The Complete Adventures of Feluda: Volume I (80 page)

Feluda and I had travelled to so many different places trying to solve mysteries—Sikkim, Lucknow, Rajasthan, Simla, Varanasi—and had had plenty of adventures everywhere. But I had no idea that this time, we would get involved in such a bloodcurdling experience without even stepping out of Calcutta.

Lalmohan Babu called the final day a ‘black-letter day’, but changed it later to ‘a black-letter night’. I had to agree, when he asked me, that we had never been in such a fix before.

Lalmohan Babu was always punctual, but ever since he’d acquired a car, he’d become more strict about punctuality. That night, when he returned to our house, he knocked smartly on our door instead of rattling the knocker. Feluda and I had had our dinner and were ready. I was wearing my own hunting boots. Mine had been bought only the year before; Feluda’s were eleven years old. Perhaps they were not in very good condition because I saw him fiddling with a sole and making repairs. Now he was limping a little. Perhaps he should have gone to a cobbler. Surely it wouldn’t do to hobble if the night ahead was likely to be full of danger?

We got to our feet as soon as we heard the knock on the door. Feluda had a brown leather shoulder bag. A portion of the red envelope from Bourne & Shepherd was peeping out of it. He had instructed us to wear dark clothes. Lalmohan Babu was wearing a black suit.

He walked into our living room, saying, ‘You wouldn’t believe what modern medicine can do. My doctor told me about a nerve-soothing pill—it’s got two “x”-s in its name! At his suggestion I took one after dinner, and already I feel charged and ready to take on the world. Dear Tapesh, come what may, we’ll fight to the end, won’t we?’ He had no idea who he was supposed to fight, nor had I.

Feluda decided that our car should be parked at some distance from the main gate of the cemetery. ‘If its colour matched your dark clothes, I wouldn’t have worried,’ he said. The driver, Hari, was told to stop the car even before we reached the crossing at Rawdon Street after passing St Xavier’s. ‘You two go ahead,’ Feluda said, ‘I have to leave some instructions with Hari.’

We left the car and walked on. God knows what Feluda’s instructions were, but it was clear from Hari’s general demeanour that he was most intrigued by our activities, and perfectly willing to join in.

Feluda came back in a few minutes. ‘You are very lucky to have found such a good driver,’ he told Lalmohan Babu. ‘He seems most reliable. I’m quite relieved, now that I’ve asked him to handle certain responsibilities.’

‘What responsibilities?’

‘Nothing, really, if all goes well here. If it doesn’t, a lot will depend on Hari.’

Feluda refused to say any more.

The large iron gate was standing open. How come? ‘Normally, at this time of night, it would be closed,’ Feluda whispered back when I asked him. ‘But tonight there’s a special arrangement. There are pieces of glass fixed to the edge of the compound wall, you see. Climbing over it would have been risky. But where’s Baramdeo?’

A light flickered in the chowkidar’s room, but it didn’t look as if anyone was in there. We searched the area around the room, and found no one. In the faint light that came from Park Street, I could see a frown on Feluda’s face. It meant that the chowkidar should have been in his room. That was the arrangement Feluda had made with him.

We decided not to waste any more time, and walked on, but not right down the central path this time. Feluda took a few steps, then turned left. We began moving through the host of tombstones. There was a strong breeze. Ribbons of clouds were flitting across the sky. A pale half-moon was peeping out fleetingly through them. When it did, the names on the marble plaques became visible just for a few moments, then they were gone. When we finally stepped behind a large tomb, the moon came out again, and I saw the name, Samuel Cuthbert Thornhill. This tombstone was not a long, tapering obelisk. There was something like a platform, surrounded by pillars which were covered by a dome. Three people could easily hide behind it. It was totally dark—the light from the main road did not reach that spot. However, if I looked to my right, I could see a portion of the
gate through all the other tombstones.

Feluda spoke, possibly because he was reasonably sure there was no one in the cemetery except ourselves. But he kept his voice low. ‘Could you please sprinkle this around?’ he asked Lalmohan Babu, offering him a bottle with a stopper. He had taken it out of his shoulder bag.

‘Sp-sprinkle?’

‘Yes, it’s carbolic acid. Should keep snakes at bay.’

Lalmohan Babu did as he was told, and returned a minute later. ‘Well, that’s a relief! Even a nerve-soothing pill couldn’t take away my fear of snakes,’ he remarked.

‘What about your fear of ghosts? Has that gone?’

‘Totally.’

