He had chased the car into which we had been bundled, and then gone straight to the police. Only a man with a steady nerve and a remarkable sense of responsibility could have handled such a task. Lalmohan Babu sipped tea from an earthen pot that Hari had fetched from somewhere, and said, ‘So now you’ve seen all the good a new car can do!’

‘Yes, undoubtedly,’ Feluda replied. ‘We have made several demands on your car in the last three days. When we get back to the city, I need to visit two more places. After that, I promise not to use your car—at least for a few days!’

‘Two places? Where do you want to go?’

‘First, to see Naren Biswas. We need to tell him what’s happened, and return Victoria’s letter to him.’

‘And the second place?’

‘The South Park Street Cemetery.’

‘Ag-ag-again?’

‘Do you have any idea how carefully I had to take every step? I couldn’t even fight properly with those men because of this!’

Feluda removed the hunting boot from his left foot. Then he slipped a hand into it and took out a false sole, under which was a little compartment. In it, wrapped carefully in cotton wool, was an amazing object that was still undamaged except for a broken dial, in spite of all the turmoil that had swept over it.

‘Don’t we have to put it back where it belongs?’

Dangling from Feluda’s fingers was the first reward bestowed by Nawab Sadat Ali on Thomas Godwin for his excellent cooking—a repeater pocket watch made by one of the best watchmakers in England, Francis Perigal. For two hundred years, it had lain buried underground beside the skeleton of its owner. Even so, as it caught the first rays of the rising sun, it glittered and dazzled our eyes.

THE BEGINNING

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