The Complete Adventures of Feluda: Volume I (65 page)

It was now nearly 10 p.m. We were sitting in Mr Ghoshal’s living room. Besides ourselves and Inspector Tiwari, in the room were Ambika Ghoshal, Umanath Ghoshal and his wife, Ruku, Vikas Sinha, and visiting guests. Occasionally peering through the curtain were Trilochan and Bharadwaj.

We had just finished demolishing a great mountain of sweets. Usually, people feel depressed after the immersion. Today, however, in the Ghoshal household, all sadness had been wiped out by the prospect of the return of the Ganesh.

Perhaps I should mention here that we didn’t yet know where the Ganesh was. What had been revealed was the story of Machchli Baba.

An hour before his devotees arrived, at 4 p.m., the police got in through the back door of Abhay Chakravarty’s house and arrested him. His real name, it turned out, was Purinder Raut, and he was indeed the same man who had escaped from prison.

Purinder Raut had started his career with little magic shows near the Monument in Calcutta. Over a period of time, he moved to serious fraud and deception. At some point, he came in contact with Maganlal Meghraj. To have him promoted as Machchli Baba was, apparently, Maganlal’s idea. The police managed to get the whole story from Purinder, including every detail of the drama Maganlal had planned at the ghat this evening.

Feluda had just finished explaining all this. Every eye was fixed on him. Only Lalmohan Babu kept breaking into fits of laughter without any apparent reason. Perhaps someone had given him a glass of
bhang
to celebrate Bijaya Dashami. I had heard that
bhang
often made people laugh.

Feluda had paused to have a drink of water. Now he replaced the glass carefully on a Kashmiri table and continued, ‘Maganlal, for reasons of his own, wanted to spread the story about Machchli Baba’s so-called supernatural powers. It wasn’t difficult for a man like him to get a few details about the lives of Abhay Chakravarty and Lokenath. The rest was easy, partly because of Abhay Babu’s gullibility, and the faith of the people of Kashi.’

Feluda stopped. Lalmohan Babu threw his head back and opened his mouth to laugh once more. I had to prod him sharply with my elbow to make him stop.

‘I spoke to Maganlal recently. He told me he had the Ganesh, and that Umanath Babu had sold it to him,’ said Feluda.

‘What!’ Umanath Ghoshal jumped to his feet, outraged. ‘Did you believe him?’

‘At first it simply struck me as a new angle to the case. I did not reject the idea straightaway, I have to admit. But when Maganlal offered me money to stop the investigation, I began to have doubts. He did give me a reason, of course, but I couldn’t quite believe it. If what he said was true, it would have made better sense for Mr Ghoshal to stop all enquiries. After all, if the truth came to be known, he would have been in a very embarrassing position. But it was he who had asked me to find the Ganesh. It just didn’t make sense!’

‘Nonsense!’ said Lalmohan Babu, gurgling uncontrollably. ‘No sense at all! Ha ha ha!’

Feluda ignored him. ‘It was then that I began to suspect that the Ganesh had not left your house, and that Maganlal was still hopeful of getting it,’ he continued. ‘But if it was not in the chest, where was it? And who was Maganlal in touch with in this house? Surely he couldn’t expect to get the Ganesh unless someone here was going to help him? While I was trying to think things through, I discovered that Vikas Babu had kept back a piece of evidence. When I questioned him closely, he confessed that he had overheard the conversation between Maganlal and Umanath Babu. Concerned about the safety of the Ganesh, he had opened the chest the day Umanath Babu went out with his wife and son. The Ganesh was missing.’

‘Missing? You mean it had already been stolen?’ asked Mr Ghoshal, frowning.

‘No, not stolen.’ Feluda stood up. ‘It wasn’t stolen. A highly intelligent person had hidden it, simply to keep it out of Maganlal’s grasp.’

‘Captain Spark!’ said Ruku.

All eyes turned on him. He was standing in a corner, clutching at a curtain.

‘Yes, you’re right. It was Captain Spark, alias Rukmini Kumar. Tell me, Captain Spark, that day when your father was talking to that fat man—’

‘Daku Ganderia! Captain Spark fools him each time!’

‘All right. But did you hear their conversation from the next room?’

