The Mystery of Munroe Island

by Satyajit Ray

  ‘Do you think his worries will go away when he meets you here?’

  Without replying I stared at Gropius. I knew what he would say and sure enough he said so.

  ‘There’ll be no doubt that your friend, too, like me, will be very anxious about your treatment.’

  I returned to my hotel at seven in the evening. There had been no phone calls from Finkelstein. I had sat down on the chair to reflect on today’s strange activities when the phone rang. It was Somerville. He was calling from the station. I asked, ‘What happened? Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘Of course I’m coming, but was a bit fretful—hence I called you.’

  ‘Fretful? Regarding what?’

  ‘I needed to know if you’re in one piece.’

  ‘Well, I am in one piece and perfectly well.’

  ‘Very good. I’ll come within half an hour. Have lots to tell.’

  From this call I could make out how deeply concerned was Somerville about me. But what news was he bringing?

  Though my room had two beds, the size of the room being rather small I decided to reserve the next room for Somerville. When I’d returned to my hotel that room had still been available. But when I came out of my room to discuss this with the hotel owner, I noticed the light on inside the room and got a strong smell of a cigar coming out from the slightly ajar door. On inquiring whether any other room would be available I found out there wasn’t. Hence Somerville would have to be accommodated in my small room.

  Within half an hour Somerville arrived. I didn’t know it had begun to rain; I only realized that when I saw Somerville take off his raincoat. He said, ‘First order for some coffee and then we shall talk.’

  After saying so, Somerville, too, gazed at me for a few minutes just like Gropius had. I’m now getting used to this response yet Somerville’s reaction seemed rather different.

  ‘I notice no change in your expressions, Shonku. I feel you’re absolutely normal.’

  I could finally heave a sigh of relief.

  After the coffee arrived, I narrated the events of the entire day to Somerville. After hearing all, he said, ‘Since the last few days, after going through some old German scientific journals I discovered a few articles by Gropius. He had written some articles previously but over the last ten years he hadn’t written anything.’

  ‘Written about what?’

  ‘About his failure.’

  ‘What failure?’

  In reply to this, what Somerville told me left me not just surprised, but provided me with a clarity that I could see the entire episode in a completely new light.

  ‘Your discovery of the Omniscope, your heavenly medicine, the Miracurol, your Linguagraph, your Airconditioning pill—each of these products was first discovered by Gropius. Unfortunately, every time it so happened that you’d already patented these before he could. In other words, in this race of talent, he lost out to you only by a narrow margin. Ten years ago, in his last article, with deep regret he mentioned that the idea of attaining fame due to an invention is often a matter of pure chance. He had also cited a few examples after going through a few ancient texts and scriptures. For instance, recognition for the laws of motion was attained by Newton, yet much before him, thirty years ago, a scientist from Italy, Fratelli, had already written about this same law of motion.’

  I said, ‘Just as the credit for discovery of radio by our Jagadish Bose had been snatched up by Marconi.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Somerville. ‘Therefore don’t be surprised if Gropius has reservations against you.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand this. But how will this resolve the mystery of the second Shonku?’

  Somerville looked serious when I asked this question. He said, ‘You’d last met Gropius in Baghdad seven years ago. Since then he has not attended any science conference. In May this year, for the first time, he participated in this meeting which had been initiated and organized by him. And–’

  I interrupted Somerville and said, ‘But I never received any letter for this meet.’

  ‘Of course you would not have got one. But Gropius must have said he had invited you. In fact, he must have filed away a letter with your signature on it.’

  I had to mention that I’d seen this letter with my own eyes.

  ‘Have you corresponded with him earlier?’ Somerville asked.

  I said, ‘After meeting him in Baghdad I’d written to him a couple of times and for five years in succession I’d sent him New Year cards.’

