The Complete Adventures of Feluda: Volume I (51 page)

‘You will get a tiger skin, Felu Babu, but what about me?’ Lalmohan Babu asked, sounding disappointed.

We had finished dinner an hour ago. Our host had regaled us after dinner with exciting stories about his experiences in the wild. We had only just wished him a good night and returned from the drawing room.

‘Why do you say that, Lalmohan Babu? Whoever solves this code will get that skin. At least, he should. So why don’t you give it a go yourself, eh? You are a writer, you have a good command over your language, and you have imagination. So come on!’

‘Pooh! My command over language would never get me through all that hollow-follow and hands-stands and what have you. You’re the one who is going to get the reward. Do you think he might give you this one?’ He looked at the skin that lay sprawling on the floor.

‘No, I don’t think so. Didn’t he mention a big tiger? I have no interest in leopards.’

Feluda had already written down the few lines that made up the puzzle and was now staring at his notebook.

‘Is it making any sense at all?’ Lalmohan Babu persisted.

‘No, not really, except that I am positive it involves hidden treasure,’ Feluda replied without looking up.

‘How can you tell? What’s all that about following a hollow old man?’

‘I don’t know yet, but I think the word “follow” is important, and so is “pace”. Perhaps it’s simply telling you where you should go—take paces to something, or from something. Nothing else is clear. So we must—’ Feluda couldn’t finish speaking. Someone had walked in through the open door. It was Devtosh Babu.

He was still wearing the purple dressing gown. His eyes held the same wild look, as though he suspected everyone he met of having committed a crime. He looked straight at Lalmohan Babu and said, ‘Did the Bhot Raja send you?’

‘Bh-bhot?’ Lalmohan Babu gulped. ‘Do you mean vote? El-elections?’

‘No, I think he is talking of the Raja of Bhutan,’ Feluda said softly. Devtosh Babu turned his eyes immediately on Feluda, thereby releasing Lalmohan Babu from an extremely awkward situation.

‘Are the Bhots coming back?’ he wanted to know.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Feluda replied, his voice absolutely normal, ‘but it is possible now to travel to Bhutan quite easily.’

‘Really?’ Devtosh Babu sounded as though this was the first time he’d heard the news. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘That’s good. They had once been very helpful. It was only because of them that the soldiers of the Nawab couldn’t do anything. They know how to fight. But not everyone knows that, do they?’ He sighed deeply, then added, ‘Not everyone can handle weapons. No, not everyone can be like
Adityanarayan.’

He turned abruptly and began walking to the door. Then he stopped, turned back, looked at the leopard skin on the floor and said something perfectly weird.

‘Do you know about the wheels of Yudhisthir’s chariot? They never touched the ground. Yet . . . in the end, they did. They had to.’ Then he quickly left the room.

We sat in silence after he had gone. After a few minutes, I heard Feluda mutter: ‘He was wearing clogs. The soles were lined with rubber to muffle the noise.’

Our first night turned out to be quite eventful. I shall try to describe what happened in the right order. A grandfather clock on the top of the stairs helped me to keep track of time.

The first thing we realized within ten minutes of going to bed was that although we had been given thick mattresses and beautiful linen, no one had thought of checking the mosquito nets. There were holes in all three, which simply meant an open invitation to all the mosquitoes in the region. Thank goodness Feluda always carried a tube of Odomos with him. Each of us had to use it before going back to bed. When I did, suitably embalmed, I could hear the clock outside strike eleven. The clouds had dispersed to make way for the moon. I could see a patch of moonlight on the floor and was looking at it when, suddenly, someone spoke on the veranda.

‘I am warning you for the last time. This is not going to do you any good!’

It was Mahitosh Sinha-Roy. He sounded furious. There was no reply from the other person. On my right, Lalmohan Babu had started to snore. I turned to my left and whispered, ‘Feluda, did you hear that?’

‘Yes,’ Feluda whispered back, ‘go to sleep.’

I said nothing more. I must have fallen asleep almost immediately, but woke again a little later. The moon was still there, but the thunder was back, rolling in the distance. I lay quietly listening to it, but as the last rumble died away, it was replaced by another noise: khut-khut, khut-khut, khut-khut! It did not continue at a regular pace, but stopped abruptly. Then it started again. Now it became clear that it was coming from inside our room. It got drowned occasionally by the thunder outside, but it did not stay silent for
long. I could hear Feluda breathing deeply and regularly. He was obviously fast asleep.

But why had Lalmohan Babu stopped snoring? I glanced at his bed, but could see nothing through the nets. Then I became aware of another noise, a faint, chattering noise which I recognized instantly. A few years ago, during a visit to Simla, Lalmohan Babu had slipped and fallen on the snow as a bullet came and hit the ground near his feet. He had made the same noise then. It was simply the sound of his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Khut-khut, khut-khut, khut!

There it was again. I raised my head to look at the floor. The mosquito net rustled with this slight movement, which told Lalmohan Babu that I was awake.

