by Satyajit Ray
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?’
We were all sitting in the living room. Mr Chakravarty arrived a minute later. On being asked about the new diary, he said, ‘Dr Munshi used to write in his diary each night just before going to bed. That explains why it was found in his bedroom. No, I had never seen it before.’
‘Please sit down, Mr Chakravarty.’
Sukhamoy Chakravarty sat down, looking faintly taken aback. Feluda obviously had more questions for him.
‘Mr Chakravarty,’ said Feluda, ‘you do want Dr Munshi’s murderer to be caught and punished, don’t you? My duty is to find that culprit. I now have reason to believe that the killer is present in this house. I have already spoken to all of you. But that did not tell me everything I needed to know. Perhaps I didn’t ask the right questions, or perhaps not all of you told me the truth. I did not ask you something before. I would like to do so now.’
‘Yes?’
‘Something has struck us all as rather strange.’
‘What?’
‘According to Shankar Munshi, all his father cared about was his patients and his writing. You are not his patient; but he had always been extremely kind to you. I read in his manuscript that five years ago, you had appendicitis and had to have surgery. Then you went to Puri for ten days to convalesce. Dr Munshi paid your medical bills, as well as costs for your stay in Puri. Why? Why should he have been so partial to you?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was a second’s pause before Mr Chakravarty’s reply came. Feluda did not fail to notice it. ‘Please, Mr Chakravarty, if you tell me the truth, or at least stop hiding it from me, my work will become a lot easier,’ he repeated.
This time, Mr Chakravarty’s reply came at once. ‘I am telling you the truth, Mr Mitter,’ he said.
Feluda had no more questions. Lalmohan Babu dropped us home, and left with a wave and a brief ‘Tomorrow morning!’
Feluda went straight into his room and shut the door. He was now going to read the new diary and was not to be disturbed. It was half past three. I spent the next hour in the living room, lying under the fan which was rotating at full speed, and going through a very interesting article on the Antarctic in the National Geographic. It had some lovely photos.
At four-thirty, Srinath came in with two cups of tea. He gave me one, and took the other to Feluda. But Feluda came out as soon as Srinath knocked on his door, saying, ‘It’s all right, Srinath, I’ll have my tea in the living room.’
He had obviously finished reading the diary. ‘Did you find anything useful?’ I asked. Feluda sat down on a couch, took out the diary and his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and then took a sip from his cup.
‘Listen to these sections,’ he said. ‘It might give you food for thought.’
I noticed that he had marked some of the pages. With unhurried movements, Feluda lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and opened the diary.
‘Listen to this. This entry was made three weeks ago:
A new patient arrived today. Radhakanta Mallik. The first thing he did on entering my room was to take out a piece of paper from his pocket, stare alternately at my face and that paper a few times, then crumple it and throw it away into a wastepaper basket. When I asked him what it was, he said it was a report on me, including my photograph, published in the Telegraph. I said, “Was it to make sure you had come to the right person?” Mallik nearly exploded. “I don’t trust anyone. No one at all. Of course I had to make sure. I must make sure each time, all the time!” he said. I think it is a case of persecution mania.
The second entry had been made four days later:
Radhakanta Mallik has become a problem. He cannot live in his own house. He is terrified of his father, his brother, his neighbours, practically everyone he knows. It’s a difficult case. I have told him to come and stay here until he’s better. There are two spare rooms on the first floor. He can stay in one of them.
The third entry, made a few days later, said:
RM continues to cause problems. He came into my office this morning before our session. I was reading an important letter at the time, so at first I paid no attention. But when I happened to look up, I found him holding a heavy paperweight in his hand and staring at me with a strange look in his eyes. If he starts to think of me also as his enemy, how am I going to treat him?
The fourth entry said:
I had left my bottle of pills in my office. When I went to fetch it before going to bed tonight, I saw that the light was on. At first, I thought Sukhamoy was working late. But it turned out to be Shankar. When I entered the room, I found him bending low in order to close the bottom drawer of my table. He seemed very embarrassed when he saw me, and said he had been looking for airmail envelopes. I gave him a couple of envelopes . . . I keep my manuscript in the same drawer.’
