Menagerie & other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries

  ‘Nalini? Rameswarbabu’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s right. It all happened so long ago. You may not have heard about it. Nalini had married a young man despite opposition from the whole family. Every one of them has despised her ever since. Labanya bears her the greatest animosity of all. Rameswarbabu was also furious initially, but his anger subsequently abated. The same can’t be said of Labanya. She doesn’t receive Nalini and won’t allow her to meet Rameswarbabu. Labanya dismissed all the servants to prevent her father-in-law from seeking their help in establishing contact with his daughter. In a sense, he is a prisoner in his own home. But no compromises are made as far as his health and nursing care are concerned.’

  Following a lull in the conversation, Byomkesh said, ‘Hmm. I seem to be getting the picture. Do you happen to know if Rameswarbabu has made a will?’

  Dr Sen glanced at Byomkesh in surprise. ‘Why yes, he has! And he’s willed a share to Nalini. I didn’t know about this before, but I got to know of it last night.’

  ‘How did this come about?’

  ‘Last night, Rameswarbabu had a heart attack at around ten o’clock. The family summoned me. After an hour had passed, Rameswarbabu’s condition seemed to improve a little. That’s when I sent everyone off to have dinner. Rameswarbabu opened his eyes and looked about him. Then he whispered, “Doctor, I have made my will. If I die, do please inform Nalini.” At this point, Labanya came back into the room and no further words were uttered.’

  Byomkesh said, ‘It is quite obvious that they have not been allowing the old man to make his will for fear that he’ll leave a share of his property to Nalini. If he dies intestate, his assets will go, in the normal course of events, to his wife and son. His daughter won’t get a farthing. Who is the family lawyer?’

  ‘I don’t think Rameswarbabu has one.’

  Byomkesh rose to leave. ‘I apologize for having taken up so much of your precious time. By the way, what is Nalini’s financial situation like?’

  ‘Oh, hers is just a middle-class household muddling along anyhow. Her husband, Devnath, holds an ordinary job and brings home some three or four hundred rupees a month. But with so many children …’

  We bade the doctor goodbye and left. Although our knowledge of Rameswarbabu’s family saga was now a little more comprehensive, it scarcely brought us relief. Here was an old man with a sense of humour who really needed help in his old age. But there was no way we could extend it to him.

  A little over a week later, I found Rameswarbabu’s obituary inserted in a corner of one of the last few pages of the daily. He was not a famous man, but he was certainly wealthy. That, perhaps, was the reason why the news of his demise had made it to the newspapers.

  Since Byomkesh only read the advertisements in the newspaper, I called his attention to this bit of news. The mention of Rameswarbabu’s name brought no smile to his lips today. Byomkesh sat there pensively for quite some time. Then he went to the next room and could be heard speaking to someone on the phone.

  When he came back, I asked him, ‘Who was it you spoke to?’

  ‘Dr Ashim Sen. Rameswarbabu died the night before last. He suffered a second heart attack. Dr Sen was present, but there wasn’t much he could do. He has certified it as a natural death.’

  I asked, ‘Did you actually suspect that …’

  ‘Not exactly suspect,’ he interjected, ‘but, you know, in these situations, a little carelessness here, an instant of deliberate neglect there, can prove to be fatal. All of them stood to gain from Rameswarbabu’s death. Now, if he has made a will and left a share of his property to Nalini, are they likely to preserve that will? They’ll tear it up instantly.’

  That afternoon, Nalini and her husband, Devnath, came to see us.

  Nalini was around forty years old. The experience of several childbirths had taken its toll on her and left her looking rather frail, but the blush of youth was yet to desert her completely. Devnath looked to be around forty-five. Once upon a time, he had been a good-looking man. He joined his palms in greeting as they introduced themselves.

  ‘Baba is no more,’ Nalini murmured, the glint of tears in her eyes. ‘His last instruction to me was to come and see you. So here we are.’

  Byomkesh greeted them both and offered them a seat. Then he asked, ‘When did you get his last instruction?’

  ‘On New Year’s Day,’ Nalini replied. ‘Here is the letter.’

