept pawing her. The Rani was telling Kusum not to be afraid, that no harm would come to her. Kusum slipped away from the man and made a rush for the door. The Rani caught her by the shoulders and pushed her back into the room. The Rani was getting angry. Kusum saw the axe lying in a corner of the room. She seized it, raised it above her head and threatened Kapur. The man realized that he had gone too far, and valuing his neck, backed away. But the Rani, in a great rage, sprang at the girl. And Kusum, in desperation and panic, brought the axe down upon the Rani’s head.

‘The Rani fell to the ground. Without waiting to see what Kapur might do, Kusum fled from the house. Her bangle must have broken when she stumbled against the door. She ran into the forest, and after concealing the axe amongst some tall ferns, lay weeping on the grass until it grew dark. But such was her nature, and such the resilience of youth, that she recovered sufficiently to be able to return home looking her normal self. And during the following days, she managed to remain silent about the whole business.’

‘What did you do about it?’ I asked.

Keemat Lal looked me straight in my beery eye.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I did absolutely nothing. I couldn’t have the girl put away in a remand home. It would have crushed her spirit.’

‘And what about Kapur?’

‘Oh, he had his own reasons for remaining quiet, as you may guess. No, the case was closed—or perhaps I should say the file was put in my pending tray. My promotion, too, went into the pending tray.’

‘It didn’t turn out very well for you,’ I said.

‘No. Here I am in Shahpur, and still an inspector. But, tell me, what would you have done if you had been in my place?’

I considered his question carefully for a moment or two, then said, ‘I suppose it would have depended on how much sympathy the girl evoked in me. She had killed in innocence...’

‘Then, you would have put your personal feeling above your duty to uphold the law?’

‘Yes. But I would not have made a very good policeman.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Still, it’s a pity that Kapur got off so easily.’

‘There was no alternative if I was to let the girl go. But he didn’t get off altogether. He found himself in trouble later on for swindling some manufacturing concern, and went to jail for a couple of years.’

‘And the girl—did you see her again?’

‘Well, before I was transferred from Panauli, I saw her occasionally on the road. She was usually on her way to school. She would greet me with folded hands, and call me uncle.’

The beer bottles were all empty, and Inspector Keemat Lal got up to leave. His final words to me were, ‘I should never have been a policeman.’

I
WAS STROLLING
along the platform, waiting for the arrival of the Amritsar Express, when I saw Mr Khushal, handcuffed to a policeman.

I hadn’t recognized him at first—a paunchy gentleman with a lot of grey in his beard and a certain arrogant amusement in his manner. It was only when I came closer, and we were almost face to face, that I recognized my old Hindi teacher.

Startled, I stopped and stared. And he stared back at me, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. It was over twenty years since I’d last seen him, standing jauntily before the classroom blackboard, and now here he was tethered to a policeman and looking as jaunty as ever...

‘Good—good evening, sir,’ I stammered, in my best public school manner. (You must always respect your teacher, no matter what the circumstances.)

Mr Khushal’s face lit up with pleasure. ‘So you remember me! It’s nice to see you again, my boy.’

Forgetting that his right hand was shackled to the policeman’s left, I made as if to shake hands. Mr Khushal thoughtfully took my right hand in his left and gave it a rough squeeze. A faint odour of cloves and cinnamon reached me, and I remembered how he had always been redolent of spices when standing beside my desk, watching me agonize over my Hindi–English translation.

He had joined the school in 1948, not long after the Partition. Until then there had been no Hindi teacher; we’d been taught Urdu and French. Then came a ruling that Hindi was to be a compulsory subject, and at the age of sixteen I found myself struggling with a new script. When Mr Khushal joined the staff (on the recommendation of a local official), there was no one else in the school who knew Hindi, or who could assess Mr Khushal’s abilities as a teacher...

And now once again he stood before me, only this time he was in the custody of the law.

I was still recovering from the shock when the train drew in, and everyone on the platform began making a rush for the compartment doors. As the policeman elbowed his way through the crowd, I kept close behind him and his charge, and as a result I managed to get into the same third-class compartment. I found a seat right opposite Mr Khushal. He did not seem to be the least bit embarrassed by the handcuffs, or by the stares of his fellow passengers. Rather, it was the policeman who looked unhappy and ill at ease.

As the train got under way, I offered Mr Khushal one of the parathas made for me by my Ferozepur landlady. He accepted it with alacrity. I offered one to the constable as well, but although he looked at it with undisguised longing, he felt duty-bound to decline.

‘Why have they arrested you, sir?’ I asked. ‘Is it very serious?’

‘A trivial matter,’ said Mr Khushal. ‘Nothing to worry about. I shall be at liberty soon.’

‘But what did you
do
?’

Mr Khushal leant forward. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of,’ he said in a confiding tone. ‘Even a great teacher like Socrates fell foul of the law.’