The fifth entry Feluda read out was the last one. It did not mention Radhakanta Mallik, but it was quite mysterious:
How utterly mistaken I was! Thank goodness I know the truth now. But is this business with R going to continue forever? Or am I worrying unnecessarily?
Feluda closed the diary and sighed. ‘What a strange case!’ he exclaimed.
‘Does that mean you haven’t been able to unravel the mystery?’
‘Yes, that’s what it means. But now I think I know how to proceed. Well, I must get moving and make some routine enquiries. Ring Jatayu and tell him to come tomorrow evening. I am not going to be home in the morning.’
Nine
Feluda left at eight o’clock the following day and returned at half past two. I didn’t dare ask him whether his mission had been successful, but I did notice a suppressed excitement in his movements. Was it a sign of success, or failure?
‘Yes, I’ve had my lunch,’ he said in reply to my question, ‘and now I must make a couple of phone calls.’ He rang Shankar Munshi first, and then Inspector Shome. Both were given the same message: everyone concerned in this case should gather in the living room of Dr Munshi’s house at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.
Feluda rang off, lit a Charminar and stretched his legs. ‘Like Munshi, I feel like saying: how utterly mistaken I had been! Every key to the mystery was staring me in the face, and yet I couldn’t see anything.’
‘Is . . . is the culprit someone we know?’ I asked a little hesitantly. ‘Sure,’ Feluda replied. ‘Since you are clearly feeling very curious, let me ask you a few questions. If you can answer them correctly, maybe you can solve the mystery yourself.
‘Question one: what did you think of the entries I read out to you? Was there anything special?’
‘Well, I found it a little odd that he wrote in his diary until the night before he died, but there was no mention of R’s phone call, or his arrival.’
‘Excellent. Question two: what does the word “immersion” suggest to you?’
‘Water. Something thrown into water?’
‘Good. Three: what is nemesis?’
‘Nemesis?’
‘Yes. It’s a Greek word.’
‘How should I know Greek?’
‘You’ll find it in any English dictionary. Nemesis is retribution. One may commit a crime and avoid punishment somehow, for the time being, or even a few years . . . but one day, the criminal gets what he deserves. That is called nemesis. It was this nemesis that A, G and R were afraid of.’
I found the idea very interesting, so when Feluda asked nothing further, I prompted him: ‘Is there anything else?’
‘I will tell you only one more thing. If I say any more, you won’t enjoy the drama I’ve planned for tomorrow.’
‘All right.’
‘Have you heard the saying, “physician, heal thyself”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then that’s all you need to know.’
This made no sense, but before I could ask anything, Jatayu turned up.
‘What stage have we reached, Felu Babu?’ he asked.
‘The penultimate.’
&nb
sp; ‘Penalty—what?’
‘Oh, is that word too big for you? Penultimate means last but one.’
‘I see. When are we going to reach the final stage?’
‘Tomorrow morning. The curtain rises at ten o’clock at Munshi Palace.’
‘And when does it come down?’
‘Say, half an hour later.’
‘We’ve got four suspects, right?’
‘Yes—eeni, meeni, meini, mo.’
‘Be serious, Felu Babu. There’s Shankar, Sukhamoy, Radha—’ Feluda raised a hand. ‘Stop, Lalmohan Babu. Say no more. All further discussion on this subject is closed.’
‘Really? Well, let me just say this, Felu Babu. I am going to provide the climax to the drama tomorrow. It cannot be you.’
‘Now you’ve got me intrigued; even a little apprehensive.’
‘No, there’s nothing to feel apprehensive about. You will still get most of the applause, I assure you. You will certainly be the star attraction. But I am going to be a mini-star and claim a mini-applause for myself. That’s a promise!’
