The Pearl of Bengal

by Sir Steve Stevenson

  As Rudyard angled in for a landing, pandemonium broke out on the Canadair. A terrified Dash dived headfirst into the hammock, while Agatha tried to grab Watson, whose bristling tail made it clear he did not like big snakes.

  The Canadair lurched and rocked, slamming onto the surface of the Ganges with a great spray of wake. It bobbed up and down like an oversize tub toy, finally stopping in front of the rickety dock at Chotoka. Villagers clustered around to see what was happening and stare at the strangers who’d made such a clamorous entrance.

  Without even cutting the engines, Rudyard Mistery shot out of his seat like a lightning bolt. He spotted the snake coiled under an oxygen tank and started moving his fingers like a magician. Then he made a sudden swift lunge, grabbing the snake right behind its big head.

  “Well, hello there, big guy!” he said, gently stroking it between the eyes. The snake, more than a yard long, writhed in his arms. “What made you stow away on my plane, little python? If you wanted to take a vacation, you just had to ask!”

  Terrified, Dash clung to Chandler. At the same moment, they asked, “Is it poisonous?”

  “Not in the least!” Rudyard said with a smile. “He’ll just crush you to death.”

  Dash brandished a barbecue fork. “It’s us or him!” he cried.

  “Calm down, calm down. He’s just a young fellow. They can get to be twenty feet long.” Uncle Rudyard opened the plane’s rear door and carefully placed the squirming reptile into the water. “There you go. Swim home to Mama.”

  Chuckling, he looked at his passengers. “The situation is under control.”

  Dash put down the fork, and Chandler exhaled with relief. Agatha looked out the open door, realizing the muddy bank was a good thirty yards away.

  “Ready for a nice swim?” she squeaked.

  “Not with that snake and his twenty-foot mama!” Dash shuddered.

  “No worries!” said Rudyard. “We’ll use my inflatable raft.”

  Agatha smiled. Uncle Rudyard might be a little bit crazy, but he had an answer for everything!

  The villagers craned their necks to watch as Rudyard helped the two kids clamber onto the inflatable raft. Chandler’s bulk nearly sank it. By the time he’d rowed the small group to the muddy bank, the villagers had begun to disperse, their faces disappointed. Soon the bend in the river was empty, the humid silence broken only by the chirping of waterbirds.

  “Uncle, what were those people muttering about?” asked Dash, who could not speak a word of Bengali.

  “When they saw us arrive in the plane, they thought we had found the missing man.”

  “You mean Amitav Chandra, the temple’s custodian?” Agatha clarified.

  Rudyard nodded. “Sounds like they’re still holding out hope of finding him.” He shook his head, tying the raft to the dock. “Between you and me, I think it’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack.” He sighed. “Sundarbans National Park is vast. Plenty of places to hide a body. And plenty of pythons and crocodiles to finish the job if he isn’t already dead.”

  “Why don’t you do an aerial search in your seaplane?” suggested Agatha. “Something tells me he’s safe and sound somewhere!”

  Dash frowned, suspicious. “But what if he’s guilty? What if Chandra stole the Pearl of Bengal himself and faked everything so he could run off with it?”

  Agatha picked up Watson, who was watching a shorebird with interest. “Dash, your hypothesis doesn’t hold up,” she said firmly. “If Mr. Chandra wanted to disappear with the loot, why would he notify Eye International?”

  The conversation was cut short by Chandler, who pointed toward the embankment. “We’ve got company, Miss Agatha.”

  They turned to see a burly man with a large mustache waiting for them on the steps to the village gate. He was wearing a camouflage uniform and cap, and leaned on a bamboo cane that looked too thin to support him.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Deshpande!” Uncle Rudyard waved across the distance.

  “Professor Mistery, what brings you back to Chotoka? I thought you were offshore taking pictures of dolphins!”

  Agatha noted a curious tone in the captain’s voice, as if he was displeased to have visitors.

  A split second later, he added, “Come to my office and show me your permits. I don’t want anyone wasting my time.” He turned and limped away.

