M y first meeting with Byomkesh Bakshi took place in the spring of 1925.

I was fresh out of the university. There was no pressing need to try and earn my keep. The money that my father had left in the bank generated an interest decent enough to cover the expenses of a single person living in a boarding-house in Calcutta. I had decided to remain a bachelor all my life and to spend my time practising the literary arts. The first flush of youthful enthusiasm had led me to believe that a serious dedication to the literary muse would enable me to change the face of literature in Bengal. At this point in life it is not uncommon for Bengalis to dream of greatness—and it usually doesn’t take very long for these dreams to shatter.

However, let me continue with the story about my first encounter with Byomkesh.

Even those who are deeply familiar with Calcutta are perhaps unaware that there is an area in the very heart of the city which is flanked on one side by dwellings of badly- off non-Bengalis, on another by a degenerate slum, and on the third by hutments of the pale-skinned Chinese. In the centre of this mélange is a delta which by daylight does not seem unusual in any way. But after sundown, the locality is completely transformed. At the stroke of eight all businesses down their shutters and the entire place becomes shrouded in a deathly silence; just a few paan or cigarette stands remain open. Only shadowy figures flit across these streets after that hour. If a stranger happens to stray into the area at night, he quickens his pace and vacates the locality as soon as he can.

It would be pointless to discuss in detail how I happened to land up in a boarding-house in a neighbourhood such as this. Suffice it to say that in the light of day the surroundings had not aroused any suspicions in me and since I was getting a large, airy room on the first floor of the mess for a very reasonable price, I moved in without further ado. It was only later that I came to know that every month two or three mutilated corpses were discovered on the streets here, and a police raid was a common occurrence at least once a week. But by then I had come to feel a certain attachment to my dwelling and the thought of shifting bag and baggage did not appeal to me. I usually stayed in after dark, concentrating on my literary activities; the fear of personal injury was therefore practically non-existent.

On the first floor of the house there were five rooms in all, each occupied by a single gentleman. They were all middle-aged and employed in regular jobs. Every weekend they went home and returned to their respective jobs on Monday. All of them had been living in this mess for quite a while. Recently one of them had retired and gone back to his hometown; the room that was thus vacated was assigned to me. In the evenings the inhabitants settled down to sessions of bridge or poker—complete with the raised voices and aggressiveness that these games occasioned. Ashwinibabu was a veteran at these games and his chief opponent was Ghanashyambabu. The latter would kick up a ruckus every time he lost. At nine o’clock sharp the cook would announce dinner and everyone would proceed peaceably to eat and subsequently retire to their respective rooms. The days at the mess passed in this fashion with unvarying routine. I too had fallen into the comfortable rut of this serene lifestyle quite willingly.

The landlord Anukulbabu occupied the rooms on the ground floor. A homeopath by profession, he was a simple, amiable man. Possibly he was a bachelor too since there was no family in the house. He looked after the daily needs of the tenants and also supervised the meals. He did it all with such finesse that there was no scope for complaints—once the sum of twenty-five rupees was deposited in his hands on the first of the month, one could be assured of every comfort for the next thirty days.

The doctor had a good patronage among the poorer sections of the local people. Both in the mornings and in the evenings patients queued up in front of his office. He distributed medications at a negligible cost. He seldom made house calls; even if he had to, he did not charge for these. As a result the doctor was well respected by everyone in the neighbourhood. I too became a great admirer of his within a very short time. Every day, by about ten in the morning, everyone in the house left for work and just the two of us remained at home. We often had lunch together and the afternoons passed in light conversations and analyses of the day’s newspaper headlines. Although the doctor was a mild- mannered man, he had the gift of the gab. He was under forty and had no university degree to his name; but sitting right at home, he had amassed such a vast amount of knowledge about everything under the sun that I felt a growing sense of wonderment listening to him. If I expressed my admiration he would shyly say, ‘There is hardly anything else to do; so I just sit at home and read. All my knowledge is garnered from books.’

I had been in the boarding-house for a couple of months when one morning, around ten, I was sitting in Anukulbabu’s room, glancing through the newspaper. Ashwinibabu left for work, chewing on his daily paan. He was followed by Ghanashyambabu who asked the doctor for some medication to soothe his toothache and then departed officewards. The other two gentlemen also left in due course. The house was empty for the day.

A couple of patients still awaited the doctor’s attention. After sending them on their way