  Somerville gravely nodded his head. He said, ‘Gropius must have found a man who resembled you—the rest was concealed with make-up—and coached him beforehand about the subject of the lecture. Lured by cash, many will agree to take up such a job. This second Shonku had to shoulder no responsibilities; he had nothing to lose. He accomplished his mission, received his payment and left. But the real harm was done to the real Shonku and at the same time Gropius took his revenge. That reminds me, would Gropius have any recordings of your speech?’

  The moment I heard this question I remembered Gropius carrying a small tape recorder with him in Baghdad. I replied, ‘That’s quite possible. And not just that, he also possessed a good coloured photograph of mine. In fact, I saw it today.’

  With a note of regret in his voice Somerville said, ‘The problem is, the possibility to locate this fake Shonku is very remote. Yet to prove Gropius’s crime we need to produce this second Shonku.’

  There was no telephone in this hotel room. There was only one in the passage for the use of three occupants on this floor. If the phone rang once it was meant for the person in room number one; for the person in the second room there’d be double ring and for the third person it would ring thrice. As the phone was producing a double ring I knew it was for me.

  I opened the door and went out to receive the call.

  ‘Hello!’

  ‘Am I speaking with Prof. Shonku?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Finkelstein.’

  Not wasting much time on formality I straight away referred to the real matter.

  ‘Last May I think you were present during a science summit in this city. I saw your photograph in the paper.’

  ‘Have you lost your glasses?’

  While I was thinking about how to reply to his unexpected query, Finkelstein put forward yet another question.

  ‘The glasses of your spectacles are clear or opaque?’

  I said, ‘Clear. And these glasses are with me. I have never lost them.’

  ‘I thought so too. However, in that science meet, the Shonku who delivered that speech had dropped his glasses on the floor while leaving the hall. I picked them up. It was not just the glasses. There was something sticking on to the glasses. That is also with me.’

  ‘What’s that object?’

  ‘I’ll show it to you when you come here. Had I not found it, I too would have believed that the person giving that speech was the real Shonku and not a fake one.’

  When I heard this I began to palpitate. I asked, ‘When do I get to meet you?’

  Finkelstein said, ‘Now it’s quite late and the day is also not very pleasant. Come to my house tomorrow at 8.30 a.m. Will it be very early for you?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll reach exactly at 8.30 a.m. My English friend, John Somerville, will also come with me.

  ‘Fine. Bring him along. We’ll talk then. I’ve loads to tell.’

  I put the receiver down. Somerville was standing next to me. We returned to our room. After shutting the door, Somerville asked me, ‘Do you know the person staying in room number 3?’

  ‘Why do you say that? He arrived this evening.’

  ‘The gentleman seemed too curious. Getting a whiff of the cigar I turned back and saw him standing near the slightly-ajar door. Why was he so eager to listen to your telephone conversation?’

  I had no answer to this. I’ve no knowledge of this person either. I hope a lot of this mystery will be cleared after we talk to Finkelstein.

 
It’s 11 p.m. now. It continues to rain. Somerville has gone to sleep.

  9 July

  Yesterday I couldn’t write my diary. I was in no state to write. The astrologer’s prediction has finally come into effect. I’ve got to admit one thing: for an ordinary person it’s extremely difficult to compete with a scientist’s wickedness. Nonetheless, let me now concentrate to be able to narrate the extraordinary events of yesterday.

  We had an appointment with Finkelstein at 8.30 a.m. After finding his address in the telephone directory, Somerville said, ‘We can walk it to his place. It’s not very far—we’ll reach in half an hour.’ Somerville was familiar with Innsbruck. Also, he was well aware of the risks of putting me into a cab.

  We set out at eight. The road ran through the old city. I realized that Somerville was familiar with the shortcuts running through the various lanes. After walking through a narrow lane, we came to the picturesque Seal River. We walked by the banks of the river and further down we crossed a park, and then turning to the left, we reached a quiet street. This was Rosenbaum Alley, the street where Finkelstein lives. We faced no difficulty in locating house number 11.