‘T-t-t-tapesh!’ he cried in a strange, hoarse voice. ‘The l-l-l-eopard!’

I sat up to look properly at the leopard skin. What I saw froze my blood. Moonlight was still streaming in through a window to shine directly on the head of the leopard. It was rising and turning every now and then, first to the left and then to the right, making that strange noise. ‘Feluda!’ I called, unable to stop myself. I knew Feluda would wake instantly and be totally alert, no matter how deeply he had been sleeping.

‘What is it? Why are you shouting?’ he asked. I tried to tell him, but discovered that, like Lalmohan Babu, my throat had gone completely dry. All I could manage was, ‘Look . . . floor!’

Feluda climbed out of his bed and stood staring at the moving head of the leopard. Then he stepped forward coolly and placed a finger under its chin, tilting it up. A large beetle crawled out. With unruffled calm, he picked it up and threw it out of the window. ‘Didn’t you know about the demonic strength of a beetle? If you place a heavy brass bowl over it, it will drag it about all over the house!’ Feluda said.

I could feel myself go limp with relief. From the way Lalmohan Babu sighed, I could tell he was feeling the same. But why was Feluda still standing at the window? What was there to see in the dead of night?

‘Topshe, come and have a look,’ he invited. Lalmohan Babu and I joined him. Our room, which was in the rear portion of the house, overlooked the Kalbuni forest. In the last couple of minutes, thick clouds had once again obliterated the moon. There was lightning
and the sound of thunder appeared closer. But what surprised me was that, in addition to the lightning, another light flashed in the distance. It kept moving about among the trees in the forest. Someone with a torch was out there. There was no doubt about that.

‘Highly suspicious!’ Lalmohan Babu muttered.

Then the torch was switched off. In the same instant, there was a blinding flash, followed by an ear-splitting noise. Almost immediately, it began to pour in great torrents. We had to pull the shutters down quickly.

‘It’s past one o’clock,’ Feluda said. ‘Let’s try and get some sleep. We’re supposed to go to the temple of Jalpeshwar in the morning, remember?’

The three of us got back into bed, behind the mosquito nets. I stared at the windows. Although they were shut, their multicoloured panes shone brightly each time there was a flash of lightning, flooding the room with all the hues of a rainbow.

I couldn’t tell when this colourful display stopped, and when I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke at seven o’clock. Feluda was already up, and had finished doing his yoga, bathing and shaving. Mr Sengupta was supposed to collect us at eight, and take us to the temple. One of the three bearers, called Kanai, brought us our morning tea at half past seven. Feluda picked up his cup, then went back to staring at the notebook lying open in his lap. ‘Bravo, Adityanarayan!’ I heard him murmur. ‘What a brain you had!’

Lalmohan Babu slurped his tea noisily, and said, ‘Very good tea, I must say. Why, Felu Babu, have you made any progress?’

Feluda continued to mutter, ‘“Half ten”. That’s five. “Half again, century”. Century would mean a hundred, so half of that is fifty. Five and fifty, that’s fifty-five. OK, he probably means fifty-five paces. But what does it relate to? The tree? What is a people’s tree? I must think . . .’

My heart lifted suddenly. He had started to solve the riddle. I felt sure he’d be able to get the entire meaning before we left—with the tiger skin, of course.

The clock outside struck eight. Mr Sengupta should be here soon,
I thought. A few minutes passed, but there was no sign of him. Feluda didn’t seem to be aware of the delay. He was still engrossed in the puzzle.

‘Rising sun?’ I heard him say. ‘Could it mean the east? Yes. Fifty-five paces to the east of something. What can it mean? The tree . . . the tree . . .’

Someone knocked on the door. It was Shashanka Sanyal, not Mr Sengupta.

‘Er . . . haven’t you finished your tea? Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. Feluda put his notebook away and got to his feet. Mr Sanyal was looking visibly upset.

‘What is it? What is the matter?’ Feluda asked quickly. Mr Sanyal cleared his throat, then spoke somewhat absently, ‘There’s some bad news, Mr Mitter. Torit Sengupta . . . Mahitosh’s secretary . . . died last night.’

‘Wha-at! How?’ Feluda asked. Lalmohan Babu and I simply stared speechlessly.

‘It seems he went into the forest last night. No one knows why. His body was found only a little while ago, by a woodcutter.’

‘But how did he die? What happened?’

‘Apparently, his body has been partially eaten by some animal. Quite possibly, a tiger.’

The man-eater! My hands suddenly felt cold and clammy. Lalmohan Babu had been standing in the middle of the room. He now took three steps backwards to grab the corner of a table and lean against it. Feluda stood still, looking extremely grim.

‘I am sorry,’ Mr Sanyal said again. ‘You only came yesterday for a holiday and now this has happened. I’m afraid we are going to be rather busy . . . I mean, we have to go and see the body for ourselves, naturally.’

