by Satyajit Ray
‘But I must tell you something about myself. I am a sales executive in Corbett & Norris. You know Dinesh Choudhury in Camac Street, don’t you? We were in college together.’
Dinesh Choudhury was one of Feluda’s clients.
‘I see,’ said Feluda. Mr Datta began talking about his brother. ‘My brother was a biochemist. He had once made quite a name for himself, not here but in America. He was studying viruses, in the University of Michigan. His name is Nihar Datta. One day, there was an explosion in his laboratory. He was badly injured, and for a while it looked as if he wouldn’t survive. But a doctor in a local hospital saved his life. What he couldn’t save were his eyes.’
‘Your brother became blind?’
‘Yes. He then returned home. At the time of the accident, he was married to an American woman. She left him after a while. He did not marry again.’
‘So it means his research remained incomplete?’
‘Yes. That depressed him so much that for six months, he did not speak to anyone. We thought he was having a nervous breakdown. But, gradually, he recovered and became normal again.’
‘How is he now?’
‘He is still interested in science. That much is clear. He has employed a young man—something like a secretary, you might say— who was a student of biochemistry. One of his tasks is to read aloud from scientific journals. On the whole, though, my brother isn’t entirely helpless. In the evenings, he goes up to the roof for a stroll, all by himself. All he has to guide him is his stick. Sometimes, he even goes out of the house and walks up to the main crossing. Inside the house, he is quite independent. He doesn’t need any help to go from one room to another.’
‘Does he have an income?’
‘He had written a book on biochemistry before he left America. He still gets royalties from its sale, so he has an income.’
‘What went wrong?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean, what happened that made you come to me?’
‘Yes, I am coming to that.’
Subir Datta took out a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and blew out quite a lot of smoke.
‘Last night, a thief stole into my brother’s room,’ he said.
‘What makes you think it was a thief?’ Feluda lifted the Mahabharat off his lap and put it on a table, as he asked that question.
‘My brother had no idea what had happened. He has a servant, but that fellow isn’t all that bright. His secretary arrived at nine, and saw the state the room was in. It was he who realized what had happened. Both drawers of my brother’s desk were half-open; some papers were scattered on the floor, everything on the desk was in disarray. And there were scratches around the keyhole on his Godrej safe. It was obvious that someone had tried to open it.’
‘Tell me, has any other house in your area been burgled recently?’
‘Yes. One of our neighbours was burgled. He lives only two houses away. A couple of policemen now come on regular rounds and keep an eye on the whole neighbourhood. We live in Ballygunj Park. Our house is nearly eighty years old. My grandfather built it. We were once zamindars in Bangladesh. My grandfather moved to Calcutta in 1890, and began making chemical instruments. We had a large shop in College Street. My father ran the family business for some years. Then our business folded up, about thirty years ago.’
‘How many people live in your house?’
‘Very few, compared to the number we had before. My parents are no more. My wife died in 1975. Both my daughters are married, and my elder son is in Germany. Only three of us live in that house now—my brother, my younger son and myself. There are two servants and a cook. We live on the first floor. The ground floor has been divided into two flats. Both are let out.’
‘Who are your tenants?’
‘In the first flat, there’s Mr Dastur. He has his own business— electrical goods. In the other flat, that faces the rear of the house, there’s Mr Sukhwani. He has an antiques shop in Lindsay Street.’
‘Didn’t the burglar try breaking into their flats? They sound reasonably well off!’
‘Yes, they have both got money. Sukhwani’s rooms are full of expensive things, so he locks them at night. But Dastur says he feels suffocated in a locked room, so he keeps his bedroom unlocked.’
‘Why did the thief go to your brother’s room? I mean, what might have interested him? Do you have any idea?’
‘Look, all his research papers are kept in the safe. They are unquestionably most valuable, even though his research was never completed. But then, an ordinary thief would not understand their value. I think his aim was to steal whatever cash he could find. A blind man makes an easy target, as you can imagine.’
