by Satyajit Ray
‘Get up!’ This time it was Feluda who ordered Mandar Bose. The meter gauge train was swinging and swaying across the desert, making a lot of noise. Lalmohan Babu had, in the meantime, grabbed Mr Bose’s revolver and stuffed it into his own Japan Airlines bag.
‘Get up!’ Feluda shouted again.
The torch was rolling on the floor. I could see that it should really be focussed on Mr Bose, or the fellow might take advantage of the darkness and try to trick us. Some such thought made me bend down to pick it up—which led to disaster. Even now, my blood runs cold when I think about it.
Mandar Bose was facing my bench. Just as I bent down, he suddenly lunged forward, grabbed me and got to his feet, holding me firmly in front of himself. As a result, I became a protective shield for him. Even at such a critical moment, I couldn’t help admiring his cunning. It was clear that although round one had gone to Feluda most unexpectedly, he was certainly in a difficult position in the second round. And I was wholly to blame.
Mandar Bose kept a tight hold on me as he began moving towards the open door. I could feel something sharp hurting my shoulder. Then I realized it was one of his nails. Suddenly, I remembered little Neelu complaining that his hand hurt.
We were now standing very close to the door. I could feel the biting cold night air. It was brushing against my left shoulder.
Mandar Bose took another step. Feluda’s gun was pointed at him, but now Feluda couldn’t really do anything. The torch was still rolling on the floor as the train swayed from side to side.
Suddenly, I was flung forward, with considerable force. It made me collide with Feluda. The sound that came a second later told me that Mandar Bose had jumped out of the moving train. What I could not tell was whether he had survived or not.
Feluda went to the door and peered out. He came back a couple of minutes later, replaced his revolver and said, ‘I hope he breaks a few bones, or it will be a matter of great regret.’
Lalmohan Babu laughed—a trifle loudly—and said, ‘Didn’t I tell you the man was suspicious?’
I gulped some water from the flask. My heartbeat was gradually returning to normal, as was my breathing. I was still finding it difficult to grasp the enormity of what had just happened, in a matter of minutes.
‘He got away this time only because of dear Topesh,’ said Feluda, ‘or I’d have used my gun to drag a full confession out of him. However . . .’ he stopped. After a brief pause, he said, ‘When I come face to face with danger, my brain starts working much more efficiently. I’ve noticed it before. Now I can see what that code meant.’
‘Really?’ Lalmohan Babu sounded amazed.
‘It’s actually quite simple. “I” is the man writing the note, “P” is Pokhran, “U” is “you”, and “M” is “Mitter”. Pradosh Mitter.’
‘And the plus and minus signs?’
‘IP 1625 + U. That means “I am arriving at Pokhran at 4.25. You must join me.”’
‘And U – M? What does that mean?’
‘That’s even simpler. It means “you get rid of Mitter”.’
‘Get rid . . .?’ Lalmohan Babu could barely speak. ‘You mean the minus sign stands for murder?’
‘No, not necessarily. If you were forced to jump out of a moving train, chances are you’d be injured. And, in any case, you’d have to wait another twenty-four hours for the next train. The crooks would have finished their business in that time. What they really needed to do was stop us from going to Jaisalmer. That’s why they littered the road with nails and pins. But when they realized that hadn’t worked, Bose tried to get us off the train.’
Suddenly, I became aware of a smell. ‘I can smell a cigar, Feluda!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, I got that smell as soon as the fellow jumped into the compartment. It was obvious even in the Circuit House that someone was smoking cigars. Remember that golden foil Mukul found? Cigars are wrapped in that kind of foil.’
‘And there’s something else. One of his nails is much longer than others. My shoulder must be as badly scratched as Neelu’s hand.’
‘All right, but who is the “I” who is giving all the instructions?’ Lalmohan Babu wanted to know.
Feluda’s voice sounded solemn when he spoke. ‘That warning someone had left for me in the Circuit House, and this handwritten code both point to one person.’
‘Who?’ Lalmohan Babu and I cried together. ‘Dr Hemanga Mohan Hajra.’