  The address marked on the envelope indicated a relatively remote suburb of Calcutta. The letter was written on the same monogrammed paper that had been used when Rameswarbabu had sent Byomkesh a missive, but the text was briefer still:

  My dear,

  My blessings to you all on this happy occasion. If any contingency should arise, get in touch with Sri Byomkesh Bakshi.

  Your well-wisher,

  Baba

  The skill inherent in choosing the appropriate words was worth noting. Even if either Labanya or Kusheswar had opened the letter and read it, they’d have found nothing objectionable in its contents. ‘If any contingency should arise …’ It was difficult to guess, at first glance, that the words might be referring to the writer’s own death. They could well have been an allusion to some other trifling matter. Consequently, the letter had been allowed to pass.

  Byomkesh handed it back and asked, ‘When did you see him last?’

  ‘Six months ago,’ Nalini replied. ‘I had gone to pay him my respects after Durga Puja and that was the last time I saw him. Labanya had stood there like a sentinel for the entire duration of my visit. She didn’t allow me to have a private word with Baba.’

  ‘Don’t you get along with Labanya?’

  ‘Get along! She would kill me if she could.’

  ‘Is there a reason for the way she feels?’

  ‘What reason could there be but for the fact that we are sisters-in-law? She is childless whereas I am blessed with children. That’s another reason!’

  ‘Have you met Dr Sen recently?’

  ‘Uncle Sen called on us yesterday. He said that Baba had made a will.’

  ‘Do you know where that will has been kept?’

  ‘How would I know? They were almost holding him prisoner. He had lost his mobility and he could hardly leave his room on the second floor without help. They would guard him like dragons. They scrutinized all the letters he wrote and if they didn’t approve of the contents of some, they tore them up promptly. Even if Baba did make a will, I doubt if it would surface. Labanya would have torn it to pieces.’

  Byomkesh said, ‘Rameswarbabu was an intelligent man. If he did make a will, he must have hidden it in a place from which it could not be all that easily retrieved. Now the job at hand is to find the will before they can lay their hands on it.’

  Nalini said eagerly, ‘Yes, Byomkeshbabu. If Baba did indeed make a will, he must have done so to bequeath us something. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense to go to the trouble of drawing up a will. But we have no idea what should be done in a situation like this …’ Nalini looked imploringly at Byomkesh.

  At this point, Devnath cleared his throat and uttered his first words in our presence. When Byomkesh turned to look at him, Devnath said a trifle sheepishly, ‘A thought has just occurred to me. I have heard that if you make a will, you need two witnesses. Where would my father-in-law find two such witnesses?’

  ‘Quite right,’ Byomkesh replied. ‘But there is an exception to the rule. If the maker of the will writes the entire document in his own hand, no witnesses are needed.’

  Nalini’s eyes shone as she looked at her husband. ‘See!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s why Baba had asked us to get in touch with him. Byomkeshbabu, please find a way out of this problem.’

  ‘I shall try,’ Byomkesh reassured her. ‘The will must be in the house and the house will have to be searched. But why would they allow anyone to do that? We’ll have to take the help of the police. We’ll also need Dr Sen. It’ll take a couple of days. Why don’t you go home and relax? I shall do t
he needful. If a will does indeed exist, I shall dig it out.’

  When Byomkesh went on his rounds of the various government departments, he always did so alone, leaving me behind at home. I wasn’t very keen on exploring the bureaucratic mazes either.

  I have no idea which offices Byomkesh haunted for the next two days. On the evening of the third, he came back home, heaved a huge sigh of relief and said, ‘Everything is taken care of.’

  ‘What is taken care of?’ I asked him.

  ‘The search warrant has been issued,’ he replied. ‘Tomorrow morning, we shall accompany the police to raid Rameswarbabu’s house.’

  The following morning, we arrived at Rameswarbabu’s house, accompanied by a handful of policemen and the local inspector Mr Halder.

  At first, Kusheswar attempted to browbeat us into retreating and Labanya tried her best to try and incinerate us with her fiery glares. But their efforts came to nought. Inspector Halder made sure that the couple, along with Rameswarbabu’s bereaved widow, Kumudini, were confined to the kitchen, while the rest of us were busy searching the house. Not a single floor of the three-storeyed residence escaped our scrutiny. While a couple of men went through the ground floor and two other men were in charge of scouring the first floor, which was occupied by Kusheswar and Labanya, Byomkesh, Inspector Halder and I went up to the second floor. This was where Rameswarbabu had lived and the chances of finding the will here were therefore higher.