Frogs were croaking nearby. Crickets were chirping. One of them seemed to have set up its home right next to Thornhill’s grave. Scattered clouds were still flitting by. Perhaps some of them were thicker than the others, which was why the darkness all around us was growing deeper every now and then. As a result, the tombstones were all dissolving into one black mass. Then, as the moon slipped out, they separated from one another and became dimly visible again.

Feluda took out a packet of chewing gum, and offered it to us before putting some in his own mouth.

The sound of traffic was growing less. I counted the seconds, and realized that for nearly half a minute, I had heard nothing but the frogs, the crickets, and leaves rustling in sudden gusts of wind.

‘Midnight!’ whispered Lalmohan Babu.

Why midnight? Only a couple of minutes ago, I had looked at my watch in the moonlight. It was then twenty-five minutes past eleven.

‘Why do you say it’s midnight when it’s not?’ I had to ask.

‘Oh, I said that only because . . . because midnight has a special . . . er . . . something, doesn’t it?’

‘What something?’

‘Midnight in the graveyard, you see? That’s special. I read it somewhere.’

‘You mean that’s when spooks come out?’

Instead of making a reply, Lalmohan Babu made a funny sound that ended in a hiss. A faint noise by my side told me that Feluda had struck a march, but had kept the flame hidden behind his hand. Then he lit a cigarette, inhaled and blew some smoke out, without removing his hand.

The clouds were getting thicker. The sound of traffic had stopped
completely. The wind, too, was silent. Every noise, every sound had vanished. The crickets and the frogs had gone to sleep. My body felt cold, my throat was parched. I tried licking my lips, but they remained dry.

An owl hooted loudly. Lalmohan Babu promptly clapped his hands over his ears. Slowly, Feluda rose to his feet.

A car had stopped somewhere close by. It was impossible to tell exactly where it might be parked, but my instinct told me that the sound had come not from Park Street, but from Rawdon Street to the west. There was no gate facing Rawdon Street. There was only the compound wall, with pieces of broken glass fixed to its edge. I heard a car door slam.

Our eyes remained glued to the gate. Lalmohan Babu opened his mouth to speak, but Feluda stretched out an arm and gave his shoulder a light squeeze to stop him. No one came through the gate.

Perhaps there was some perfectly reasonable explanation why the car had suddenly arrived in the middle of the night. There were so many houses and residential apartments in the area. Perhaps someone had simply returned home after a late night show. I hoped fervently that that was the case. Then we need not worry about the car at all.

Feluda, however, was standing straight, his tense back flattened against the wall. Facing him was a pillar. Everything was pitch dark. No one could see us. But how were we going to see them? If they were here?

A minute later, I realized that there was no need to see anything. We did not have to use our eyes. Our ears told us what was happening.

Thud . . . thud . . . thud . . . thud!

Someone was digging the ground. The sound continued for some time. We listened with bated breath.

Thud . . . thud . . .!

It stopped. Now we could see a light. Through the gap between two distant obelisks, a dim light had travelled and fallen on the grass. It was not still, but moving, swaying, playing on the grass. It was clearly coming from a torch.

Suddenly, it disappeared.

‘They climbed over the wall!’ Feluda spoke through clenched teeth. ‘I’ll follow them!’ he added. He was now waiting to hear the car restart.

A whole minute passed. Then another. And another.

‘Strange!’ remarked Feluda.

There was no noise, either from Rawdon Street or Park Street.
The car that had arrived was still parked at the same spot. What was going on?

Two more minutes passed. The clouds parted again. The moon reappeared. No one was in sight.

‘Hold this, Topshe!’ Feluda passed me his shoulder bag and stepped onto the grass. Then he began moving in the direction where we had seen the torchlight. There was no reason to worry about him—he had his Colt .32 in his pocket. Very soon, it was going to roar and shatter the silence of this cemetery.

But . . . Feluda was still limping. One of his boots was clearly bothering him. The limp was slight, but it was there. God knows why he had to try and repair his boot himself.

We waited. Where was the roar from Feluda’s revolver? The silence continued.

‘Mistake!’ Lalmohan Babu spoke hoarsely. ‘Your cousin made an awful mistake!’

I hissed like a snake to stop him from speaking further. Feluda had disappeared in the dark. I simply could not tell what was going on behind all those tombstones. What was that? A noise of some kind? No, I must have imagined it.

A clock struck the hour. Midnight. Where could the clock be? St Paul’s? The wind was coming from that direction. Sometimes, if the wind blew from the west, from our house in Ballygunj we could hear lions roar in the Alipore zoo.

Oh. There was a car starting.

Another door slammed. Then it revved its engine, and drove off. We could wait no longer. I wasn’t afraid, but I certainly felt anxious. The two of us got to our feet. Lalmohan Babu was muttering something, but I decided not to pay him any attention. There was no time for that.

