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

Ghote winced.

“Good, good,” suddenly exclaimed the pinjari in broad Marathi. “I would give a beauty like that more slaps than one.”

Ghote hoped profoundly that the professor’s Indian studies had not given her an acquaintance with local vulgarities. Apparently they had not because she simply contented herself with keeping the slapping hand on the goddess’s shoulder in a distinctly proprietorial manner.

Ghote turned again to the Founder.

“Sir,” he said, “you have not yet given proper answer to my request concerning this idol.”

And then the old man did reply.

“No,” he shot out, as if the single word of denial had been a hard bubble deep within him whose passage at last could not be resisted. “No, no, no. Who can say where such a fine object can have come from? This Parvati may have been in my storeroom many, many years.”

Ghote found himself in a dilemma. The Founder and Chairman’s response had clearly not been wholly satisfactory. Yet, equally clearly, it was a denial that this idol of Parvati, one after all among many thousands that must exist all over India, was the selfsame object that had once been in the Gudalpore Temple. But, on the other hand, the British lady professor had declared uncompromisingly that the Parvati was from Gudalpore. She had said firmly that she herself had seen it there. Yet she might be mistaken. That had been ten years ago, after all. And then one had a duty as an Indian not to accept each and every statement a Westerner cared to make as a holy truth. A patriotic duty even, though difficult.

“Inspector,” Professor Prunella snapped out now, “arrest this man.”

It almost decided Ghote. He was damned if he was going to carry out an arrest on the order of a Westerner, an angrezi even, relic of the British Raj, and, worse, a woman. But on the other hand—

Then he heard cocky Sub-Inspector Jadhav come clicking to attention as if to acknowledge orders from a senior officer he was showing the utmost willingness to comply with.

No, if the Founder and Chairman was to be arrested on a charge of concealing property knowing it to have been stolen, then that task was not going to fall to a little jumped-up fellow from Tilak Marg Police Station. It was—

But suddenly, from immediately behind the tall statue of the fish-eyed princess, there came the rending squeal of heavy wood on stone and a small door there was abruptly thrust open. In the narrow doorway there stood a bare-chested man of huge proportions, bullet-headed, heavy-jowled, arms loose-hanging.

Instinctively Ghote stiffened, expecting instant attack.

“Ah, Manik, there you are,” the Founder and Chairman said with sudden cheerfulness. “Just when I am wanting you.”

The hulk in the doorway answered only with a grunt, though he seemed to have understood.

“Manik, have you moved this Parvati idol?” the Founder and Chairman asked. “Where was it kept before?”

He turned to Ghote. “You will hardly believe it,” he said urgently, “but the museum has accumulated so many important objects in so many fields of Indology that at times even I begin to forget where and when they were acquired.”

The declaration had the effect, for no conceivable reason, of causing the old, slack-mouthed ex-peon panch to break out into another of his long cackling laughs. Was it, could it be, Ghote thought, somehow a mocking comment on what the old museum owner had claimed? And should he act on it?

He was saved, however, from feeling he had been swayed by any such ridiculous motive by the explosive shrilling of a large bell clamped to the wall nearby, connected to a telephone elsewhere in the old building.

“Some person offering some new object for the collection,” the Founder immediately claimed. “Or perhaps they are wanting to arrange some seminar.” He made as if to go and answer.

Ghote quickly stepped across and laid a detaining hand on his arm.

The old man turned to Manik. “Go and answer it,” he said. “I really must give this gentleman and lady my fullest attention.”

The silent hulk shuffled off in the direction of the stairs.

“S.I., go with him,” Ghote snapped. “See he makes no attempt to leave.”

Turning from making sure the sub-inspector had obeyed, Ghote saw that the Founder and Chairman had darted off to the little narrow doorway behind the Parvati statue. Brushing past the substantial form of the British professor, still laying claim to the goddess, Ghote dived through the doorway in pursuit.

But he found that the old man was not making for any tiny back entrance, as he had feared. Instead, he was moving rapidly from one object to another in the dimly lighted storeroom, peering at representations of gods and goddesses, some so thickly covered in dust as to be almost unrecognizable, others clearly to be seen as elephant-trunked or many-armed or many-headed, playing flutes, astride peacocks, chipped here, broken almost in half there, complete to the last detail elsewhere.

“Sir,” he said, sharply as he could, “I am not at all satisfied by your answers till date. Kindly accompany me back to the idol in question and give detailed assurances.”

For a moment it looked as if the old man was going to ignore him. But he straightened up at last, breathed a heavy sigh, and made his way out to stand on the other side of the disputed Parvati from the stout, competing form of Professor Prunella, still with her hand on the goddess’s shoulder.

Ghote felt that the pair of them were somehow presenting his dilemma to him as a living picture. Which of the two had the real right to possess Parvati? Was it the imperious lady professor, bringing to her claim all the overwhelming confidence of the West? Or was it this old man, steeped in the philosophies of the East, seeing this Parvati as one among the many, many accumulations of a lifetime of gathering objects to illustrate and enhance the concept of Indology? — And yet, had there not been something distinctly doubtful about the way he had advanced his claim to possession of the princess? But there again, the British professor had surely been more aggressive in her demands than was altogether right. She had spoken of a contribution to — what was it? — the Indian Sculpture Studies as if that meant more to her than anything else.

So could she have—? But then, could he not—?

Ghote was unable, faced with the living picture, to prevent himself looking with fervent prayerfulness to the goddess herself, as if from her stone lips the answer might somehow come.

And it did.

Because suddenly he realized there was a way of making sure this Parvati was the Gudalpore Parvati. An almost certain way.

Sub-Inspector Jadhav had just returned, sullenly shepherding in front of him the huge silent bulk of the man Manik.

“S.I.,” Ghote said to him, “keep sharp watch on each and every person here. I would not be one moment.” And, without waiting for any acknowledgment of the order, he set off at a run through all the little crammed and crowded rooms of the basement area, past the thousand different dusty stones, past the misprinted Arab currency, past the alchemic apparatus, past the tall jar of opal water. He took the stairs two at a time, ignoring padlocks, hookahs, everything. And on he went, still hurrying fast as he dared, past glass chairs and bedsteads, past china farm animals — how did they reflect Indology? no matter — past the heaped pile of different inkwells, till at last he came to the entrance hall. And to the glass-fronted cupboard that contained measuring instruments from the most distant past to the present day. Without hesitation, he wrenched open its door, reached up, and took from its place one of the neat, modern measuring tapes he had seen almost without seeing it as Professor Prunella had hurried them toward her quarry. To the tape he added, as a last-second afterthought, one of the straight notched sticks from the most distant past.