‘And then?’
‘Then they made me sit in a chair. One of them said, “Which school do you go to?” I told him. Then he said, “We’re going to ask you a few questions. Tell us exactly what you know. If you do, we’ll drop you in front of your school. Can you go home from there?” So I said, “Yes.” Then I said, “You must hurry, my mother will scold me if I get late!” Then he said, “Where is the golden fortress?” I said, “I don’t know, and nor does Mukul. He only knows there’s a fort, that’s all.” Then the two men began talking with each other in English. I heard them say, “Mistake!” One man said to me, “What’s your name?” I said, “Mukul’s my friend, but he’s gone to Rajasthan.” He said, “Do you know where in Rajasthan he’s gone?” I told him, “Jaipur!”’
‘You said Jaipur?’ Feluda asked him.
‘N-no, no. Jodhpur. Yes, that’s what I said. Jodhpur.’
Neelu stopped. All of us remained silent. The servant had placed tea and sweets before us, but no one seemed interested in them.
‘Can you think of anything else?’ Feluda prompted Neelu. Neelu thought for a minute. Then he said, ‘One of them was smoking a cigarette. No, no, it was a cigar.’
‘Do you know how a cigar smells?’
‘Yes, my uncle smokes them.’
‘All right. Where did you sleep at night?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? What do you mean?’
‘Well, they said, “Here’s some milk. Drink it.” Then someone handed me a very heavy glass. I drank the milk, then fell asleep. I was still sitting in the chair!’
‘And then? When you woke up?’
Neelu looked uncertainly at his grandfather. Mr Mukherjee smiled. ‘He woke up only after he was brought home,’ he explained. ‘They left him outside his school, possibly very early this morning. He was still asleep. The man who delivers our newspaper every day happened to be passing by a little later, and saw him. It was he who came and told us. Then I went with my son and brought him back. Our doctor has seen him. He said Neelu was given a sleeping draught—probably a heavier dose than what might normally be given to a child.’
Feluda looked grave. He picked up his cup of tea and muttered under his breath, ‘Scoundrels!’ Then, he patted Neelu’s back and said, ‘Thank you, Neelu Babu. You may go now.’
When we had said goodbye to Mr Mukherjee and were out in the street once more, Mr Dhar asked, ‘Do you think there’s reason for concern?’
‘What I can see is that some greedy and reckless people have become unduly curious about your son. What’s difficult to say is whether they’ll really go all the way to Rajasthan. By the way, I think you should write to Dr Hajra, just to introduce me. After all, he doesn’t know me. So if I can show him your letter, it will help.’
Mr Dhar wrote the letter, handed it to Feluda and offered to pay for our travel once more. Feluda paid no attention. As we approached our bus stop, Mr Dhar said, ‘Please let me know, sir, when you get there and find them. I’ll be ever so worried. Dr Hajra has promised to write as well. But even if he doesn’t, you must . . . at least one letter . . .!’
On reaching home, Feluda took out his famous blue notebook (volume six) before either of us began packing. Then he sat down on his bed and said, ‘Let’s get some dates sorted out. When did Dr Hajra leave with Mukul to go to Rajasthan?’
‘Yesterday, 9 October.’
‘When was Neelu kidnapped?’
‘Yesterday, in the evening.’
‘And he returned this morning, that’s 10 October. We are leaving tomorrow morning, the 11th. We’ll reach Agra on the 12th. Then we’ll have to change trains there, and catch one in the evening that goes to Bandikui. Leave Bandikui at midnight, and reach Marwar the same day . . . that’ll be the 13th evening . . . 13th . . . 13th . . .’.
Feluda continued to mutter and did some funny calculations. Then he said, ‘Geometry. Even here you’ll find geometry. A single point . . . and there are various lines converging to meet that point. Geometry!’
Three
Half an hour ago, we boarded a train at the Agra Fort station to go to Bandikui. We had about three hours to kill in Agra. So we went to see the Taj Mahal again—after ten years—and Feluda gave me a short lecture on the geometry of the building.