We began walking as fast as we could, feeling our way through the tombstones. We passed one that said ‘Mary Ellis’. Lalmohan Babu was clutching the back of my shirt. The grass under our feet was still wet, still cold.

The next plaque I could see said ‘John Martin’. Then came Cynthia Collette. Captain Evans. That was followed by an obelisk. On a black marble plaque . . .

Crunch!

I had stepped on something. I removed my foot and looked down. The moon had come out again. I picked up the object.

It was a packet of Charminar, and it wasn’t empty. There were quite a few cigarettes left in it. Each had been squashed.

Feluda!

I cannot tell what happened next. All I remember is a slight pressure on my mouth, and a smothered scream from Lalmohan Babu.

When I came round, the first thing I thought was that I was lying on the beach in Puri. It was only by the sea that one could hope to feel such a strong breeze. My ears felt cold, as did my nose. My hair was blowing in the wind.

But where was the sea? The water? Sand? Roaring waves? There was a sound . . . but it was certainly not the sea. I was in the back seat of a car, being driven in the dark, down an empty road. On my right was Lalmohan Babu. A complete stranger was sitting on my left. I had never seen the man before. The driver was wearing a turban. There was another man sitting next to him. No one was talking.

As soon as I raised my head, the man on my left looked at me. He looked a bit like a crook. But he didn’t say anything. Why should he? We were unarmed, and offered him no threat. Feluda had a weapon. He was not in this car. I had no idea where he might be.

He had handed me his bag. Where was it?

There it was, behind my head, in the space in front of the rear windscreen. Its strap touched my cheek.

‘Midnight!’ said Lalmohan Babu. I gave him a sidelong glance. His eyes were still closed.

‘Midnight! Ma! Jai Ma, Ma Santoshi! . . . Midnight . . .!’

‘Shut up!’ threatened the man on my left.

My eyes grew heavy again. Everything went dark once more. The sound of the car faded away.

When I opened my eyes again, I expected to find myself in a temple. No, not a temple. It had to be a church. These bells were not made of brass. They were ringing a foreign melody.

But it was neither a temple nor a church. It was, in fact, someone’s drawing room. A chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, but it hadn’t been lit. There wasn’t a great deal of light in the room. All it had was a table lamp kept by the side of a settee with velvet upholstery.
I was sitting on another settee, also covered with velvet. No, not sitting. Reclining. By my side was Lalmohan Babu. His eyes were still closed. Feluda was seated in a chair on the other side. His face looked grim. The right side of his forehead was bruised and swollen. On our left stood a man, who we knew as Pyarelal. In his hand was a revolver, a Colt .32. Presumably, it was Feluda’s.

There were three other men standing in the room. All were looking at us, but saying nothing. Perhaps the man who would do all the talking hadn’t yet arrived. The largest settee in the room—upholstered in black velvet—was still empty. Maybe it was waiting for someone. Probably Mr Choudhury. But this was not the smart modern house in Alipore. It was a very old house. The ceiling appeared to be about thirty feet high. Its beams were all made of iron. The door was so enormous that a horse could have passed through it.

There was more. Clocks. Some were standing upright, others were hanging on the wall. One of the standing clocks was as high as a man of medium height, or maybe even higher than that. It was these clocks that had chimed a little while ago. It was two o’clock in the morning.

I had caught Feluda’s eyes only once. The look in them said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m here to deal with things.’ I had learnt to read Feluda’s face. So I was feeling somewhat reassured.

‘Good morning, Mr Mitter!’

It took me a few seconds to find the man who had spoken those words. He had come in through a door directly behind the lamp. His voice still had a velvety texture. In fact, it sounded smoother than before. There was reason for that. Now it was he who had the upper hand, not Feluda.

‘What’s that? Have you searched it thoroughly, Pyarelal?’ he asked, looking at Feluda’s shoulder bag. Somehow, it had made its way back to Feluda.

Pyarelal informed his master that the bag contained nothing but papers, a notebook and pictures. They had found a bottle, but it had been removed.

‘I’m sorry you had to be dragged here, Mr Mitter, please don’t mind,’ Mr Choudhury said, oozing charm. ‘Since you were so interested in that Perigal repeater, I thought you might be pleased to be present when it came into my hands. Balwant, have you finished cleaning the watch?’

One of the men nodded and told him that they were nearly done with the cleaning, it would soon be brought into the room.

