by Satyajit Ray
We were then taken on a little tour down the hall, and the assistant curator told us in great detail about some of the other exhibits. Feluda listened politely, but all I could think of was Mr Shelvankar’s death. Surely ten thousand rupees was enough to tempt someone to kill? But then, I told myself firmly, Mr Shelvankar had not been stabbed or strangled or poisoned. He had died simply because a falling rock had hit his jeep. It had to be an accident.
As we were leaving, our guide suddenly laughed and said, ‘I wonder why Yamantak has created such a stir. Someone else was asking me about this statue.’
‘Who? The man who died?’
‘No, no, someone else. I’m afraid I cannot recall his name, or his face. All I remember are the questions he asked. You see, I was very busy that day with a group of American visitors. They were our Chogyal’s guests, so . . .’
When we got back into the jeep, it was only five to five by my watch; but it was already dark. This surprised me since I knew daylight could not fade so quickly. The reason became clear as we passed the forest and came out into the open again. Thick black clouds had gathered in the western sky. ‘It generally rains at night,’ informed our driver. ‘The days here are usually dry.’ We decided to go back to the hotel as there was no point now in trying to see other places.
Feluda did not utter a single word on our way back. He simply stared out of the jeep, taking in everything he saw. If we went up this road again on a different day, I was sure he’d be able to remember the names of all the shops we saw. Would I ever be able to acquire such tremendous powers of observation, and an equally remarkable memory? I didn’t think so.
We saw Mr Bose again as we got out of our jeep in front of our hotel. He appeared to be returning from the market, still looking thoughtful. He gave a little start when he heard Feluda call out to him. Then he looked up, saw us and came forward with a smile. ‘Everything’s arranged. I am leaving by the morning flight tomorrow.’
‘Could you please make a few enquiries for me when you get to Bombay?’ asked Feluda. ‘You see, Mr Shelvankar had bought a valuable Tibetan statue. We must find out if it was sent to Bombay with his other personal effects.’
‘All right, I can do that for you. But where did you learn this?’ Feluda told him briefly about his conversation with Mr Sarkar and the German photographer. ‘Yes, it would have been perfectly natural for him to have kept the statue with him. He had a passion for art objects,’ Mr Bose said. Then he suddenly seemed to remember something, and the expression on his face changed. He looked at Feluda again with a mixture of wonder and amusement.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘you didn’t tell me you were a detective.’
Feluda and I both gave a start. How had he guessed? Mr Bose began laughing. Then he pulled out his wallet and, from it, took out a small visiting card. To my surprise, I saw that it was one of Feluda’s. It said: Pradosh C. Mitter, Private Investigator.
‘It fell out of your pocket this morning when you were paying the driver of your jeep,’ Mr Bose told us. ‘He picked it up and gave it to me, thinking it was mine. I didn’t even glance at it then, but saw it much later. Anyway, I’m going to keep it, if I may. And here’s my own card. If there is any development here . . . I mean, if you think I ought to be here, please send me a telegram in Bombay. I’ll take the first available flight . . . Well, I don’t suppose I’ll meet you tomorrow. Goodbye, Mr Mitter. Have a good time.’ Mr Bose raised his hand in farewell and began walking briskly in the direction of the dak bungalow. It had started to rain.
Feluda took his shoes off the minute we got back into our room and threw himself down on his bed. ‘Aaaah!’ he said. I was feeling tired, too. Who knew we’d see and hear so many different things on our very first day?
‘Just imagine,’ Feluda said, staring at the ceiling, ‘what do you suppose we’d have done if a criminal had nine heads? No one could possibly sneak up to him and catch him from behind!’
‘And thirty-four arms? What about those?’
‘Yes, we’d have had to use seventeen pairs of handcuffs to arrest him!’
It was raining quite hard outside. I got up and switched on the lights. Feluda stretched out an arm and slipped his hand into his handbag. A second later, he had his famous blue notebook open in front of him and a pen in his hand. Feluda had clearly made up his mind that there was indeed a mystery somewhere, and had started his investigation.
‘Can you tell me quickly the name of each new person we have met today?’
