by Satyajit Ray
‘But who do you suspect the most?’
‘I suspect everybody, including you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Anyone who has a mask is a suspect.’
‘Really? In that case, why don’t you include yourself in your list?’
‘Don’t talk rubbish.’
‘I’m not! You didn’t tell me that you knew Rajen Babu, which means you were not totally honest with me. Besides, you could have easily used that mask. I did not hide it anywhere, did I?’
‘Shut up, shut up!’
Rajen Babu seemed a lot better when we arrived at his house, although he still looked faintly uneasy. ‘I felt fine during the day,’ he told us, ‘but I must say I’m beginning to feel nervous again now it’s getting dark.’
Feluda gave him the packet from Tinkori Babu. Rajen Babu opened it quickly and took out a beautiful statue of the Buddha, the sight of which actually moved him to tears.
‘Did the police come to make enquiries?’ asked Feluda.
‘Oh yes. They asked a thousand questions. God knows if they’ll get anywhere, but at least they’ve agreed to post someone outside the house during the night. That’s a relief, anyway. In fact, if you wish to go back to your hotel, it will be quite all right.’
‘No, we’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind. It’s too noisy in our hotel. I need peace and quiet to think about this case.’
Rajen Babu smiled. ‘Of course you can stay. You’ll get your peace and quiet here, and I can promise you an excellent meal. That Nepali boy is a very good cook. I’ve asked him to make his special chicken curry. The food in your hotel could never be half as tasty, I’m sure.’
We were shown to our room. Feluda stretched out on his bed and lit a cigarette. I saw him blow out five smoke rings in a row. His eyes were half-closed. After a few seconds of silence, he said, ‘Dr Mitra did go out to see a patient last night. I found that out this morning. A rich businessman who lives in Cart Road. He was with his patient from eleven-thirty to half-past twelve.’
‘Does that rule him out completely?’
Feluda did not answer my question. Instead, he said, ‘Prabeer Majumdar has lived abroad for so long and has such a lot of money that I can’t see why he should suddenly arrive here and start threatening his father. He stands to gain very little, actually. Why, I learnt that he recently made a packet at the local races!’
I sat holding my breath. It was obvious that Feluda hadn’t finished. I was right. Feluda stubbed out his cigarette and continued, ‘Mr Gilmour has come to Darjeeling from his tea estate. I met him at the Planters’ Club. He told me there was only one Tibetan bell that had come out of the palace of the Dalai Lama, and it is with him. The one Rajen Babu has is a fake. Abani Ghoshal is aware of it.’
‘You mean the bell that we saw here isn’t all that valuable?’
‘No. Besides, both Abani Ghoshal and Prabeer Majumdar were at a party last night, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. They got totally drunk, I believe.’
‘That man wearing a mask came here soon after midnight, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
I began to feel rather strange. ‘Well then, who does that leave us with?’
Feluda did not reply. He sighed and rose to his feet. ‘I’m going to sit in the living room for a minute,’ he said. ‘Do not disturb me.’
I took his place on the bed when he left. It was getting dark, but I felt too lazy to get up and switch on the lights. Through the open window I could see lights in the distance, on Observatory Hill. The noise from the Mall had died down. I heard the sound of hooves after a while. They got louder and louder, then slowly faded away.
It soon grew almost totally dark. The hill and the houses on it were now practically invisible. Perhaps a mist was rising again. I began to feel sleepy. Just as my eyes started to close, I suddenly sensed the presence of someone else in the room. My blood froze. Too terrified to look in the direction of the door, I kept my eyes fixed on the window. But I could feel the man move closer to the bed. There, he was now standing right next to me, and was leaning over my face. Transfixed, I watched his face come closer . . . oh, how horrible it was . . . a mask! He was wearing a mask!
I opened my mouth to scream, but an unseen hand pulled the mask away, and my scream became a nervous gasp. ‘Feluda! Oh my God, it’s you!’
‘Had you dozed off? Of course it’s me. Who did you think . . .?’ Feluda started to laugh, but suddenly grew grave. Then he sat down next to me, and said, ‘I was simply trying on all those masks in the living room. Why don’t you wear this one for a second?’ He passed me his mask. I put it on.