‘Yes, sure I did. And that’s why I took the Ganesh out immediately and hid it. Or Daku Ganderia would’ve found it, wouldn’t he?’

‘Yes, you did right,’ Feluda turned to the others. ‘I asked Ruku before if he knew where the Ganesh was. He told me it was with the king of Africa. I didn’t realize then what he meant. It dawned upon me when we went to see the Tarzan film.’

‘What! Tarzan? Why Tarzan?’ asked a lot of voices, all at once. Feluda did not reply. He turned to Ruku again. ‘Captain Spark, can you tell me how that film begins?’

‘Yes, of course. It says, “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents”, and then the lions roars.’

‘Thank you. Mr Tiwari!’

Inspector Tiwari bent down and brought out an object wrapped with a newspaper. He then removed the newspaper, and several amazed eyes fell on the disfigured and damaged head of a lion. Even a few hours ago, the figure of Durga had been standing on it.

‘This,’ Feluda said, holding the lion’s head, ‘is the king of Africa, and the animal Durga rides. The Ganesh had been hidden inside the parted mouth of this lion. It was Captain Spark’s belief that, after the immersion, it would float all the way to the sea and would be swallowed by a shark. Captain Spark himself would then kill the shark with a harpoon and rescue the little Ganesh. Isn’t that right, Captain Spark?’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ Ruku replied.

‘But Machchli Baba had other plans. He had decided to swim for a little while, so that people knew he was actually in the water. Then he was going to swim under water, return to Dashashwamedh unseen and hide behind a boat until the idol was immersed. Once the lion had been thrown into the river, it would have taken him only a few minutes to detach its head. Then he had instructions to go to a quiet spot between Munshi and Raja Ghat, where Maganlal would arrive in his barge and collect the loot.’

‘But,’ said Mr Ghoshal, frowning once more, ‘the date of the Baba’s departure had been decided by his devotees. How could he be sure that he would get to leave on this very day? Besides, how could either he or Maganlal have known that the Ganesh was inside the lion’s mouth?’

‘Very simple. Seven days before Bijaya Dashmi, he asked his followers to choose a number between one and ten. He knew most people would choose seven. So that gave him his date of departure. As for the Ganesh, Ruku might not have told many people where he had hidden it, but he did mention it to his friend Suraj. Didn’t you, Ruku?’

Ruku nodded in silence. He looked puzzled.

Feluda sighed. ‘Shaitan Singh, I fear, lived up to his name. Suraj, you see, is Maganlal’s son. His full name is Suraj Meghraj. Maganlal and his men live in the house we had gone to. His family live in that red house near yours. It was Suraj who told his father where the Ganesh was hidden.’

‘Traitor!’ cried Ruku.

Ambika Babu spoke for the first time. ‘You found the head of the lion. Where is the Ganesh?’

Feluda picked up the lion’s head once more and put his hand in its mouth. When he brought it out, it was empty except for a sticky white substance that was smeared on a fingertip.

‘Captain Spark found an amazingly simple way to make sure the Ganesh did not slip out,’ Feluda said.

‘Chiclet!’ said Ruku.

‘Yes, he used chewing gum. There are traces of the gum still to be found, as you can see. But the Ganesh is no longer here.’

There was an audible gasp of disappointment as everyone drew in their breath. Mr Ghoshal slapped his forehead. ‘What are you saying, Mr Mitter? After all these revelations, how can you stand there and tell us the Ganesh isn’t there?’

Feluda placed the lion’s head back on the table.

‘No, Umanath Babu,’ he spoke calmly, ‘I didn’t ask you to gather here simply to pour cold water on all your hopes. The Ganesh hasn’t vanished. But before I tell you where it is, I’d like to remind you of an unhappy event—the death of Shashi Babu.’

‘But wasn’t he killed by his son?’ Mr Ghoshal interrupted. ‘Did his son steal the Ganesh?’

‘Wait, Mr Ghoshal, please let me finish. What I am now going to tell you remains to be proved. But I am sure of getting enough evidence.’

There was complete silence in the room. Lalmohan Babu had stopped laughing loudly, although a smile still lingered on his lips.

‘Shashi Babu was one man who was most likely to have spotted
the Ganesh inside the lion’s mouth,’ Feluda went on, ‘especially when he was painting the lion’s face, the day before Puja began. He was killed the same day.