I wasn’t prepared for such a question at all, so all I could do for a few seconds was stare dumbly at Feluda. Then I swallowed and said, ‘Today? Every new person? Do I have to start from Bagdogra?’
‘No, you idiot. Just give me a list of people we met here in Gangtok.’
‘Well . . . Sasadhar Datta.’
‘Wrong. Try again.’
‘Sorry, sorry. I mean Sasadhar Bose. We met him at the airport in Bagdogra.’
‘Right. Why is he in Gangtok?’
‘Something to do with aromatic plants, didn’t he say?’
‘No, a vague answer like that won’t do. Try to be more specific.’
‘Wait. He came here to meet his partner, Shivkumar Shelvankar. They have a chemical firm. Among other things, they . . .’
‘OK, OK, that’ll do. Next?’
‘The hippie.’
‘His name?’
‘Helmet—’
‘No, not Helmet. It’s Helmut. And his surname?’
‘Ungar.’
‘What brought him here?’
‘He’s a professional photographer, working on a book on Sikkim. He had his visa extended.’
‘Next?’
‘Nishikanto Sarkar. Lives in Darjeeling. No idea what he does for a living. He had a Tibetan statue which he—’
I was interrupted by a knock on the door. ‘Come in!’ Feluda shouted.
The man I was just talking about walked into the room. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ asked Nishikanto Sarkar. ‘I just thought I’d tell you about the Lama dance.’
‘Lama dance? Where?’ Feluda offered him a chair. Mr Sarkar took it, that same strange smile still hovering on his lips.
‘In Rumtek,’ he said, ‘just ten miles from here. It’s going to be a grand affair. People are coming from Bhutan and Kalimpong. The chief Lama of Rumtek—he is number three after the Dalai Lama—was in Tibet all this while. He has just returned to Rumtek. And the monastery is supposed to be new and worth seeing. Would you like to go tomorrow?’
‘Not in the morning. Maybe after lunch?’
‘OK. Or if you wish to have a darshan of His Holiness, we could go the day after tomorrow. I could get hold of three white scarves.’
‘Why scarves?’ I asked.
Mr Sarkar’s smile broadened. ‘That is a local custom. If you wish to meet a high class Tibetan, you have to present him with a scarf. He’ll take it from you, and return it immediately. That’s all, that takes care of all the formalities.’
‘No, I don’t think we need bother about a darshan,’ said Feluda. ‘Let’s just go and see the dance.’
‘Yes, I would actually prefer that myself. The sooner we can go the better. You never know what might happen to the roads.’
‘Oh, by the way, did you tell anyone else apart from Shelvankar about that statue?’
Mr Sarkar’s reply came instantly, ‘No. Not a soul. Why do you ask?’
‘I was curious, that’s all.’
‘I did think of taking it somewhere to have it properly valued, but I met Mr Shelvankar before I could do that, and he bought it. Mind you, he didn’t pay me at once. I had to wait until the next day.’
‘Did he pay you in cash?’
‘No, he didn’t have that much cash on him. He gave me a cheque. Look!’ Mr Sarkar took out a folded cheque from his wallet and showed it to Feluda. I leant over and saw it, too. It was a National and Grindlays Bank cheque. Feluda returned it to Mr Sarkar.
‘Did you notice anythi
ng sus-suspicious?’ Mr Sarkar asked, still smiling. I realized later that he had a tendency to stammer if he was upset or excited. ‘No, no.’ Feluda yawned. Mr Sarkar rose to go. At this precise moment, there was a bright flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by the ear-splitting noise of thunder. Mr Sarkar went white. ‘I can’t stand thunder and lightning, heh heh. Good night!’ He went out quickly.
It continued to rain throughout the evening. Even when I went to bed after dinner, I could hear the steady rhythm of the rain, broken occasionally by distant thunder. Despite that, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep.
I woke briefly in the middle of the night and saw a figure walk past our window. But who would be mad enough to go out on a night like this? Perhaps I wasn’t really awake. Perhaps the figure wearing a red garment that I saw only for a few seconds in the flash of lightning was no more than a dream . . . a figment of my imagination.