The rest of the night passed without further excitement. I slept for about three hours. When I woke, it was bright and sunny outside. Feluda was no longer lying on the floor. He was seated in one corner of my bench and staring out of the window. On his lap was his blue notebook, and in his hands were two notes. One was the warning, and the other was the letter Dr Hajra had left for us before leaving Jodhpur. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to seven. Lalmohan Babu was still fast asleep. I felt very hungry, but had no wish to eat another goja. We would reach Jaisalmer at nine. Somehow, I must put up with the pangs of hunger until then.
The scenery outside was really strange. For mile after mile stretched an undulating landscape—there was not a single house in sight, not a single human being, not even a tree. Yet I could not call it a desert because, although there was a little sand, most of it consisted of dry, pale grass, reddish earth and blackish-red chips of stone. It seemed incredible that, after such a landscape, we would find a whole town again.
The train stopped at a station called Jetha-chandan. I opened the railway timetable and discovered that the next station was called Thaiyat Hamira, and the one after that was Jaisalmer. At Jetha-chandan, there were no shops or stalls on the platform, no hawkers, no porters, no passengers. It was as if our train had somehow arrived at a place that had not yet been discovered by man. It was no different from a rocket landing on moon.
Lalmohan Babu woke soon after the train started moving again. He yawned and said, ‘I had the most fantastic dream, you know. There was this gang of bandits, each with a moustache that looked like the horns of a ram. I had hypnotized them, and was leading them through a castle. There was a tunnel. We went through the tunnel and reached an underground chamber. I knew there was some treasure buried in that chamber, but all I could see was a camel sitting on the floor, chewing gojas!’
‘How do you know that?’ Feluda asked. ‘Did the camel open its mouth and show you what it was chewing?’
‘No, no. But I saw my tin—there it was, lying in front of the camel!’
Soon after we left Thaiyat Hamira, in the distance, the hazy outline of a hill came into view. It was a Rajasthani table mountain with a flat top. Our train appeared to be going in that direction.
Around eight o’clock, we could dimly see some sort of structure on top of that hill. Slowly, it became clear that it was a fortress. It stood like a crown atop the hill, spread all around its flattened top. It was bathed in the bright light of the early morning sun, which was falling directly upon it from a dazzling sky. Quite involuntarily, three words slipped out of my mouth: ‘The golden fortress!’
‘That’s right,’ Feluda told me. ‘This is the only golden fortress in Rajasthan. That bowl in that shop in Jodhpur raised my suspicions. Then I looked it up in the guide book, and my suspicions were confirmed. The fort and the bowl were both made with the same stone—yellow sandstone. If Mukul is truly a jatismar, and if there is truly something like a previous life, then I think he was born somewhere in this region.’
‘But does Dr Hajra know that?’ I asked.
Feluda did not reply. He was still staring at the fort. ‘You know something Topshe?’ he said finally. ‘There is something special about that golden light. It has helped me see the whole pattern of the spider’s web, very clearly!’
Eleven
The first thing we did on getting off the train in Jaisalmer was to stop at a tea stall and have a cup of tea and some sweets. It was a new kind of sweet, one that we hadn’t had before. Feluda said it would do us good as it had glucose in it. A lot of
activity lay ahead, the glucose would provide extra energy.
We emerged from the station to find that there was not a single vehicle we could hire—no tongas, ekkas, cycle-rickshaws, or taxis. There was a jeep waiting, but it was obviously not meant for hire. When we got off the train, I had noticed a black Ambassador standing outside. But now even that had gone.
‘It’s a small town,’ Feluda said. ‘I don’t think a place is all that far from another. My guide book says there’s a dak bungalow. Let’s go and find it.’
We set off, carrying our luggage. Soon enough, we found a petrol station, where a man gave us directions. In order to get to the dak bungalow, we would not have to climb the hill, he said. The bungalow was located on the plains, to the south of the hill. As we began walking again, Feluda looked at the tyre marks on the sand and said, ‘That Ambassador must have come this way!’
About fifteen minutes later, we came upon a bungalow. A wooden board fixed to its gate told us that we had come to the right place. The black Ambassador was parked in front of it.
