Death to the Landlords

above large, closed eyelids; the long lips were folded together peacefully in the faintest and purest of smiles, and the thin, straight nose inhaled so softly and tranquilly that not even the act of breathing seemed to inflect his charged stillness.

But he was not asleep. As soon as Dominic’s advancing figure cast a shadow on his nearer shoulder, the bronze cups of his eyelids lifted from exceedingly bright, mild, knowing eyes, dark brown and deeply set; and when two more steps had projected the shadow across his body he dwindled magically but gracefully into a middle-sized elderly gentleman wearing a saffron robe with a frayed hem kilted comfortably round his loins, and a fawn-coloured trench coat draped over his shoulders. His naked feet – his sandals lay beside the bench – were slim, bony and whitened with dust. He looked way-worn, but not tired. And he looked up at Dominic with a bright, gratified smile, and joined his palms gently under his chin in greeting.

‘Namaste, my son!’

‘Namaste, my father! I’m glad you are here.’ His very presence resolved everything into a matter of serene understatements.

‘You are not surprised?’ remarked the Swami Premanathanand, with a distinct suggestion of disappointment.

‘Never surprised by you. But very glad of you.’

‘I flew from Delhi to Madurai – it is a tedious business, thought it is so quick. And from Madurai I have driven that hired car – a car quite unknown to me, I am used only to my own.’ His own was a forty-year-old Rolls, visually reduced by sheer hard labour to a flying scarecrow, but mechanically nursed like an only child. He was slightly surprised by his success with this modern degenerate, and a little proud. ‘I arrived nearly an hour ago, but I did not wish to disturb anyone. I am afraid this is a house not well-blessed at present with dreamless sleep.’

‘I dreamed I heard you coming,’ said Dominic.

‘That was not a dream, I was thinking of you. As I promised,’ he said, ‘I gave thought to the problem of what might best be done. And I thought that my responsibility in this matter is very great, and that I ought to be here with you.’

He rose, and slipped his feet into his worn sandals, his long, prehensile toes gripping the leather thongs.

‘Shall we go into the house?’

Eight

Malaikuppam: Thursday

« ^ »

Purushottam, puffy-eyed from want of sleep but eased and heartened at the sight of his visitor, made his ceremonial greeting, and bent to touch in veneration the Swami’s hands and feet. Larry hovered, long and dubious and aggressively American where his scepticism was called into resistance, everything about him from his bristling crew-cut to his thick-soled travelling shoes making a point of its complete un-Indianness. Priya offered her namaskar shyly but with composure, and answered the grave smile with a pale, withdrawn smile of her own. Lakshman was respectful, dutiful and more obstinately the paid courier than at any time during the last few days, so that there should be no mistake as to where he stood, and how immovably he stood there.

And the police, after an hour or so of cagey assessment, maintained with scrupulous politeness and reverence, opened their ranks and let the newcomer in. That was perhaps the greatest compliment paid to the Swami Premanathanand that day.

It was Inspector Tilak who called the afternoon conference, and presided at the head of the table, with Inspector Raju tactfully on his right hand; though as officer in charge of the original case the direction of the discussion was smartly and gratefully handed over to the Keralese officer as soon as proceedings opened. The Swami took his place at the foot of the table; but Dominic, seated halfway between, found himself experiencing repeatedly the kind of optical illusion in which up becomes down, out becomes in, and the foot of a table is translated into its head. It did not disconcert him; he had seen it happen before where the Swami was concerned, even when, as now, that enigmatic person was doing his best to suppress the tendency. His face was attentive and respectful, his eyes mild, and his voice asked gently for guidance rather than making suggestions; and with his usual timeless but astute courtesy he listened carefully to everything everyone else had to say, as they went over once again the entire history of the case.

‘So as I understand it,’ he said diffidently, when he had absorbed everything, ‘we have here two deaths which are certainly closely connected, and there are some facts about them which need not be questioned. That they are the work of experienced terrorists, most probably Naxalites. That the bombs were made by the same hand, almost certainly in Bengal, and therefore that someone brought them south to the agent chosen to use them. Now the agent at Thekady is known – unhappily after the event and after his own inadvertent death. Whether he was to be used again for the same role is something we do not know; but since he was killed by his own act, clearly he cannot be responsible for what has happened here. There remains the supplier. I am not so naive as to suppose that other Natalite agents may not be available in the south; but they are unlikely to be experienced with such comparatively sophisticated weapons as these. And also it is wasteful to acquaint too many people with the plans for such an act. Even those who sympathise are safer knowing nothing. One person, the messenger who brought the bombs, was already in the secret, and is the most probable person to have pursued the intent to the end. Have I followed you correctly?⁸

‘Perfectly,’ said Inspector Raju.

‘And is it established that this person must have brought the bombs south only recently?’

The two inspectors glanced at each other, and Inspector Raju said, after only a momentary hesitation: ‘In the first one some folded sheets of newspaper had been used as wadding inside the case. We have identified a Calcutta newspaper, dated not quite four weeks ago.’

‘So we are looking, in effect, for someone who has come from the north since that date. Someone who does not belong here. A stranger. It should not escape us, of course,’ he said mildly, ‘that there are several such in this room now, including myself. Naturally those of us who have known one another for some time will feel that that line is hardly worth pursuing, but we must not ignore it altogether. There were also, at Thekady, a number of such people, visitors to the wild life sanctuary. And those, I know, are being kept under observation since that time. But none of them, as far as we yet know, has been anywhere near Malaikuppam.’

‘As far as we know,’ agreed Inspector Raju drily. ‘But some were as close as forty to fifty miles on Tuesday night, and with cars it is not so difficult to move from one place to another. The Manis, for instance, decided after all to keep their hired car and driver rather than go by train over these last stages of their tour. They spent only one night at Rameshwaram. On Tuesday night they were at Virudhunagar, and last night at Tirunelveli. From either it