Menagerie & other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries

by Saradindu Bandyopadhyaya

  ‘Do you have the letter?’ Byomkesh asked him.

  ‘No. I tore it up.’

  ‘Were there any witnesses to your visit to Calcutta that night?’

  ‘No. I didn’t want anyone to see me leave. I stole away under cover of darkness.’

  ‘How did you get to the station?’ Byomkesh asked him. ‘On foot?’

  ‘No. The farm has a bicycle which I borrowed.’

  ‘Right. What could “You are in deep trouble” mean?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘The anonymous letter said that much would come to light about a certain person. Who is that person? Was there mention of a name?’

  Bijoy gulped before replying, ‘No name was mentioned. I don’t know who that person could be.’

  ‘What made you set out for Calcutta then?’

  ‘I wanted to find out who had written that anonymous letter.’

  ‘Right. Please don’t mind my asking you this question, but was there a problem over the accounts of the shop you’d been entrusted to look after?’

  Bijoy answered a trifle defiantly, ‘Yes, there was. I have a right to my uncle’s money. I took some of it.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I haven’t been keeping track. Two or three thousand, perhaps.’

  ‘And what did you do with the money?’

  ‘What does one do with money? I suppose I blew it up at the races.’

  Byomkesh gave him a mocking smile. ‘You didn’t blow it up at the races,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I have no further questions. Ajit, please ask Bonolokhhi to come in. And if Bhujangadharbabu is there, I’d like him to come in too.’

  I hadn’t noticed whether Bhujangadharbabu had arrived or not. I got up and went into the drawing room to check. Everyone looked up, intrigued. Bhujangadharbabu had come and he was standing by the door. He wore a dreamy expression and on seeing me, said with a chuckle, ‘… “Her teeth as fair as the delicate flower”.’

  Taken aback, I asked, ‘What was that?’

  Bhujangadharbabu’s dreaminess evaporated. He explained, ‘That’s the antidote to Mohamudgar. Have I been summoned? Come on, then.’

  ‘Yes, do come along.’

  As I turned to Bonolokhhi, something odd happened. She had been standing by the window, her hands resting against the bars, when she suddenly screamed and fell to the floor. I ran to her. Byomkesh and Barat rushed in from the next room.

  Bonolokhhi had sustained an injury on the right side of her forehead. The gash was bleeding. Byomkesh was trying to raise her to her feet. He looked up and said, ‘Doctor, your services are needed. She has fainted.’

  Bhujangadharbabu came over to examine her. Looking a bit peeved, he declared, ‘It’s hardly a serious injury—nothing that warrants fainting.’

  ‘But how did she get hurt?’

  ‘How should I know? Perhaps someone aimed a pebble or something through the window and it struck her.’

  Barat fished out a torch from his pocket and ran outside. Byomkesh asked Bhujangadharbabu, ‘What is to be done with her now?’

  Bhujangadharbabu grimaced. Then lifting Bonolokhhi up in his arms, he announced, ‘I am taking her back to her cottage. Once she’s laid out on the bed and her face sprinkled with some water, she’ll come to. All the wound needs is to be dressed with tincture of iodine. You gentlemen carry on. I’ll be back in five minutes.’

  All this while, Bijoy seemed to be in a kind of trance. Now he stirred and said, ‘I’ll come along with you.’

  ‘Please do,’ Bhujangadharbabu invited, before setting off with Bonolokhhi in his arms. As he was going out through the door, I heard him say to Bijoy, ‘Do me a favour—fetch the bottle of tincture of iodine and some bandages from my cottage, will you?’

  Byomkesh didn’t go back to the next room. He took a seat right there instead. ‘What a mess!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ajit, you were right here, weren’t you? What exactly happened?’

  I narrated the entire incident, including the reference to the sloka from the classic poem. Byomkesh listened to it all with a frown.

  Barat returned and said, ‘Couldn’t find anyone out there. There were footprints on the ground below the window, but they didn’t look like fresh ones. Pebbles and stones, of course, there are in plenty.’

  The light caught a thin sliver of black glass on the floor at the spot where Bonolokhhi had fainted. Byomkesh walked over and picked it up. He held it up to the light and observed, ‘It’s a chip from a glass bangle. Perhaps, when Bonolokhhi fell, one of her bangles broke.’

