Breaking and Entering by H. R. F. Keating

Author:H. R. F. Keating [H.R.F. Keating]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2020-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

‘Dad! Dad! Your dinner’s ready.’

Miss Ivy Cooper’s voice rang out across the dark, empty compound. But Ghote would not let his companion linger to see if the old man’s thick shell had been penetrated by his daughter’s strident call. He had too much to say.

‘Axel, listen, as we were coming down the stair itself I was thinking. Now all the possible people who could be telling Yeshwant are eliminated. Full stop, yes?’

‘But, no, Ganesh, my friend. Listen to me. If Mr Pappu has taken one mistress, isn’t it possible, as you were saying, that he has taken more? And to any one of them he may have let slip his secrets.’

For a moment Ghote felt his heart sink. Could this bloody Swede have hit on a whole flood of new possibilities? But then common sense reasserted itself. No. Just think about Pappubhai Chimanlal. He was not a man to go telling secrets to each and every woman he was seizing on to make love to. Far from it.

‘Ah, Axel,’ he said. ‘If you had just only heard Mr Pappubhai Chimanlal telling about his love exploit with Miss Ivy Cooper, you would know that it is to she herself and no other mistress-pistress he is telling his secrets. He is not at all putting all eggs into many baskets. No, he would not tell any of those other women one single thing.’

‘Well,’ Axel Svensson said, sounding almost apologetic, ‘I expect you are right, my friend.’

‘Yes. Definitely. So when I had said to myself all possible people have been eliminated and all possible answers have been proved wrong, then I stated whatsoever is remaining, even if it is seeming impossible, must be right. And next, in one flash, I was remembering something, something pointing to that impossible itself. It was just only a few words Mr Pappubhai Chimanlal was saying to me. It was before he was telling why I must not interview Miss Ivy Cooper. What he was saying was this. I am able to remember his six-seven words exactly. He was saying, She is coming next to my wife. Axel, to his wife.’

‘His wife? His wife? But, Ganesh, are you really trying to say Mr Pappubhai’s wife is the one informing Yeshwant? On the strength of those few words alone? And their meaning not at all clear.’

‘Well, there is more. A little. Pappubhai Chimanlal was saying also that the wife he was marrying was of a good Gujarati family in same line. She was, he was saying, knowing jewels. Now, that may be meaning— I am not trying to say more than this. It maybe meaning he is sometimes talking with her, not about accounts-this and profit margins-that, but about some particularly fine jewellery he may have sold that day. He is talking, remember, to one who is coming above his long-ago mistress. So I am thinking it is the one and only remaining way, yes? Yes, Axel?’

Axel Svensson stood where he was, thinking.

Then he spoke.

‘Yes, Ganesh. Yes, I suppose so.

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