by Satyajit Ray
‘Very well.’
‘You were talking to Madhavlal last night, weren’t you?’
Mr Sanyal did not deny this. Feluda asked another question: ‘Were you asking him to place a bait for the tiger? See those vultures over that tree? I think they are there because a dead animal is lying under it.’
‘A calf,’ Mr Sanyal muttered.
‘That means you wanted the tiger to come out today, while we were here, so that you could show at least a few people you were the real shikari, not your friend. Is that right?’
Mr Sanyal nodded silently. Before Feluda could say anything else, Mahitosh Babu came forward and placed a hand on Feluda’s shoulder.
‘Mr Mitter,’ he pleaded, ‘I’d like to give you something. Please do not refuse.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘These coins. This treasure. You are entitled to at least some of it. Please let me—’
Feluda smiled, looking at Mahitosh Babu. ‘No, I don’t want your silver coins,’ he said, ‘but there is something I’d like to take back with me.’
‘What is it?’
‘Adityanarayan’s sword.’
Lalmohan Babu walked over to Feluda immediately and handed him the sword.
‘What!’ Mahitosh Babu sounded amazed. ‘You would like that old sword instead of these priceless coins?’
‘Yes. In a way, this sword is priceless, too. It is not an ordinary sword, Mahitosh Babu. No, I don’t mean just the history attached to it. There is something else.’
‘You mean something to do with Torit’s murder?’
‘No. Mr Sengupta was not murdered.’
‘What! You mean he killed himself?’
‘No, it was not suicide, either.’
‘Then what was it, for heaven’s sake? Why are you talking in riddles?’ Mahitosh Babu said impatiently, sounding stern once more.
‘No, no, I am not talking in riddles. Let me explain what happened. We were so busy looking for a murderer that the obvious answer did not occur to anyone. Mr Sengupta had removed the sword himself.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘Because he needed something to dig the ground with. He didn’t have time to look for a spade. That sword was handy, so he took it.’
‘And then?’
‘I am coming to that. But before I do, I’d like to show you what’s so special about it.’
Feluda stopped and began moving towards Mr Sanyal with the open sword in his hand. Brave though he was, Mr Sanyal moved restlessly as Feluda got closer. But Feluda did not hurt him. He merely stretched his arm, so that the iron blade could get closer to the point of the gun in Mr Sanyal’s hand. A second later, the two pieces of metal clicked together with a faint noise.
‘Good heavens, what is this? A magnet?’ Mr Sanyal cried.
‘Yes, it is now a magnet. I mean the sword, not your gun. Let me point out that when I saw this sword the first time, it was no different from other swords. There were various pieces of metal lying near it, but they were not sticking to the blade. It was magnetized the same night when Mr Sengupta died.’
‘How did that happen?’ Mahitosh Babu asked. We were all waiting with bated breath to hear Feluda’s explanation.
‘If a person happens to be carrying a piece of metal in his hand when lightning strikes, that piece of metal gets magnetized,’ Feluda went on. ‘Not only that, it may actually attract the lightning. What happened that night, I think, was this: it started raining as soon as Mr Sengupta finished digging the ground. He got the pitcher, but had to leave it there. I think he then ran towards that peepul tree to avoid getting wet. He was still carrying the sword, perhaps without even realizing it. Lightning struck the tree only a few seconds later. Mr Sengupta was lifted off the ground and flung aside under its impact . . . As he fell, the point of the sword pierced his clothes and left a deep wound in his body, purely by accident. No one killed him. It is my belief that he was already dead when he fell. Then the tiger found him.’
Mahitosh Babu was shaking violently. He looked up and stared at the peepul tree.
‘That’s why . . . that explains it!’ he said, his voice sounding choked. ‘I was wondering all this while why that tree had suddenly grown so old!’