  Byomkesh handed the piece of glass to Barat, resumed his seat and addressed Nepalbabu. ‘Perhaps you are all aware that the police suspect Nishanathbabu’s death was an unnatural one. Therefore we are conducting a little investigation. Nepalbabu, where were you between ten o’clock and eleven on the night Nishanathbabu died?’

  It was a direct question and the suspicion underlying it was not too carefully disguised either. Nepalbabu’s hackles rose, but he cast an oblique glance at Barat before replying in a restrained tone, ‘I was playing chess.’

  At this moment, my eyes fell on Panugopal who was sitting in a corner of the room. He had taken the cotton balls out of his ears and was straining to catch the exchanges.

  ‘Chess, was it?’ Byomkesh inquired. ‘With whom?’

  ‘With Mukul.’

  ‘Does she know how to play the game?’

  ‘Why don’t you play with her and find out?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Byomkesh replied, ‘that won’t be necessary. When the two of you were playing, was anyone else around?’

  ‘No one. I had no idea Nishanath would choose that moment to die, or I would have arranged for some witnesses to be around.’

  ‘Did neither of you pass this way on that night?’ Byomkesh asked.

  ‘Why on earth would we pass this way? The intense heat was keeping us awake. That’s why we were playing chess.’

  ‘So if anyone had entered this house on that night, you wouldn’t have been aware of it?

  ‘No, we wouldn’t.’

  At this point, Panugopal stood up abruptly. His face was flushed and his eyes aflame with the intensity of his feelings. He was trying his utmost to articulate words; but no sounds emerged from his mouth.

  Byomkesh asked him, ‘Do you wish to say something?’

  Panu nodded vigorously and tried again, but to no avail.

  Nepalbabu looked disgusted. ‘A bunch of deaf mutes and their doings,’ he muttered.

  A sound at the door attracted my attention. I turned to see that Bhujangadharbabu was back. His piercing stare was turned on Panugopal. He came forward and said, ‘Perhaps Panu was trying to say something. But, right now, he is agitated and won’t be able to articulate his thoughts. Later, when he is calmer, maybe …’

  Byomkesh asked, ‘What’s the news back there?’

  ‘Bonolokhhi has regained consciousness. I have dressed the wound on her forehead.’

  ‘Where is Bijoybabu?’

  ‘He is with Bonolokhhi.’ Bhujangadharbabu’s lips parted in a hint of a smile.

  Nepalbabu rose and asked in a harsh voice, ‘I suppose our interrogation is over. May we leave now?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ was Byomkesh’s reply. He turned to Mukul. ‘Have you ever acted in films?’

  Mukul blanched and as her eyes darted around apprehensively, she stammered, ‘I—no, I have never acted in films.’

  Nepalbabu roared, ‘Lies! Who dares say my daughter acts in films? Lying swines, every one of them!’

  ‘There is no dearth of people who would admit to having seen your daughter frequenting film studios,’ Byomkesh said softly.

  Nepalbabu was about to let out another roar when Mukul stopped him and admitted, ‘It’s true that I have visited the film studios sometimes, but I have never acted. Come along, Baba.’ With that, Mukul left the room. Nepalbabu followed, throwing belligerent looks around him as he went.

  Byomkesh said, ‘So Ramenbabu was right. Anyway, Bhujangadharba
bu, for you too I have just one more question. Where were you between ten o’clock and eleven, that night?

  Bhujangadharbabu permitted himself his lopsided smile and replied, ‘After dinner that night, I sat in my room for a long time with the lights turned out and played the sitar. I haven’t paid much mind to the matter of witnesses and alibis.’

  Byomkesh sat in silence for a while, his head bowed. Then he rose to his feet and suggested to Barat, ‘Come on, let’s pay a visit to Bonolokhhi.’

  17

  As Barat, Byomkesh and I approached Bonolokhhi’s cottage, our eyes were drawn to a cozy scene through the open window that overlooked the grounds to one side. The room we were looking into was probably Bonolokhhi’s bedroom. The light was on. Bonolokhhi lay on the bed. Sitting by her and chatting in an undertone was Bijoy.

  The young man came out when he heard our footsteps. ‘Bonolokhhi is still very weak,’ he offered by way of explanation. ‘The wound is not too deep, but it seems to have strained her nerves. Would it be right to interrogate her now?’

