The Complete Adventures of Feluda: Volume I

by Satyajit Ray

  ‘Simply to save the good name of his family?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s the reason, Mr Mitter. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’

  Mr Sanyal rose, and left.

  We left at half past eight. There were two jeeps once again, like the first day. Feluda, Lalmohan Babu and I were in one; in the other were Mahitosh Babu, Mr Sanyal, Madhavlal and a bearer called Parvat Singh. There were three rifles with us today. Madhavlal had his, Mahitosh Babu had another, and the third was with Feluda. He himself had asked for a rifle. Having heard from Madhavlal how he had killed the snake with his revolver, Mahitosh Babu had raised no objection. ‘You can choose whatever you like,’ he had said. ‘The 375 would be suitable for a tiger.’

  I did not understand what the number signified, but could see that the rifle was most impressive in size, and probably also in weight.

  As a matter of fact, I was the only one who was not armed. Feluda had handed the sword to Lalmohan Babu this morning, saying, ‘Hang on to it. This sword has an important role to play today. You’ll soon get to see what I mean.’ Lalmohan Babu was therefore clutching it tightly, wearing an air of suppressed excitement.

  When we woke this morning, the sky was clear. But now it had started to cloud over again. The road being muddy and slippery, we took longer to reach the forest. Each driver took his jeep half a mile further into the forest than the last time, but then could go no further. ‘Never mind,’ Madhavlal said, ‘I know the way. We have to cross a nullah and walk for fifteen minutes to get to the temple.’

  We began our journey amidst the rustle of leaves, a cool breeze and the occasional rumble in the sky. Feluda loaded his gun before getting out of the jeep. Mahitosh Babu’s gun was being carried by Parvat Singh. Apparently, he had always accompanied his master on hunting expeditions. A short but well-built man, he clearly did not lack physical strength.

  I saw a herd of deer in a few minutes. A sudden surge of joy filled my heart, but then it leapt in fear. Somewhere in this forest—perhaps not very far away—was a man-eater. Normally, a tiger could easily walk more than twenty miles and travel from one forest to another to look for a prey. But if it was injured, it might not be able to walk very far. In any case, the forest here was not all that big. Large areas of woodland had been cleared to make tea estates, and farms. Besides, although tigers didn’t usually come out of hiding during the day, they were likely to do so if the day was dark and cloudy. This was something I had learnt from Feluda only this morning.

  Soon, we came to the nullah. It had probably been quite dry even a day ago, but was now gurgling merrily. A lot of animals had left their footprints on the wet sand by its sides. Madhavlal pointed out the marks left by deer, wild boars and a hyena; but there was no sign of a tiger. We crossed it and continued to walk. I could hear a hoopoe in the distance, a peacock cried out once, and there were crickets in the bushes we passed. The faint rustling noise in the grass told me lizards and other smaller reptiles were quickly moving out of our way to avoid being crushed to death under our feet.

  The route we took today was a different one, but it did not take us very long to reach the spot we had visited yesterday. There was the bush with the purple flowers. That was where we had found the sword. Madhavlal moved silently, and each one of us tried to do the same. Actually, it was not all that difficult to muffle the noise our feet made, for the ground was wet and there were no dry leaves.

  Piles of broken bricks came into view. We had reached the temple of the Chopped Goddess. No one spoke. Madhavlal stopped in front of the temple. We joined him noiselessly. Since my attention had been wholly taken up the day before by the peepul tree and the two palms, I hadn’t noticed the other big trees in the area. A cool breeze now wafted through their leaves, and the nullah still rippled faintly in the background.

  Feluda walked over to the palms. Mahitosh Babu followed him swiftly. The hole in the ground was even more full of water today. After a while, Feluda broke the silence.

  ‘This is where Adityanarayan had hidden his treasure,’ he said. ‘But. . . where did it go?’ Mahitosh Babu asked hoarsely.

  ‘It has not gone far, unless someone removed it yesterday after we left.’

  Mahitosh Babu’s eyes began gleaming with hope.

  ‘Do you really think so? Are you sure?’ he asked eagerly. Feluda turned to face him squarely. ‘Mahitosh Babu, can you tell us what that treasure consists of? What exactly was buried under the ground?’