‘Can you sense something unusual?’
‘Why, no! It’s a size too large for me, that’s all.’
‘Think carefully. Isn’t there anything else that might strike you as odd?’
‘Well . . . there’s a faint smell, I think.’
‘Of what?’
‘Cheroot?’
‘Exactly.’
Feluda took the mask off. My heart started to beat faster again. ‘T-t-t-inkori Babu?’ I stammered.
Feluda sighed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. It must have been extremely easy for him. He had access to all kinds of printed material; and you must have noticed he was limping this morning. That might have been the result of jumping out of a window last night. But what I totally fail to understand is his motive. He appeared to respect Rajen Babu a lot. Why then did he do something like this? What for? Perhaps we shall never know.’
The night passed peacefully and without any further excitement. In the morning, just as we sat down to have breakfast with our host, his Nepali servant came in with a letter for him. It was once again a blue envelope with a Darjeeling post-mark.
Rajen Babu went white. He took out the letter with a trembling hand and passed it to Feluda. ‘You read it,’ he said in a low voice.
Feluda read it aloud. This is what it said:
Dear Raju,
When I first wrote to you from Calcutta after Gyanesh told me you had a house in Darjeeling, I had no idea who you really were. But that photograph of yours on your mantelshelf told me instantly that you were none other than the boy who had once been my classmate in the missionary school in Bankura fifty years ago.
I did not know that the desire for revenge would raise its head even after so many years. You see, I was the boy you kicked at that hundred-yards race on our sports day. Not only did I miss out on winning a medal and setting a new record, but you also managed to injure me pretty seriously. Unfortunately, my father got transferred to a different town only a few days after this incident, which was why I never got the chance to have a showdown with you then; nor did you ever learn just how badly you had hurt me, both mentally and physically. I had to spend three months in a hospital with my leg in a cast.
When I saw you here in Darjeeling, leading such a comfortable and peaceful life, I suddenly thought of doing something that would cause you a great deal of anxiety and ruin your peace of mind, at least for a short time. This was my way of settling scores, and punishing you for your past sins.
With good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Tinu
(Tinkori Mukhopadhyay)
The Emperor’s Ring
One
I was at first quite disappointed when I heard Baba say, ‘Let’s have a holiday in Lucknow this year. Dhiru has been asking us for a long time to go and visit him.’ It was my belief that Lucknow was dull and boring. Baba did say we’d include a trip to Haridwar and Laxmanjhoola, and the latter was in the hills—but that would be just for a few days. We generally went to either Darjeeling or Puri. I liked both the sea and the mountains. Lucknow had neither. So I said to Baba, ‘Couldn’t we ask Feluda to come with us?’
Feluda has a theory about himself. No matter where he goes, he says, mysterious things start happening around him. And true enough, the last time he went with us to Darjeeling, all those strange things happened to Rajen Babu. If Lucknow could offer something
similar, it wouldn’t matter too much if the place itself was boring.
Baba said, ‘Felu would be most welcome, but can he get away?’ Feluda appeared quite enthusiastic when I told him. ‘Went there in 1958 to play a cricket match,’ he said. ‘It’s not a bad place at all. If you went inside the Bhoolbhulaia in the Burra Imambara, I’m sure your eyes would pop out. What an imagination those nawabs had—my God!’
‘You’ll get leave, won’t you?’
Feluda ignored my question and continued to speak: ‘And it’s not just the Bhoolbhulaia. You’ll get to see the Monkey Bridge over the Gomti, and of course the battered Residency.’
‘What’s the Residency?’
‘It was the centre of the British forces during the Mutiny. They couldn’t do a thing. The sepoys tore it apart.’
Feluda had been at his job for two years. Since he hadn’t taken any leave in the first year, it wasn’t difficult for him now to get a couple of weeks off.
Perhaps I should explain here that Feluda is my cousin. I am fourteen and he is twenty-seven. Some people think him crazy, some say he is only eccentric, others call him just plain lazy. But I happen to know that few men of his age possess his intelligence. And, if he finds a job that interests him, he can work harder than anyone I know. Besides, he is good at cricket, knows at least a hundred indoor games, a number of card tricks, a little hypnotism and can write with both hands. When he was in school, his memory was so good that he had memorized every word in Tagore’s ‘Snatched from the Gods’ after just two readings.