  Rudyard reached into his camera bag, handing authorized permits to Dash and Agatha. “Deshpande is a sharp, stubborn man,” he said grimly. “He’ll subject you to an interrogation to find out exactly why you’re here.”

  Agatha stroked her nose, grinning. “Well, then, we’ll tell him the truth!”

  “Wh-what?” stammered Dash.

  “Does that bother you, cousin?”

  “But—but…you want to share everything Eye International gave us?”

  “Of course, the whole truth.” The girl’s eyes shone with cleverness. “Minus one particular detail,” she added.

  “What?” the young detective asked her, excited. “Which detail?”

  Even Chandler raised an eyebrow.

  Agatha dropped her voice. “We can’t mention Mr. Chandra’s phone call,” she explained. “It’s the one thing nobody in the village knows about, not even the thief. It will be the ace up our sleeve!”

  And so it was.

  They told Captain Deshpande that they were investigating on orders from a reputable international agency and would like his full cooperation. They wanted to know all the details from the current investigation: suspects, evidence, and whatever clues the forest guard had obtained.

  The captain filed their permits in the cabinet behind his desk, gazing at them with a smirk. “So you’re my reinforcements?” he asked Agatha and Dash. “Aren’t you two a bit young to be detectives?”

  “They’re extremely bright kids, Captain,” Uncle Rudyard interjected. Until then, he had remained silent with his fingers linked behind his head.

  “They’re your niece and nephew, so of course you’d speak well of them, Professor Mistery,” he replied curtly. “But I’m not convinced. I want to see their credentials.”

  Dash was ready for this. Punching a secret code into his EyeNet, he handed the device to the captain.

  “Use the cursor to scroll down the screen. You’ll find all the credentials you need regarding me and the agency I represent,” he said firmly.

  The onscreen résumé was a detailed list of Dash’s solved cases, designed to impress anyone at first glance.

  Too bad it was a fake!

  Quite a brilliant one…but would it bear up under the scrutiny of the captain Uncle Rudyard had called “stubborn” and “sharp”?

  The anxious silence in the small office was disturbed only by the whir of a creaky, slow fan and the buzzing of gnats. As Deshpande read, a single drop of sweat formed on his forehead and slowly made its way down his cheek, coming to rest in his mustache.

  “Very hot today, isn’t it?” he said, unbuttoning his collar. He pushed the EyeNet back to Dash and leaned forward. “Right, then, you have my permission to investigate,” he said. “What do my young colleagues wish to know?”

  The hoax had worked to perfection!

  While her cousin shoved the EyeNet back into its case with a private sigh of relief, Agatha started to hammer Deshpande with questions. “Let’s start with your suspects. Who are they?”

  “I’ve lived in this village for over thirty years and know all of the villagers well,” the captain replied. “Therefore I have excluded everyone who was friendly with old Mr. Chandra, including myself.”

  “Who’s left, then?” Agatha pressed him, opening her notebook to a blank page.

  Deshpande paused. Starting with the thumb on his right hand, he started to count them off. “Brahman Sangali, who never agreed with Chandra about how the temple should be run.” He raised his index finger. “The pair of Spanish tourists staying at the Tiger Hotel. They have a record of thefts in other parts of the world.”

  When he ca
me to his third finger, he stopped.

  “Well?” Dash blurted. “Who else?”

  “You promised full cooperation, Captain,” Agatha reminded him.

  Deshpande sighed deeply. “You must understand, this isn’t easy for me…Do you know Naveen Chandra, the famous Bollywood actor?”

  “Don’t you mean Hollywood, sir?” Dash corrected him.

  Agatha cleared her throat. “Dash, my dear, Bollywood is the biggest movie industry in the world. It’s the Indian equivalent of Hollywood,” she explained.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize…” Dash blushed.

  “The answer is no,” Agatha interrupted. “We haven’t heard of Naveen Chandra. Who is he, Captain?”

  “Our prime suspect in the theft of the pearl,” the official said with a heavy sigh. “Naveen Chandra is Amitav Chandra’s son!”

  Everyone was astonished. For the first time, Agatha pulled her pen from the page.

