It wasn’t so very long ago that Barada-babu, the ghost-seeker, had run into Byomkesh, the truth-seeker. Byomkesh was by nature opposed to the outdoors; he preferred to spin his spider’s web in a corner of the room. But on that occasion he had surprised everyone with a journey of three hundred miles.

A childhood friend of Byomkesh’s was employed as Deputy Superintendent of Police in the state of Bihar. He had been transferred to Munger some time earlier and had begun to hurl letters at Byomkesh at regular intervals. There must have been a hidden motive behind his cordial invitations; for the mind refuses to imagine that a DSP would want to revive an ancient, half-forgotten friendship without any reason.

It was the middle of September; the clouds had lost their colour, perhaps due to their excessive extravagance. On a day such as this Byomkesh suggested with a kind of desperation on receiving a letter from his policeman friend, ‘Let us visit Munger.’

I was ready. There’s something in the autumn air before Durga Puja that relentlessly pushes the resident Bengali away from home and the non-resident Bengali, towards it. ‘Let’s,’ I said happily.

Arriving at Munger at the appointed hour, we discovered the DSP waiting for us. His name was Shashanka-babu. Probably the same age as ourselves, he had not yet crossed his thirties; yet his expression and behaviour had already acquired an air of middle-aged gravity. It seemed he had aged under the weight of additional responsibilities thrust on upon him while still relatively young. He took us to his official quarters inside the fort and settled us in.

The part of Munger referred to as ‘fort’ retains none of its fortitude; but once upon a time it had in fact been Mir Kasim’s impregnable fort. It was a circular area with a perimeter of almost a quarter of a mile, surrounded by ramparts and a moat, with the Ganga flowing on the left. There were only three exit gates. At present the fort held—besides the living quarters for high-ranking state and judicial officials, the jail, and an extensive playground—the residences of a handful of ordinary citizens too. The town, the market and actual human habitation were outside; the fort was seemingly a sovereign, upper-class enclave for royals and noblemen.

I became acquainted with Shashanka-babu at his residence over breakfast and a cup of tea. He welcomed us profusely; but I observed that the man was exceedingly cunning, considerably adept at conversation. Unless you paid close attention, you would not realize how he had unobtrusively got to the point during seemingly aimless chatter about memories of old friendship and a list of sights worth seeing in Munger. At least, there was no doubt that he was a man of action, bringing up the real issue with such verbal finesse that there could be no scope for resentment or dissatisfaction.

As a matter of fact I had not even grasped that he had raised the real issue within half an hour of our reaching his residence; but a hint of amusement in Byomkesh’s eyes alerted me. ‘I shall not disappoint you with sights like historic ruins or hot water springs alone,’ Shashanka-babu was saying at the time. ‘If you are interested in the supernatural, I can show you something of that too. A mysterious ghost has arrived in our town lately—I am somewhat perturbed by him.’

‘Are you normally perturbed by ghosts in your line of duty?’ asked Byomkesh.

‘Not at all,’ Shashanka-babu smiled. ‘But the way things have turned out … The thing is, a gentleman died rather mysteriously in this very fort about six months ago. The mystery of his death has not been solved yet, but his spirit has already started haunting the house he lived in.’

Byomkesh put down his empty cup; I observed deep amusement playing in his eyes. Wiping his mouth carefully with a handkerchief, he drawled, ‘Shashanka, I can see your conversational skills are as strong as ever—constant application has refined it further. It has been less than an hour since we set foot in Munger, yet I am already drawn to your local drama by the description you gave. Give me all the details.’

A meeting of true minds. Grasping what Byomkesh was hinting at, Shashanka-babu may have been slightly embarrassed. But his expression betrayed none of this. ‘Another cup of tea?’ he said casually. ‘No? Some paan? Here you are, Ajit-babu. All right, let me recount the incident; although it is not particularly spine-tingling. It took place six months ago …’

Popping some paan into his mouth, Shashanka-babu began his story.

‘There is a particular house in the fort, near the southern gate. Although small, it is two-storied, with a clearing around it. The houses inside the fort are all at some distance from each other; not as congested as the houses in cities. Every house has its own compound. The owner of this house is a rich local nobleman—he rents it out.

‘This man who had occupied the house for the past fifteen years was named Baikuntha Das. He was getting on in years—a goldsmith by caste. He had a gold-and-silver shop in the market, but that was only for show. His real business was with jewels. His account books showed that he had fifty-one precious jewels in his possession when he died—diamonds, pearls, rubies and emeralds whose value amounted to some two-and-a-half lakh rupees.

‘He used to keep all these precious jewels at home and not in his shop. And yet the strange thing was that he did not even have an iron safe at home. No one knows where he stashed his precious jewels. When a customer came he would take him home, and then, giving him a seat in the drawing room, he would go upstairs to fetch the jewels from his bedroom to display them.

‘You can understand from the extent of his riches that he was a wealthy man. But no one would suspect