by Satyajit Ray
‘Listen, Jyotishka,’ said Feluda quickly, before anyone else could speak, ‘perhaps you don’t understand what Mr Tiwari means by a combination. Let me explain. You see, some chests and cupboards don’t have ordinary locks and keys. What they have is a disc attached to the lid or on the door that can be rotated. An arrow is marked on the disc, and around it are written numbers from one to zero. A combination is a series of special numbers meant for a particular chest or a cupboard. If you move the disc and bring the arrow to rest against the right numbers, the chest opens automatically.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Nayan said, nodding vigorously.
Lalmohan Babu suddenly asked a pertinent question.
‘How come you don’t know the combination of your own chest?’
‘I knew it . . . in fact, I had known it and used it to open my chest a million times over the last twenty-three years. But,’ Mr Tiwari shook his head regretfully, ‘I am getting old, Mr Tarafdar. My memory is no longer what it used to be. For the life of me, I cannot remember the right numbers for that combination. I had written it down in an old diary and I have spent the last four days looking for it everywhere, but I couldn’t find it. It’s gone . . . vanished.’
‘Didn’t you ever tell anyone else what the number was?’
‘I seem to remember having told my partner—a long time ago—but he denies it. Maybe it’s my own memory playing tricks again. After all, one doesn’t go about giving people the details of a combination, does one? Besides, this chest is my personal property, although it’s kept in my office. I don’t keep any money or papers related to our business in it. It only has the money—my own personal money, you understand—that I don’t keep in my bank . . . I tell you, Mr Tarafdar, I was getting absolutely desperate. Then I heard about this wonder boy. So I thought I’d try my luck here!’ He brought his gaze back on Nayan.
‘It’s 6438961,’ Nayan said calmly.
‘Right! Right! Right!’ Mr Tiwari jumped up in excitement and quickly took out a pocket diary to note the number down.
‘Do you know how much money there is in that chest?’ asked Mr Tarafdar.
‘No, I couldn’t tell you the exact figure, but I think what I have is in excess of five lakhs,’ Mr Tiwari said with a slight smile.
‘This little boy could tell you. Would you like to know?’
‘Why, yes! I am curious, naturally. Let’s see how far his power can go·’
Mr Tarafdar looked at Nayan again. But, this time, Nayan’s reply did not come in numbers.
‘There’s no money in that chest. None at all,’ he said.
‘What!’ Mr Tiwari nearly fell off his chair. But then he began to look annoyed. ‘Obviously, Mr Tarafdar, this prodigy is as capable of making mistakes as anyone else. However, I’m grateful he could give me the number I really needed. Here you are, my boy, this is for you.’ Mr Tiwari offered a slim package to Nayan.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Nayan shyly, as he took it.
Mr Tiwari left.
‘Open it and see what’s inside,’ Feluda said to Nayan. Nayan took the wrapper off, revealing a small wrist watch.
‘Hey, that’s very nice of Mr Tiwari!’ Lalmohan Babu exclaimed. ‘Wear it, Nayan, wear it!’
Nayan put it round his wrist, looking delighted, and left the room. ‘I think Mr Tiwari is in for a rude shock,’ Feluda remarked when Nayan had gone.
‘I bet he’ll suspect his partner when he discovers the money’s missing—unless, of course, Nayan really made a mistake this time?’ Lalmohan Babu said. With a shrug, Feluda changed the subject.
‘How are you travelling to Madras? By train or by air?’ he asked Sunil Tarafdar.
‘It’ll have to be by train. I have far too much luggage to go by air.’
‘What about security for Nayan?’
‘Well, I am going to be with him throughout our journey, so I don’t think that’s a problem. When we get to Madras, I will be joined by my friend, Shankar. We’ll both look after Nayan.’
Feluda started to speak, but was interrupted by the arrival of another gentleman, also attired in a formal suit and tie.
‘Good morning. I am Hodgson. Henry Hodgson. I made an appointment with—’
‘Me. I am Sunil Tarafdar. Please sit down.’
Mr Hodgson sat down frowning and casting looks of grave suspicion at us. He was obviously a Christian, but I couldn’t make out which part of India he came from. Perhaps he had lived in Calcutta for a long time.