We were going back to Calcutta today. The sun was shining brightly, but because of the recent rains, it felt pleasantly cool. We had finished packing, and were sitting in our room. Devtosh Babu’s room was now unlocked. I could hear his voice from time to time. Lalmohan Babu had grazed a knee while climbing down from the tree. He was placing a strip of sticking plaster on it, when a servant arrived, carrying a steel trunk on his head. He put it down on the ground and said Mahitosh Babu had sent it. Feluda opened it, and revealed a beautiful tiger skin, very carefully packed. There was a letter, too. It said, ‘Dear Mr Mitter, I am giving you this tiger skin as a token of my gratitude. I should be honoured if you accept it. The tiger was killed by my friend, Shashanka Sanyal, in a forest near Sambalpur, in 1957.’
Lalmohan Babu read the letter and said, ‘Ah, so you get both the sword and this skin!’
‘No, Lalmohan Babu. I am going to present the tiger skin to you.’
‘To me? Why?’
‘For your remarkable achievement. I have never known anyone who could lose consciousness on the top of a tree, and yet manage to stay put, without crashing to the ground. I would not have thought it possible at all. But you have proved it can be done!’
Lalmohan Babu waved a dismissive hand.
‘Did I tell you why I fainted in the first place? It was only because of my very lively imagination, Felu Babu. When you mentioned a tiger, do you know what I saw? I saw a burning torch, its orange flame shooting up to the sky. An awful monster sat in the middle of it, pulling evil faces, and I could hear the roar of engines. An aircraft was about to take off . . . and I knew it was going to land on me! Hey, what else could I do after this, except close my eyes and pass into oblivion?’
The Locked Chest
Village: Ghurghutia
P.O. Plassey
Dist. Nadia
3 November 1974
To:
Mr Pradosh C. Mitter
Dear Mr Mitter,
I am writing to invite you to my house. I have heard a lot about your work and wish to meet you in person. There is, of course, a special reason for asking you to come at this particular time. You will get to know the details on arrival. If you feel you are able to accept this invitation from a seventy-three-year-old man, please confirm your acceptance in writing immediately. In order to reach Ghurghutia, you need to disembark at Plassey, and travel further south for another five-and-a-half-miles. There are several trains from Sealdah, out of which the Up Lalgola Passenger leaves at 1.58 p.m. and reaches Plassey at 6.11. I will arrange for you to be met at the station and brought here. You can spend the night at my house, and catch the same train at 10.30 a.m. the following morning to Calcutta. I look forward to hearing from you.
With good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Kalikinkar Majumdar
I handed the letter back to Feluda, and asked, ‘Is it the same Plassey where that famous battle was fought?’
‘Yes. There is no other Plassey in Bengal, dear boy. But if you think the place has got any evidence left of that historic battle, you are sadly mistaken. There is absolutely no sign left, not even the palash trees in the woods that stood in Siraj-ud-daula’s time. The name “Plassey” came from these trees. Did you know that?’
I nodded. ‘Will you go, Feluda?’
Feluda stared at the letter for a few seconds.
‘I wonder why an old man wants to see me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It doesn’t seem right to refuse. To be honest, I am quite curious. Besides, have you ever been to a village in the winter? Have you seen how the mist gathers in open fields at dawn and dusk? All that remains visible are tree trunks and a little area over one’s head. Darkness falls suddenly, and it can get really cold . . . I haven’t seen all this for year
s. Go on, get me a postcard, Topshe.’
Mr Majumdar was told to expect us on 12 November. Feluda chose this date, keeping in mind that a letter from Calcutta would take at least three days to reach him.
We took the 365 Up Lalgola Passenger and reached Plassey at 6.30 p.m. I saw from the train what Feluda had meant by darkness falling quickly. The last lingering rays of the setting sun disappeared from the rice fields almost before I knew it. By the time we left the station after handing over our tickets to the collector at the gate, all lights had been switched on, although the sky still held a faint reddish glow. The car that was parked outside had to be Mr Majumdar’s. I had never seen a car like that. Feluda said he might have seen one or two when he was a child. All he knew was that it was an American car. Its colour must have been dark red once, but now the paint had peeled off in many places. The hood, too, bore patches here and there and showed signs of age. In spite of all this, there was something rather impressive about the car. I couldn’t help feeling a certain amount of awe.