Four
I woke at 6.30 a.m. the next morning, to find that the rain had stopped and there was not a single cloud in the sky. The sun shone brightly on the world, and behind the range of mountains, now easily visible from our room, stood Kanchenjunga. The view from here was different from that in Darjeeling, but it was still unmistakably the same Kanchenjunga, standing apart from all the other mountains—proud, majestic and beautiful.
Feluda had risen before me and already had a bath. ‘Be quick, Topshe. We have lots to do,’ he said. It took me less than half an hour to get ready. By the time we went down for breakfast, it was only a little after 7 a.m. To our surprise, we found Mr Sarkar already seated in the dining hall.
‘Good morning. So you’re an early riser, too,’ Feluda greeted him. Mr Sarkar smiled, but seemed oddly preoccupied, even somewhat nervous. ‘Er . . . did you sleep well?’ we asked.
‘Not too badly. Why, what’s the matter?’
Mr Sarkar glanced around briefly before taking out a crumpled yellow piece of paper from his pocket. Then he handed it over to Feluda and said, ‘What do you make of this?’
Feluda spread it out. There were some strange letters written with black ink. ‘It looks like a Tibetan word. Where did you get it?’
‘Last night . . . in the . . . I mean, d-dead of night . . . someone threw it into my room.’
‘What!’ My heart gave a sudden lurch. Mr Sarkar’s room was next to ours. The same stretch of the veranda that ran in front of our room went past his. If the man I saw last night was real, and not something out of a dream, why, he might have—! But I chose not to say anything.
‘I wish I knew what it said,’ added Mr Sarkar.
‘That shouldn’t be a problem, surely? Dozens of people here can read Tibetan. You could go to the Tibetan Institute, if no one else will help you. But why are you assuming this is some sort of a threat? It could simply mean “May you live long”, or “God be with you”, or something like that. Is there a specific reason to think this is a warning or a threat?’
Mr Sarkar gave a little start, then smiled and said, ‘No, no, certainly not. I do nothing but mind my own business. Why should anyone threaten me? But then again, why should anyone send me their good wishes? I mean, purely out of the blue like this?’
Feluda called a waiter and ordered breakfast. ‘Stop worrying. We’re right next to you, aren’t we? We’ll both look after you. Now, have a good breakfast, relax and think of the Lama dance this afternoon.’
Our jeep arrived on time. Just as we were about to get into it, I saw another jeep coming from the direction of the dak bungalow. As it came closer, I could read its number plate. SKM 463, it said. Why did it seem familiar? Oh, of course, this was the new jeep that Mr Shelvankar’s driver was now driving. I caught a glimpse of the blue jacket the driver was wearing, and then, to my utter surprise, I saw Mr Bose sitting in the passenger’s seat. He stopped his jeep at the sight of ours. ‘I was waiting for information from the army,’ he told us, leaning out. ‘All that rain last night made me wonder if the roads were all right.’
‘And are they?’
‘Yes, thank God. If they weren’t, I’d have had to go via Kalimpong.’
‘Didn’t Mr Shelvankar use the same driver?’
Mr Bose laughed. ‘I can see you’ve started making enquiries already. But yes, you’re right. I chose him deliberately, partly because his jeep is new, and partly because . . . lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, does it? Anyway, goodbye again!’
He drove off and soon disappeared. We climbed into our own jeep. The driver knew where he was supposed to take us, so we were off without wasting another minute. I glanced up as we approached the dak bungalow to see if I could see Helmut, but there was no one in sight. There was a slope to our left, leading to another street lined by buildings. One of them looked like a school for there was an open square ground in front of it with two tiny goal posts. A little later, we reached a crossing where four roads met. We drove straight ahead and soon came across a large sign that said, ‘North Sikkim Highway’.
Feluda had been humming under his breath. Now he broke off and asked the driver, ‘How far has this road gone?’
‘Up to Chungtham, sir. Then it splits into two—one goes to Lachen, and the other to Lachung.’
I had heard of both these places. They were both at a height of nearly 9,000 feet and reported to be very beautiful.
‘Is it a good road?’
‘Yes, sir. But it gets damaged sometimes after heavy rain.’