‘Yes. Since your brother is blind, I assume he doesn’t have a bank account? I mean, signing cheques would be . . . ?’
‘You’re right. Whatever royalty he earns is made out in my name, and deposited in my account. If my brother needs any money, I write a cheque and take it out. All his money is kept in the same safe. At a guess, I’d say that it has about thirty thousand rupees in it right now.’
‘Where do you keep the key?’
‘As far as I know, it is kept under my brother’s pillow. My main anxiety is because he cannot see. He sleeps with his bedroom door open. His servant—he’s called Koumudi—sleeps on the floor, just outside the threshold. He’s supposed to get up if my brother calls him during the night. But if a thief is reckless enough, and if Koumudi doesn’t wake up, then my brother is quite vulnerable. There’s no way he can defend himself. Yet he refuses to inform the police. He has no faith in them—says they are all corrupt, and all they’d ever do is harass everyone, but never catch the culprit. So I told him about you, and he agreed that talking to you was a better idea. If you could come to our house, perhaps you could advise on what we might do to prevent such a thing. In fact, you might even be able to see if it was an inside job, or . . .’
‘Inside job?’ Feluda and I both pricked up our ears.
Mr Datta flicked the ash from his cigar into an ashtray, and lowered his voice as much as he could. ‘Look, Mr Mitter, I believe in plain speaking. Besides, I realize it’s not going to help you if I am not totally honest. To start with, I like neither of our tenants. Sukhwani came about three years ago. I’m no expert myself, but I’ve heard from others who know about art and antiques that Sukhwani is a shady character. The police have got their eye on him.’
‘And the other tenant?’
‘Dastur took that flat only four months ago. My elder son used to live in it before that. He’s now moved permanently to Germany. He works in an engineering firm in Dusseldorf, and has married a German woman. It’s not as if I’ve heard anything bad about Dastur. It’s just that he is amazingly quiet and withdrawn. That alone is a bit suspicious. And then there is . . . er . . .’
Mr Datta stopped. When he spoke again, he hung his head and kept his eyes fixed on the ashtray. ‘. . . there’s Shankar, my younger son. He’s completely beyond redemption.’ He fell silent again.
‘How old is he?’ Feluda asked.
‘Twenty-three. He had his birthday last month, though I didn’t get to see him that day.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Drugs, gambling, mugging, burglary . . . just name it. The police have arrested him three times. Every time, I have had to go and get him released. Our family is quite well known. So I still have a certain amount of influence . . . but God knows how long it’s going to last.’
‘Was Shankar at home the night you were burgled?’
‘He came in to have his dinner, though that’s something he doesn’t do every day. I did not see him after dinner.’
Before Mr Datta left, it was agreed that Feluda and I would go to Ballygunj Park that evening. It could not really be described as a ‘case’, but I could tell that Feluda was intrigued by the story of a scientist blinded by an explosion. He was probably thinking of Dhritarashtra, the blind king in the Mahabharat.
*
It took Uncle Sidhu ju
st three and a half minutes to find a press cutting that reported an explosion in a laboratory in the University of Michigan, which made the rising biochemist, Nihar Ranjan Datta, lose his sight. The cutting was pasted in Uncle Sidhu’s scrapbook number 22. Mind you, he spent two minutes out of those three and a half in telling Feluda off, for not having visited him for a long time. Uncle Sidhu is not a relative, but is closer to us than any relative could ever be. If Feluda needs information about any past event, he goes to Uncle Sidhu instead of the National Library. His work gets done far more quickly, and with good cheer.
Uncle Sidhu frowned as soon as Feluda raised the subject. ‘Nihar Datta? The fellow who was working on viruses? Lost his vision after an accident?’
Good heavens, what a fantastic memory he had! No wonder Feluda called him Mr Photographic Memory. If he read or heard anything interesting, it was always immediately and permanently printed on his brain.
‘. . . but he wasn’t alone in the laboratory, was he?’ Uncle Sidhu ended with a query.