  There were two rooms on this floor. The smaller one belonged to his wife, while the more spacious one had been Rameswarbabu’s bedroom-cum-office. On one side stood the bed. The other wall was covered with bookshelves and lined with desks and chairs. A narrow door led from this room towards the bathroom.

  We began the hunt for the will. The details of how we went about it are irrelevant here. We had set out to look for a small piece of paper amid the clutter of several items of furniture—beds, tables and almirahs—that stood around in the two rooms. The search would, naturally, be quite thorough. As we proceeded with our work, it became patently clear to us that a round of exploration had already been completed before we had embarked on our own. Kusheswar and his wife must have been looking for the will.

  ‘Now, the point is to find out whether they’ve already got hold of the will or not,’ Byomkesh declared.

  Two and a half hours later, we sat at the desk, exhausted. A tiny mortar and pestle stood on one corner of the desk. Rameswarbabu had used it to grind his betel leaf before he ate it. Byomkesh drew it towards him and began to play with it absent-mindedly. Meanwhile, the men who had been entrusted with the responsibility of going through the floors below had already informed us that they had found nothing.

  Inspector Halder said, ‘The will isn’t here either. Which means that either Rameswarbabu didn’t make the will or that they found it before we could.’

  Byomkesh said, ‘I have no doubt that the will was made, but …’

  At this point, Inspector Halder idly unscrewed the bottle of gum.

  Paper, pens, envelopes, a pincushion and a bottle of gum were all neatly arranged on the desk. We had already inspected the desk and its drawers, but the instant the gum bottle was opened, a strong, pungent smell hit our nostrils.

  The smell of raw onions!

  Byomkesh straightened up in his chair. ‘What’s that smell … raw onions! Let me have a look.’

  He drew the bottle closer and inhaled its contents deeply. Tilting the bottle, he glanced inside: The thick, white liquid appeared to be glue. But why did it smell of onions? Where had the onions come from?

  Byomkesh sat still for a while, holding the bottle in his hands. It was easy to guess from the razor-sharp look in his eyes that tremendous mental activity was taking place behind that calm façade. I exchanged glances with Inspector Halder. What mysterious clue had Byomkesh unearthed from the bottle of glue that smelled of onions?

  ‘Inspector Halder, could you please summon Kusheswar’s wife here for a moment?’

  A few minutes later, Labanya entered the room, her defiance manifest in every footstep. Byomkesh rose to his feet and invited her to take his seat. ‘Please sit down. I need to ask you a question.’

  Labanya sat down. Her jaws were clenched and her eyes rife with suspicion. Even the presence in the room of three strange men didn’t soften the intensity of that glare.

  Byomkesh asked, ‘Did your father-in-law like to eat raw onions?’

  Labanya threw him a startled glance and replied, ‘Not really. But for some time before his death, he had a craving for it. He had become senile and didn’t have a tooth to call his own. So he would grind the onions in the mortar before eating them.’

  Byomkesh said, ‘Oh. And how long before his death did he acquire this craving?’

  Labanya gave the matter some thought before replying, ‘About ten days or so, towards the tail-end of last year.’

  Byomkesh joined his palms together and said with a smile, ‘Thank you. Please forgive us for the needless trouble we put you through. Come on, Ajit! Come, Inspector. Our work here is over.’

  We hadn’t a clue as to how or why our work was regarded as done, but we followed Byomkesh out of the house all the same. Once we had stepped out on the pavement, Byomkesh said, ‘Inspector Halder, please accompany us to our house. Your colleagues may go now.’

  Once we were home, Byomkesh asked me, ‘Ajit, where is the letter that Rameswarbabu had written me for the New Year?’

  I looked about and said, ‘I haven’t set eyes on that letter since we first read it. It must be lying around somewhere. Where would it possibly go?’

  We had no file for our personal letters. Once they were read, they would lie around for some days before Putiram swept them into the garbage.