A car like that ought to have had a chauffeur in uniform. The man who was leaning against it, smoking a cigarette, was dressed in a dhoti and a shirt. He threw away his cigarette when he saw us and straightened himself. ‘To see Mr Majumdar?’ he asked.
‘Yes, to Ghurghutia.’
‘Very well, sir. This way, please.’
The driver opened a door for us, and we climbed into the forty-year-old car. He then walked over to the front of the car to crank the handle, which made the engine come to life. He got behind the wheel, and began driving. We settled ourselves comfortably, but the road being full of potholes and the springs in the seat being old, our comfort did not last for very long. However, once we had passed through the main town of Plassey and were actually out in the country, the scenery became so beautiful that I ceased to feel any discomfort. It wasn’t yet totally dark, and I could see tiny villages across large rice fields, surrounded by trees. In their midst, the mist rose from the ground and spread like a smoky blanket a few feet above the ground. ‘Pretty as a picture’ was the phrase that came to mind.
An old, sprawling mansion in a place like this came as a total surprise. Ten minutes after we started, I realized that we were passing through private land, for the trees were now mango, jamun and jackfruit. The road then turned right. We passed a broken and abandoned temple, and suddenly found ourselves facing a huge white, moss-covered gate, on the top of which was a naubatkhana (a music room). The driver sounded his horn three times before passing through the gate. The mansion came into view immediately.
The last traces of red had disappeared from the sky, leaving a deep purple hue. The dark house stood against the sky, like a towering cliff. We got out and followed the driver. As we got closer, I realized the whole house could be kept in a museum. Its walls were all damp, plaster had peeled off in several places, and small plants had grown out of cracks in the exposed bricks. We stopped before the front door.
‘No one in this area has electricity, I take it?’ Feluda asked.
‘No, sir. For nearly three years, all we’ve heard are promises. But nothing’s happened yet,’ the driver replied.
I glanced up. From where I was standing, a lot of windows on the first floor were visible. But each room was in darkness. On our right, through a couple of bushes, a light flickered in a tiny hut. Perhaps that was where a mali or chowkidar lived. I shivered silently. What sort of a place was this? Perhaps Feluda should have made more enquiries before agreeing to come.
Light from a lantern fell in the doorway. Then an old servant appeared at the door. The driver had gone, possibly to put the car away. The servant glanced at us with a slight frown, then said, ‘Please come in.’ We stepped in behind him.
There was no doubt that the house sprawled over a large area. But everything inside it seemed surprisingly small. The doors were not high, the windows were half the size of windows in any house in Calcutta, and it was almost possible to touch the ceiling if I raised my arm. ‘This house clearly belonged to a zamindar.’ Feluda remarked. ‘All the houses built by zamindars in the villages in Bengal about two hundred years ago were built like this.’
We crossed a long passage, then turned right to go up a flight of stairs. A strange contraption met my eyes as we got to the first floor. ‘This is called a “covered door”. It’s like a trapdoor, really,’ Feluda told me. ‘These were built to stop burglars and dacoits from getting in. If you shut it, it would cease standing upright. Then it would fold automatically and lie flat, stretching diagonally across, to from a kind of ceiling over out heads. So anyone trying to climb up would be shut out. See those holes in the door? Spears used to be slipped out of those holes to fight intruders.’
Luckily, the door was now standing wide open. We began crossing another long corridor. An oil lamp burnt in a niche in the wall where it ended. The servant opened a door next to this niche, and ushered us in.
The room we stepped into was quite large. It might have seemed even larger had it not been stuffed with so much furniture. Nearly half of it had been taken up by a massive bed. To the left of this bed was a table and a chest. Besides these, there were three chairs, a wardrobe, and bookshelves that went right up to the ceiling. Each shelf was crammed with books. An old man was lying on the bed, a blanket drawn upto his chin. In the flickering light of a candle I saw that through a salt-and-pepper beard and moustache, he was smiling at us.
‘Please sit down,’ he invited.