An old man wearing a khaki shirt and a short dhoti came out of an outhouse. On his head was a turban. Perhaps he had seen us arrive. Feluda asked him in Hindi if he was the chowkidar. The man nodded. It appeared from the way he was looking at us that our arrival was unexpected, and he didn’t altogether approve of our sudden appearance, as no one was allowed to stay in the bungalow without prior permission.
Feluda said nothing about staying there. All we wanted to do, he told the man, was leave our luggage in the bungalow. Then we’d try to get the necessary permission. ‘You’ll have to see the Raja’s secretary for that,’ said the chowkidar and pointed us in the right direction. The palace, also made of yellow sandstone, was at some distance; but certain portions of it were visible, rising above the trees.
The chowkidar raised no objection to our luggage being left there, He showed us into a small room, where we dumped our suitcases and holdalls. Then we filled our flasks with fresh water, slung them on our shoulders and asked him the way to the fort.
‘You want to go to the fort?’
The question came from the far end of a passage. A gentleman had just come out of a room. He appeared no more than forty, had a clear complexion, and a sharp nose, under which was a thin moustache, very carefully trimmed. A second later, he was joined by an older man, who was clutching a stick—the kind that we had seen in the market in Jodhpur—and was wearing an odd, somewhat ill-fitting black suit. I could not tell which part of the country they might be from. The second man was limping slightly, which explained the need for the stick.
‘Yes, a look at the fort might be interesting,’ said Feluda.
‘Come along with us, we are going that way.’
Feluda thought for a few moments, then agreed. ‘Thank you very much, it is very kind of you,’ he said
As we made our way to the car, Lalmohan Babu whispered into my ear: ‘I hope these men won’t try to throw us out of a moving car!’
The car began its journey to the fort. The man with the stick asked us, ‘Are you from Calcutta ?’
‘Yes,’ Feluda replied.
To our left, in the distance, rising from the sand, were stone pillars. We had seen something similar in Devikund. Feluda said such structures were quite common in Rajasthan.
Our car started going uphill. About a minute later, we heard another car. It was tooting urgently. That was a bit surprising, since we were not driving all that slowly and getting in its way. Feluda was sitting at the back with the two gentlemen. He turned round, peered through the glass and suddenly said to our driver, ‘Stop! Please stop!’
Our car pulled up by the side of the road. At once, a taxi came along and stopped on our right. Holding its steering wheel was Gurbachan Singh, greeting us with a smile.
The three of us climbed out. Feluda said to the two men, ‘Thank you so much for your help. But this is our own taxi. It had broken down on the way to Jaisalmer, but now it’s caught up with us.’
When we were back in his car, Gurbachan told us how, at half past six that morning, he had spotted another taxi going back from Jaisalmer. He knew its driver, and managed to get a spare tyre from him. Then he covered ninety miles in two hours. When he reached Jaisalmer, he simply waited at the petrol station, until he spotted us inside the black Ambassador.
A little later, we found ourselves going through a market. There were shops everywhere, a loudspeaker was playing a Hindi song and, outside a small cinema, was a poster advertising a Hindi film.
‘You want to see the fort?’ Gurbachan asked.
‘Yes,’ Feluda told him. Gurbachan stopped the taxi and said, ‘This is its gate.’
To our right was a massive gate, beyond which rose a road, paved with stone, which led to a second gate. That, I realized, was the real entrance to the fort, the first one acted as the front gate. Behind the entrance, rising steeply, was the golden fortress of Jaisalmer.
A guard was standing outside the front gate. Feluda went and asked him if he had seen a man with a small boy that morning. He indicated Mukul’s height.
‘Yes, sir, they were here. But they’ve now left,’ replied the guard. ‘When did they leave?’
‘About half an hour ago.’
‘Did they come by car?’
‘Yes, sir. In a taxi.’
‘Which way did they go? Can you remember?’
The guard nodded and pointed at the road that went further west. We got back to the car and followed it, passing through little alleys and more shops. Lalmohan Babu was sitting next to Gurbachan. Feluda and I were in the back seat. After a few minutes, Feluda suddenly asked, ‘You didn’t bring your weapon with you, did you?’