  Mahitosh Babu’s face had gone red with excitement. A couple of veins stood out on his forehead.

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Mitter, but I can guess,’ he spoke with an effort. ‘One of my ancestors—called Yashwant Sinha-Roy—was the chief of the army in the princely state of Coochbehar. The money he had been paid by the Maharaja was kept in our house. There were more than a thousand silver coins, four hundred years old. When Adityanarayan decided to hide these, he had crossed sixty and was beginning to lose his mind. He had started to indulge in childish pranks. No one could find those coins after he died. Now, after all these years, his coded message has told us where they were hidden. I can’t afford to lose them again, Mr Mitter. I have got to find them!’

  Feluda turned from Mahitosh Babu and began walking towards the temple. He stopped for a second as he passed me, and said, ‘Here, Topshe, hold my rifle for me. I don’t think I’ll need it inside that hall. A revolver should be good enough.’

  My hands started to tremble, but I pulled myself together and took the rifle from him. Then I realized just how heavy it was.

  Feluda walked on and entered the dark hall once more. I saw him put his hand into his pocket before he disappeared through its broken door.

  In less than five seconds, we heard him fire twice. No one said anything, but I could feel a shiver go down my spine. Then Feluda’s voice spoke from inside the temple: ‘Mahitosh Babu, could you please send your bearer here?’

  Parvat Singh handed the rifle to his master, and went into the temple. A couple of seconds later, he emerged with a dirty, muddy brass pitcher in his hands. Feluda followed him. Mahitosh Babu rushed forward towards his bearer.

  ‘Who knew a cobra would be attracted to silver coins? Feluda said with a smile. ‘I had heard its hiss yesterday. Today, I found it wound around that pitcher, as if it was giving it a tight embrace!

  Mahitosh Babu had thrown aside his rifle. I saw him pounce upon the pitcher and put his hand into it. Just as he brought it out, clutching a handful of coins, an animal cried out nearby. It was a barking deer. Monkeys joined it immediately, jumping from branch to branch, making an incessant noise.

  A lot of things happened at once. Even now, as I write about it, I feel shaken and confused. To start with, a remarkable change came over Mahitosh Babu. Only a moment ago, he had seemed overjoyed at the sight of his treasure. Now, he dropped the coins, jumped up and took three steps backwards, as if he had received an electric shock. Each one of us turned into a statue. Feluda was the first to speak, but his voice was low. ‘Topshe,’ he whispered, ‘climb that tree. You, too, Lalmohan Babu. Go on, be quick!’

  We were standing near the famous peepul tree. I returned the rifle to Feluda, placed a foot in the big hollow and grasped a branch. In about ten seconds, I was a good ten feet from the ground. Lalmohan Babu followed suit, with surprising agility, having passed me the sword. Soon, he was sitting on a branch higher than mine. He told us afterwards that he had had a lot of practice in climbing trees as a child, but I had no idea he could do it even at the age of forty.

  I saw what followed from the treetop. Lalmohan Babu saw some of it, then fainted quietly. But his arms and legs were so securely wrapped around a big branch that he did not fall down.

  It was obvious to everyone that there was a tiger in the vicinity. That was why Feluda had told us to get out of the way. Mahitosh Babu’s reaction was the most surprising. I could never have imagined he would behave like that. He turned to Feluda and spoke fiercely through clenched teeth, ‘Mr Mitter, if you val
ue your own life, go away at once!’

  ‘Go away? Where could I go, Mahitosh Babu?’

  Both men were holding their rifles. Mahitosh Babu raised his, pointing it at Feluda.

  ‘Go!’ he said again. ‘The jeep is still waiting, over there. Get out of here. I command you—’ He couldn’t finish. His voice was drowned by the roar of a tiger. It sounded as if not one, but fifty wild animals had cried out together.

  Then I saw a flash of yellow—like a moving flame—through the leaves of the trees that stood behind the temple. It moved swiftly through the tall grass and all the undergrowth, and slowly took the shape of a huge, striped animal: a Royal Bengal tiger. It began making its way to the open area where the others were still standing.

  Mahitosh Babu lowered his gun. His hands were trembling uncontrollably.