‘Thank you. This is my cousin, Tapesh. I wrote to you about him,’ Feluda said. Mr Majumdar smiled again and nodded. I noticed that he did not fold his hands in reply to my ‘namaskar’.
We took the chairs nearest to the bed.
‘My letter must have made you curious,’ Mr Majumdar observed lightly.
‘Yes, it certainly did. Or I’d never have travelled this distance.’
‘Good.’ Mr Majumdar looked genuinely pleased. ‘If you hadn’t come, I would have felt very disappointed, and thought you to be arrogant; and you would have missed out on something. But perhaps you have read these books already?’ Mr Majumdar’s eyes turned towards the table. Four bound volumes were arranged in a pile next to a candle. Feluda got up and picked them up. ‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed. ‘These are all extremely rare, and they are all to do with my profession. Did you ever . . .?’
‘No, no,’ Mr Majumdar laughed, ‘I never tried to become a detective myself. It has always been a hobby. You see, fifty-two years ago, someone in our family was murdered. An English investigator called Malcolm caught the killer. After speaking to Malcolm and learning something about his work, I became interested in criminology. That was when I bought those books. I was also very fond of reading detective novels. Have you heard of Emile Gaboriau?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Feluda replied with enthusiasm, ‘wasn’t he a French writer? He wrote the first detective novel, I think.’
‘That’s right,’ Mr Majumdar nodded. ‘I’ve got all his books. And, of course, books by writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle. I bought all these forty years ago. Of late, I believe, there has been a lot of progress, and now there are many scientific and technical ways to catch a criminal. But from what little I know of your work, you strike me as one who depends more on old-fashioned methods, and uses his brain more than anything else, very successfully. Am I right?’
‘I do not know how successful I’ve been, but you’re certainly right about my methods.’
‘That is why I asked you to visit me.’
Mr Majumdar paused. Feluda returned to his chair. After a while, Mr Majumdar resumed speaking, staring straight at the flame of the candle. ‘I am not only old—I crossed seventy some years ago—but also ailing. God knows what’s going to happen to my books when I die. So I thought if I could give you a few, they’d be appreciated and looked after.’
Feluda looked at the books in the shelves in surprise. ‘Are all of those your own?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I was the only one in my family wit
h an interest in books. Criminology wasn’t the only subject that held my interest, as you can see.’
‘Yes, of course. I can see books on archaeology, painting, gardening, history, biographies, travelogues . . . even drama and the theatre! Some of them appear to be new. Do you still buy books?’
‘Oh yes. I have a manager called Rajen. He goes to Calcutta two or three times every month. I make him a list of books, and he goes and gets them from College Street.’
Feluda looked once more at the books kept on the table. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘You don’t have to. It would have given me a lot of pleasure if I could actually hand them over to you myself, but both my hands are useless.’
Startled, we stared at him. His hands were hidden under the blanket, but I would never have thought that that had a special significance.
‘Arthritis,’ Mr Majumdar explained, ‘has affected all my fingers. My son happens to be visiting me at the moment, so he’s looking after me now. Usually, it is my servant Gokul who feeds me every day.’
‘Did you get your son to write the letter to me?’
‘No, Rajen wrote it. He takes care of everything. If I need to see a doctor, he fetches one from Behrampore. Plassey doesn’t have good doctors.’
I had noticed Feluda casting frequent glances at the chest kept near the bed while he was talking to Mr Majumdar. ‘That chest appears to be different from most,’ he now said. ‘I can’t see any provision for a key. Does it have a combination lock?’
‘Correct,’ Mr Majumdar smiled. ‘All it has is a knob, with numbers written around it. The chest opens only if you move the knob to rest against some specific numbers. These areas were once notorious for armed burglars. You knew that, didn’t you? In fact, my ancestors became wealthy enough to buy masses of land chiefly by looting others. Years later, we ourselves were attacked by dacoits, more than once. So I thought a chest with a combination lock might be safer than any other.’
Mr Majumdar stopped speaking, and frowned for a second. Then he called, ‘Gokul!’