This was news to us.
‘What do you mean—not alone?’ Feluda asked.
‘What I mean,’ Uncle Sidhu moved to his bookshelf and lifted a scrapbook, ‘is that he had a partner. Here . . . look!’
He read out the news item in question from his scrapbook. It had happened in 1962. Another Indian biochemist called Suprakash Choudhury was working with Nihar Datta as his assistant. He was not harmed in any way when the accident took place as he was at the opposite end of the room. If Nihar Datta escaped certain death, it was because of Choudhury’s efforts. It was he who put the fire out and arranged for Mr Datta to be taken to hospital.
‘So what happened to this Choudhury?’
‘No idea. I couldn’t give you that information. I would have known if something important had happened to him and was reported in the press. I don’t go out of my way to make enquiries about people.
Why should I? How many people enquire about me, eh? But one thing is for sure. Had Choudhury done some really significant work in his field, I would certainly have heard about it.’
Two
7/1 Ballygunj Park stood with clear and visible signs of age and decay. Naturally, if its owners had had the means to remove those signs, they would have done so. It could only mean that the Dattas were not doing all that well financially.
If there was a garden, it was possibly at the back. The front of the house had a circular grassy patch, in the middle of which stood a disused fountain. Gravelled paths ran from the grassy patch to the porch. A marble plaque on the front gate said, Golok Lodge. That appeared to intrigue Feluda. Subir Datta explained that his grandfather was called Golok Bihari Datta. It was he who had had the house built.
Inside, Golok Lodge still bore signs of its past elegance. Three steps from the porch led to a marble landing. A marble staircase to its left went to the first floor. Through an open door in front of me, I could see a corridor which ran alongside the two flats which were let. To the left of this corridor was a huge hall, which the Dattas had retained. At one time, lively parties had been held in it.
We were taken to the living room upstairs, which was directly above the hall. Hanging from the ceiling was a chandelier, wrapped in a cloth. Its main stem had several branches, but clearly it was never going to be lit again. On one of the walls hung a huge mirror set in a gilded frame. Subir Datta told us it had come from Belgium. There was a thick carpet on the floor, but it was so badly worn in many places that, through those gaps, the marble floor was exposed. It was chequered, like a black and white chessboard.
Mr Datta switched on a lamp, which dispelled some of the darkness. As we were about to sit down, we heard a noise in the passage outside. Tap, tap, tap, tap!
It was a combination of a pair of slippers and a stick.
The sound stopped just outside the threshold, then the owner of the stick entered the room. We remained standing.
‘I heard some new voices. So these are our visitors?’
The man had a deep, mellow voice that seemed to go very well with his height, which must have been around six feet. All his hair was white and a little dishevelled. He was wearing a fine cotton kurta and silk pyjamas. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. The explosion had affected not just his eyes, but also other parts of his face. Even in the dim light of the lamp, we could see that clearly.
Subir Datta went forward to help his brother. ‘Sit down, Dada.’
‘Yes. Ask our guests to sit down first.’
‘Namaskar,’ said Feluda. ‘My name is Prodosh Mitter. On my left is my cousin, Topesh.’
‘Namaskar!’ I said gently. It would have been a bit pointless to raise my hands since Nihar Datta could not see me.
‘Mr Mitter is possibly as tall as myself, and his cousin is five feet seven inches, or may be seven and a half?’
‘I am five seven,’ I said quickly, silently applauding Nihar Datta for his accurate guesses.
‘Please sit down, both of you,’ Nihar Datta sat down himself, without taking any assistance from his brother.
‘Have you ordered tea?’
‘Yes, I have,’ replied Subir Datta.
Feluda got straight down to business, as was his wont. ‘When you were doing your research, you had a partner, didn’t you?’
Subir Datta moved restlessly in his chair, which implied that he knew about the partner, and was perhaps feeling a little awkward for not having told us.