A heavy shower in the morning left our street partially waterlogged, but even so, Lalmohan Babu arrived at half past nine with an umbrella under his arm, a bag hanging from his shoulder and a grin on his face. ‘Tapesh bhai,’ he said to me upon coming in, ‘do tell your cook to make khichuri this afternoon. I think I’ll eat with you again, once this morning’s drama is over.’
‘Certainly, you’d be most welcome,’ I said and went off to tell Srinath.
We left after a quick cup of tea, and reached Swinhoe Street at five to ten. The police were already there. Inspector Shome greeted us with a smile. ‘Good morning!’ he said. ‘I know your style, Mr Mitter. So I told everyone to go straight to the living room. The only thing I was not sure of is whether you’d like Mrs Munshi to be included in your audience.’
‘No. In fact, I’d much rather she remained absent.’
A big wall clock on the ground floor announced it was ten o’clock as soon as everyone was seated. Feluda rose, glanced around the room, waited until the last chime died away. Then he began speaking.
‘First of all, I’d like to ask Shankar Munshi a question.’
Mr Munshi was sitting on the other side of the room. He turned his eyes on Feluda without saying anything.
‘The other day,’ Feluda went on, ‘when I said your father had mentioned you in his diary, you seemed surprised. And when I said he must have written what he felt to be true where you were concerned, you got irritated and said, “I cannot see how my father got to know me when all he ever thought of was his patients!” Tell me now, Mr Munshi, why did you assume your father had written only unpleasant things about you? I didn’t say anything.’
‘My father never ever praised me, or spoke a good word about me, in my presence.’
‘Did he openly criticize you? Find fault with whatever you did?’
‘No. He did not do that, either.’
‘Then how can you be so sure about what he really thought of you?’
‘Because it is not difficult for a son to realize how his father feels about him. I could guess, easily enough.’
‘Very well. Let me now speak of something else. I came here alone yesterday afternoon, and spoke to some of your servants. Among them was your mali, Giridhari. I asked him if he had seen you leave the house early in the morning before Dr Munshi’s body was discovered. Giridhari told me that he had. Then I asked him if your hands were empty, or whether he had seen you carrying anything. Giridhari said you had a briefcase in your hand. A black leather briefcase. What was in it, Mr Munshi?’
Shankar Munshi did not reply. His breath came faster.
‘Shall I tell everyone what it contained?’
Still Mr Munshi did not reply. Feluda continued, ‘It was your father’s manuscript, wasn’t it? It is true that you were going to look for your doctor by the lake. But either before or after you saw him, you threw that manuscript into the lake. And the reason for doing so was that your father had not written a single word of praise for you. He—’
Shankar Munshi spoke this time. His voice rose above Feluda’s: ‘Yes, yes!’ he cried. ‘If that book was published, I could never have shown my face anywhere. It would have affected my job, my whole life. He called me a fool, irresponsible, unenterprising, devoid of initiative and imagination . . .’
‘Right. Since you have admitted all that, please be good enough to confirm this: was it you who rang me at home and pretended to be R? You changed your voice and told me a pack of lies, simply so that no suspicion could ever fall on yourself. Is that right?’
Shankar Munshi had risen to his feet. At Feluda’s words, his face went blank and he flopped down on his chair once more. No answer was really needed from him.
‘All right. While on the subject of R, let us consider it for a moment longer.’ Feluda turned to Sukhamoy Chakravarty.
‘My next question is for you.’
‘Yes?’
‘A strange hunch made me visit 37 Beltola Road yesterday. You had told me your mother and your aunt lived at this address. I wanted to talk to your family because I felt you were trying to hide something from me. Well, I did speak to your mother. She told me that your father had died twenty-four years ago. He was run over by a motorist. Did Dr Munshi know this fact?’
Mr Chakravarty was gazing at the floor. He replied without raising his eyes, ‘Yes, he did. When he interviewed me for this job, he asked me when and how I had lost my father. I told him.’