‘May I ask who all these other people are?’ he asked irritably. ‘They are very close to me. You may speak freely in front of them. I did tell you they would be present,’ Mr Tarafdar said reassuringly.
‘Hmm.’ Mr Hodgson continued to frown. Why was he in such a bad mood?
‘A friend of mine happened to see your show last Sunday,’ he said at last. ‘He told me about your wonder boy. I didn’t believe him. I don’t even believe in God. Therefore I have no faith in the so-called supernatural powers some people are supposed to possess. But if you bring that boy here, I’d like to talk to him.’
Mr Tarafdar hesitated for a few seconds before asking his bearer to call Nayan once more. Nayan reappeared in a minute.
‘So this is the boy?’ Mr Hodgson looked steadily at Nayan. Then he said, ‘We have horse races every Saturday. Did you know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, can you tell me which horse won the third race last Saturday? What was its number?’
‘Five,’ replied Nayan instantly.
Mr Hodgson’s demeanour changed at once. He stood up and began pacing restlessly, his hands thrust in his pockets.
‘Very strange! Oh, how very strange!’ he muttered. Then he stopped abruptly and faced Mr Tarafdar. ‘All I want is this,’ he said, ‘I will come here once a week to learn the number of the horse that will win the following Saturday. I shall be frank with you, Mr Tarafdar. Horse races are a passion with me. I’ve lost a great deal already, but that cannot stop me. If I lose some more, however, my creditors will have me sent to prison. So I want to be absolutely definite that I back only the winning horse. This boy will help me.’
‘How can you be so sure? What makes you think that he will?’ Mr Tarafdar asked coldly.
‘He must, he must, he must!’ cried Mr Hodgson.
‘No, he must not!’ Mr Tarafdar returned firmly. ‘This boy’s powers must not be misused. There’s no use arguing with me, Mr Hodgson. I am not going to change my mind.’
Mr Hodgson’s face seemed to crumple. When he spoke, his voice shook.
‘Please,’ he begged, folding his hands, ‘let him at least tell me the numbers for the next race. Just this once.’
‘No help for gamblers, no help for gamblers!’ said Lalmohan Babu, speaking for the first time since Mr Hodgson’s arrival.
Mr Hodgson turned to go. His face was purple with rage.
‘I have never seen such stupid and stubborn people, damn it!’ he exclaimed and strode out.
‘What a horrible man!’ Lalmohan Babu wrinkled his nose. ‘We’ve certainly met some weird characters today,’ Feluda remarked. ‘Mr Hodgson was smelling of alcohol. I caught the smell, I suppose, because I was sitting close to him. His financial resources have clearly hit rock bottom. I noticed patches on his jacket—the sleeves, in particular. And he travelled this morning by bus, not by taxi or the metro rail.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Someone trod on his foot and left a partial impression of his own shoe on his. This can happen only in a crowded bus or a tram.’
Feluda’s powers of observation bordered on the supernatural, too, I thought.
A car came and stopped outside the main gate. All of us automatically looked at the door.
‘Number four,’ said Feluda.
Five
A minute later, a strange creature was shown in: a smallish man in his mid-sixties, clad in a loose and ill-fitting yellow suit, a green tie wound rather horrifically round his throat, a beard that stood out like th
e bristles of an old brush and a moustache that reminded me of a fat and well-fed caterpillar. His eyes were abnormally bright, and he carried a stout walking-stick.
He looked around as he entered the room and asked in a gruff voice, ‘Tarafdar? Which one of you is Tarafdar?’
‘I am. Please sit down,’ Mr Tarafdar invited.
‘And these three?’ The man’s eyes swept over us imperiously. ‘Three very close friends.’
‘Names? Names?’
‘This is Pradosh Mitter, and this is his cousin, Tapesh. And over there is Lalmohan Ganguli.’
‘All right. Now let’s get to work, to work.’
‘Yes, what can I do for you?’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘You only mentioned your surname on the phone, Mr Thakur. That’s all I know.’
‘I am Tarak Nath Thakur. TNT. Trinitrotolvene—ha ha ha!’
Mr Thakur roared with laughter, startling everyone in the room. I knew TNT was used in making powerful explosives. But what was so funny about it?