‘No, I wouldn’t call him a partner,’ said Nihar Datta. ‘He was my assistant, Suprakash Choudhury. He had been a student in America, but he could not have got much further without my help.’
‘Do you know where he is, or what he’s doing now?’
‘No.’
‘Didn’t he stay in touch with you after the accident?’
‘No. He lacked concentration. Biochemistry wasn’t his only interest in life—he had various other distractions.’
‘What caused the explosion? Negligence?’
‘I was never negligent, or careless. Not consciously.’
The tea arrived. The atmosphere in the room had turned sombre. I cast a sidelong glance at Subir Datta. He, too, seemed a little tense. Feluda was looking straight at Nihar Datta’s dark glasses.
There were samosas and sweets to go with the tea. I picked up a plate. Feluda did not appear interested in the food at all. He lit a Charminar and said, ‘So your research remained incomplete? I mean, no one else did anything after—?’
‘If anyone had done any useful work in that subject, I would certainly have heard about it.’
‘Do you happen to know for sure that Suprakash did not do any further research afterwards?’
‘Look, all I know is that there is no way he could have proceeded without my notes. The notes related to the last stages of my research were kept safely in my own personal locker. No one from outside could have had access to them. All those papers came back to India with me, and I have now got them. If I could complete my research, Mr Mitter, I know one thing for sure. It wouldn’t have been difficult to win the Nobel Prize. Treatment for cancer would have been revolutionized!’
Feluda picked up his cup. By that time, I had already sipped the tea and realized that it was of such high quality that even Feluda— who was always fussy about his tea—was going to be satisfied with it. But I didn’t get the chance to see his face when he took his first sip.
The light suddenly went out. Loadshedding.
‘Over the last few days, we’ve been having a power cut about this time in the evenings,’ said Subir Datta, leaving his chair. ‘Koumudi!’
Outside, it was not yet completely dark. Subir Datta went out to look for their servant.
‘A power cut?’ asked Nihar Datta. Then he sighed and added, ‘It makes no difference to me!’
At this moment, a grandfather clock suddenly started striking, startling everyone. It was six o’clock.
Subir Datta returned, followed by Koumudi, who was carrying a candle. Once it was placed
on the centre table, every face became visible again. Two yellow points began glowing on Nihar Datta’s dark glasses: the flame on the candle.
Feluda sipped his tea and looked once more at Nihar Datta. ‘Suppose your notes fell into the hands of some other biochemist, would he gain a lot?’
‘If you think the Nobel Prize is a gain, then yes, most certainly he would gain a lot.’
‘Do you think the burglar came looking particularly for your notes in your room?’
‘No, I have no reason to believe that.’
‘I have one more question. Who else knows about your notes?’
‘There are plenty of people in scientific circles who might be able to guess—or assume—that I have such notes. The people in this house know about their existence. And so does my secretary, Ranajit.’
‘When you say the people in this house . . . do you mean your tenants as well?’
‘I have no idea how much they know. Both are businessmen. Papers related to scientific research should not be of any interest to them. But then, these days, everything under the sun can be bought and sold, can’t it? So why not a scientist’s research data? Not every scientist is a paragon of virtue, is he?’
Nihar Datta rose. So did we.
‘May I see your room?’ Feluda asked.
Nihar Datta stopped at the threshold. ‘Yes, certainly. Subir will take you. I must go up to the roof now, for my evening walk.’
All four of us went out into the passage outside. It was much darker than before. Candles flickered in various rooms that lined the passage. Nihar Datta went towards the staircase, tapping his stick. I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘I’ve counted the steps. Seventeen steps from here, turn left, and there’s the staircase. Seven plus eight. . . fifteen steps to climb, and then there’s the roof. Call me if you need me . . .!’
Three
Nihar Datta’s bedroom turned out to be large. An old-fashioned bed took up quite a lot of room on one side. A small, round table stood by the bed. On it was a glass of water covered with a lid, and about ten tablets sealed in aluminium foil. Perhaps they were sleeping pills.
