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.
Then, in even less time than it had taken him to get to the cupboard, he ran back to where the disputed Parvati stood. The Founder and Chairman had not budged from his place at one side of the stone goddess, nor had the British professor moved from her position on the other side. Each silently asserted possession as firmly as before.
“Excuse, please,” Ghote said.
And he brushed the two claimants aside, took the notched stick he had seized, and laid one end on the topmost stone jewel of the princess’s crown. Then he swiveled the stick’s other end until it touched the nearest point on the wall behind, and made there a tiny scratch on the plaster.
Next, swiftly kneeling, he took the spring-loaded tape, zipped it open, and measured the exact distance between his scratched mark and the floor beneath. The tape, he found with sudden relief, was marked in centimeters rather than inches. And in a moment he was able to look up and proclaim triumphantly, “One hundred and forty-seven.”
“One hundred and forty what, for heaven’s sake?” Professor Prunella boomed. “Have you gone dotty, Inspector?”
“Madam,” Ghote replied, still kneeling on the floor, “not one hundred and forty, but one hundred and forty-seven. One hundred and forty-seven centimeters, the exact height of the idol of Parvati stolen from the Gudalpore Temple, and reported on first-class authority to be kept hidden in Bombay for inspection by foreign buyer or buyers unknown.”
“You’re telling me nothing I haven’t been saying all along,” Professor Prunella answered, puffing her chest out to wonderfully new dimensions. “Arrest this man. Haven’t I told you it’s your duty half a dozen times already?”
Ghote rose to his feet. “Madam,” he said, “I am thinking I very well know what is my duty.”
He took a deep breath. As he had knelt checking the exact figure on his measuring tape, a number of things he had observed in his brief time in the Hrishikesh Agnihotri Museum had formed into a pattern in his head. A satisfyingly coherent pattern. “Madam,” he said, still looking steadily at the majestic form of the British professor, “there is not only the question of one Parvati idol itself, there is the question of other artefacts also.”
“What?”
“Madam, from the Gudalpore Temple there were also stolen four terracotta representations of God Ganesha — that is with the elephant head, as you must very well be knowing — plus also one Goddess Sarasvati, riding as per custom upon a peacock, in this case with tail partly missing. Plus again two God Krishnas, playing upon flutes together, with eighteen other artefacts, various. Madam, in this storeroom just only behind where I am standing I have observed, as also has Mr. Agnihotri, each and every one of these items, notably free from dust. So, madam, what is to be learnt from this?”
“Why, damn it, that this fellow has stolen the whole lot from Gudalpore.”
“Not so, madam. I have told. Mr. Agnihotri was just only examining these items. He was not attempting further to conceal same. No doubt he was wishing that, like this Parvati idol, they were objects he had at some faraway time acquired, but he knew in the core of his heart that they were not. No, madam, he was not responsible for hiding these things.”
“Then who the— No, wait, I know. My Mr. Poe’s Indian guest at breakfast this morning.”
“No, madam, no. It was the person strong enough to move from place to place one Goddess Parvati in sandstone, one hundred and forty-seven centimeters in height. The person who also, though he is appearing dumb, can very well answer telephones and could also communicate with accomplices suggesting to them to hide Parvati among so many other gods and goddesses. A most clever device used, I am thinking, by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe in the story by the name of ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ”
He shot out an order to Sub-Inspector Jadhav.
“Take him to your station and charge-sheet him, in my name, with concealing twenty-six various artefacts, knowing them to have been stolen.”
“Artefacts, Inspector?” the S.I. inquired, a frown on his face even as he grabbed the hefty and bewildered Manik.
“Yes, man, artefacts. Artefacts. Are you not knowing what are artefacts?”
Bright Scissors, Sharp As Pain
by E. J. Wagner
© 1988 by E. J. Wagner.
“Stop that! Stop that noise!” Alice demanded. “You just be quiet and listen to me. You look old enough to understand this.” The child clutched her ears, but Alice forced the small hands, cold as little stones, down and gripped them...
So intent was Alice, as she unpacked the china — so careful not to let any of the translucent, cream-colored cups slip through her fingers — that she never heard the afternoon school bus arrive, never had a chance to brace herself against the quick shiver of pain and loss she still felt at the sound of children laughing and whooping as they chased each other through fallen leaves vivid as blood.
Don’t listen, she told herself, you don’t have to listen. Just concentrate on what you’re doing. One thing at a time, one day at a time. That was what the therapist who had helped her work through her feelings of agonized guilt had said.
She walked to the sink and began to run lukewarm water into the dishpan so that she could rinse off the fine film of dust that clung to the dishes after the many months in storage. That’s it, she encouraged herself. That’s it. Just one thing at a time. Concentrate on what you’re doing. Then you won’t start to remember, and you won’t start to cry. She thought of calling David, then recalled the still-unconnected phone. Never mind, better to face it through herself. She couldn’t call David every time something reminded her.
She turned on the water a bit harder so that it would drown out the children’s sounds — and so it was through the rush of water that she first heard the knocking at the door. She tried to ignore it, hoping that whoever it was would go away, so that she wouldn’t have to answer, so that she wouldn’t have to talk, but the knocking persisted, and finally she gave in, drying her hands on a towel, walking down the hall with a briskness she didn’t feel.