The Complete Adventures of Feluda: Volume I (46 page)

‘Do you remember the colour of his car?’ Feluda interrupted him. ‘Oh yes. It was a blue Fiat. I decided to follow Chattoraj. But I ran into some more problems. A burst tyre meant an unnecessary delay . . . so I lost him for the moment. However, by then I was absolutely determined not to give up. I knew he’d want to sell the statue again. So I went back to the Grand Hotel. It meant waiting for a while, but eventually I found him and followed him to the Railway Booking Office. He bought a ticket to Aurangabad. So did I. He was still carrying a heavy bag, so it was clear that he had not been able to get
rid of the statue. I came back to my flat, rang my office in Bombay and told them what had happened.’

‘Yes, we know about that. You had said, “The daughter has returned to her father”. What we did not know was that by “father” you meant Chattoraj, not yourself.’

Mr Mallik smiled, then continued, ‘I kept waiting for a suitable opportunity to remove the stolen object. I knew if I could catch the thief at the same time, it would be even better. But that proved much too difficult. Anyway, last night I went and hid near Kailash. When I saw that everyone from the bungalow had gone out in the direction of the caves, I returned quickly, slipped into the bungalow through the side door that only the cleaners use, and removed the statue from Chattoraj’s room.’

‘I see. Did you have any idea you were being watched by a detective?’

‘Oh no. That’s why I couldn’t speak a word when you arrested me! I must have looked very foolish.’

Mr Ghote burst out laughing. Feluda took up the tale, ‘When I saw that you had travelled with Lewison in the same car for many miles, but had done nothing to sell him the statue, I realized you were innocent. Until then, although I’d come to know you were a detective, I could not drop you from my list of suspects.’

‘But Chattoraj was also on this list, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. Mind you, initially it was no more then a slight doubt. When I saw that this his name had been freshly painted on an old suitcase, I began to wonder if the name wasn’t fake. Then, Lalmohan Babu told us yesterday that he had gone out wearing a raincoat. When we were passing cave number fifteen, I noticed someone was in it, and threw a pebble in the courtyard. That made the man run away. I then went into the cave and began searching the surrounding area. In a smaller cave behind the big one, I found the raincoat. It had a specially large pocket, in which was a hammer, a chisel and a nylon rope. I left everything there. It became obvious that Raxit—or Chattoraj—was the real culprit. As we returned to the bungalow, we saw him desperately searching for something in his room. In fact, he seemed to have gone mad, which is understandable since he had come back to his room to find that his precious statue had gone. This morning, Mr Kulkarni told me you had called Bombay and said, “The daughter is fine”. That meant you had the stolen statue with you. So you had to be arrested.’

Feluda stopped. No one said anything. After a short pause, he went on, ‘While we were worrying about statues and thieves, Shubhankar Bose got killed. On examining his dead body, we found a piece of blue cloth in one of his hands. You were wearing a blue-shirt yesterday. But I didn’t think of you, since my suspicions had already fallen on Chattoraj. What really happened was that he reached Bose’s body before me and, pretending that he was trying to feel his pulse, pushed in that torn piece into the dead man’s hand. It had become essential for Chattoraj to throw suspicion on someone else for Bose’s death. The torn piece had, of course, come from Chattoraj’s own shirt. He had cut out a piece and hidden the shirt amongst the plants and bushes behind the bungalow. I found it myself.

‘However, although I had gathered some evidence against Chattoraj, it was not enough to actually accuse him of murder and theft. As I was wondering what to do, Tapesh and Lalmohan Babu told me that someone had been through their belongings. This had to be Chattoraj, for he had lost something valuable and was naturally looking for it everywhere. In Lalmohan Babu’s suitcase was his notebook, which mentioned the theft of the statue from Bhubaneshwar, Silverstein and the plane crash. I knew at once that Chattoraj had read every detail and was feeling threatened, thinking it was Lalmohan Babu who had stumbled on the truth. So I sent him a little note, pretending it had been written by Lalmohan Babu, asking Chattoraj to meet him in the Das Avatar cave at 8 p.m. Before that, however, I told Chattoraj that whoever had tried to steal a statue from Kailash the night before had been arrested. I knew this would set his mind at rest, and he would stop being on his guard.’

‘That man with the goatee!’ Lalmohan Babu and I cried together, ‘Was that you?’

‘Yes,’ Feluda laughed. ‘That was my disguise number two. I felt I had to stay close to you, since we were dealing with a dangerous man. Anyway, he swallowed my bait at once. He thought a few sharp words from him would really make Lalmohan Babu return the head to him, and he could get away with it once again. Well, we all know what happened next.

‘There is only one thing left for me to say: Mr Mallik and his agency will get full credit for their share in catching this gang. And I will pray for a promotion for Mr Ghote. I must also thank Mr Kulkarni for the important role he played, but if a medal for
courage and bravery could be given to anyone, it should go jointly to Tapeshranjan Mitter and Lalmohan Ganguli.’

