by Satyajit Ray
We passed a gumpha on the way. Outside its entrance were a lot of flags strung from a thin rope, to ward off evil spirits. Each of them looked clean and fresh. ‘Preparations for Buddha Purnima,’ explained Mr Bose.
‘When is it?’ asked Feluda absent-mindedly.
‘Buddha Purnima? Tomorrow, I think. On seventeenth April.’
‘Seventeenth April . . . on the Indian calendar that would be the fourth of Baisakh . . . hmm . . . Baisakh . . . ’
I looked at Feluda in surprise. Why was he suddenly so concerned about dates? And why was he looking so grim? Why was he cracking his knuckles?
There was no opportunity to ask him. Our jeep had entered a forest. The road here had been badly damaged by the recent rains. Thondup crawled along with extreme care, despite which there were a few nasty bumps. One of these resulted in Mr Sarkar banging his head against the roof of the jeep. ‘Bloody hell!’ I heard him mutter.
The forest grew thicker and darker. Helmut pointed at a tall tree with dark green leaves and a light bark, and said, ‘That’s a birch. If you ever went to England, you’d get to see a lot of them.’ There were trees on both sides. The road coiled upwards like a snake. It wasn’t just dark inside the forest, but also much more damp. From somewhere came the sharp cry of a strange bird.
‘Th-thrilling, isn’t it?’ said Mr Sarkar. Suddenly, without any warning, the trees cleared. We found ourselves in front of a hillock, under an overcast sky. A few moments later, the tiled roof of a bungalow came into view, followed by the whole building.
This was the famous dak bungalow of Pemiangchi. Built during British times, it stood at a spot that was truly out of this world. Rows and rows of peaks rose behind the bungalow, their colours ranging from lush green to a hazy blue.
Our jeep stopped outside the front door. The chowkidar came out. On being told who we were, he nodded and confirmed that rooms had been booked for us.
‘Is there anyone else staying here?’ asked Mr Bose.
‘No, sir. The bungalow’s empty.’
‘Empty? Why, did no one come here before us?’ Feluda asked anxiously.
‘Yes, but he left last night. A man with a beard, and he wore dark glasses.’
Twelve
The chowkidar’s words appeared to disappoint Helmut the most. He sat down on the grass outside, placing his camera beside him.
Mr Bose said, ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do immediately, can we? Let’s have lunch. I’m starving.’
We went into the bungalow carrying our luggage. It was obvious that the bungalow had been built several decades ago. The wooden floor and ceiling, the wide verandas with wooden railings and old-fashioned furniture all bore evidence of an era gone by. The view from the veranda was breathtaking. If the sky wasn’t cloudy, we would have been able to see Kanchenjunga, which was twenty-two miles away. There was no noise anywhere except the chirping of birds.
We crossed the veranda and went into the dining hall. Mr Bose found an easy chair and took it. He said to Feluda, ‘I wasn’t too sure about Vaidya before, although you did tell me you had your suspicions. But now I’m convinced he’s our man. SS should never have shown him such a valuable object as that statue.’
Helmut had risen to his feet, but hadn’t joined us. I could see him pacing in the veranda outside. Mr Sarkar went inside, possibly to look for a bathroom. Feluda began to inspect the other rooms in the bungalow. I sat quietly in the dining hall, feeling most depressed. Was our journey really going to turn out to be a complete waste of time?
There were two doors on one side, leading to two bedrooms. Feluda came out of one of these with a walking-stick in his hand. ‘Dr Vaidya most certainly visited this place,’ Feluda said, ‘and he left this stick to prove it. How very strange!’ Feluda’s voice sounded different. I looked up quickly, but said nothing. Mr Sarkar returned, wiping his face with a handkerchief. ‘What a weird place!’ he exclaimed, taking the chair next to mine, yawning noisily. Feluda did not sit down. He stood before the fireplace, tapping the stick softly on the ground. His mouth was set in a grim line.
‘Mr Sarkar!’ called Mr Bose. ‘Where are those packed lunches your hotel gave you? Let’s eat.’
‘No!’ said Feluda, his voice sounding cold and remote. ‘This is not the time to eat.’
Mr Sarkar had started to rise. He flopped back in his chair at Feluda’s words. Mr Bose and I both looked at him in surprise. But Feluda’s face remained without expression.