  This small yet beautiful house seemed just like a picture postcard. In front was a garden dotted with flowers of many hues. On the right side of the main door stood an apple tree as if to guarding the house.

  We went up and rang the bell. An elderly servant came out and opened the door. When he saw me, the smile he came up with seemed a bit unnatural.

  ‘Please come inside. Have you left something behind?’

  It was as if a hammer struck my heart.

  ‘Is Prof. Finkelstein in?’ Somerville also sounded apprehensive.

  ‘The master is still in his room.’

  ‘Where’s the room?’

  ‘On the right hand side of the first floor. But just a while ago this gentleman was . . .’

  Climbing three steps at a time we reached the first floor. The door of the room on the right side was open. Somerville took two giant steps ahead and on reaching the door exclaimed, ‘My god!’

  This was Finkelstein’s study. Finkelstein was sitting with his back to us in front of the mahogany table, his head peculiarly thrown back and his hands dangling from the sides of the chair. When I walked up to him my fears were confirmed. You couldn’t bear to look at Finkelstein’s face. He had been throttled. The marks of fingerprints on the two sides of the windpipe were still fresh. What Finkelstein’s servant did next sent a shiver down my spine. He let out an indistinct scream, looked at me wildly and seized the telephone kept on the table. His mission was clear. He wanted to inform the police.

  Somerville’s immediate reaction showed his presence of mind. With one blow he knocked down the servant. The man was rendered senseless.

  ‘You have been trapped, Shonku!’ Somerville said breathlessly. ‘We need to keep calm to work further.’

  ‘But what’s that?’

  My eyes were now focused on a pad kept on the table. Only one word in red pencil was inscribed on it—‘erste.’ That is, first. That Finkelstein wanted to write some more became more apparent when one noticed the mark of the pencil after that word. The pencil now lay on the floor next to the table.

  We needed to be real quick in our plan of action. What was Finkelstein trying to establish by writing the word, ‘erste’? First-second-third—what could be there in the room which could be described in this manner? Could this be an explanation about the bookshelves? I didn’t think so. I could actually make a guess about the object whose location Finkelstein was trying to indicate. My spectacles.

  We located them when we opened the first drawer of the table. In the midst of papers, pens and pencils we came across a cardboard box on top of which was written in German—‘Shonku’s glasses and hair.’ We fled the spot carrying the box with us. The servant was still unconscious.

  While climbing down the steps, I noticed footprints; this had evaded my attention while we had been climbing up in a rush.

  The same signs could be seen outside, too; these had come out of the door, trailed towards the gate and finally reached the road. You could see both set of marks—the ones which went in as well as the signs of returning. Clearly, last night’s rain is responsible for this.

  When we followed these marks after going further down on the road we noticed that they disappeared on reaching the grass. Despite this, we continued to walk ahead. When for ten minutes we looked in all direction and couldn’t spot any trail of the second Shonku, we headed back to the hotel. The minute the owner saw me he said, ‘There was a call for you from Dr Gropius. He has asked you to call him back immediately.’

  When we arrived on the second floor I noticed that the room next door, once more, lay vacant.

  11 July

  I sat on the bed and took the box out of my pocket. After opening it, I saw it contained not just my spectacles but also a small envelope. The glasses were exactly like mine except that the glass was grey in colour. Inside the envelope was a slip of paper on which was written—‘During the science conference in the Leibnitz Hall, a strand of nylon hair found attached to the fallen spectacles of the Indian scientist, Prof. Shonku.’

  Nylon hair?

  The strand of hair was inside the envelope. It indeed looked like a grey hair but there was no doubt that it was synthetic.

  This is how Finkelstein figured out that the Shonku who had attended the conference wasn’t the real Shonku.

  But at this point of my crisis there’s no way I can get any help from Finkelstein.

  We both jumped when we heard a knock on the door. Who could have come at this hour?

  It was Gropius.