Mr Thakur did not enlighten us. Feluda asked him a question instead.
‘Does an exceptionally small dwarf live in your house?’
‘Kichomo. A Korean. Eighty-two centimetres. The smallest adult in the entire world.’
‘I read about him in the papers a few months ago.’
‘Now the Guinness Book of Records will include his name.’
‘Where did you find him?’ Lalmohan Babu asked.
‘I travel all over the world. I have plenty of money. I got it all from my father, I’ve never had to earn a penny in my life. Do you know how he made his money? Perfumes, he ran a thriving business in perfumes. Now a nephew of mine looks after it. I am a collector.’
‘Oh? What do you collect?’
‘People and animals. People from different countries and different continents. People who have some unique trait in them. I’ve just told you about Kichomo. Besides him, I have a Maori secretary who can write simultaneously with both hands. He’s called Tokobahani. I have a black parrot that speaks three different languages, a Pomeranian with two heads, a sadhu from Laxmanjhoola who sits in the air—quite literally, six feet from the ground, and . . .’
‘Just a minute, sir,’ Lalmohan Babu interrupted. Tarak Nath Thakur reacted instantly. He raised his stick over his head and shouted, ‘You dare interrupt me? Me? Why, I—’
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Lalmohan Babu offered abject apologies. ‘What I wanted to know was whether all these people in your collection stay in your house totally voluntarily?’
‘Why shouldn’t they? They’re well-fed, well-paid and kept in comfort, so they’re quite happy to live where I keep them. You may not have heard of me or my collection, but hundreds of people elsewhere in the world have. Why, only the other day, an American journalist interviewed me and published an article in the New York Times called “The House of Tarak”.’
‘That’s all very well, Mr Thakur,’ put in Mr Tarafdar, ‘but you still haven’t told me why you’re here.’
‘You mean I must spell it out? Isn’t it obvious? I want that boy of yours for my collection . . . what’s his name? Jyotishka? Yes, I want Jyotishka.’
‘Why? He’s being very well looked after here, he’s happy and content. Why should he leave me and go and live in your queer household?’
Mr Thakur stared at Sunil Tarafdar for nearly a minute. Then he said slowly, ‘You wouldn’t speak quite so recklessly if you saw Gawangi.’
‘What is Gawangi?’ asked Lalmohan Babu.
‘Not what, but who,’ Mr Thakur replied. ‘He’s not a thing, but a man. He comes from Uganda. Nearly eight feet tall, his chest measures fifty-four inches and his weight is 350 kg. He could beat the best of Olympic heavyweight champions hollow, any day. Once he spotted a tiger in the jungles of Terai that had both stripes and spots. A perfectly unique specimen. He managed to knock it unconscious with a shot of a tranquillizer. Then he carried that huge animal for three-and-a-half miles. That same Gawangi is now my personal companion.’
‘Have you,’ asked Lalmohan Babu, with considerable courage, ‘reintroduced the old system of slavery?’
‘Slavery?’ Mr Thakur almost spat the word out. ‘No, sir! When I first saw Gawangi, he was facing a totally bleak future. He came from a good family in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. His father was a doctor. It was he who told me that Gawangi had reached the height of seven-and-a-half feet even before he had turned fifteen. He couldn’t go out anywhere for little urchins threw stones at him. He had had to leave school because his classmates teased and taunted him endlessly. His height and his size were a constant source of embarrassment to him. When I met him, he was twenty-one, spending his days quietly at home, worrying about his future. He would have died like that, had I not rescued him from that situation and brought him with me. He found a new life with me. Why should he be my slave? I look upon him like a son.’
‘All right, Mr Thakur, we believe you. But even so, I cannot allow Jyotishka to go and join your zoo.’
‘You say that even after being told about Gawangi?’
‘Yes. Your Gawangi has nothing to do with my decision.’
For the first time, Mr Thakur seemed to lose a little bit of his self-assurance. I heard him sigh. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but can I at least see the boy?’
‘Yes, that can be easily arranged.’
Nayan returned to the room. Mr Thakur looked him over, scowling.
‘How many rooms does my house have?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Sixty-six.’
