Free The Complete Adventures of Feluda: Volume I by Satyajit Ray

is staying at the Ramakrishna Mission.’
    The paanwalla shook his head and muttered something I couldn’t catch. But we got some information from another source.
    A man with a huge moustache was lying on a string bed nearby, singing merrily and beating an old rusted tin. He now stopped singing and said, ‘Would that be a bearded sadhubaba? Wearing dark glasses? Yesterday I spoke to such a man. He asked me where the nearest tonga stand was, and I showed him.’
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘Five minutes from here. Just after that crossing, you can see a whole row of tongas.’
    ‘Shukriya,’ said Feluda.
    ‘That was “thank you” in Urdu,’ he said to me as an aside. I had never heard the word before.
    The eighth tongawalla we asked admitted that a bearded, saffron-clad man had indeed hired his tonga the previous evening.
    ‘Where did you take him?’
    ‘Istishan,’ said the tongawalla.
    ‘You mean the railway station?’
    ‘Yes, yes.’
    ‘How much do you charge to get there?’
    ‘Seventy-five paise.’
    ‘And how long does it take?’
    ‘Ten minutes.’
    ‘If I pay you a whole rupee, can you get us to the station in eight minutes? Now?’
    ‘Why, have you a train to catch?’
    ‘Yes, the best train in the world. The Imperial Express!’
    The tongawalla grinned, foolishly and said, ‘All right. I’ll get you there in eight minutes.’
    On our way, I asked a little hesitantly, ‘Do you think the sadhu is still waiting at the station clutching that ring?’ At this, Feluda glared at me so furiously that I promptly shut up.
    A little later, he asked our driver, ‘Did the sadhubaba have any luggage?’
    The driver thought for a minute and said, ‘Yes, I think he had a case. But not a large one.’
    ‘I see.’
    On reaching the station, we began asking all the likely people who might remember having seen the sadhu. But those at the ticket booth or the gate couldn’t help; nor could the porters. The manager of a restaurant at the railway station said, ‘Are you talking about Pavitrananda Thakur? The one who lives in Dehra Dun? He arrived only three days ago. He couldn’t have gone back so early. Besides, he always travels with a huge entourage.’
    At last, the chowkidar of the first-class waiting-room said he had seen a man who fitted our description.
    ‘Did he sit here in the waiting-room?’
    ‘No, he didn’t.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘He went into the bathroom. He was carrying a small case.’
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘I don’t know, babu. I didn’t see him after that.’
    ‘Were you here throughout?’
    ‘Yes. The Doon Express was about to arrive. There were a lot of people here. I didn’t leave the room at all.’
    ‘Perhaps you didn’t notice him again.’
    ‘Well—all right, perhaps I didn’t.’
    But the man looked as though what he really wanted to say was that if the sadhubaba had come out of the bathroom, he would certainly have seen him.
    If that was the case, where had the sadhu disappeared?
    We came out of the station. Here, too, stood a row of tongas. We got into one. I was beginning to look upon these contraptions with a new respect. The last one had taken exactly seven minutes and fifty-seven seconds to reach the station.
    I couldn’t help asking another question as we set off. ‘Did the sadhubaba simply vanish in the bathroom?’
    ‘Yes, he might have done,’ said Feluda. ‘Sadhus and sannyasis in the olden days could disappear at will—or so I’ve heard.’
    I knew he wasn’t serious, but he spoke with such a perfectly straight face that it was impossible to tell.
    A funny noise greeted us as we reached the main road. It sounded like a band, and it was coming closer. Bang, bang, twiddle-dee-dum!
    Then we saw it was a tonga like ours, with the difference that this one was decorated with artificial flowers, balloons and colourful flags. The music was coming from a loudspeaker, and a man wearing a fool’s cap was throwing great fistfuls of printed paper at