But what is most remarkable about Feluda is his power of deduction. This is a skill he has acquired simply by reading and regular practice. The police haven’t yet discovered his talents, so Feluda has remained an amateur private detective.
One look at a person is enough for him to guess—accurately—a number of things about him.
When we met Dhiru Kaka at the Lucknow railway station, Feluda whispered into my ear: ‘Is your Kaka fond of gardening?’
I knew that Dhiru Kaka had a garden, but Feluda could not have known about it. After all, Dhiru Kaka was not a relative; Baba and he were childhood friends.
‘How did you guess?’ I asked, amazed.
‘When he turns around,’ said Feluda, still whispering, ‘you’ll see a rose leaf sticking out from under the heel of his right shoe. And the index finger of his right hand has got tincture of iodine on it. Possibly the result of messing about in a rose bush early this morning.’
I realized on the way to Dhiru Kaka’s house from the station that Lucknow was really a beautiful place. There were buildings with turrets and minarets all around; the roads were broad and clean and the traffic, besides motor cars, included two different kinds of horse-drawn carriages. One, I learnt, was called a tonga and the other was an ekka. If Dhiru Kaka hadn’t met us in his old Chevrolet, we might have had to get into one of those.
Dhiru Kaka said, ‘Aren’t you now glad you came to this nice place? It’s not filthy like Calcutta, is it?’
Baba and Dhiru Kaka were sitting at the back. Feluda and I were both sitting beside the driver, Din Dayal Singh. Feluda whispered again, ‘Ask him about the Bhoolbhulaia?’
I find it difficult not to do something if Feluda asks me to do it. So I said, ‘What is the Bhoolbhulaia, Dhiru Kaka?’
‘You’ll see it for yourself!’ Dhiru Kaka laughed, ‘It’s actually a maze inside the Imambara. The nawabs used to play hide-and-seek in it with their queens.’
This time Feluda himself spoke. ‘Is it true that you cannot come out of it unless you take a trained guide with you?’
‘Yes, so I believe. Once a British soldier—oh, it was many years ago—had a few glasses and laid a wager with someone. Said no one should follow him into the maze, he’d come out himself. Two days later, his body was found in a lane of the maze.’
My heart started beating faster. ‘Did you go in alone or with a guide?’ I asked Feluda.
‘I took a guide. But it is possible to go alone.’
‘Really?’
I stared. Well, nothing was too difficult for Feluda, I knew. ‘How is it possible?’
Feluda’s eyes drooped. He nodded twice, but remained silent. I could tell he would not speak. His eyes were now taking in every detail of the city of Lucknow.
Dhiru Kaka was a lawyer. He had come to Lucknow twenty years ago and stayed on. He was, I believe, fairly well known in legal circles. He had lost his wife three years ago, and his son was in Frankfurt. He lived alone, with his bearer, Jagmohan, a cook and a maali. His house in Secunder Bagh was a little more than three miles from the station. The main gate bore his name: D. K. SANYAL, MA, BLB, Advocate.
A cobbled driveway led to a bungalow. His garden lay on both sides of the driveway. I spotted a maali working with a lawnmower as we stopped at the front door.
Baba said after lunch, ‘You must be tired after your journey. I suggest we start our sightseeing from tomorrow.’ So I spent the whole afternoon learning card tricks from Feluda. ‘Indians have fingers that are far more flexible than those of Europeans,’ Feluda told me, ‘so it’s easier for us to learn tricks that require sleight of hand.’
In the evening, we went out to the garden to have our tea. As we sat under a eucalyptus tree, cups and saucers in our hands, a car drew up outside the main gate. Feluda said, ‘Fiat,’ without even looking. This was followed by footsteps on the driveway, and a gentleman in a grey suit appeared shortly. He was fair, wore glasses and most of his hair was grey. Yet, it was clear that he was not very much older than Baba.
Dhiru Kaka rose with a smile, his hands folded in a namaskaar. ‘Jagmohan, bring another chair,’ he said. Turning towards Baba, he added, ‘Allow me to introduce a special friend. This is Dr Srivastava.’
