Someone rapped at the door, briskly, quietly and with absolute authority.
‘Come in! ’ called Dominic.
Inspector Kulbir Singh came in with aplomb. His black beard was tucked snugly into its retaining net, his moustache was immaculately waxed at the ends, which turned up in military fashion to touch his bold cheek-bones. In his hands – gloved hands – he held a large, fat bank envelope, linen-grained, biscuit-coloured. Every eye in the room fastened on it, and for an instant everyone held his breath.
‘Ladies… Swami… gentlemen, forgive this intrusion. There is a small matter of identification with which you can help me, if you will.’ He came forward with assurance, and laid the envelope upon the coffee table, drawing out delicately wad after wad of notes. ‘No, no, please do not touch. There is the question of finger prints. I would ask you only to look at this packet… you, Mr Felder, Mr Felse and Miss Barber. The total amount, you may take my word, is two hundred thousand rupees, as you see in notes of various values. It is contained in an envelope of the State Bank of India, issued at the branch here in Parliament Street. Their stamp bears last Saturday’s date. I must ask you if you can identify this package.’
They stood staring all three, alike stricken into silence. Dominic was the first to clear his throat. ‘It looks very like the money Mr Felder drew from the bank, in my presence, on Saturday morning. The amount is right.’
‘Miss Barber?’
‘I wasn’t at the bank. I saw the package the next day, when Mr Felder left it at the desk, downstairs. This one looks the same. I feel sure it is. There was a linen thread half an inch too long, projecting out of that left corner of the flap, just like that one. My prints should be on the envelope, if it’s the same one. I collected it from the desk, and Dominic put it into the briefcase.’
‘Thank you, that is very helpful. Mr Felder? Does it appear the same to you?’
‘I can’t be sure. One bank envelope is very like another. It could be the same.’
‘Even to the amount inside it, Mr Felder?’
‘I’ve said, it could be the same.’
‘In that case your prints should also be on the envelope, I take it, since you handled it.’
‘Yes, certainly I did. I kept it safe until I delivered it to this hotel on Sunday morning.’
‘But you would not expect your prints also to be on the notes?’
‘Of course not, why should they be? I took the package from the bank teller intact, and as you know, it was paid over to Miss Kumar’s kidnapper at the Birla temple on Sunday afternoon.’ He raised his head, and stared Inspector Singh stonily in the eyes. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘In a locked suitcase in a room in the Villa Lakshmi at Hauz Khas, Mr Felder – the bedroom occupied by you.’
Felder drew back from him a long pace; all the deep, easy-going lines of his face had sagged into grey pallor.
‘You know what this is, don’t you? A plant to leave me holding the baby. Yes, I drew the money, yes, I handled the parcel, that you know already from all of us, what have I got to deny? We paid that money over at the temple, as we were told to do. There was a parcel of sliced-up newsprint left in its place, and that we’ve told you, too, it isn’t any secret. But if you think I made that exchange, think again. Kumar here was watching me all that afternoon. He knows I never went near the place where the briefcase was.’ He swung on Satyavan, who sat unmoved, his arm round his daughter, his grazed cheek seamed with darkening scars beneath the levelled black eye. ‘Tell him! You were watching me as I was watching the briefcase. You came and started talking to me, and that cost us – how many minutes? Three? Enough for the exchange to be made. I wasn’t watching during those few minutes, and neither were you.’
‘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.’