John D. MacDonald
The Notched Ears
Dr. Gregory Hewson shortened his long angular stride in order to keep step with the white clad figure of his chubby friend, A. Kahn Haidari of the Calcutta Police, as they walked down a corridor of the Indian General Hospital of Calcutta. Even though it was quite early in the morning, Dr. Hewson’s seersucker suit was plastered to him with perspiration generated by the humid heat of Calcutta in the monsoon season.
“But, Gregory, my friend. I cannot understand how you have induced me to bring you here. It isn’t as though you were a medical man. You are an anthropologist and a psychologist. If the department should hear of my bringing you here to see one of these strange cases of mutilation, I would be subjected to criticism.”
“Look, Kahn. What you told me last night at dinner about these screwy cases interested me. Nobody is going to object. Just relax. I want to see this fellow that got chopped up. After all, I’ve got to do something until my ship arrives. The department I was working for has folded completely. You are a good enough friend to keep me from going crazy in this heat by giving me something to think about, aren’t you?”
“I suppose I will have to be. There is no resisting you, my friend. Here is the ward.” They walked from the hall into a large room lined on both sides by beds placed closely together. All of the beds were filled with patients of all shades of Oriental and Indian color. A. Kahn Haidari stopped by the bed of a lean intelligent looking Indian. He looked as though he belonged to a hill country race.
Gregory leaned forward and said, “Urdu bolta hai?”
The man smiled up at him and said, “Yes, sahib, I speak Urdu, but my English is good. It will be easier for you. Speak in English.”
“Thank you. I would like to hear how you received these wounds. Mr. Haidari tells me that you were walking peaceably out in the Tollygunge section and you were attacked. Did you see those who attacked you?”
“No, sahib. I saw no one. There was merely a great blow on my head. The next I remember, I awoke in a field near an English club with these many wounds. I was weak from loss of blood, but I crawled to the English club and they obtained help for me. Now I grow rapidly well.”
“You were in a Japanese prison in Rangoon?”
“Yes, sahib. I was captured while serving with the British Fourteenth Army. I was liberated by that same army after many months in prison. I recovered in hospital here in Calcutta and was released last week. I was attacked while trying to find a cousin I have not seen in a great many years.”
Gregory spoke in an undertone to Haidari, “If it can be arranged, I would like to see his wounds.”
Haidari shrugged his shoulders and cast a helpless look at the ceiling. “I have done this much, I may as well do all. Nurse! Come here, please. My colleague wishes to inspect this man’s wounds.”
The Indian nurse bent over the bed, and with deft gentle hands removed the bandages which covered the man’s upper arm, the outside of his thigh and the outside of the calf of his leg, all on the right side. Then she went around the bed and started to remove similar bandages on the man’s left side.
Haidari interrupted, “Never mind, Nurse. Just the left ear. Gregory, all of those wounds on the left side are identical to the ones on the right. Now, look here. See there are two deep longitudinal cuts on the upper arm about four inches long. Three similar ones on the thigh and only one on the calf. They are all about one inch deep and appear to have been made with a razor or scalpel. Come around here and look at that ear. See, the top quarter of the ear has been completely slashed away. It is gone.”
Gregory whistled in surprise and said, “Do you mean to tell me that the eight people who have also been mutilated in this fashion have had identical marks?”
“Identical, except for the fact that the number of longitudinal cuts on the arms and legs vary in each instance, but there is always at least one, never more than three. Two of the victims died because too long a time elapsed between when they were cut and when they received aid.”
Gregory looked at his watch and said hurriedly, “Thanks, Kahn, but I’ve got to run and see the American consul at ten. Something about a passport. But I want a chance to go over the other facts of this case with you. Suppose you let me buy you lunch at Firpo’s. Can you be there at twelve-thirty just inside the front door? Good! See you then.” And the bushy-haired figure of the young American disappeared out the door of the ward. Haidari and the man on the bed looked at each other with that sad, amused expression which means, all over the world, “These Americans!”
The huge upstairs dining room at Firpo’s was crowded, and they had to wait for nearly ten minutes for a table. Gregory stood and watched that dizzy expanse of whirling fans which covered the ceiling, and envied Haidari’s cool costume — a white linen shirt with the tail hanging outside his thin white cotton pants. At last they were seated. A turbaned waiter took their order and Gregory began the second phase of his inquisition.
“Let’s do it this way, Kahn. I’ll go over the facts that you have given me, and you stop me if I’m wrong.”
“That will be excellent, but there are not many facts available. Start, please.”
“Fact number one is that all of the nine people who have been chopped up in your fair city spent some time as guests of the Japanese in one of their prisons in or near Rangoon.”
“Right.”
“All of the victims state that they were very poorly treated during the first half of their imprisonment, culminating in a series of beatings which nearly killed them. They remember little about that period, in fact, being conscious so little of the time.”
“Right again.”
“Then they were well treated for the balance of their confinement.”
“That is what they have all said.”
“But the fact that intrigues me the most is that they all claim to have received a small notch in the top of the left ear. Right on top, in fact. A notch about a quarter of an inch deep and the same amount wide. Now all of those notches are gone. Slashed off. What do you make of that?”
“As I have told you before, I make nothing of it. I cannot understand it.”
“And that takes care of everything we know?”
“It does. There is nothing else to go on. Even if we find ten more persons on whom the same violence has been used we will learn no more, I think.”
For many minutes Gregory sat in silence, his brow furrowed. From time to time he would run his brown hand through his dark mop of hair. Then he looked up again. “You say that three of the victims were Europeans?”
“Three were. Two were British subjects resident out here. We call them domiciled Europeans. The third was a Greek who was caught in Burma but who had previously lived for many years in Calcutta.”
“Have you checked their stories of the prison camps with other released persons?”
“But of course. The stories agree.”
“Could these people have traded a promise to work for Japan after the war for good treatment while in prison? Could the notched ear have been a warning?”
“That was considered, but all of these people are most emphatic about their loyalty to India and their hatred of the Japanese. I, for one, believe them. They are all bewildered by what has happened to them.”
“Did you ever hear of a notched ear being used to mark agents employed by the Japanese?”
“No. The only mark we know of was used in North Burma. It was a deep cut between the thumb and first finger. The scar, a white line, helped our military in segregating those who worked as agents. Many of them are now in the Red Fort in Old Delhi. It will be a long time before they walk as free men again.”