‘Very well. Now let me tell you something else. This is an example of how even the most alert and meticulous of men can overlook certain things. When Shankar Munshi first came to my house, he told me he was Dr Rajen Munshi’s son. Now, the name “Rajen” disappeared totally from my memory. I kept thinking of the deceased only as Dr Munshi. The day before yesterday, when I began reading his latest diary that the police had found, I saw his full name on the first page. It was only then that it suddenly dawned on me that the R in his manuscript could well have been himself. Rajen Munshi had run over a man twenty-four years go, but had not been caught and punished. It was the dead man’s son who had come to him for a job, so many years later.’
‘No, no, no!’ Mr Chakravarty cried. ‘You are wrong, utterly wrong! The man who killed my father was arrested and punished. It was not Rajen Munshi.’
‘No? Did Dr Munshi know that?’
‘No. Not until . . . not until the night before he died. Until that night, he had held himself responsible for my father’s death.’
‘How did he learn the truth?’
‘He called me to his office, and said that he had a confession to make. He could no longer carry his load of guilt. Imagine his surprise when I told him my father’s killer was someone else. Dr Munshi’s assumption was quite wrong, and he had suffered for years, perfectly unnecessarily. But that explained why he had been so kind to me.’
Someone laughed dryly from the other side of the room. It was Shankar Munshi.
‘Would you like to say something?’ Feluda asked.
‘If I don’t, Mr Mitter, you’ll keep going down the wrong track.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘My father never drove in his life.’
‘I am aware of that, Mr Munshi. I spoke to your driver as well as your mali.’
‘What did the driver say?’
‘He has worked for your family for thirty years. In all that time, he’s been involved in just one accident. That occurred only because Dr Munshi was in a hurry. So he told the driver to drive fast even though there were a lot of people on the road. When a man was run over—by the driver, not your father—Dr Munshi couldn’t help feeling he was partly to blame. So he did everything he could to save his driver. However, although the law didn’t get him, the poor driver’s conscience troubled him so much that he nearly had a breakdown. He couldn’t live with a constant regret for what he had done, and fear for himself. Dr Munshi treated him, and eventually he recovere
d and went back to his old job. What your father wrote in his diary was a most accurate account of what had happened. The R stood not for Rajen, but Raghunandan. Isn’t that what your driver is called? Raghunandan Tiwari?’
‘Yes, but who killed my father?’ shouted Mr Munshi impatiently. ‘I am coming to that, Mr Munshi. One thing at a time.’ Now Feluda’s eyes moved from Shankar Munshi to another man.
‘There is someone in this room,’ he said, ‘who is supposed to be a psychiatric patient. We have met him twice before; and each time he has tried to convince us that he is unwell. Today, however, I can see that there is no abnormality in his behaviour. Why, Mr Mallik, did your mania vanish, just like that?’
Radhakanta Mallik gave a violent start, as if he had received an electric shock. ‘What . . . what are you trying to say?’
‘What I am saying, Mr Mallik, is that nearly everyone I questioned either told lies, or only half-truths. You take the cake in this matter.’
Mr Mallik stared at Feluda, his face impassive. Feluda went on, ‘You told me you worked for Popular Insurance. I went there to check, but they said you had left four months ago. Were you working anywhere else? No one there seemed to know, but they gave me your address. Satish Mukherjee Road, isn’t that right?’
Mr Mallik was still silent, staring straight ahead.
‘This case was full of surprises,’ Feluda continued. ‘You had told Dr Munshi that you were afraid of everyone, including your father and brother. But when I went to your house, the only person I found was your mother. She told me your father had died nearly twenty-five years ago, and you never had a brother. She seemed to think you had joined the theatre and were currently on a tour with your group!’
Now Mr Mallik opened his mouth. ‘I never claimed to have spoken the truth at all times. But what are you trying to imply? That I am the murderer?’
‘Mr Mallik, I tend to walk step by step, not by leaps and bounds. Whether you are the killer or not is something we can discuss later. Right now, we know you are a cheat and a liar. You only pretended to have an ailment and came to Dr Munshi for treatment. You—’
