Mourning Raga

‘That is true, Inspector,’ said Satyavan. ‘I spoke to him. For perhaps as long as three minutes he was not watching the case, and neither was I.’

‘But I was,’ said the Swami’s voice, with infinite gentleness and absolute certainly.

Everyone turned, almost cautiously, as though he might vanish if they were too abrupt. He sat relaxed and tranquil, his face fixed in a slight and rueful smile, and all the reflected light in the room had gathered in a highlight on his golden shoulder, like a lantern set in the protruding bone.

‘Yes, I, too, was present. Satyavan and I had been following your movements and those of these young people ever since the murder and the abduction of the child. Satyavan came and spoke to you because he believed you had noticed him, and suspected his interest in you. But as it appeared, his approach was welcome and useful to you. Yes! But all that time I was sitting in meditation on the terrace of the temple. No one finds it strange that such as I should sit and meditate, even for long periods, even upon something so mundane as a briefcase and two pairs of shoes. No, it is perfectly true, you did not go near them in all that time. That I confirm. But neither did anyone else!’

The silence waited and grew, allowing them time to grasp that and understand what it meant.

‘From the moment when this boy placed it there to the moment when he took it up again, no one touched it. Therefore it was, when placed, exactly as it was when removed, filled only with newsprint. The ransom – the first ransom – had been collected in advance. By you! Miss Lester would have repaid it to the company without a qualm, would she not, since it was employed in her daughter’s interest?’

Felder opened his dry lips, and tried to speak, but made no sound.

‘Even film directors, Mr Felder, do not always make enough money for their needs, and cannot resist temptation when it walks across their path. It is a question rather of the moderation and control of one’s needs. Of the conquest of desire. But your desires were clearly immoderate. Therefore, when you could not resist retaining Anjli in the hope of further easy gain, we placed before you the bait of a second and greater ransom, to discover whether she was still safe, and to ensure that you would keep her so.’

‘What do you take me for?’ Felder had found his voice now, it burst out full and strong with genuine indignation. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt a hair of her head. I always meant to give her back safe and sound. What do you think I am? I may have needed money, I may have taken short cuts, but Dorrie’s girl wasn’t expendable.’

‘No,’ agreed the Swami, with deep sadness. ‘No, the half-American child, your friend’s child, was not expendable to you. You gave your accomplice his orders to keep her safe, not to hurt her… of course, you are a humane man, you did not kidnap or kill – not in the first person, only by proxy. When you hired him, did you ask him how he meant to carry out his coup? Did you tell him, no violence to anyone? No, you shut your ears and left it to him. He was paid, was he not? A wisp of Indian dust, an old, decrepit creature, a beggar, hardly a man at all to you – Arjun Baba was expendable!’

‘Let us, however, be realistic,’ observed the Swami, breaking the long silence which had descended on the room after Ernest Felder had been taken away. ‘He cannot be charged with the murder of Arjun Baba. Quite certainly he did not commit that crime himself, and with Govind Das dead it will be almost impossible to prove that it arose as a direct result of the conspiracy Felder inspired. Indeed, I doubt if they will ever be able to charge him with the abduction, unless he is foolish enough to repeat the virtual confession we have just heard. Govind Das cannot convict him, and I doubt if Mrs Das ever so much as heard his name mentioned. Probably the only charge they can hope to bring home is of the misappropriation of that company money.’

‘There is also something to be said, ’Satyavan said softly, ‘even for Felder.’ Anjli’s eyes were drooping into sleep, and her head was heavy on his shoulder. ‘My wife was indebted to him for all her early chances in films. He is not the only one of whom she has made use when it suited her, and forgotten for years in between, but perhaps he was the most complaisant. If she wanted to send Anjli here to me, it would be quite natural to her to look round and see who might be useful to her in the matter. Ernest is filming in Delhi? How convenient! Of course, get him to meet the party and do whatever is necessary. He always had complied, why should he let her down now? She is now much more successful, much more wealthy than he, but she still asks, and he still complies. She put the opportunity into his hands, perhaps even the temptation into his mind. It may well have seemed to him that she owed him far more than he meant to extort from her. And am I not partially guilty? I do not believe he decided to act until I failed to come to the aid of both my mother and my child, and left her an easy prey. It’s too deep for me. Maybe justice will have to find its own way to every one of us in its own time. I have no doubt it will arrive in the end.’

‘It has caught up already,’ said Ashok gently, ‘with you.’ And he caught the drowsy eye Anjli had just re- opened, and made a faun’s face at her. ‘Have you forgotten? When Yashodhara bore a child, the Lord Buddha cried: “It must be named Rahula. For a fetter is fastened upon me this day!”’

‘I shall call you Rahula,’ said Satyavan, tightening his arm about his daughter, ‘when you most tyrannise over me.’

Anjli smoothed her cheek against his shoulder like a kitten, and smiled. ‘Rahula was a boy. Girls are different. The Lord Buddha should have had a girl.’ She looked up at him, suddenly grave and momentarily wide-awake. ‘What will happen to Shantila’s mother? She was good to me. As good as she dared be.’

‘Be easy, my Rahula! No charge will ever be made against Mrs Das with my support. If she had not had a daughter, I should now have been searching in vain for mine.’

‘And Shantila?’

‘Shantila is your sister, and therefore my child. We must find a safe job for the mother, and she shall be always with you, if you want her.’

‘Yes, please, I do want her. We ought to buy her another necklace,’ she said indistinctly, ‘in place of the one she broke.’

‘That is very true,’ he said, drawing her more securely into his arm, for she was half asleep. ‘Remind me!’ He looked up over her head at Dominic and Tossa, and said in a glowing whisper: ‘It is late, I shall take her away with me. But tomorrow, wait for us, we shall come to fetch you to Rabindar Nagar.’

They protested dutifully that their job was done now, that they must make their preparations for going home.

‘Not yet, not until you must. You will be her guests, she will be happy harrying Kishan Singh to make everything ready for you. Do you not see that my mother Purnima left a true Indian matriarch to be her heiress? I have resigned my life to this creature.’ By then she was fast asleep in his arms. ‘Ashok, I must warn you, for I see that she may well demand that I propose a match with you – she will have no dowry, she has been urging me to give