‘It has been lying in a grave for two hundred years,’ Mr Choudhury continued, ‘William did not tell me at first. All he told me was that he had a Perigal, but he was taking a very long time to bring it. Then, when I put pressure on him, he admitted that it was buried underground, hence the delay. As it was buried with a corpse, I told my men to dust and clean it properly before they brought it to me. I even told them to wipe it with Dettol.’

Feluda was looking straight at Mr Choudhury. It was impossible to tell from his face what he was thinking. Lalmohan Babu and I had been chloroformed. Feluda had been hit on the head and knocked unconscious.

‘How did you learn about this particular watch, Mr Mitter?’

‘From a diary written by someone in the nineteenth century. It was the daughter of the man who owned the watch.’

‘A diary? Not a letter?’

‘No. It was a diary.’

Mr Choudhury had taken out a packet of foreign cigarettes, together with a gold lighter and holder.

‘Don’t you know William?’ he asked, inserting a cigarette into his holder.

‘No, I don’t know anyone called William.’

A flame appeared at the end of Mr Choudhury’s Dunhill lighter. ‘So what you read in that diary was enough to make you greedy?’

‘Greedy? No, Mr Choudhury, only you have a monopoly on greed.’ A shadow appeared on Mr Choudhury’s velvety face. The cigarette-holder, clutched between two fingers, was trembling a little.

‘Mind how you speak to me, Mr Mitter!’

‘I never mind how I speak to anyone, when I speak the truth. All I wanted to do was make sure that the watch did not leave Godwin’s grave. If a man like you could lay . . .’

Feluda could not complete his sentence. A man had come into the room, carrying an object placed on a silk handkerchief. As soon as Mr Choudhury picked it up, Lalmohan Babu—sitting next to me— began groaning and spluttering.

‘M-m-my-my-my-!’

He had just opened his eyes and seen the object in Mr Choudhury’s hand. It was something with which Lalmohan Babu was thoroughly familiar.

It is impossible to describe what happened to Mr Choudhury. Once Feluda had told me that the seven major musical notes bore a
relationship to the seven colours of a rainbow, but I had no idea that a man’s face could change colour so quickly and pass through so many shades. Nor had I ever heard anyone’s voice strike a different pitch every second.

The expletives that poured out of his mouth were difficult to hear, impossible to repeat. Feluda, however, remained perfectly unperturbed. I could tell the whole thing was his doing. When he had visited the cemetery in the afternoon, he must have done it then. But did that mean that the real watch did not exist at all?

Like a mad man, Mr Choudhury flung the Cooke-Kelvey watch on an empty chair by his side. ‘Call William!’ he roared, ‘and give me that revolver!’

Pyarelal handed the revolver to Mr Choudhury and left the room. Mr Choudhury muttered ‘Scoundrel!’ and ‘Swindler!’ a couple of times. Then he got to his feet and began pacing impatiently.

Pyarelal returned in a few moments through the door at the back. With him was another man with long hair going down to his shoulders, and a moustache that drooped down to his chin. He was wearing trousers, a shirt and a cotton jacket.

‘What is this watch that you’ve dug up?’ Mr Choudhury thundered. He was sitting on the sofa once more, still clutching the revolver, his eyes still fixed on Feluda’s face.

‘I’ve brought you exactly what I found, Mr Choudhury,’ pleaded the new arrival. ‘How could I hope to cheat an expert like you?’

‘What about that letter? Did it tell a lie?’ Mr Choudhury’s voice shook the entire room.

‘How should I know, Mr Choudhury? That was the only thing we could depend on. Look, here it is.’

The man took out an old letter and offered it to Mr Choudhury. The latter took it, glanced at it briefly, then threw it away irritably. Feluda burst out laughing in the same instant. It was laughter born from pure amusement. I hadn’t heard him laugh so merrily for a long time.

‘What’s there to laugh about, Mr Mitter?’ Mahadev Choudhury shouted. Feluda controlled himself with an effort and replied, ‘I am laughing because all your dramatic arrangements have come to nothing!’

Mr Choudhury rose with the gun in his hand and walked silently over to Feluda. The thick carpet on the floor stifled his footsteps.

‘So you think my drama is over, do you? How do I know the real
watch is not with you? You visited the cemetery so many times. Even this evening, you were there long before William. If you have got that watch, do you think I’ll let you leave without taking it from you? You may have hidden it somewhere, but you will have to take it out yourself, and hand it over to me. Do you understand, Mr Mitter? Even if there is no watch, even if that letter is full of lies, why do you think I will spare you? Your habit of poking your nose into everything is most inconvenient for me. So don’t think the drama is over. No, Mr Mitter. It has only just begun!’