  I introduced Gropius to Somerville and asked him to sit down, but he refused. While standing at the door, he said, ‘I told you I’ll pick you up today but it doesn’t suit Webber. And apart from that, we have had a tragedy in our family today. One of my servants died due to thrombosis last night. Today is his funeral. I need to be there.’

  We both had nothing to say in reply to this. After pausing for a brief spell, Gropius himself spoke again. This time he asked a question.

  ‘Do you know that Finkelstein is dead?’

  I remembered that the fellow from next room had eavesdropped when I was talking to Finkelstein. If he happened to be Gropius’s agent then he must have passed on the information of my appointment with Finkelstein at 8:30 a.m. to Gropius. Yet, putting up an act of surprise and ignorance I said, ‘Really? When did this happen?’

  ‘This morning. A while ago I received a call from the Academy of Science. His servant Anton had reported it to the police and then had called up Grossman, the President of the Academy.’

  We both remained quiet. Gropius took a step forward.

  ‘Anton had spoken of a fellow—his skin was dark, he was bald, bearded and wore glasses; he had gone to visit Finkelstein this morning. Anton had also mentioned the name of this fellow.’

  ‘If the description matched me so could the name,’ I spoke in a calm voice. ‘And there’s nothing to be surprised as I had indeed gone to meet Finkelstein this morning. With me was Somerville. When we reached there we found him dead. He had been strangled to death in a heinous fashion.’

  ‘Prof. Shonku,’ Gropius said in an ice-cold voice, ‘it’s one thing to defame scientists through the medium of a lecture but to directly attack one of them and murder him is something else. Since you have declared that there’s nothing wrong with your head, then I’m sure you know what the verdict would be for such a crime?’

  This time Somerville opened his mouth. His voice, too, was perfectly normal.

  ‘Dr Gropius, when you were taking away Prof. Shonku from the platform his spectacles had slipped off and had fallen down. The glasses were dark; somewhat like sunglasses. Finkelstein picked up that pair. One strand of hair remained stuck on the arms of the spectacle. That hair was made of nylon. From what Finkelstein’s servant said today, we could gather that a Shonku lookalike had gone to meet Finkels
tein half an hour before we reached there. We spotted his footprints on the stairs and noticed them outside the house and on the street as well. The murder took place soon after he went in. The assailant didn’t wear any gloves. Finkelstein’s neck bore clear marks of his fingerprints. How can you put the blame on the real Shonku when a doppelgänger had actually committed the crime?’

  All of a sudden Gropius burst into an outlandish and malicious guffaw.

  ‘Very soon you’ll see how I shift this blame! Yesterday, in my house, Shonku had used my cup to drink hot chocolate, had gone through the pages of my photo album—wouldn’t these contain his fingerprints? It is possible these days to recreate fingerprints, Prof. Somerville! This is Hans Gropius’s discovery! In the recent past, I’ve let out this device to three notorious criminals of Europe!’

  I hadn’t noticed till now but in front of the door a man stood behind Gropius with his hands tucked inside his pockets. I knew this man. This was the same individual who had eavesdropped from the next room.

  ‘How unfortunate that this is what awaits you at the end of the day,’ Gropius said, looking straight at me. ‘If indeed you lose your head under these circumstances there’s always Webber’s clinic for you. That’s where the work on brain transplant has started on the basis of my own invention. Perhaps this time you will not be able to outplay me! Good day, Shonku! Good day, Somerville!’

  Noisily, Gropius and his accomplice stormed down the stairs. I dropped down on the bed. Somerville began to pace up and down the room. Twice I heard him say, ‘What a devil! What a devil!

  I could clearly feel that a net was slowly folding around to trap me. If my fingerprints matched up there no way I could come out of it. Unless—

  Unless one found the imposter Shonku and handed him over to the police.

  ‘Since we are trapped,’ Somerville said, stopping his pacing, ‘we have to see the end of it. Even if we have to die we’ll give it a good fight. But not otherwise.’