Startled by such a question, Lalmohan Babu said, ‘The dodger? No, sorry, I mean that Nepali dagger?’
‘Yes, sir. Your dagger.’
‘That’s in my suitcase.’
‘In that case, take out Mandar Bose’s revolver from your Japan Airlines bag and tuck it into your belt. Make sure it isn’t visible.’
From Lalmohan Babu’s movements, it became clear that he was following Feluda’s instruction. I was dying to see his face, but couldn’t.
‘Don’t worry,’ Feluda said reassuringly, ‘If things get sticky, all you have to do is take that gun out and point it in front of you.’
‘What if b-b-behind me, there’s . . .?’
‘If you hear a noise behind you, then just turn around. Then your “behind” will become your “front”, see?’
‘And you? Are you . . . . I mean, today, are you going to be non-violent?’
‘That depends.’
Our taxi left the market behind and came to an open space. We had already asked a couple of men on the way, and learnt that the other taxi had been seen coming this way. Besides, we had also seen tyre-marks in the sand from time to time, which told us that we were following the same route that Dr Hemanga Hajra had taken.
Gurbachan Singh came up with more information. ‘This is the way to Mohangarh,’ he said. ‘I could drive for another mile, but after that the road gets really rough. Only jeeps can travel on that road, nothing else.’
But we didn’t have to go another mile. Only a little later, we saw a taxi standing on one side of the road. To our right, at some distance, were a number of old, abandoned stone houses. All the roofs had caved in. Clearly, it had once been a village. We had seen similar villages elsewhere. People had moved out of them a long time ago. The walls of these houses were still standing only because they were made of stone.
We told Gurbachan to wait, and made our way to the houses. I saw Gurbachan get out of his car and go towards the other one, perhaps to chat with its driver.
Everything was eerily silent. If I turned my head, I could see the fort behind me, on top of the hill. Opposite the road, another hill rose steeply. At its foot, spread over a wide, open area were rows of yellow stones, embedded in the ground. They looked like giant spice-grinders. ‘Graves of warriors,’ whispered Feluda.
Lalmohan Babu spoke, in a hoarse yet squeaky voice, ‘I . . . I. . . have low blood pressure!’
‘Don’t you worry,’ Feluda replied. ‘It will soon rise higher, I promise you, and stop exactly where it should.’
We were now quite close to the houses. A path ran straight through them. I realized this village was different from the ones I had seen in Bengal. It had a simple, geometric plan.
But where were the people who had travelled in the other taxi? Where was Mukul? And Dr Hajra?
Had something happened to Mukul?
Suddenly, I became aware of a noise. It was faint, but audible if I strained my ears: thud, thud, thud, thud!
We walked on, very carefully and very silently. Then we reached a crossroad where two lanes intersected. The noise was coming from the right. Ten or twelve houses stood by the road. There were yawning gaps between their walls and where once there must have been doors.
We turned right and resumed walking stealthily.
Feluda uttered one word through his teeth, almost inaudibly, ‘Revolver!’ I saw that his hand had disappeared under his jacket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a revolver in Lalmohan Babu’s hand, which was trembling violently.
A sudden crunching noise made us come to a halt. In the next instant, through the door of a house at the far end on our left, appeared Mukul, running fast. Then he saw us, ran even faster, and flung himself on Feluda’s chest. He was gasping, his face was deathly pale.
I opened my mouth to ask him what had happened, but Feluda placed a finger on his lips and stopped me from speaking aloud.
‘Please look after him until I return!’ he whispered to Lalmohan Babu, and left Mukul in his charge. Then he proceeded towards the house from which we had just seen Mukul emerge. I followed Feluda.
The strange noise was getting louder. It sounded as if someone was lifting stones. Thud! Bang! Clang! It went on.
Feluda flattened himself against the wall as we got close to the house. A couple of steps later, we were able to peer through the gap left by the missing door. With his back to us, crouching over a huge pile of rubble, was Dr Hajra. Like a madman, he was removing stone after stone from that heap, and casting each one aside. He had no idea that we were standing so close.