  Feluda raised his own rifle. There were three other men—Shashanka Sanyal, Madhavlal and Parvat Singh. Parvat Singh gave a sudden leap and vanished from sight. I could not see what the other two were doing, for my eyes kept moving between Feluda and the tiger. It was now standing beside the temple. It bared its fangs and growled. Never before had it had such a wide choice of prey.

  Then I saw it stop, and crouch. It would spring up and attack perhaps in less than a second. I had read about this. Sometimes a tiger could—

  Bang! Bang!

  Shots rang out almost simultaneously from two different rifles. My ears started ringing. Just for a moment, even my vision seemed to blur. But I did not miss seeing what happened to the tiger. It shot up in the air, then seemed to strike against an invisible barrier, which made it take a somersault and drop to the ground. It crashed where the brass pitcher stood, its tail lashing at it, making it turn over noisily, spilling its contents. Then the tiger lay still, surrounded by four-hundred-year-old silver coins.

  Feluda slowly put his rifle down.

  ‘It’s dead, sir,’ Madhavlal announced, sounding pleased.

  ‘Who killed it? Which of the two bullets did the trick, I wonder?’ Feluda asked.

  Mahitosh Babu was in no condition to reply. He was sitting on the ground, clutching his head between his hands. His rifle had been snatched away by his friend, Shashanka Sanyal. It was he who had fired the second shot.

  Mr Sanyal walked over to the dead tiger.

  ‘Come and have a look, Mr Mitter,’ he invited. ‘One of the bullets caught him under the jaw and went through the head; the other hit him near an ear. Either of those could have killed him.

  Twelve

  The sound of double shots had brought the local villagers running to the spot. Thrilled to see their enemy killed, they were now making arrangements to tie the tiger to bamboo poles and carry it to their village. There was no doubt that this was the man-eater, for two other bullet marks had been found on its body: one on a hind leg, the other near the jaw. These had clearly made the tiger lose its natural ability to hunt for prey in the wild. Besides, the heavy growth of hair on its jowls indicated it was an old tiger, anyway. Perhaps that was another reason why it had become a man-eater.

  Parvat Singh had returned and helped his master to get up and sit on one of the broken steps of the temple. Mahitosh Babu was still looking shaken and was wiping his face frequently. Lalmohan Babu had regained consciousness and climbed down from the tree, with a little assistance from me. Then he had calmly taken the sword back, as though carrying a sword and climbing trees was something he did every day.

  After a few minutes’ silence, Feluda spoke. ‘Mahitosh Babu,’ he said, ‘you are worrying unnecessarily. I had already promised Mr Sanyal I would not disclose any of your secrets. No one will ever find out that you are not a shikari, and that you cannot even hold a gun steadily. I had my suspicions right from the start. Your signature on Lalmohan Babu’s letter made me think you were old. So I began to wonder how you could shoot, if you could not even write with a steady hand. Then I thought perhaps your hands had been affected only recently and all those tales in your books were indeed true. I started to believe this, but something your brother said raised fresh doubts in my mind. Yes, I know most of what he said was irrelevant, but I didn’t think he would actually make up a story. On the contrary, what he said often made perfect sense, if one thought about it. He obviously knew you had written books on shikar, and that the whole thing was based on lies. This distressed him very much, which is why he kept talking about Yudhisthir’s punishment for telling a lie. He also told me not everyone could be like your grandfather. Not everyone could handle weapons . . .’

  ‘Yes, they could!’ Mahitosh Babu interrupted, breathing hard and speaking very fast. ‘I killed mynahs and sparrows with my airgun when I was seven, from a distance of fifty yards. But . . .’ he glanced at the peepul tree. ‘One day, we came here for a picnic, and I climbed that tree. In fact, I was sitting on the same branch where your cousin was sitting a while ago, when my brother suddenly said he could see a tiger coming. I jumped down to see the tiger, and—’

  ‘—You broke your arm?’

  ‘Compound fracture,’ Mr Sanyal stepped forward. ‘It never really healed properly.’

  ‘I see. And yet you wanted to be known as a shikari, just because that was your family tradition? So you moved from here and went to Assam and Orissa where no one knew you? It was Mr Sanyal who killed all those animals, but everyone was convinced you were a worthy successor of your forefathers. Is that right, Mahitosh Babu?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mahitosh Babu sighed deeply, ‘that’s right. What Shashanka did for his friend is unbelievable. He is a much better shikari than anyone in my family.’