‘Hm . . . .’
Mr Thakur slowly rose to his feet, gripping the silver handle of his walking-stick firmly with his right hand.
‘Remember, Tarafdar, TNT does not give up easily. Goodbye!’ None of us spoke for a long time after he left. At last, Lalmohan Babu broke the silence by saying, ‘Felu Babu, number four is quite an important number, isn’t it? I mean, there are the four seasons, and four directions, most of our gods and goddesses have four arms, then there are the four Vedas . . . I wonder what these four characters might be called?’
‘Just call them FGP—Four Greedy People. Each was as greedy as the other. But none of them got what they wanted. I must praise Sunil for that.’
‘No, sir, there’s no need for praise. I only did what struck me as very simple. Nayan is my responsibility. He lives in my house, he knows me and I know him. There’s no question of passing him on to someone else.’
‘Good. All right, then. It’s time for us to leave, I think.’
We stood up.
‘There’s just one thing I’d like to tell you before I go,’ Feluda added. ‘No more appointments with strange people.’
‘Oh no, sir. I’ve learnt my lesson! This morning’s experience was quite enough for me.’
‘And please remember, if Nayan needs my protection, I am always there to do what I can. I’ve already grown rather fond of that boy.’
‘Thank you, sir, thank you so much. I’ll certainly let you know if we need your help.’
Six
It was Thursday. We had spent the previous morning with the Four Greedy People. Things were now getting exciting, which was probably why Lalmohan Babu had turned up at 8.30 today instead of 9 a.m.
‘Have you seen today’s papers?’ Feluda asked him as soon as he came in.
‘I’m afraid not. A Kashmiri shawl-walla arrived early this morning and took such a lot of time that I never got the chance. Why, what do the papers say?’
‘Tiwari opened his chest, and discovered it was empty.’
‘Wha-at! You mean young Nayan was right, after all? When was the money stolen?’
‘Between two-thirty and three one afternoon. At least, that’s what Mr Tiwari thinks. He was in his dentist’s chamber during that time. His memory is now working perfectly. Apparently, he had opened the chest two days before the theft and found everything intact. The money was indeed in excess of five lakhs. Tiwari suspects his partner, naturally, since no one else kn
ew the combination.’
‘Who is his partner?’
‘A man called Hingorani. The “H” in T H Syndicate stands for Hingorani.’
‘I see. But to tell you the truth, I’m not in the least interested in Tiwari or his partner. What amazes me is the power that little boy has got.’
‘I have been thinking about that myself. I’d love to find out how it all started. Topshe, do you remember where Nayan’s father lives?’
‘Nikunjabihari Lane. Kalighat.’
‘Good.’
‘Would you like to go there? We might give it a try—my driver is familiar with most alleyways of Calcutta.’
As it turned out, Lalmohan Babu’s driver did know where Nikunjabihari Lane was. We reached there in ten minutes. A local paanwalla showed us Nayan’s house. A rather thin gentleman opened the door. Judging by the towel he was still clutching in his hand, he had just finished shaving.
‘We are sorry to disturb you so early,’ Feluda said pleasantly. ‘Were you about to leave for your office? May we talk to you for a minute?’
‘Yes, of course. I don’t have to leave for another half an hour. Please come in.’
We walked into a room that acted as both a living room and a bedroom. There was no furniture except two chairs and a narrow bed. A rolled-up mattress lay on it.
‘Let me introduce myself. I am Pradosh Mitter, and this is my cousin, Tapesh, and my friend Lalmohan Ganguli. We came to find out more about Nayan. You see, we’ve come to know him and Tarafdar recently. What a remarkable gift your child has been blessed with!’
Nayan’s father stared at Feluda, open awe in his eyes. ‘You mean you are the Pradosh Mitter, the investigator? Your pet name is Felu?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, it is such a privilege to meet you, sir! I am Ashim Sarkar. What would you like to know about Nayan?’
‘I am curious about one thing. Was it Tarafdar’s idea that Nayan should stay with him, or was it yours?’
‘I shall be honest with you, Mr Mitter. The suggestion was first made by Mr Tarafdar, but only after he had seen Nayan. I had taken my son to see him.’
‘When was that?’