‘Hear, hear!’ said Mr Mallik, and the others clapped enthusiastically.

When the applause died down, Lalmohan Babu turned to Feluda and said a little hesitantly, ‘Does that mean . . . this time my weapon didn’t come into any use at all?’

Feluda looked perfectly amazed. ‘Not come into use? What are you talking about? Where do you think all that smoke came from? It was no ordinary bomb, sir. Do you know what it was? A three hundred and fifty-six megaton special military smoke bomb!’

‘D
o you know why the sight of trees and plants have such a refreshing effect on our eyes?’ asked Feluda. ‘The reason is that people, since primitive times, have lived with greenery all around them, so that their eyes have developed a healthy relationship with their environment. Of course, trees in big cities these days have become rather difficult to find. As a result, every time you get away from town, your eyes begin to relax, and so does your mind. It is mostly in cities that you’ll notice people with eye disorders. Go to a village or a hill-station, and you’ll hardly find anyone wearing glasses.’

Feluda himself had a pair of sharp eyes, didn’t wear glasses, and could stare at any object for three minutes and fifteen seconds without blinking even once. I should know, for I had tested him often enough. But he had never lived in a village. I was tempted to point this out to him, but didn’t dare. The chances of having my head bitten off if I did were very high.

We were travelling with a man called Monimohan Samaddar. He wore glasses (but then, he lived in a city), was about fifty years old and had sharp features. The hair around his ears had started to turn grey. It was in his Fiat that we were travelling, to a place called Bamungachhi, which was a suburb of Calcutta. We had met Moni Babu only yesterday.

He had turned up quite out of the blue in the afternoon, as Feluda and I sat in our living room, reading. I had been watching Feluda reading a book on numerology, raising his eyebrows occasionally in both amazement and appreciation. It was a book about Dr Matrix. Feluda caught me looking at him, and smiled. ‘You’d be astonished to learn the power of numbers, and the role they play in the lives of men like Dr Matrix. Listen to this. It was a discovery Dr Matrix made. You know the names of the two American Presidents who were assassinated, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Lincoln and Kennedy, right?’

‘Right. Now tell me how many letters each name has.’

‘L-i-n-c-o-l-n—seven. K-e-n-n-e-d-y—also seven.’

‘OK. Now listen, carefully. Lincoln was killed in 1865 and Kennedy died in 1963, a little less than a hundred years later. Both were killed on a Friday, and both had their wives by their side. Lincoln was killed in the Ford Theatre. Kennedy was killed in a car
called Lincoln, manufactured by the Ford company. The next President after Lincoln was called Johnson, Andrew Johnson. Kennedy was succeeded by Lyndon Johnson. The first Johnson was born in 1808, the second in 1908, exactly a hundred years later. Do you know who killed Lincoln?’

‘Yes, but I can’t remember his name right now.’

‘It was John Wilkes Booth. He was born in 1839. And Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. He was born in 1939! Now count the number of letters in both names.’

‘Good heavens, both have fifteen letters!’

Feluda might have told me of a few more startling discoveries by Dr Matrix, but it was at this point that Mr Samaddar arrived, without a prior appointment. He introduced himself, adding, ‘I live in Lake Place, which isn’t far from here.’

‘I see.’

‘Er . . . you may have heard of my uncle, Radharaman Samaddar.’

‘Oh yes. He died recently, didn’t he? I believe he was greatly interested in music?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I read an obituary in the local newspaper. I hadn’t heard about him before that, I’m afraid. He was quite old, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he was eighty-two when he died. I’m not surprised that you hadn’t heard of him. When he gave up singing, you must have been a young boy. He retired fifteen years ago, and built a house in Bamungachhi. That is where he lived, almost like a recluse, until his death. He had a heart attack on 18 September, and died the same night.’

‘I see.’

Mr Samaddar cleared his throat. After a few seconds of silence, he said a little hesitantly, ‘I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve come to disturb you like this. I just wanted to give you a little background, that’s all.’

‘Of course. Don’t worry, Mr Samaddar, please take your time.’ Moni Babu resumed speaking. ‘My uncle was different from other men. He was actually a lawyer, and he made a lot of money. But he stopped practising when he was about fifty, and turned wholly to music. He didn’t just sing, he could play seven or eight different instruments, both Indian and Western. I myself have seen him play the sitar, the violin, piano, harmonium, flute and the tabla, besides others. He had a passion for collecting instruments. In fact, his house
had become a mini-museum of musical instruments.’

‘Which house do you mean?’

‘He had started collecting before he left Calcutta. Then he transferred his collection to his house in Bamungachhi. He used to travel widely, looking for instruments. Once he bought a violin from an Italian in Bombay. Only a few months later, he sold it in Calcutta for thirty thousand rupees.’

Feluda had once told me that three hundred years ago, in Italy there had been a handful of people who had produced violins of such high quality that, today, their value was in excess of a hundred thousand rupees.