  ‘But recently . . . were you two drifting apart?’

  Both men were silent. Feluda continued, ‘I hadn’t heard of Mahitosh Sinha-Roy before his books began to be published. Nor, I am sure, had thousands of others. But when these books came out, Sinha-Roy became a famous name, didn’t it? He was praised, admired, even revered. And what was his fame based on? Nothing but lies. No one knew the name of Shashanka Sanyal. No one ever would. You had begun to resent this, Mr Sanyal, hadn’t you? You had done a lot for your friend, but perhaps the time had come to draw a line? We heard Mahitosh Babu speak very sternly to someone on our first night. I assume he was speaking to you. You two had started to disagree on most things, hadn’t you?’

  Neither man made a reply. Feluda stared steadily at Mahitosh Babu for a few moments.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I shall take silence for assent. But there is another thing. I suppose silence is the only answer to that, as well.’

  Mahitosh Babu cast a nervous glance at Feluda.

  ‘I am now talking of Torit Sengupta,’ Feluda went on. ‘You never wrote a single line yourself, just as you never killed a single animal. You said something about your manuscript, which made me go and look for it in your study. But I didn’t find anything with your handwriting on it. All you ever did was just relate your stories to Mr Sengupta. It was he who wrote them out beautifully. They were his words, his language, his style; yet, everyone thought they were yours, and you earned more praise, also as a gifted writer. Yes, it is true that you paid him well and he lived here in great comfort. But how long could he go on seeing someone else take the credit for his talent, his own hard work? Anyone with creative abilities wants to see his efforts appreciated. If he continued to work for you, there was no way his own name could ever become well known. Disappointed and frustrated, he was probably thinking of leaving, but suddenly you chanced upon that puzzle left by Adityanarayan, and Mr Sengupta saw it. It could be that he had already found references to those coins among your grandfather’s papers; so he knew what the treasure consisted of. He solved the puzzle, and decided to leave with the treasure. He even found it . . . but then things went horribly wrong.’

  Mahitosh Babu struggled to his feet, not without difficulty. ‘Yes, Mr Mitter, you are quite right in all that you’ve said,’ he remarked. ‘It is very painful for me to hear these things, but do tell me this: who killed Torit? He might have resented—even hated
—me for what I was doing, but who could have disliked him so intensely? I certainly know of no one. Nor can I imagine who else might have come to the forest that night.’

  ‘Perhaps I can help you there.’

  Mahitosh Babu had started to pace. He stopped abruptly at Feluda’s words and asked, ‘Can you?’

  Feluda turned to Mr Sanyal. ‘Didn’t you pick up a Winchester rifle from the trophy room that night and come here, Mr Sanyal? I noticed traces of mud on its butt.’

  Perhaps being a shikari had given him nerves of steel. Mr Sanyal’s face remained expressionless. ‘What if I did, Mr Mitter?’ he asked coolly. ‘What exactly are you trying to say?’

  Feluda remained just as calm. ‘I am not suggesting for a moment that you came looking for the hidden treasure,’ he said. ‘You were and still are loyal to your friend. You would never have cheated him. But is it not true that you knew Mr Sengupta had solved the puzzle?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Sanyal replied levelly, ‘I did. As a matter of fact, Torit had offered me half of the treasure since he felt we were both being deprived in the same way. But I refused. Moreover, I told him more than once not to go into the forest, because of the man-eater. But that night, when I saw the light from his torch, I had to follow him in here. Yes, I took that rifle from the trophy room. When I got here, I found that he had dug the ground and found that pitcher, but there was no sign of him. Then I looked around closely, and saw blood on the grass, and pug marks. So I quickly put the pitcher away inside the temple, and followed the marks up to the bamboo grove. Then . . . there was a flash of lightning, and I saw the tiger crouched over Torit’s body. It was too dark to see clearly, but I shot at it, and made it run away. I knew I couldn’t do anything to help Torit. It was too late. However . . .’ He broke off.

  ‘However, that isn’t all, is it? Please allow me to finish your story. Correct me if what I say is wrong. I can only guess the details.’