  Byomkesh was visibly upset as he urged, ‘Please, look for it. That letter is very important. Rameswarbabu had written that his letter should be taken seriously. At the time, I hadn’t grasped the full import of his words …’

  Inspector Halder inquired, ‘But what exactly is the full import? Why has that letter suddenly become so important?’

  Byomkesh said, ‘Didn’t you get it? That letter itself is Rameswarbabu’s will.’

  ‘What! How?’

  ‘Yes. The onion juice in the bottle of gum made it all so clear today. Rameswarbabu wrote his will with invisible ink and sent it to me.’

  ‘But … invisible ink …’

  ‘I’ll explain it all later. Ajit, please go through every nook and corner. Summon Putiram. If that letter is lost, Nalini and Devnath will be ruined.’

  Putiram was sent for. He could throw no light on the whereabouts of the letter. Byomkesh plunged into despair. Then he looked up with sparkling eyes and said, ‘Wait, stop! There’s no point in looking outside, we have to focus inwards.’

  He lay sprawled on the armchair and lit a cigarette. He looked up at the beams and exhaled smoke like a chimney.

  We too lit up.

  After fifteen minutes, he sat up with a start and asked, ‘Do you remember which book I was reading that day?’

  ‘When? Which day?’ I asked in turn.

  ‘The day Rameswarbabu’s letter arrived … the evening of the New Year. Don’t you remember?’

  I tried to conjure up a mental picture of that day. The postman had knocked on the door. Byomkesh had been sitting on the bed, reading a weighty tome. Was it Kali Sinha’s Mahabharata or Hemchandra’s Ramayana?

  Byomkesh exclaimed, ‘Mahabharata … the second volume. Don’t you remember? We spoke of Grandfather Bheeshma?’

  I rushed to grab the book off the shelf. As I opened it, Rameswarbabu’s letter, tucked into its rightful envelope, fell into my hands.

  Byomkesh yelled in joy, ‘Eureka! Found it! Putiram, put some burning coals in a small stove and bring it in.’

  A call from Byomkesh had summoned Dr Ashim Sen to the house along with Nalini and Devnath. The little stove with the coals burning in it was heating up the warm air in the room still further. Byomkesh hel
d the letter carefully as he spoke. ‘Rameswarbabu was a jovial man and a very intelligent one too. But his body had failed him. He had become dependent on his son and daughter-in-law and was a mere puppet in their hands.

  ‘When he realized that his days were numbered, he wished to bequeath his daughter a share of his assets. But that would involve making a will, as the inheritance laws in force don’t allow a daughter to automatically inherit her share of her father’s property. Rameswarbabu decided therefore to make a will.

  ‘But a will alone would not suffice. What guarantee was there that after his death, the will would not disappear? Kusheswar and Labanya would withhold Nalini’s share from her. They could not bear the sight of her. They did not let Nalini meet her father and kept a strict vigil on Rameswarbabu, intercepting the letters he wrote, scrutinizing their contents and destroying them if they contained anything the couple deemed suspect.

  ‘So, what was the way out? Rameswarbabu used his wits to come up with a solution. Not everyone is aware that if you use the juice of onions to write on paper, the writing leaves no mark and remains invisible. But there’s an easy way to make that writing visible. If you expose the paper to heat, the writing shows up. When I was in school, magic shows were a hobby of mine. I performed this “magic” trick for my friends many times over.

  ‘Rameswarbabu was familiar with this particular trick. He pleaded that he had a craving for raw onions. His son and daughter-in-law put it down to the whim of a senile old man and saw no reason to object. Rameswarbabu used the mortar and pestle to crush his betel leaves. Although his teeth were long gone, he liked his betel leaf. When he got hold of the onions, he ground them in the mortar. Emptying the bottle of gum of its contents, he filled it with onion juice instead. No one was any wiser. He had a sense of humour and while he was engaged in this deception, he must have had a good laugh.

  ‘On the first day of the New Year, he always sent greetings and blessings to his near and dear ones. This time, when the date was approaching, he began to write the letters. He wrote to me every year. This year was no exception. Then, on the reverse of the letter, he wrote the will with the invisible ink. Here is that letter and the will.’