‘Very well. I have no objection to that at all. The man who rang me is a Mr Puri and his address is 4/2 Pretoria Street.’

‘Thank you. All’s well that ends well.’

Feluda replaced the receiver and sat frowning. I, too, sat silently, fighting a wave of disappointment. I did so want to go to Simla and see it snow. Now I had missed the chance and would have to rot in Calcutta where it was already uncomfortably hot, even in March. Well, I suppose I ought to be with Feluda in this last chapter of the story.

‘Let me go and get changed, Feluda,’ I said. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

‘All right. Hurry up.’

Twenty minutes later, we were in a taxi, cruising up and down Pretoria Street. It was a quiet street and, it being nearly half past eleven at night, not a soul was to be seen. We drove from one end of the street to the other, but it was impossible to see the numbers on the houses from the car. ‘Please wait here, Sardarji,’ Feluda said to the driver. ‘We’ll find the house and come back. We simply have to drop this case. It won’t take long.’

An amiable man, the driver agreed to wait. We got out of the taxi at one end of the road and began walking. Beyond the wall on our left stood the tall and silent Birla building, dwarfing every other building in its vicinity with all its twenty-two floors. I had often heard Feluda remark that the creepiest things in a city after nightfall were its skyscrapers. ‘Have you ever seen a corpse standing up?’ he had asked me once. ‘These buildings are just that in the dark—just a body without life or soul!’

A few minutes later, we found a house with ‘4’ written on its gate. The next house, which was at some distance, turned out to be number 5. So 4/2 was probably in the little lane that ran between numbers 4 and 5. It was very difficult to see anything clearly. The few dim streetlights did nothing to help. We stepped into the lane, walking cautiously. How quiet it was!

Here was another gate. This must be 4/1. Where was 4/2? Somewhere further down, hidden in the dark? There didn’t seem to be another house in the lane and, even if there was, it certainly did not have a light on. There were walls on both sides of the lane. Overgrown branches of trees on the other side hung over these. A very faint noise of traffic came from the main road. A clock struck in the distance. It must be the clock in St Paul’s Church. It was now exactly half past eleven. But these noises did nothing to improve the eerie silence in Pretoria Street. A dog barked nearby. And, in that instant—

‘Taxi! Sardarji, Sardarji!’ I screamed, quite involuntarily.