Bribery, Corruption Also
H. R. F. Keating
 Inspector Ghote's wife Protima has inherited a fortune and a mansion in Calcutta. Ghote is not pleased because it means he must leave his native Mumbai and give up being a policeman. No sooner have they landed in Calcutta than they discover the house is crumbling and inhabited by hostile squatters. Also a housing development is planned in the wetlands behind the house, which has the only access to the proposed construction project. The solicitor in charge of the administering the will, A. K. Dutt-Daster, advises them to sell promptly and return home, but Ghote suspects corruption. As Ghote investigates he uncovers a web of corruption that leads inexorably higher and higher in Calcutta's social and political hierarchy. On the way he encounters the easily bribed solicitor's clerk, who is soon murdered for obtaining incriminating documents from Dutt-Daster's files, he is assaulted under The Great Banyan tree in the Indian Botanical Gardens, meets a crusading newspaper editor who chooses his crusades very carefully, a cynical and corrupt Police Inspector and a powerful businessman who doesn't believe corruption is a bad thing. Powerful forces are aligned against the elderly couple and ultimately they cannot be overcome. Finally Ghote finds himself obliged to pay a handsome bribe simply so the couple can escape from Calcutta with their freedom and lives. Corruption and bribery will always be a part of life no matter how much people fight against it, Ghote reflects on the way home, but that is not a valid reason to give in to such things.