Then he sat down, lit a Charminar and inhaled deeply. ‘Mr Bose,’ he said conversationally, ‘you know someone in Ghatshila, you said. Isn’t that where you were before you caught a flight from Calcutta?’
‘Yes. A nephew of mine got married.’
‘You are a Hindu, aren’t you, Mr Bose?’
‘Why? What do you mean?’
‘You heard me. What are you? A Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Christian, or what?’
‘How does that—?’
‘Just tell me.’
‘I’m a Hindu, of course.’
‘Hm.’ Feluda blew out two smoke rings. One of them wafted towards Mr Bose, getting larger and larger, until it disappeared in front of his face.
‘But,’ Feluda frowned, ‘you and I travelled together in the same plane. You had just got back from Ghatshila, hadn’t you?’
‘Yes, but why is that causing you such concern? I can’t understand this at all, Mr Mitter. What has my nephew’s wedding in Ghatshila got to do with anything?’
‘It has plenty to do with things, Mr Bose. Traditionally, no Hindu would get married in the month of Chaitra. We left Calcutta on fourteenth April, which was the first of Baisakh. Your nephew’s wedding took place before that, so it must have been in the preceding month, which was Chaitra. How did you allow this to happen?’
Mr Bose was in the middle of lighting a cigarette. He stopped, his hands shaking a little. ‘What are you implying, Mr Mitter? Just what are you trying to say?’
Feluda looked steadily at Mr Bose, without giving him an immediate answer. Then he said, slowly and deliberately, ‘I am implying a lot of things, Mr Bose. To start with, you are a liar. You never went to Ghatshila. Secondly, you betrayed someone’s trust—’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ Mr Bose shouted.
‘We have all heard how depressed Mr Shelvankar had been before he died. He had even mentioned it to Helmut, though he did not specify the reason. It is easy enough to get totally broken in spirit if one is betrayed by a person one has trusted implicitly. I believe you were that person. You were his partner, weren’t you? Mr Shelvankar was a simple, straightforward man. You took full advantage of this and cheated him endlessly. But one day, he came to know of what you had done. When you realized this, you decided to get him out of the way forever. That wasn’t possible in Bombay, so you had to wait until he came to Sikkim. You were not supposed to be here. But you came—possibly the next day—disguised as Dr Vaidya. Yes, you were Dr Vaidya! You met Shelvankar and impressed him a great deal by telling him a few things about his life that you knew already. Then you told him about the possibility of finding Virendra in a gumpha, and left with him that morning in the same jeep. On the way, you hit his head with this heavy stick. This made him unconscious, but he did not die. You went ahead with your plan, and had the jeep pushed into the gorge. The driver had, no doubt, been bribed; that must have been easy enough to do. Then you threw that stone from the hill, using the same heavy stick to dislodge it from the ground. In spite of all this, Mr Shelvankar remained alive for a few hours, long enough to mention your name. Perhaps he had recognized you at the last minute.’
‘Nonsense! What utter rubbish are you talking, Mr Mitter?’ shouted Mr Bose. ‘Where is the proof that I am Dr Vaidya?’
In reply, Feluda asked him a strange question. ‘Where is your ring, Mr Bose?’
‘My ring?’
‘Yes, the one with “Ma” engraved on it. There’s a white mark on your finger, but you’re not wearing your ring. Where did
it go?’
‘Oh, that . . .’ Mr Bose swallowed. ‘I took it off because . . . because it felt too tight.’ He took the ring out of his pocket to show us he still had it with him.
‘When you changed your make-up and your costume, you forgot to put it back on. I had noticed that mark that evening when you were supposed to be talking to the departed soul of Shelvankar. I found it odd then, but did not pay enough attention at the time.’