Yesterday, before leaving Calcutta, we had to attend to some important business. Perhaps I should mention it here. Since the Toofan Express left at 9.30 in the morning, we were both up quite early. At around six o’clock, after we’d had tea, Feluda said, ‘We ought to visit Uncle Sidhu before we go. If he can give us some information, it will really help.’
Uncle Sidhu lives in Sardar Shankar Road, which is only five minutes from our Tara Road. Uncle Sidhu is a strange character. He spent most of his life doing various kinds of businesses, earning a lot of money, and then losing much of it. Now he has retired. His main passion is books. He buys them in large numbers, and spends some of his time on reading, and the rest on playing chess all by himself. Sometimes, he consults a book on chess in between making moves.
His other passion is food—or rather, experimenting with food. He likes mixing one item with another. According to him, yoghurt mixed with an omelette tastes like ambrosia. To tell the truth, he is not related to us. He used to live next door to us back in our ancestral village (which I have never seen). So he’s like an elder brother to my father, and we call him ‘uncle’.
When we reached his house, he was seated on a low stool, blocking the entrance through his front door, and having his hair cut by his barber, although he has no hair except for some around the back of his head. Upon seeing us, he moved his stool a little and allowed us to go through. ‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ he said. ‘Yell for Narayan, he’ll give you some tea.’
Uncle Sidhu’s room was very simply furnished. There was only a divan, two chairs and three very large bookcases. Books covered half the divan. We knew that the little empty space on it was where Uncle Sidhu liked to sit, so we took the two chairs. Feluda had remembered to bring the book he’d borrowed, which was still covered with newspaper. He slipped it back into an empty slot on a shelf.
The barber continued to work on Uncle Sidhu’s hair. ‘Felu,’ said Uncle Sidhu, ‘you are a detective. I hope you’ve read up on the history of criminal investigation? It doesn’t matter what you specialize in. If you know something about the history of your profession, you’ll gain more confidence and find your work much more interesting.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Feluda replied politely.
‘Who was the first to discover the technique of identifying a criminal through his fingerprints? Can you tell me?’
Feluda winked at me and said, ‘I can’t remember. I did read about it somewhere, but now . . .’.
I could tell that Feluda knew the answer all right, but was pretending that he didn’t, just to please Uncle Sidhu.
‘Hmm. Most people would immediately tell you that it was Alphonse Bertillon. But that’s wrong. The correct name is Juan Vucatich. Remember that. He was from Argentina. He was the first to emphasize the importance of thumbprints. Then he divided those prints into four categories. A few years later, Henry from England strengthened the system.’
Feluda glanced at his watch and decided to come straight to the point. ‘You may have heard of Dr Hemanga Hajra, the parapsychologist—?’
‘Certainly,’ said Uncle Sidhu, ‘Why, I saw his name in the papers only the other day! What’s he done? Something fishy? But he’s not the kind of man to get mixed up in funny business. On the contrary, he has exposed others . . . cheats and frauds.’
‘Really?’ Feluda looked up. We were about to hear an interesting story.
‘Yes, don’t you know about it? It happened about four years ago, and was reported in the press. A Bengali gentleman—no, I should not call him a gentleman, he was actually a scoundrel—started a centre for spiritual healing in Chicago. Bang in the city centre. Clients poured in every day. The Americans have plenty of mone
y, and are easily impressed by new ideas. This Bengali claimed that he could use hypnotism and cure even the most complex diseases. The same sort of thing that Anton Mesmer did in Europe in the eighteenth century. Perhaps the Bengali managed to cure a couple of patients— that’s not unusual; a few stray cases would be successful. But, around the same time, Hajra arrived in Chicago on a lecture tour. He went to see things for himself, and caught the man out. Oh God, it was a scandal! In the end, the American government forced him to leave the country. Yes, yes . . . I can remember his name now . . . he called himself Bhavananda. That man, Hajra, though, is a solid character. At least, that’s the impression one gets from his articles. I’ve got two of them. See in the right hand corner of that bookcase on your left. You’ll find three journals of the Parapsychological Society.’
Feluda borrowed all three journals. Now, sitting on the train, he was leafing through them. I was looking out of the window and watching the scenery. A little while ago, we had left Uttar Pradesh and entered Rajasthan.