‘Can we go with you?’

At this question, Mr Sanyal glanced swiftly at us and said, ‘You may be used to gory deaths, Mr Mitter, but the others . . . ?’

‘They will stay in the jeep. I will not let them see anything unpleasant.’

Mr Sanyal agreed. ‘Very well. We have two jeeps. You three can travel in one.’

‘Are we going to carry a gun?’

This question came from Lalmohan Babu. At any other time, Mr Sanyal would have laughed at the idea. But now he said seriously,
‘Yes. There’s nothing to be afraid of during the day, but we are going to be armed.’

None of us spoke in the jeep. I hadn’t yet got over the shock. Only last evening, he was alive. He had spoken with us. And now he was dead . . . killed by a man-eater. What was he doing in the forest in the middle of the night? The light we saw moving among the trees . . . was it coming from Mr Sengupta’s torch?

There was another jeep in front of ours. In it were Mahitosh Babu, Mr Sanyal, a man called Mr Datta from the Forest Department, the shikari Madhavlal, and the woodcutter who had found the body and come running to the house. Mahitosh Babu, who had told us so many exciting stories only the previous night, seemed to have aged considerably in the last couple of hours. What I couldn’t figure out was whether it was because of the tragic death of his secretary, or because of the implications of having a man-eater running loose in the area.

We did not have to go very far into the forest. Only five minutes after taking the road that ran through the forest, the jeep in front of us slowed down, and then stopped. The road was lined with large trees. I recognized teak, silk-cotton and neem. There was a huge jackfruit tree and a number of bamboo groves. Evidence of last night’s rain lay everywhere. Every little hole and hollow in the ground was full of water.

‘Look!’ Feluda said as our jeep stopped. I looked in the direction he pointed and noticed, after a few seconds, a light green object on a bush. It was a torn piece of the shirt Mr Sengupta had worn the night before, I had no problem in recognizing it.

Our jeep stood at least fifty yards away from where Mr Sengupta’s body lay—hidden out of sight, thankfully. Everyone from the other jeep climbed out. The woodcutter began walking. Feluda, too, got out and said, ‘You two wait here. It must be a horrible sight.’

The others disappeared behind a bamboo grove. Although we were at some distance from them, I could hear what they said, possibly because the forest was totally silent. The first person to speak was Mahitosh Babu. ‘My God!’ he exclaimed, slapping his forehead with his palm.

‘It’s useless now to look for pug marks—the rain would have washed them away—but it does look like an attack by a tiger,
doesn’t it?’ asked Mr Datta.

‘Yes, undoubtedly,’ Mahitosh Babu replied.

‘It stopped raining after two o’clock last night. From the way the blood’s been washed away, it seems he was killed before it started to rain.’

Feluda spoke next: ‘But does a man-eater always start eating its prey on the same spot where it kills it? Doesn’t it often carry its dead prey from one place to another?’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ Mahitosh Babu replied, ‘but don’t think we can find traces of the body being dragged on the ground. No mark would have stayed for very long in all that rain. In any case, a tiger is quite capable of carrying the body of a man in such a way that it wouldn’t touch the ground at all. So I don’t think we’ll ever find out where exactly Torit was attacked.’

‘If we could find his glasses, maybe that would . . .’ Feluda’s voice trailed away.

This was followed by a few minutes’ silence. Through the leaves, I saw Mr Sanyal move. Perhaps he was trying to look for pug marks.

‘Madhavlal!’ called Mahitosh Babu, but could get no further, for Feluda interrupted him.

‘Can a tiger use just one single nail to leave a deep wound?’ he asked.

‘Why? What makes you say that?’

‘Perhaps you didn’t notice—there’s a wound on his chest. Something narrow and very sharp pierced through his clothes and went into his body. If you come this way, sir, I’ll show you what I mean.’

Everyone gathered round the body once more. Then I heard Mahitosh Babu cry, ‘Oh God! Dear God in heaven, this is murder! That kind of injury couldn’t possibly have been caused by an animal. Someone killed him before the tiger found him. Oh, what a terrible disaster!’

‘Murder . . . or it may be attempted murder,’ Feluda spoke slowly ‘He was stabbed, that much is clear. But maybe his assassin left him injured and ran away. When the tiger came along, an injured prey must have made his job that much easier. If only we could find the weapon!’

‘Shashanka, please inform the police at once,’ Mahitosh Babu said.

Everyone then returned to the jeep, leaving only Madhavlal with
his gun to guard the body. When Feluda joined us, I was shocked to see how grim he looked. He didn’t speak another word on the way back; neither were we in the mood to talk. We passed a herd of deer a few moments later, but even that did not bring me any joy. We had faced danger many times in the past, and had had to deal with unforeseen complexities, but this seemed utterly bizarre. Not only was there a mysterious death, a possible murderer to be found and arrested, but—to top it all—a man-eater!

I stole a glance at Lalmohan Babu. Never before had I seen him look so ashen.