‘You weren’t home that evening, if you remember. Trilochan told me you had all gone to the temple of Vishwanath.’ Mr Ghoshal nodded.

‘We learnt from the police,’ Feluda said, ‘that Shashi Babu had started feeling unwell by the time he finished his work. So he took some medicine from Vikas Babu and left immediately. Trilochan tells me that a few minutes later, Vikas Babu went out, too. May I ask him why he did so?’

Vikas Babu looked faintly annoyed. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything. However, since you ask, the answer is that I stepped out only for some fresh air. I walked to Harishchandra Ghat, where I ran into someone I know—Dr Ashok Datta. You can check with him, if you like.’

‘No, I’m sure you’re telling the truth. There was a special reason why you went to the ghat, but I’ll come to that later. I now have another question for Ruku. Captain Spark, Suraj knew your secret. Did you also tell your assistant, Little Raxit?’

‘He didn’t believe me,’ said Ruku.

‘I know. That is why he opened the chest to see if what Ruku had told him was true. When he discovered that it was, he felt tempted to steal the Ganesh. But strangely enough, he didn’t actually have to do anything himself. It fell into his hands the day Shashi Babu found it in the lion’s mouth. Oh yes, the story of giving him a dose of medicine is true enough. But what Vikas Babu did not tell the police was that Shashi Babu had handed the figure of the Ganesh over to him since there was no one else in the house. But, even so, there was every chance that Shashi Babu would talk about it the next day. So he had to be silenced. Vikas Babu followed him, stopping on the way at the Sreedhar Variety Stores to buy a sharp knife. It couldn’t have been difficult to catch up with an old, sick man and stab him in a dark alleyway. He didn’t know, of course, that we would find Shashi Babu and he would try to tell us about the lion. So he coolly walked to Harishchandra Ghat and threw away the knife into the river.’

‘Lies!’ Vikas Babu shouted, very red in the face, his eyes bulging. ‘It’s nothing but a pack of lies! If I took the Ganesh, where is it now? Where did it go?’

‘If we had waited for just a day longer, you would have sold it to
Maganlal. But because you couldn’t go out of the house during the five days of Durga Puja, you had to hide it.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Mr Tiwari!’ Feluda stretched out a hand. The inspector handed him another object.

It was Vikas Babu’s transistor radio.

Feluda opened the compartment for batteries and slipped in a finger. A second later, on his palm lay a two-and-a-half inch long, diamond-studded, golden Ganesh.

Spat!

Ambika Ghoshal had taken off one of his huge slippers and thrown it at Vikas Sinha. It struck him on his cheek.

‘Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!’ Ruku shrieked.

We were walking back to the hotel, after a sumptuous meal with the Ghoshal family. Before we came away, Mr Ghoshal had thrust a thick white envelope into Feluda’s hand, which was now nestling in his pocket.

Lalmohan Babu had stopped laughing. It was difficult to tell whether it was because the effects of
bhang
were wearing off, or whether it was the result produced by frequent stern looks from Feluda and sharp nudges from me.

However, when we stopped at a paan shop, he burst into a guffaw once again.

‘What is the matter with you?’ Feluda asked, surprised. ‘Do you want to be sent to Ranchi? Or did this whole mysterious affair strike you simply as a joke?’

‘No, no,’ Lalmohan Babu replied, controlling himself with some difficulty. ‘You don’t know what happened. It really is funny. Mystery no. 63 in the adventure series—
The Bleeding Diamond
by Jatayu—was right there on the bookshelf in Ruku’s room. Do you know what happens in the book? The hero hides a diamond in the statue of a crocodile to keep it safe from the villain. Just imagine, my friend, Ruku got the idea from my own book, and yet I failed to spot it. You came out as a hero once more!’

Feluda stared at Lalmohan Babu for a few moments. Then he said, ‘No, Lalmohan Babu, that’s not true. The mystery you created with your pen almost led to my retirement from my profession! So you are as much a hero as anyone else.’

Lalmohan Babu stuffed a huge paan into his mouth.

‘You’re quite right, Felu Babu,’ he said with a complacent air. ‘Jatayu is the greatest!’