Mr Bose began to rise, but Feluda’s voice rang out again, cold as steel, ‘Don’t try to move, Mr Bose. I haven’t finished.’ Mr Bose quickly sat down again, and began wiping his face. Feluda continued, ‘The day after Mr Shelvankar died, Dr Vaidya said he was going to Kalimpong. He didn’t. He shed his disguise, became Sasadhar Bose and returned to Calcutta. He had already sent a telegram to Shelvankar saying “Arriving Fourteenth”. This upset him very much since Mr Bose wasn’t supposed to be in Sikkim at all. Anyway, he came here on the fourteenth just to create an alibi for himself. Then he pretended to be greatly distressed by his partner’s death and said he would go back to Bombay the next day. Again, he didn’t. He remained in hiding somewhere near Gangtok. He returned as Dr Vaidya just to add to the confusion, and pretend he could speak to the dead. But by then he had come to know that I was a detective. So he tried to remove me from the scene, too, by throwing another boulder at me. He must have seen me walking towards Nathula Road, and had probably guessed what I was going to do. And it was he who had followed us to Rumtek—’ Feluda was interrupted suddenly by a high-pitched wail. To my surprise, I discovered it was coming from Mr Sarkar.
‘All right, Mr Sarkar,’ said Feluda. ‘Out with it! And I want the truth. Why did you go to the spot where the murder had taken place?’
Mr Sarkar raised his hands as though someone had shouted, ‘Hands up!’ Then he croaked, ‘I d-didn’t know, you see, how val-valuable that statue was. When they t-told me—’
‘Was it you who went to the Tibetan Institute?’
‘Yes. They s-said it was totally unique. So I th-thought—’
‘So you thought there was no harm in stealing from a dead man if the statue was still lying at the accident site? Especially when it had once belonged to you?’
‘Y-yes, something like th-that.’
‘But didn’t you see anyone at that particular spot?’
‘No, sir.’
‘All right. But it appears that someone did see you and was afraid that you had seen him. Hence the threats you received.’
‘Yes, that explains it.’
‘Where’s the statue?’
‘Statue? But I didn’t find it!’
‘What? You—?’ Feluda was interrupted again, this time by Mr Bose. He jumped to his feet, overturning his chair, and rushed out of the room. Helmut, who was standing at the door, was knocked down by him. Since there was only one door that led to the veranda outside, and this exit was blocked for a few moments by Helmut, who had fallen to the ground, we were delayed by about ten seconds.
By the time all of us could get out, Mr Bose had climbed back into his jeep, and its engine had already roared into life. No doubt his driver had been warned and prepared for such an eventuality. His jeep made a quick about turn and began moving towards the forest. Without a word, Thondup, who was standing by our own jeep, threw himself back in it and started the engine, assuming we would want to follow Mr Bose. As it turned out, however, there was no need to do that. Feluda took out his revolver from his pocket and fired at the rear wheels of Mr Bose’s jeep. The tyres burst instantly, making the jeep tilt to one side, run into a tree, and finally come to a halt. Mr Bose jumped out, and vanished among the trees. His driver came out, too, clutching the starting handle of his jeep. Feluda ignored him completely. He ran after Mr Bose, with Helmut, Mr Sarkar and me right behind him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Thondup pick up his own starting handle and move forward steadily, to deal with the other driver.
The four of us shot off in different directions to look for Mr Bose. I heard Helmut call out to us about ten minutes later. By the time I found him, Feluda and Mr Sarkar had joined him already. Mr Bose was standing under a large tree a few feet away. No, he wasn’t just standing. He was actually hopping around, stamping his feet and wriggling in what appeared to be absolute agony.
The reason became clear as we got closer to him. He had been attacked by leeches. At least two hundred of them were clinging to his body, some on his legs, others on his neck, shoulders and elbows. Helmut pointed at a thick root that ran across the ground near the tree. Obviously, Mr Bose had stumbled against it and fallen flat on the ground.
Feluda caught him by his collar and pulled him out in the open. ‘Get those sticks with the bundles of salt and tobacoo,’ he said to me. ‘Quick!’
We had finished eating, and were sitting on the veranda of the dak bungalow. Helmut was taking photographs of orchids. Thondup had gone and informed the police in the nearest town. Mr Bose had been handed over to them. The statue of Yamantak had been found amongst his belongings. He had forgotten to take it from Mr Shelvankar on the day of the murder. He went back later to look for it where the jeep had fallen, and found it behind a bush. As he was climbing up the hill, he saw Mr Sarkar going down, with the same purpose in mind. Fearing that he might have been seen, he started threatening and frightening Mr Sarkar.
It also turned out that Mr Bose had an accomplice in Bombay, with whom he had stayed in touch. It was this man who had answered Feluda’s call, received his telegram and informed Mr Bose in Gangtok.