  Rudyard was the first to respond. “We understand your pain, as a friend of the family,” he tried to reassure Captain Deshpande, “but tell me, these suspects, are they in jail? Have you put them behind bars for interrogation?”

  “The law doesn’t allow me to take them into custody, Professor Mistery,” the captain replied, sounding miserable. “I’ve taken their statements and ordered them not to leave the village, at least until we find my dear friend Amitav, who I pray is still alive.”

  “Very wise,” said Agatha. “But what makes Naveen Chandra the prime suspect?”

  “He returned to Chotoka ten days ago, insisting he had to make peace with his father, who’s never forgiven him for pursuing an acting career,” explained the captain. “On the afternoon before Amitav disappeared, they had a huge fight. That night, several people claimed they saw Naveen prowling around his father’s house. None of the witnesses could be sure it was him, because it was pitch-black.”

  “So you don’t have a reliable witness and can’t incriminate him,” Dash deduced. He had hoped they’d arrived on the brink of solving the case.

  “Thank you for your assistance, Captain Deshpande.” Agatha rose from her chair. “To help you pursue this matter, we have three simple requests.”

  “Of course, Miss.”

  “First, we need all the suspects’ sworn statements.”

  “I’ll make you a copy, he said, calling an officer into his office and handing him the papers What else?”

  “We’d like your permission to question them further.”

  “Agreed. And the last thing?”

  “To conduct a thorough investigation, we need to examine Amitav Chandra’s home, and the Temple of Kali.”

  Captain Deshpande shook his head. “Unfortunately I cannot allow that,” he said stiffly. “Both locations are under lockdown by the forest guard until further notice.”

  “But—” Dash started.

  Agatha held up her hand. Instead of arguing, she grabbed the copies from the returning officer and shook the captain’s hand firmly. He rose to his feet with the aid of his bamboo cane.

  “That’s all for now, Captain Deshpande,” she said with a disarming smile. “If you need to reach us, we’ll be at the Tiger Hotel.”

  Chotoka’s main street—really more of a wide, muddy path—cut the village in half. At the far end loomed the Temple of Kali, nestled into a distant green hillside. On both sides perched a jumble of houses and open-air shops, where women and children in brightly colored clothes worked in silence—except for the loud chatter of monkeys and tropical birdcalls. Most of the buildings were wood and bamboo with thatched roofs.

  “They build them on stilts because of the danger of flooding, right, Uncle?” Dash asked as they walked down the street, dodging puddles.

  “Not just that, Dash. It’s also to discourage visits from dangerous animals.”

  “Like…?”

  “Oh, scorpions, snakes, crocodiles, leopards, tigers!” Rudyard replied cheerfully. Then he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of the jungle. “This is a magical spot!” he exclaimed. “Can’t you just smell the adventure around us?”

  The others just stared at him. His enthusiasm seemed out of place after their tense conversation with Captain Deshpande.

  “What I’d love to smell is a nice cup of tea,” said Agatha, checking her watch. It was a little past five in the evening—time for high tea in London.

  They arrived at the cast-iron gate of the Tiger Hotel. The two-story bungalow formed an L shape around an orderly English garden. There was no need to ring the bell under the hotel sign, because an Indian girl, a bit younger than Agatha, was already hanging over the gate waiting for them.

  “Your luggage, if you please,” she said politely in English. Taking the wheeled suitcase and bags from Chandler’s huge hands, she loaded them onto her shoulders and headed toward the front desk.

  “Wait! What’s your name?” Agatha called after her, but she’d already vanished between garden hedges. Resigned, Agatha told the butler, “Please give that girl a big tip.”

  “As you wish, Miss Agatha.”

  They went through the gate and walked down a white gravel path. Tourists sat at tables around the garden, and Agatha’s eagle eye took them in at a glance: an old gentleman in a linen suit reading the newspaper through pince-nez glasses, a dark-haired young couple conversing intently, and finally a handsome Indian man in a blue satin tunic who sat with a cigar, watching the smoke rings he blew rise up into the air.

  “Three out of these four we know,” whispered Agatha, who had already glanced though the folder of witness statements and photos of suspects.

