I woke the next morning to an overcast sky and a faint drizzle. Feluda and Lalmohan Babu put on their macintoshes and I wore my waterproof jacket when we left the hotel soon after breakfast. ‘Mr Jatayu,’ said Feluda, ‘this is the normal weather in England. The bright sunshine you saw yesterday was really the exception, not the rule.’ ‘But I bet roads here don’t get waterlogged!’ Lalmohan Babu commented. ‘No; but then, a really heavy downpour—so common in Calcutta—is something of a rarity here. A steady, soft drizzle is what the English are used to.’ Passengers on the underground seemed in as much of a hurry as the people in Oxford Street. ‘This speed is infectious, isn’t it?’ Lalmohan Babu said, walking as fast as he could. ‘Look, even we are walking far more quickly than we’d do back home.’ We reached Richmond at eleven o’clock. Dr Sen had told Feluda how long it would take us to get there from Piccadilly. We found him waiting outside the station. He was a good-looking man in his early sixties. ‘Welcome to Richmond!’ he said, smiling at Feluda. It had stopped raining, but the sky was still grey. Feluda returned his greeting and introduced us. ‘You are a writer?’ Dr Sen asked Lalmohan Babu. ‘I can’t remember when I last read something written by an Indian writer.’ ‘Why, don’t you go back home from time to time?’ ‘The last time I went was in 1973. There’s no reason for me to go back, really. My whole family is here in Britain. I have two sons and two daughters who have all grown up and left home. They are married with children and live in different parts of the country. My wife and I live here in Richmond.’ His car was parked little way away. ‘It’s not so bad here,’ he said, unlocking the doors, ‘but in London the parking problem is quite a serious one. If you went to see a film somewhere in central London, you might well have to park half a mile away from the cinema.’ We got into the car. Feluda sat in the front and fastened his seat belt. Lalmohan Babu looked at me enquiringly. ‘It’s the law in this country,’ I explained quickly. ‘Front seat passengers, and of course the driver, are required to have their seat belts on.’ Dr Sen’s house was a little more than a mile from the underground station. On our way there, I saw a few branches of some of the shops in Oxford Street. Richmond was clearly not a small area. His house was in a quiet spot, surrounded by trees. Their large, green leaves had patches of yellow and brown. There was a small, immaculate front garden, behind which stood a beautiful two-storey house, like something out of a picture postcard. We were shown into the living room. A fire burnt in the fireplace, for which I was glad since it was cold and damp outside. A middle-aged English lady entered the room as soon as we were seated.

‘This is my wife, Emily,’ Dr Sen said. We introduced ourselves. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ she asked with a smile. ‘That would be very kind, thank you,’ Feluda replied. Dr Sen sat down on a couch and turned to Feluda. Mrs Sen left the room. ‘All right. What is it that you want to know, Mr Mitter?’ Dr Sen asked. ‘You told me yesterday you knew Ranjan Majumdar’s father. I am collecting information on Ranjan.’ ‘I see. Ranjan’s father, Rajani Majumdar and I came to England together in 1948. He was older than me by about sixteen years. By the time I got to know him, I had finished studying medicine in Edinburgh and was working in London. Rajani Majumdar was attached to St Mary’s Hospital. We happened to sit next to each other at a play. I even remember which play it was: Major Barbara. We got talking during the intermission and I realized he was a doctor too. His wife was with him. They used to live in Golders Green, and I in Hampstead. I wasn’t married at the time.’ ‘What about his son?’ ‘His son was in school.’ ‘Do you remember which school he went to?’ ‘Yes. It was Warrendel, in Epping. Then he went to Cambridge.’ ‘Which college?’ ‘As far as I can recall, it was Trinity.’ ‘What kind of a man was Dr Rajani, Majumdar?’ Dr Sen was quiet for a minute. Then he said, ‘Peculiar.’ ‘Peculiar? Why do you say that?’ ‘Well, I think there was a certain rather strange trait in his family. His father, Raghunath Majumdar, had been a terrorist in his youth. I mean, he was supposed to have made bombs and attacked British officers when he was only a teenager. But, later, he became a heart specialist. By the time he began to practise as a consultant, he had lost all his earlier hatred against the British. It was he who sent Rajani to England. He wanted to see his son work in England and his grandson receive his education there. Seldom does one find such a complete change of heart. But when Rajani began working here, he kept thinking the British still looked down upon Indians. I tried explaining to him that a few isolated cases of racism did not mean every English person was a racist, but he wasn’t convinced. In the end, he left England because of something a patient of his said to him—something trivial and insignificant, which he ought to have ignored.’ ‘By then I assume his son had had that accident?’ ‘Yes. What is his son doing now? He must be around fifty.’ ‘Yes. He is a chartered accountant.’ ‘That means the year he spent in college here was a total waste. He must have had to start afresh when he went back.’ ‘Yes. By the way, did you know any of Ranjan’s friends?’ ‘No. I never met any of