The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown Read Online Free Page B

pipe from his pocket and set it into the corner of his mouth.
    Chopra did not smoke. The calabash pipe was an affectation that he employed to promote clear thinking. He had long been a devoted fan of Sherlock Holmes – in particular the incarnation portrayed by Basil Rathbone in the 1940s – and the calabash pipe gave him an instant sense of stepping into the great detective’s shoes.
    He settled his spectacles onto his nose and began to read.
    Soon he was engrossed in his work. A mosquito hummed by his ear and he swatted it away without lifting his eyes. Smells and sounds drifted out from the restaurant kitchen: the nose-crinkling odour of frying onions and seared garlic; the chilli haze of innumerable exotic spices; the spit and sizzle from Chef Lucknowwallah’s giant copper pans; the growl of the clay tandoor.
    He sneezed as a waft of ginger tickled his nose – he had always been fiercely allergic to the stuff.
    The smells from the kitchen mingled with the undercurrent of elephant dung in the backyard. The odour was somewhat leavened by the sweet scent of ripe mango and jacaranda blossom floating in from the neighbouring Sahar International Cargo & Freight Company compound. The on-off breeze carried with it a raga from an old Bollywood movie playing on a nearby radio.
    After a while Chopra realised that Ganesha had turned back to him and was watching him work. He peered at his young ward over his spectacles. ‘Something extraordinary happened today. There was a robbery at the museum. They stole the Koh-i-Noor. It is going to be a big scandal: mark my words.’
    To his credit, Ganesha did indeed seem intent on his every word. Chopra reached out and patted him on his knobbly skull.
    When Ganesha had first arrived he had been undernourished, quite the frailest elephant Chopra had ever laid eyes on. In his letter, Uncle Bansi had given no clue as to where Ganesha had been born or in what circumstances he had been sent to Mumbai and to Chopra.
    It had taken a long time for him to earn the little elephant’s trust.
    He was not by nature a sentimental man, but there was no doubt that the bond that had grown between them meant as much to him as any human relationship. In a way, Ganesha was now the child that he and Poppy had never been able to have. Poppy certainly treated their ward as if he were a member of the family, doting on him and spoiling him with treats such as the never-ending supply of bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate that Ganesha was addicted to.
    There was something universally endearing about the elephant calf. Certainly he was much loved by Chopra’s friends and the staff at the restaurant, with the notable exception of Poppy’s bilious mother.
    He turned back to his papers. They comprised his handwritten notes on the various cases that he was currently working on as lead and only detective of the Baby Ganesh Agency. They all seemed so mundane in comparison to the theft of the Koh-i-Noor. Now
there
was a case! He felt a sudden pang of envy for the officer who would land that investigation. Envy, and sympathy, too. The whole world would be looking over the poor man’s shoulder.
    The rear door leading from the kitchen swung open, its fly-screen cracking vigorously against the whitewashed clapboard wall.
    Chopra watched as young Irfan emerged into the moonlit compound.
    For a second the boy stood on the creaking veranda beneath the cantilevered porch roof. Below the veranda, bullfrogs chorused a late-evening dirge. The boy knelt down and lit a mosquito coil, the acrid smoke adding to the panoply of smells in the compound. Then he straightened and came trotting over the knobbly grass, the steel bucket in his hand clanking by his side.
    Chopra turned as Ganesha lumbered to his feet. He couldn’t help but note the sudden sparkle in the young elephant’s eyes.
    Ganesha greeted Irfan with an exuberant bugle.
    Irfan set down the bucket and rubbed the elephant on