  “The two Spaniards and Naveen Chandra,” replied Dash, whispering into his cousin’s ear. “But who’s the dapper old gent with the London Times?”

  The mysterious figure puzzled them both. Why had Captain Deshpande not mentioned this mustached man who looked so quintessentially British? Was he a local or just passing through as a tourist? He didn’t look like someone who’d come here for wilderness treks.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Agatha promised shrewdly as they stepped inside.

  The reception area consisted of a simple counter with a half-filled guest register and several posters of tigers on the wall. “I took that beauty’s portrait last fall,” Uncle Rudyard said proudly, pointing to an especially fierce-looking beast.

  “Welcome to the Tiger Hotel, gentlemen, Miss,” a cheerful Indian boy greeted them, bowing with his hands clasped in front of his chest. “How many rooms will you require?”

  “Two double rooms, preferably with mosquito nets and a ceiling fan,” replied Agatha as she bowed back in the same way.

  Uncle Rudyard squirmed. “Not for me, niece,” he said. “I won’t need a hotel room. I always bunk right in my plane!”

  “Awesome, Uncle!” Dash said with a grin. “Is there room for me, too?”

  Agatha gave him a nudge in the ribs. “You need to stay here with me,” she said. “You’re on a case, remember? Besides, you don’t want to be sharing his plane with a water snake.” Dash became quiet.

  She turned back to the receptionist. “Change of plans. Do you have any triples?”

  “Upstairs?” asked Dash.

  The boy passed Chandler the keys to Room 16 and collected their passports. “Take their bags, Parama!” he ordered the girl who’d met them at the gate. She stopped playing with Watson and took off up the stairs like a whirlwind.

  “Perfect,” said Agatha, satisfied. “Now we can go settle in and then…a nice cup of tea!”

  “I have to unload a few things from the plane,” said Uncle Rudyard. “I was wondering if Chandler could give me a hand with some of the heavy equipment.”

  “Of course,” replied Agatha. “We’ll see you at dinner!”

  Rudyard took Chandler’s stiff arm and pulled him outside, thumping him on the back. “Come on, big man! Time to unstiffen the old upper lip—you’re in India now! We’re going to have all sorts of adventures!” they heard him say
as the two walked away.

  “What a funny pair!” Agatha giggled. “One never talks and one never shuts up!”

  “They’d make a great comedy act,” Dash agreed.

  They went upstairs to their rooms to freshen up, giving little Parama a tip. She thanked them with a shy nod as Dash checked the corners for scorpions.

  When they returned to the garden for tea, they noticed that the Spaniards and the distinguished gentleman had already left their tables.

  Only Naveen Chandra remained.

  While Dash scarfed down a plateful of cookies, Agatha opened the file and speed-read the famous Bollywood actor’s statement. This was another of her incredible skills. She scanned all eight typed pages in less than a minute. As soon as she finished, she took a sip from a steaming cup of Darjeeling tea and announced, “I’m ready!”

  “Ready for what?” Dash stared at her, his mouth covered in chocolate.

  “I want to question Naveen Chandra and verify his version of events.” Agatha tapped her finger on Deshpande’s file and then slid it inside her purse. “Are you coming, or would you prefer to make yourself sick by inhaling more of those cookies?” she asked with a smile.

  “Um, sure, yes, I’m coming!” he answered, licking his lips.

  Naveen Chandra had long, smooth black hair and luminous peacock-blue eyes. He was movie-star handsome but seemed ill at ease. He was still blowing puffs of cigar smoke and staring distractedly off into space.

  He regarded the two cousins without interest. “Sorry, kids, I’ve run out of signed photos,” he said. “If you want an autograph, you’ll have to bring me a paper and pen.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Chandra.” Agatha sat down at the table. Still holding her cup of tea, she said quietly, “We were so sorry to hear about your situation. We know how much you love your father.”

  “Oh really?” he replied bitterly. “You’re the only ones who think so!” Grinding out his cigar, he threw a quick glance at the kids. “Thanks to Captain Deshpande, the whole village thinks I’m a thief and a murderer!”