‘The sun here has a different brilliance. No wonder the men are so powerful!’
These words in Bengali came from the bench opposite us. It was a four-berth compartment, and there were four passengers. The man who had spoken those words looked perfectly meek and mild, was very thin and probably shorter than me by at least two inches. And I was only fifteen, so it was likely that I’d grow taller with time. This man was at least thirty-five; there was no chance that his height would ever change. As he was dressed in a bush shirt and trousers, I had been unable to guess from his clothes that he was another Bengali.
He glanced at Feluda, smiled and said, ‘I’ve been listening to your conversation for a long time. I’m lucky to have found fellow Bengalis so far away from home. In fact, I’d assumed that for a whole month I’d be forced to boycott my mother tongue!’
Feluda asked, possibly purely out of politeness, ‘Are you going far?
‘Up to Jodhpur. Then I’ll decide where else I might go. What about yourselves?’
‘We are going to Jodhpur, too.’
‘Oh, wonderful. Are you also a writer?’
‘Oh no,’ Feluda smiled, ‘I am only a reader. Do you write?’
‘Are you familiar with the name of Jatayu?’
‘Jatayu?’ I asked. ‘The writer of all those thrillers?’ I had read one or two of his books—Shivers in the Sahara and The Ferocious Foe. I had borrowed them from our school library.
‘You are Jatayu?’ Feluda asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ the man flashed his teeth, his head bent in a bow. ‘I am Jatayu. At your service. I write under that pseudonym. Namaskar.’
‘Namaskar. My name is Pradosh Mitter. And this is Sreeman Tapeshranjan.’
How could Feluda keep a straight face? I could feel laughter bubbling up inside me, threatening to burst forth. This was Jatayu? And I used to think a writer who could write such tales would have looks to match—perhaps even James Bond would be put in the shade!
‘My real name is Lalmohan Ganguli. But please don’t tell anyone. A pseudonym—like a disguise—must never be revealed. I mean, if it is, then it loses its impact, don’t you think?’
We had bought a packet of sweet gulabi rewri in Agra. Feluda offered the packet to Jatayu and said, ‘You seem to have been on the move for some time!’
‘Yes, that’s . . .’ Jatayu picked up a rewri and suddenly broke off, looking a bit confused. Then he threw a startled glance at Feluda and asked, ‘How can you tell?’
Feluda smiled. ‘The strap on your wristwatch slips at times. When it does, it exposes the only part of your arm that isn’t sunburnt.’
Jatayu’s eyes grew round. ‘Oh my God, what terrific powers of observation you have got! Yes, you’re right. I left home about ten days ago, and travelled to Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. So far, I’ve only written about adventures in foreign lands.
‘I live in Bhadreshwar. So I thought I should travel a bit, see new places, it would help me in my writing. Besides, these areas are much better suited to adventure stories, aren’t they? Look at those barren hills, rising high like biceps and triceps. Our Bengal has no muscles— except, of course, for the Himalayas. You can’t have a successful adventure on the plains!’
The three of us continued to eat the rewri. Then I caught Jatayu casting sidelong glances at Feluda. Finally, he asked, ‘What is your height? Please don’t mind my asking.’
‘Nearly six feet,’ Feluda replied.
‘Oh, that’s a very good height, the same as my hero’s. Prakhar Rudra—you do know his name, don’t you? Prakhar is a Russian name, but it suits a Bengali, too, don’t you think? The thing is, you see, I’ve got my hero to be everything I could never be myself. God knows I tried hard enough. When I was in college, I saw advertisements of Charles Atlas in British magazines. There he was, standing proudly, his chest and all his muscles expanded, his hands on his waist. He looked like a lion! There was not even an ounce of fat on his body. His muscles rippled like waves, from head to toe. And the advertisement said, “If you follow my system, you will look like me within a month!” Well, that may be true of Europeans. In Bengal, that kind of thing is impossible. My father was well off, so I wasted some of his money, sent for their lessons and followed them religiously.
