‘My goodness!’ Uncle Sidhu’s bald dome glistened with excitement. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Felu! Valuable? I still remember the very high praise Terai had received from the London Times. It wasn’t just the stories he told, Shambhucharan’s language was easy, lucid and clear as crystal. Why, have you found such a manuscript?’

‘No, but there might be one in existence.’

‘If you can lay your hands on it, please don’t forget to show it to me, Felu. And in case it gets auctioned, let me know. I’d be prepared to bid up to five thousand rupees …’

We left soon after this, but not before two cups of cocoa had been pressed upon us.

‘Mr Lahiri doesn’t even know his attaché case contains such hot stuff,’ I said as we came out. ‘Aren’t you going to tell him?’

‘Wait. There’s no need to rush things. Let’s see where all this leads to. In any case, I have taken the job, haven’t I? It’s just that now I feel a lot more enthusiastic.’

Naresh Chandra Pakrashi lived in Lansdowne Road. It was obvious that his house had been built at least forty years ago. Feluda had taught me how to assess the age of a house. For instance, houses built fifty years ago had a certain type of window, which was different from those built ten years later. The railings on verandas and terraces, patterns on gates, pillars at porticos—all bore evidence of the period a building was made. This particular house must have been built in the 1920s.

The first thing I noticed as we climbed out of our taxi was a notice outside the main gate: ‘Beware of the Dog’.

‘It would have made better sense,’ remarked Feluda, ‘if it had said, “Beware of the Owner of the Dog”’

We passed through the gate and found a chowkidar standing near the porch. Feluda gave him his visiting card, which bore the legend: ‘Pradosh C. Mitter, Private Investigator’. The chowkidar disappeared with the card and reappeared a few minutes later.

‘Please go in,’ he said.

We had to cross a wide marble landing before we got to the door of the living-room. It must have been about ten feet high. We lifted the curtain and walked in, to be greeted by rows and rows of books, all stashed in huge almirahs. There was quite a lot of other furniture, a wall-to-wall carpet, pictures on the walls, and even a chandelier. But the whole place had an unkempt air. Apparently, no one cared to clean it regularly.