William Bankier: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 92, No. 3. Whole No. 547, September 1988

Ghote could hardly believe his ears. Was this lady actually speaking about the very statue of Goddess Parvati, 147 centimeters in height, stolen from the Gudalpore Temple and hidden ever since somewhere in Bombay awaiting a foreign buyer? The very idol, together with other artefacts, that he had just been rebuked by the A.C.P. for not having located?

“Madam,” he said, his heart thumping in confusion, “what, please, is the height of said statue?”

“Height? Height? How the devil should I know?”

“But you have stated that you have just only seen same, madam,” said Ghote.

“ ’Course I have. Wouldn’t come round to Police Headquarters fast as I could, would I, unless I had?”

“But, then, the height of same?”

“Oh, I suppose about five feet. Far as I remember when I examined it at Gudalpore ten years ago. Statue of Parvati, seated on a stool in the semi-lotus position. Sandstone.”

“Madam, this is sounding altogether like one idol stolen from that same temple seven-eight weeks back, together with other art — art — other objects, madam.”

“Of course it’s been stolen from Gudalpore, and someone had better come along pronto and arrest the fellow who stole it.”

“You are knowing who it is? Please, kindly state where he is to be found.”

“In that appalling sham museum of his, of course,” she said. “Where else?”

“But, madam, you are altogether failing to name that appalling sham museum.”

“Nonsense, my good chap. ’Course I named it. Look, here’s the place’s piffling brochure.”

From her large leather handbag, stoutly clasped, the professor — was she Professor Mrs. or Professor Miss Prunella, Ghote wondered — produced a slim pamphlet printed in a shade of deep pink.

Ghote read.

“Hrishikesh Agnihotri Museum of Indology. This Museum is serving the nation for the past two and a half decades, playing an important role by displaying classical, traditional, and also folk arts to fulfil aesthetic, scientific, and practical aims. It is containing different specimens in various fields, viz. Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Chiromancy, Phonology, Anthropology, and Archaeology. The Museum may also organize from time to time seminars, lecture series, conferences, and meetings for research and study on Mythology, Tantra, Yantra, Mantra, Astro-Geomancy, Physiognamy, Paleontology, Gemology, Alchemy, and several other arts and sciences originating in India in ancient and medieval times. Founded by Shri Hrishikesh Agnihotri, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

He looked up at the burly form of the British professor. “But this is sounding cent per cent pukka,” he said, much impressed by all the — ologies and — ancies. “It is seeming not at all of sham.”

“Poppycock, my good man. Poppycock. A hodgepodge like that? Fellow must be an utter charlatan. You’ll think so pretty quick when you see him. Come on.”

“But, madam,” Ghote said, still reserving judgment, “in any case it is not possible at once to come on. If your detailed description of the idol of Parvati is correct, I am admitting there is prima facie case against one Mr. Hrishikesh Agnihotri. But if I am to nab the gentleman, certain procedures must be followed.”

“And in the meantime the fellow will take to his heels, accompanied by that dreadful dumb brute he keeps about the place.”

“There is another miscreant also?”

“I should jolly well say there is. Just as I’d spotted the Gudalpore Parvati, this hulking creature came out of a little door just behind it. Well, I’d seen quite enough anyhow, so I simply came straight round here. I’ve got a letter from your Minister for Health, Family Planning, Jails, and the Arts, you know.”

“Yes, yes, madam. And I am promising fullest cooperation itself. But, kindly understand, under Criminal Procedure Code it is necessary to have any arrest witnessed by two panches, as we are calling them.”

“Independent evidence, eh?” The professor drew her bristly eyebrows together in thought for a moment. Then she brightened. “Got just the chap for you,” she said. “Possibly two. You could call him an expert on Indian art. Staying at my hotel, as it happens. Name of Edgar Poe.”

Ghote felt a faint stirring at the back of his mind.

“Edgar Poe?” he asked. “It is the gentleman who is writing the famous story of The Pit and the Pendulum?”

“Good God, no, man. Edgar Allan Poe must have been dead over a hundred years. This chap’s another kettle of fish. Dealer in antiques. As a matter of fact, it was because of him that I went to that appalling museum at all. Heard him talking to an Indian friend over breakfast this morning. Sitting at the next table. Mentioned the place, and I thought it might be worth a quick look-see. Suppose it was, in a way, since I spotted the Gudalpore Parvati. But Mr. Poe and his friend would make first-class what-d’you-call-’ems — pinches.”

“Madam, it is panches. Panches.”

“Never mind. The thing is, we could be round there in ten minutes if you get a move on, pick them up, and get over to that place.”

“No, madam, no. I am thinking that it is not altogether a fine idea. Your friend would be kept here in India perhaps many, many months waiting to give evidence. No, I would instead obtain some very, very suitable persons.”

The professor shrugged her burly shoulders. “As you like, Inspector, as you like. But do hurry up or our birds will have flown the coop.”

Resenting obscurely being put under this pressure, Ghote picked up his phone, got through to the nearby Tilak Marg Police Station, whose good offices he relied on in situations like this, and requested that an officer should come round as quickly as possible with two of their regular panches.

“And, listen,” he added, “do not send the sort of fellows you are using when it is just only a question of pulling in some chain-snatcher. This is a Number One important business. So find some panches claiming full respect, yes? This is a fifty-sixty-lakh theft case. More.”

He got quick and complete agreement. Fifty-sixty lakhs was big money.

But when the two witnesses and a sub-inspector met them outside the little press-room hut near the entrance to the Headquarters compound, Ghote saw at once that they were by no means the respectable citizens he had so carefully specified. One was a very old man with a mouth that hung slackly open to reveal a single long yellow tooth, probably a retired office peon to judge by the raggedy khaki jacket that covered his bare chest. And the other, though much younger, was scarcely more presentable, a pinjari, one of the itinerant fluffers-up of cotton mattresses who go about Bombay advertising their services by loudly twanging the single taut wire of the harplike instrument they use in their work.

Nor was Sub-Inspector Jadhav more likely to impress the British professor, Ghote thought. He was a stocky, cocky fellow, who at once attempted to take charge of the whole operation.

“I am bringing four-five constables, Inspector,” he said. “You were not requisitioning, but for a job like this you would be needing some fellows who know how to get a suspect ready to talk.”

“No, I was not requisitioning,” Ghote snapped out, “and let me remind you I am in charge of this operation, S.I.”

He turned to the little group of tough-looking uniformed men at the sub-inspector’s heels. “Report back to your station ek dum,” he barked. “At the double, at the double.”

Turning, he bundled the two panches and the sub-inspector into the back of the jeep he had waiting, opened its front door for the British professor, scrambled in himself, and told the driver to go as fast as he could under the professor’s directions to the Hrishikesh Agnihotri Museum.