Mr Samaddar continued to speak. ‘As you can see, my uncle was gifted. There were a lot of positive qualities in his character that made him different from most people. But, at the same time, there was an overriding negative factor which eventually turned him into a recluse. He was amazingly tight-fisted. The few relatives he had stopped seeing him because of this. He didn’t seem to mind, for he wasn’t particularly interested in staying in touch with them, anyway.’

‘How many relatives did he have?’

‘Not a lot. He had three brothers and two sisters. The sisters and two of his brothers are no more. The third brother left home thirty years ago. No one knows if he’s alive. Radharaman’s wife and only child, a son called Muralidhar, are both dead. Muralidhar’s son, Dharanidhar, is his only grandchild. Radharaman was very fond of him once. But when he left his studies and joined a theatre under a different name, my uncle washed his hands off him. I don’t think he ever saw him again.’

‘How are you related to him?’

‘Oh, my father was one of his elder brothers. He died many years ago.’

‘I see; and is Dharanidhar still alive?’

‘Yes, but I believe he’s moved on to another group, and is now doing a jatra. I tried contacting him when my uncle passed away, but he wasn’t in Calcutta. Someone told me he was off on a tour, travelling through small villages. He’s quite well known now in the theatre world. He was interested in music, too, which was why his grandfather was so fond of him.’

Mr Samaddar stopped. Then he went on, speaking a little absently. ‘It’s not as if I saw my uncle regularly. I used to go and meet
him, maybe once every two months or so. Of late, even that had become difficult as my work kept me very busy. I run a printing press in Bhawanipore, called the Eureka Press. We’ve had such frequent power cuts recently that it’s been quite a job clearing all our backlog. Anyway, my uncle’s neighbour, Abani Babu, telephoned me when he had a heart attack. I left immediately with Chintamoni Bose, the heart specialist. My uncle was unconscious at first, but opened his eyes just before he died, and seemed to recognize me. He even spoke a few words, but then . . . it was all over.’

‘What did he say?’ Feluda leant forward.

‘He said, “In . . . my . . . name.” Then he tried to speak, but couldn’t. After struggling for sometime, he could get only one word out. “Key . . . key,” he said. That was all.’

Feluda stared at Mr Samaddar, a frown on his face. ‘Have you any idea what his words might have meant?’

‘Well, at first I thought perhaps he was worried about his name, and his reputation. Perhaps he’d realized people called him a miser. But the word “key” seemed to matter to him. I mean, he sounded really concerned about this key. I haven’t the slightest idea which key he was referring to. His bedroom has an almirah and a chest. The keys to these were kept in the drawer of a table that stood by the side of his bed. The house only has three rooms, barring a bathroom attached to his bedroom. There is hardly any furniture, and almost nothing that might require a key. The lock he used on the main door to his bedroom was a German combination lock, which didn’t work with a key at all.’

‘What did he have in the almirah and the chest?’

‘Nothing apart from a few clothes and papers. These were in the almirah. The chest was totally empty.’

‘Did you find any money?’

‘No. In the drawer of the table was some loose change and a few two and five rupee notes, that’s all. There was a wallet under his pillow, but even this had very little money in it. Apparently, he kept money for daily use in this wallet. At least, that’s what his old servant Anukul told me.’

‘What did he do when he finished spending what he had in his wallet or in his table drawer? Surely he had a bigger source to draw on?’

‘Yes, that’s what one has to assume.’

‘Why do you say that? Didn’t he have a bank account?’

Mr Samaddar smiled. ‘No, he didn’t. If he had had one, there would’ve been nothing unusual about him, would there? To tell you the truth, there was a time when he did keep his money in a bank. But many years ago, that bank went out of business, and he lost all he had put in it. He refused to trust another bank after that. But—’ Mr Samaddar lowered his voice, ‘I know he had a lot of money. How else do you suppose he could afford to buy all those rare and expensive instruments? Besides, he didn’t mind spending a great deal on himself. He ate well, wore specially tailored clothes, maintained a huge garden, and had even bought a second hand Austin. He used to drive to Calcutta occasionally. So . . .’ His voice trailed away.

Feluda lit a Charminar, and offered one to Mr Samaddar. Mr Samaddar took it, and waited until Feluda had lit it for him. ‘Now,’ he said, inhaling deeply, ‘do you understand why I had to come to you? What will the key unlock? Where has all my uncle’s money gone? Which key was he talking about, anyway? Shall we find any money or something else? Had he made a will? Who knows? If he had, we must find it. In the absence of a will, his grandson will get everything, but someone has to find out what that consists of. I have heard such a lot about your intelligence and your skill. Will you please help me, Mr Mitter?’

Feluda agreed. It was then decided that Mr Samaddar would pick us up today at 7 a.m. and take us to his uncle’s house in Bamungachhi. I could tell Feluda was interested because this was a new type of mystery. Or perhaps it was more a puzzle than a mystery.

That is what I thought at first. Later, I realized it was something far more complex than a mere puzzle.