When Feluda spoke, his voice held a note that I could recognize instantly. He always uses it when a case reaches its climax. Lalmohan Babu says it reminds him of the sound made by Tibetan horns.

‘You are making a mistake, Mr Choudhury,’ he said. ‘The drama is now in my hands, not yours. I will direct it from now on. I will judge who is a bigger criminal—you, or that man called William . . .!’

Suddenly, complete chaos broke out in the room. William gave a giant leap, knocked down Pyarelal who was standing in front of him, and rushed towards the exit. Mr Choudhury fired his gun, but missed him by a couple of feet. The bullet hit the dial of a standing clock and shattered it completely. To everyone’s surprise, the damaged clock immediately began chiming.

Two of the other men ran to catch William, but they could not go very far. Blocking their way was a group of armed men. They stopped everyone and entered the room, pushing William back into it. None of us had to be told that the man leading the group was a police inspector. Behind him were five constables and, peeping over their shoulders, was the eager and curious face of Lalmohan Babu’s driver, Hari Datta.

‘Shabash, Mr Datta!’ said Feluda.

‘You are Felu Mitter, aren’t you?’ the inspector asked, looking at Feluda. ‘What on earth is going on here? I know Mr Choudhury, but who is this man who was trying to get away?’

Before answering the question, Feluda strode over to Mr Choudhury and retrieved his own revolver from him. Choudhury was obviously so completely taken aback that he did nothing to protest.

‘Thank you, Mr Choudhury,’ said Feluda. ‘Kindly go back to the sofa. You will find it easier from there to watch the final scene in this drama. Besides, black velvet suits you so well! And Mr William—’, Feluda’s eyes turned away from Choudhury, ‘in that wig and false moustache, you are looking exactly like your great-grandfather. Will
you please take them off?’

One of the constables pulled at William’s hair and moustache. Both came off easily, and we saw—to our absolute amazement— that the man standing in the place of William was Naren Biswas’s brother, Girin Biswas.

‘Now, tell me, Mr Biswas,’ said Feluda, ‘what is your full name?’

‘Why, don’t you know my name already?’

‘You appear to have two names. Together, they make up your full name, don’t they? You are called William Girindranath Biswas. Isn’t that right? At least, that is how you are described in the list of gold medallists in the Presidency College magazine. And your brother is called Michael Narendranath Biswas. The “M” on his visiting card stands for “Michael”, does it not? Since you generally use your Bengali names, your brother printed “N. M.” on his card rather than “M. N.”. Am I right?’

Girin Biswas remained silent. Feluda was obviously right. ‘What does your brother call you?’

‘Why? What’s it to you?’

‘Very well. If you won’t tell anyone, I shall. He calls you “Will”. When he regained consciousness in the hospital, it was your name that he mentioned twice. Isn’t that so?’

Feluda took out a large red envelope from his bag. A photograph emerged from it. ‘Look at these people, Mr Biswas. See if you know who they are. Perhaps you don’t have this photo in your house. But there was a copy at Bourne & Shepherd.’

The photo showed a couple. Presumably, it was taken soon after their wedding. The man looked amazingly like Girin Biswas. The woman was clearly British.

‘Do you know these people?’ Feluda went on, ‘the gentleman is Parvati Charan—P.C. Biswas, your great-grandfather. It is obvious from his clothes that he had become a Christian. The lady is Thomas Godwin’s granddaughter, Victoria. It was she who wrote that letter. In fact, she had her photo taken even before she was married. Bourne & Shepherd have a copy of that, too. Victoria fell in love with your great-grandfather, a native Christian. So she fell out of favour with her own grandfather, Thomas Godwin. However, before he died, he forgave Victoria and gave her his blessings. A year later, Victoria and Parvati Charan were married.

‘What this means is that Tom Godwin’s name is linked with not one, but two families in Calcutta—one in Ripon Lane, and the other
in New Alipore. What is more intriguing is that both families had old documents that mentioned Tom’s watch. One was the letter from Victoria; the other was Thomas Godwin’s daughter, Charlotte’s diary.’

How extraordinary! Truth was really stranger than fiction. It turned out that a bundle of letters written by Victoria was lying in an old trunk in Naren Biswas’s house. It had remained there for decades, but no one had bothered to read the letters. When Naren Biswas began to read up on the history of Calcutta, he came across the bundle one day and read every letter. That was how he learned about the Perigal repeater and told his brother, Girin.

All these details emerged slowly, as Feluda continued to shoot a volley of questions at Girin Biswas. Mr Biswas began to wilt visibly, but Feluda hadn’t finished. Rather abruptly, he asked, ‘Are you in the habit of going to the races, Mr Biswas?’