In front of a tomb with a dome—the dead person’s name on the plaque read ‘Miss Margaret Templeton’— lying on the grass, on top of an old brick, was a cigarette, still burning. Only a quarter of it had been smoked. A thin ribbon of smoke was rising from it. There was no breeze—possibly because rain was imminent. That was why the smoke was visible.

Feluda picked up the cigarette and said, ‘Gold Flake.’ Lalmohan Babu said, ‘Let’s go home.’ I said, ‘Should I go and see if the fellow’s still here?’

‘If the fellow had any intention of remaining here, he would have waited with the cigarette in his hand; or he would have dropped it on the grass and stubbed it out with his foot. He would not have left it like this. No, he has clearly run away, and he was in a hurry to remove himself.’

We then proceeded on our way and found the chowkidar’s room. But it was empty. A few minutes later, he emerged from behind a bush, walked slowly back to his room, and said, ‘I’ve just got rid of a rat!’

So he had gone behind the bush to arrange a rat’s funeral! Feluda went straight to business.

‘Who was the first to find the injured man? I mean the one who was hit by that tree?’ he asked.

The chowkidar admitted to being the first to find the man. He was not actually in the cemetery when the tree crashed. He had gone to Park Street to rescue one of his own shirts which had been blown away in that direction. He had found the injured man on his return. He knew the man by sight, as he had visited the cemetery a few times in the recent past. ‘Did anyone else come here yesterday?’ ‘I don’t know, Babu. When I went running to get my shirt, there was no one here.’

‘But it’s possible to hide behind these tombs, isn’t it?’

The chowkidar acknowledged the possibility. I, too, was thinking what a wonderful place it would be to play hide-and-seek. Perhaps the best possible place in the entire city!

When he found Naren Biswas, the chowkidar had gone out into the street and spoken to a passing ‘sahib’. From his description, it sounded as if he had found a priest from St Xavier’s. It was this sahib who had called a taxi and arranged to send Mr Biswas to the hospital.

‘Did you see anyone come in today? A little while ago?’

‘A little while ago?’

‘Yes.’

No, he had seen no one, for he was nowhere near the gate. He was behind that bush, performing the last rites for the dead rat. When the rat was disposed of, even then he could not return to his room immediately for he had to deal with a call of nature.

‘Are you here at night?’