Then, as miraculously as the hold-up had formed, it broke up. The driver eagerly restarted his engine, eagerly held his thumb on the horn. They shot forward.
But, keeping his Seiko steady with both hands in front of his face, Ghote saw it reach exactly the dreaded hour of nineteen minutes past two.
And it was one minute, perhaps a minute and a half, later that he shouted to the driver to halt, thrust the money he had long got ready into the man’s hand, leaped out, and ran inside.
The D.G.P.’s secretary was at his desk at the door of the great man’s room.
“Ah, Inspector Ghote,” he said quite cheerfully. “D.G.P. sahib has been wondering if you would come. Please go straight in.”
The D.G.P. looked up from his desk.
“Ghote,” he said. “Inspector Ghote. Nothing to tell me, I suppose.”
At least no attention had been drawn to his unpunctuality. There might be hope yet, though that seemed altogether unlikely with a Tata Titan Exacto ticking away on the D.G.P.’s wrist.
“Sir, yes,” Ghote said. “Sir, I have much to tell.”
And then the D.G.P. did pull back the sleeve of his shirt to consult his quartz-operated, never-wrong-by-a-second Exacto.
“Good God,” he said. “Must have left the blasted thing on the washbasin. Well, never mind, I don’t suppose you were late for me, eh, Inspector?”
“No, sir, no,” Ghote instantly lied.
Well, he reflected as he began making his report, I am dead on time, after all. In a way.