  In a gentle tone, Byomkesh replied, ‘Don’t worry. There will be no interrogation. We have merely come to see how she is and we’ll be leaving right afterwards.’

  ‘Well, then, come in.’

  Byomkesh placed his hand on Bijoy’s shoulder in a friendly gesture of familiarity and said, ‘Bijoybabu, there’s one other thing you need to do. There’s no one else who can do it.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Panugopal knows something. I think he saw something on the night your uncle died. But he is too agitated to express himself properly. Could you calm him down and get it out of him? We can’t, because the very sight of us gets him all worked up.’

  His interest aroused, Bijoy replied, ‘Right. Let me give it a shot.’ And off he went.

  We entered Bonolokhhi’s cottage. The young woman was sitting up at one end of a narrow iron cot. Her head was swathed in bandages. When she caught sight of us, she made as if to rise to her feet.

  ‘Oh no, no, please don’t get up,’ Byomkesh protested, ‘just stay where you are.’

  Looking rather abashed, Bonolokhhi said faintly, ‘I don’t even know where I can ask all of you to sit.’

  ‘There’s no need to worry about that,’ Byomkesh reassured her. ‘The important thing is for you to just lie back and be comfortable.’

  Bonolokhhi lay down and curled up self-consciously. Byomkesh seated himself on the edge of the cot, while we went and stood at the foot of the bed. It was a tiny, spartan room. Apart from the iron bed, it practically contained no other piece of furniture.

  In a light, chatty voice, Byomkesh asked, ‘So what exactly happened? Did someone throw a stone from outside?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Bonolokhhi offered weakly. ‘One moment I was there at the window, holding the bars. The very next, it’s a complete blank. I came to with the burning sensation of the tincture of iodine that the doctor had applied to my injury.’

  ‘Are you hurt anywhere else, other than on the forehead?’

  Bonolokhhi stretched out her right arm to show us the spot. ‘I was wearing glass bangles which broke. I just got some scratches on my arm. That’s all. Perhaps my hand was close to my temple at the time and the pebble struck the bangles too …’

  ‘Quite likely.’ Byomkesh examined her arm and observed, ‘I think the pebble hit your arm first. That’s why the cut on your head isn’t as deep as it could have been. Tell me, who could have thrown the stone? Is there anyone on the farm who is miffed with you?’

  In a hurt voice, Bonolokhhi replied, ‘Mukul and Nepalbabu don’t like … don’t care much for me. Other than them … Otherwise …’

  ‘Other than those two, Bhujangadharbabu isn’t too keen on you either.’

  Bonolokhhi remained silent.

  Byomkesh went on, ‘Bhujangadharbabu may not really like you, but that doesn’t stop him from doing his duty.’

  A bitter smile appeared on Bonolokhhi’s lips. ‘No, oh no!’ she exclaimed. ‘He has generously poured the tincture of iodine on the cut on my forehead.’

  Byomkesh laughed. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘do you have any trouble getting along with Brojodas or Rashikbabu?’

  Bonolokhhi replied, ‘Brojodas Thakur was a very nice man. He was quite fond of me. I don’t know why he left the way he did, without telling a soul …’

  ‘And Rashikbabu?’

  ‘I have merely seen Rashikbabu. We have never spoken to each other. He was not a very outgoing sort of person. He remained preoccupied with his own work.’

  ‘Well, let’s drop the subject for the time being. Are you feeling a little better now?’

  Bonolokhhi smiled a little. ‘Yes.’

  Byomkesh said, ‘In that case, allow me to repeat the standard question: Where were you that night between ten o’clock and eleven?’

  Bonolokhhi’s eyes clouded over. In a faint voice, she asked, ‘So, Kakababu’s death was …?’

  ‘It seems so,’ Byomkesh admitted. Bonolokhhi closed her eyes for a few moments, then said, ‘That night, after dinner, I came back from the kitchen and did some sewing late into the night.’

  We had seen a sewing machine with a foot pedal in the room outside; I remembered Nishanathbabu mentioning earlier that Bonolokhhi was in charge of tailoring all the clothes worn by the farm’s residents.

  Gently, Byomkesh asked, ‘You do all the stitching for the farm, do you? Was there a lot of work piled up that evening?’