‘Nothing happened. I remained just the same. Then an uncle said, “Try swinging from a curtain rod. You’ll grow taller in a month.” A month? For several months, I swung from a rod until, one day, it came off and I fell down. That dislocated my knee, but my height remained stuck at five feet and three-and-half inches. That told me plainly that even if I were pulled in different directions by two teams— as they do in a tug-of-war—I would never grow any taller. So, eventually, I thought enough was enough. There was no point in thinking about the muscles in my body. I decided to pay more attention to the muscles in my brain. And increase my mental height. I began writing thrillers. But I knew Lalmohan Ganguli was not a name that would help sell books. So I took a pseudonym. Jatayu. A fighter. Just think of the fight he put up with Ravan!’
Although our train was called a ‘fast passenger’, it was stopping at so many stations that it was not able to run for more than twenty minutes at a stretch. Feluda left the journals on parapsychology and began reading a book on Rajasthan. It had pictures of all the forts. Feluda was looking at those very carefully and reading the descriptions.
On the upper berth opposite us was a man whose moustache and clothes proclaimed clearly that he was not a Bengali. He was eating oranges—one after another—and collecting the peel and other debris on a sheet of a Urdu newspaper spread in front of him.
Feluda was marking a few places in his book with a blue pencil, when Lalmohan Babu said, ‘May I ask you something? Are you a detective?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘No, I mean . . . you could tell so easily about my travelling!’
‘Well, I am interested in that kind of thing.’
‘Good. You’re also going to Jodhpur, didn’t you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘In connection with a mystery? If so, I am going to join you . . . I mean, if you don’t mind, that is. I’ll never get such a chance again.’
‘I hope you wouldn’t object to riding a camel?’
‘A camel? Oh my God!’ Lalmohan Babu’s eyes began to glint. ‘Ship of the desert! It’s always been my dream. I have written about Bedouins in one of my novels—Bloodbath in Arabia. And I’ve mentioned camels in Shivers in the Sahara. It’s a fascinating creature. Just picture the scene. An entire row of camels, travelling through an ocean of sand, mile after mile, carrying their own water supply in their intestines. How romantic—oh!’
‘Er . . . when you wrote your novel, did you mention that bit about the intestines?’
Lalmohan Babu began looking uncertain. ‘Why, is that incorrect?’ Feluda nodded. ‘Yes. You see, the source of the water is actually in a camel’s hump. The hump is really an accumulation of fat. A camel can oxidize that fat and turn it
into water. So it can survive without drinking any water for ten to fifteen days. But, once they do find water, camels have been known to drink as much as twenty-five gallons at one go.’
‘Thank goodness you told me all this,’ said Lalmohan Babu. ‘I must correct that mistake in the next edition.’
Four
The train was slow, but at least it wasn’t running significantly late. When one has to take connecting trains, it can cause great problems if the first train is delayed.
We saw the first peacocks on reaching Bharatpur. Opposite our platform, there were three of them roaming freely on the tracks. Feluda said to me, ‘You will find that peacocks and parrots are as common here as crows and sparrows in Calcutta.’
All the men we saw had turbans on their heads and sideburns on their cheeks—the size of which seemed to be getting larger as we travelled. They were all Rajasthanis, wearing short dhotis which reached their knees, and shirts with buttons on one side. On their feet were heavy naagras. Most men were carrying stout sticks in their hands.
We went to the refreshment room in the station in Bandikui to have dinner. Tucking into his roti and meat curry, Lalmohan Babu remarked, ‘See all these men? There’s a high probability that some of them are bandits. The Aravalli Hills act as a den for bandits—you know that, don’t you? And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how powerful they are. When they are thrown into prison, they can push apart the iron bars on their windows with their bare hands, and escape through the gap!’
‘Yes, I know,’ Feluda replied. ‘And do you know how they punish those who cross them?’
‘They’re killed, surely?’
‘No. That’s the beauty of it. If a bandit is annoyed with someone, he will hunt him down—no matter where that person is hiding— and then chop his nose off with a sword. That’s all.’
Lalmohan Babu had just picked up a piece of meat. He forgot to put it in his mouth. ‘Chop off his nose?’ he asked.
‘Yes, so I’ve heard.’