Feluda and I had both risen by this time. Feluda muttered under his breath, ‘The chap’s nervous for some reason. He forgot to greet your father.’
Dhiru Kaka continued, ‘Srivastava is an osteopath and a genuine Lucknowwalla.’
I heard Feluda whisper again. ‘Do you know what an osteopath is?’
‘No.’
‘A doctor who specializes in problems of your bones.’
An extra chair arrived and we all sat down. Dr Srivastava picked up Baba’s teacup absentmindedly and was about to take a sip when Baba coughed politely. Dr Srivastava started, said, ‘I am so sorry,’ and put it down.
Dhiru Kaka said thoughtfully, ‘You seem a little preoccupied today. Are you thinking of a difficult case?’
Baba intervened at this point.
‘You are talking to him in Bengali, Dhiru. Does he understand it?’ Dhiru Kaka laughed, ‘Understand it? Good God—why don’t you quote a few lines from Tagore, eh, Srivastava?’
Dr Srivastava appeared a little uncomfortable. ‘I know a little Bengali,’ he confessed, ‘and I have read some of Tagore’s works.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Great poet.’
Perhaps they would now start a great discussion on poetry, I thought. But Dr Srivastava picked up his own cup this time with an unsteady hand and said, ‘Last night a daku came to my house.’
Daku? What was that?
The next words Dhiru Kaka spoke explained it. ‘You mean a dacoit? Heavens, I thought they existed only in Madhya Pradesh. How did one get into Lucknow?’
‘Call it a dacoit or an ordinary thief. You know about my ring, don’t you, Mr Sanyal?’
‘The one Pyarelal had given you? Has it been stolen?’
‘No, no. But I do believe the thief came to steal it.’
Baba said, ‘What’s this about a ring?’
Dr Srivastava turned to Dhiru Kaka. ‘You tell him.’
Dhiru Kaka explained, ‘Pyarelal Seth was a famous, wealthy businessman of Lucknow. A Gujarati by birth, he had lived in Calcutta for some time. So he had a smattering of Bengali. When his son, Mahabir, was about thirteen, he went down with some serious ailment affecting his bones. Dr Srivastava cured him. Pyarelal’s wife was no more, and
the first of his two sons had died of typhoid a few years earlier. So you can imagine how grateful he must have felt to Dr Srivastava for saving the life of his only remaining child. Before he died himself, he gave a very expensive and valuable ring to Dr Srivastava.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Last July,’ said Srivastava, ‘three months ago. He had his first heart attack in May, which nearly killed him. That was when he gave me the ring. Then the second attack came in July. I went to visit him. It was all over in no time. Look . . .’
Srivastava brought out a blue velvet box from his pocket. It was slightly bigger than a matchbox. The evening sun fell on its content as he lifted the lid, and a bright, glittering rainbow dazzled our eyes.
Dr Srivastava looked around briefly before pulling the ring out of the box.
A huge white stone gleamed in the middle. It was surrounded by several smaller red, blue and green ones.
I had never seen a ring so exquisitely beautiful.
I gave Feluda a sidelong glance. He was scratching his ear with a dry leaf of eucalyptus, but his eyes were fixed on the ring.
‘It must be very old,’ said Baba. ‘Is there a history behind it?’
Dr Srivastava replaced the ring in the box, put it back in his pocket and picked up his cup once more.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is indeed. This ring is more than three hundred years old. It once belonged to the Emperor Aurangzeb.’
Baba’s eyes widened.
‘You don’t say! You mean the Aurangzeb? Shah Jahan’s son?’
‘Yes. But the story I’ve heard goes back to when Aurangzeb was still only a prince. Shah Jahan was the Emperor, trying to conquer Samarkand. His forces kept getting defeated. Once he sent his men under Aurangzeb’s command. Aurangzeb was badly injured in the attack. He might have died, but an army officer saved him. Aurangzeb took this ring from his finger and gave it to his officer as his reward.’
‘Goodness, it’s incredible!’
‘Yes. Pyarelal bought this ring in Agra from a descendant of that army officer. I don’t know how much he paid for it. But I have had the stones examined. That big one is a diamond. So you can imagine its value.’