The few buildings that could be seen by the road soon disappeared altogether. We were now well out of the town, making our way through hills. Looking down at the valley below, I could only see maize fields. It seemed as though someone had cut steps in the hillside to plant the maize. It looked most attractive.
After driving in silence for another ten kilometres, our driver slowed down suddenly and said, ‘Here’s the spot. This is where the accident took place.’ He parked the jeep on one side and we got out. The place was remarkably quiet. I could hear nothing but the faint chirping of a bird, and the gurgling of a small river in the far distance.
On our left was a slope. The hill rose almost in a straight line on our right. It was from the top of this hill that the boulder had fallen. Pieces of it were still strewn about. The thought of the accident suddenly made me feel a little sick.
Feluda, in the meantime, had finished taking a few quick photos. Then he passed his camera to me and walked over to the edge of the road on the left. ‘It may be possible to climb down this slope, if I go very carefully. Wait for me. I shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes,’ he said. Before I could say or do anything to stop him, he had stepped off the road and was climbing down the slope, clutching at plants, bushes and rocks, whistling nonchalantly. But the sound of his whistling faded gradually, and in just a few minutes there was silence once more. Unable to contain myself, I moved towards the edge of the road and took a quick look. What I saw made me give an involuntary gasp. I could see Feluda, but he had climbed such a distance already that his figure looked like that of a tiny doll.
‘Yes, he’s found the right spot,’ said the driver, joining me. ‘That’s where the jeep had fallen.’
Exactly fifteen minutes later, I heard Feluda climbing up, once again clutching and grasping whatever he could lay his hands on. When he came closer, I stretched an arm and helped him heave himself up on the road.
‘What did you find, Feluda?’
‘Just some nuts and bolts and broken parts of a vehicle. No Yamantak.’
This did not surprise me. ‘Did you find nothing else?’ I asked. In reply, Feluda took out a small object from his pocket. It was a white shirt button, possibly made of plastic. Feluda put it away, and made his way to the hill that rose high on the other side of the road. I heard him mutter ‘rocks and boulders, rocks and boulders’ a couple of times. Then he raised his voice and said, ‘Felu Mitter must now turn into Tenzing.’
‘What do you mean? Why Tenzing? Hey Feluda, wait for me!’ This time, I was determined not to be lef
t behind. The hill that had looked pretty daunting at first turned out to have little clefts and hollows one could use as footholds. ‘All right, you go before me,’ Feluda said. I knew he wanted to be right behind me so that he could reach out and catch me if I slipped and fell. Luckily, that did not happen. A few minutes later, I heard Feluda say, ‘Stop!’ We had reached a place that was almost flat. I decided to sit on a small rock and rest for a while. Feluda began pacing, examining the ground carefully. I paid no attention until he stopped and said, ‘Hm. This is where that boulder must have slipped from. Look at those bushes over there—and that small fern—see how they’ve been crushed?’
‘How big do you think it was?’
‘You saw the pieces, didn’t you? It need not have been very big. A rock the size of a dhobi’s bundle would be enough to kill, if it fell from such a height.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. It’s a matter of momentum, you see. Mass into velocity. If you stood at the bottom of Qutab Minar and someone threw a pebble aimed at your head from its top, you might end up with a fractured skull. Haven’t you noticed when you play cricket that the higher the cricket ball is thrown in the air, the more difficult and painful it is for a fielder to catch it?’
‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
Feluda turned and started to stare at a certain spot that looked more barren than its surroundings. There were grassy patches everywhere else.
‘Topshe, do you want to find out how that stone slipped out? Come and have a look.’ Feluda pointed at something in that barren portion of the hill. I got up and peered. There was a small hole. What could it mean?
‘As far as I can see,’ Feluda said slowly, ‘yes, I am almost a hundred per cent sure about this—someone forced the rock out of the ground, using either a strong iron rod, or something like that. Otherwise there wouldn’t be an empty space here. Which means—’
I knew what his next words were going to be. But I held my breath and let him finish.
‘—Which means the accident that took Mr Shelvankar’s life was caused by man, not nature. Someone killed him . . . someone incredibly cruel, and clever.’