We were now going back the same way we had come. It was past one-thirty, but neither of us was thinking of lunch. Balaram Ghosh did suggest stopping for a cup of tea when we reached Jessore Road, but Feluda paid no attention. Perhaps our driver smelt an adventure in all this, so he, too, did not raise the subject of food again. Our car was now going at 75 kmph. I was aware of only one thought that kept going over and over in my mind: how close we had got to retrieving the yakshi’s head! If we hadn’t had a power cut this morning, we would have heard the news on the radio, and then we would have reached Sidikpur much sooner and most certainly we would have got hold of Panu. If that had happened, by now we would have been making our way to the office of the Archaeological Survey of India. Who knows, Feluda might have been given a Padma Shree for recovering the country’s lost heritage! The sun had already dried the road. I was beginning to wonder why we couldn’t go a little faster, when my eyes caught sight of something by the roadside that caused a sharp rise in my pulse rate. A blue Ambassador was standing outside a small garage. ‘Should I stop here, sir?’ Balaram Ghosh asked, reducing his speed. He had obviously paid great attention to what those boys had told us. ‘Yes, at that tea stall over there,’ Feluda replied. Mr Ghosh swept up to the stall and pulled up by its side with a screech. We got out and Feluda ordered three cups of tea. I noticed that tea was being served in small glasses, there were no cups. ‘What else have you got?’ Feluda asked. ‘Biscuits. Would you like some? They’re fresh, sir, and very tasty.’ Two glass jars stood on a counter, filled with large, round biscuits. Feluda asked for half-a-dozen of those. My eyes kept darting back to the blue car. A mechanic was in the process of replacing a punctured tyre. A man—medium height, age around forty, thick bushy eyebrows, hair brushed back—was pacing up and down, inhaling every now and then from a half-finished cigarette. Our tea was almost ready. Feluda took out a Charminar, then pretended he had lost his lighter. He patted his pocket twice, then shrugged and moved over to join the other man. The driver and I stayed near our taxi, but we could hear what was said. ‘Excuse me.’ Feluda began, ‘do you . . . ?’ The man took out a lighter and lit Feluda’s cigarette for him. ‘Thanks,’ Feluda inhaled. ‘A terrible business, wasn’t it?’ The man glanced at Feluda, then looked away without replying. Feluda tried once more. ‘Weren’t you at the site where that plane crashed? I thought I saw your car there!’ This time, the man spoke. ‘What plane crash?’ ‘Good heavens, haven’t you heard? A plane bound for Kathmandu crashed near Sidikpur.’ ‘I am coming from Taki. No, I hadn’t heard of the crash.’

Taki was a town near Hasnabad. Could the man be telling the truth? If only we had noted the number of his car when he passed us! ‘How much longer will it take?’ he asked the mechanic impatiently. ‘A couple of minutes, sir, no more.’ Our tea had been served by this time. Feluda came back to pick up a glass. The three of us sat down on a bench in front of the stall. ‘He denied everything . . . the man’s a liar,’ Feluda muttered. ‘How can you be so sure, Feluda? There are millions of blue Ambassadors.’ ‘His shoes are covered by ash. Have you looked at your own sandals?’ I glanced down quickly and realized the colour of my sandals had changed completely. The other man’s brown shoes were similarly covered with dark patches. Feluda took his time to finish his tea. We waited until the blue car got a new tyre—this took another fifteen minutes instead of two—and went towards Jessore Road. Our own taxi left a minute later. There was quite a big gap between the two cars which, Feluda said, was no bad thing. ‘He mustn’t see that we’re following him,’ he told Mr Ghosh. It began raining again as we reached Dum Dum. Everything went hazy for a few minutes and it became difficult to keep the blue car in view. Balaram Ghosh was therefore obliged to get a bit closer, which helped us in getting the number of the car. It was WMA 5349. ‘This is like a Hindi film, sir!’ Mr Ghosh enthused. ‘I saw a film only the other day—it had Shatrughan Sinha in it—which had a chase scene, exactly like this. But the second car went and crashed into a hill.’ ‘We’ve already had a crash today, thank you.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry, sir. I’ve been driving for thirteen years. I haven’t had a single accident. I mean, not yet.’ ‘Good. Keep it that way.’ Balaram Ghosh was a good driver, I had to admit. We were now back in Calcutta, but he was weaving his way through the busy roads without once losing sight of the blue car. I wondered where it was going. ‘What do you think the man’s going to do with the statue?’ I asked Feluda after a while. ‘Well, he’s certainly not going to take it back to Bhubaneshwar,’ Feluda replied. ‘What he might do is find another buyer. After all, it isn’t often that one gets the chance to sell the same thing twice!’ The blue car finally brought us to Park Street. We drove past the old cemetery, Lowdon Street, Camac Street, and then suddenly, it turned left and drove into a building called Queen’s Mansion. ‘Should I go in, sir?’ ‘Of course.’ Our taxi passed through the front gates. A huge open square faced us, surrounded by tall blocks of flats. A number of cars and a couple