Having explained these details, Feluda turned to Mr Sarkar. ‘You are a small-time crook yourself, aren’t you? You’re lucky you couldn’t retrieve that statue. If you had, we’d have had to find a suitable punishment for you.’
‘I’ve been punished adequately, believe me!’ Mr Sarkar said, looking profusely apologetic. ‘I found as many as three leeches in one of my socks. They must have drunk gallons of my blood. I feel quite weak, as a matter of fact.’
‘I see. Anyway, I hope you’ll have the sense not sell anything else that belonged to your grandfather. And look, here’s your button.’
I noticed for the first time that the last button on Mr Sarkar’s shirt was missing. Mr Sarkar took the button from Feluda and, after a long time, smiled his old smile.
‘Th-thanks,’ he said.
The Golden Fortress
One
Feluda stopped reading and shut his book with a bang. Then he snapped his fingers twice, yawned heavily and said, ‘Geometry.’
I asked, ‘Were you reading a book on geometry all this while?’ The book was covered with newspaper, so I could not see its title. All I knew was that Feluda had borrowed it from Uncle Sidhu, who was passionate about books. He bought quite a few, and took great care of them. In fact, he did not like lending his books to anyone, but Feluda was an exception. Feluda knew it, so he always put a protective cover on any book that he brought from Uncle Sidhu’s house.
Feluda lit a Charminar and blew out two smoke rings, one after the other. ‘There is no such thing as a book on geometry,’ he told me. ‘Any book may be seen as one because everything around us is related to geometry. Did you see those smoke rings? When they left my mouth, they were perfect circles. Now just think. There are circles everywhere. Look at your own body. The iris in your eye is a circle. With the help of the iris, you can look at the sun and the moon. If you think of them as flat objects, they are circles, but of course they are actually spheres—each a solid bubble. That’s geometry. The planets in the solar system are orbiting the sun in elliptic curves. There’s geometry again. When you spat out of the window a little while ago—you shouldn’t have done that, it’s most unhygienic and if you do it again, you’ll get a sharp rap on the head, but anyway—that spit went out in a parabolic curve. Geometry, see? Have you ever looked at a spider’s web in any detail? It starts with a simple square. Then two diagonal lines run through it and the square is divided into four triangles. After that, the spider starts wea
ving a spiral web from the intersecting point of those diagonal lines. That keeps growing in size, until it covers the entire square. If you think about it, your head will start reeling . . . it’s something so amazing!’
It was a Sunday morning. The two of us were sitting in our living room on the ground floor. Baba had gone to visit his childhood friend, Subimal, as he did every Sunday. Feluda was seated on a sofa, his feet resting on a low table.
I was on a divan, leaning on a cushion placed against the wall. In my hand was a game. It was a maze, made of plastic. Inside the maze were tiny metal balls. Over the last half hour, I had been trying to make those metal balls slip through the various lanes in the maze and go straight to its centre. Now I realized that the game was a matter of complex geometry, too.
A Durga Puja was being held in Nihar and Pintu’s house, which was near ours. Someone was playing a song over a loudspeaker— Yeh jo muhabbat hai from the film Kati Patang. Fine spiral grooves on a circular record. More geometry!
‘Geometry applies not just to objects you can see,’ Feluda continued. ‘The human mind often follows geometric patterns. A simple man’s mind will run along a straight line. Others who are not so simple may have minds that twist and wriggle like a snake. And the mind of a lunatic? No one can tell how that’s going to run. It’s a matter of the most convoluted geometry!’
Thanks to Feluda, I had come across plenty of people from every category. What kind of geometric pattern did he fall into? When I asked him, Feluda said, ‘You might call me a many-pointed star.’
‘And I? Am I a satellite of that star?’
‘You are merely a point, something that indicates a position, but has no significance of its own.’
I like to think of myself as a satellite. The only problem is that I cannot play that role all the time. I managed to be with Feluda when we had trouble in Gangtok because that was during school holidays. Two cases had followed—one was a murder in Dhalbhoomgarh, and the other was to do with a forged will in Patna—which I missed altogether. Now my school was closed once again for Puja. I was wondering if a new case would come along. Who knew whether it really would? But then, Feluda did tell me that if one badly wants something to happen, and if one’s will is strong enough, then a particular wish may well come true, more or less automatically. I quite like to think what happened that Sunday morning was simply a result of my willing it.