  ‘No, not really. I was sewing a silk dressing gown for Kakababu.’ Momentarily, Bonolokhhi’s eyes filled with tears.

  After an instant’s silence, Byomkesh said, ‘Tell me something: When you were operating the sewing machine that night, did you hear Bhujangadharbabu playing the sitar? His cottage is right next door.’

  Bonolokhhi wiped her eyes and answered, ‘No, I didn’t hear a thing. With the sewing machine running, how could I?’ She sounded vexed.

  Byomkesh suppressed a smile and said, ‘Not only does Bhujangadharbabu dislike you, you don’t seem to be too fond of him either. Bhujangadharbabu was playing the sitar in his own room that night; at least, so he claims. If you didn’t hear him, then I have to assume he’s lying.’

  Now there was a complete change in Bonolokhhi’s expression. Sheepish and very contrite, she grabbed Byomkesh by the hand and said in a fervent tone, ‘No! He was playing the sitar. I heard it during the pauses when my sewing machine wasn’t running!’

  Byomkesh held her hand in both of his and asked, ‘But didn’t you just say you heard nothing?’

  Bonolokhhi pouted and in a voice tinged with hurt and remorse said, ‘The way he treats me …’

  ‘But why does he treat you that way? Is there a reason for it?’

  Bonolokhhi drew back her hand and smoothed it over her temple. She said softly, ‘You don’t need to go into that.’

  ‘But I need to know.’

  Bonolokhhi remained quiet. Byomkesh repeated his request. Then she began to speak in an embarrassed voice. ‘I suppose you know all about me … I am responsible for the disgrace I have brought on myself in this life and in the hereafter. It was Kakababu who was kind enough to give me refuge here … or else …

  ‘When I first arrived here, the doctor was very well disposed towards me. He was quite outgoing and I really liked him. He was a maestro on the sitar. From my childhood, I had always been musically inclined. But I had never had the opportunity to undergo any form of training. One day I approached him and said, “I’d like to learn to play the sitar. Will you teach me?”’

  ‘And?’

  Bonolokhhi’s eyes blurred with tears. ‘What he proposed made me run for my life … I have erred seriously once, so he presumes I am the kind who …’ She choked on her words.

  Byomkesh sat in sombre silence for a few moments. Then he remarked, ‘Well, Bhujangadharbabu seems to be someone other than the kind of person we’d imagined him to be! Does anyone know about your experience with him?’

  Bo
nolokhhi shook her head and bit her tongue in a gesture expressing her sense of shame over the entire episode. ‘I haven’t told anyone. Is this something one can mention in polite company? Nobody would have believed me, anyway … when a woman has fallen from virtue once …’

  There were footsteps outside. Bonolokhhi looked startled. Then she implored in a nervous whisper, ‘He—Bijoybabu is coming! Please don’t mention this matter to him. He has a temper …’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ Byomkesh reassured her before rising to leave.

  We ran into Bijoy at the door. ‘What happened?’ Byomkesh asked him. ‘Did you manage to get something out of Panugopal?’

  ‘Not a thing!’ Bijoy replied, looking both glum and exasperated. ‘That Panu is an idiot. He probably had nothing to say anyway. And when he does eventually speak up, what he says may turn out to be something quite trivial. It would, in all likelihood, be of little use to you.’

  ‘That maybe true. But no harm in trying, is there? Something useful may turn up yet.’

  ‘I shall take another try tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll be on our way, then.’

  ‘Right. If anything comes up, I shall give you a call tomorrow.’

  Bijoy remained with Bonolokhhi as we came out. The steps leading off the cottage lay in darkness. Barat switched on his torch.

  A shadowy figure, draped in black, was crouching beneath the window from which Bonolokhhi’s bedroom was visible. The moment the torch flashed upon the figure, it slithered off like an apparition and vanished amongst the trees. As swift as lightning, Byomkesh grabbed the torch from Barat and sprinted after the fugitive. We stood there for a while, flabbergasted, then followed him, stumbling through the dark as we went.

  When we had covered a short distance, we met Byomkesh on his way back. He was breathing hard as he gasped, ‘Didn’t make it. I was on that creature’s trail right up to the area behind Nepalbabu’s cottage. Then I lost it.’