We spent another half an hour in Mr Haldar’s house. Feluda examined the compound carefully. He went into the garden with us, checked the compound wall to see if parts of it were broken, and finally ended up near the pond. His eyes were on the ground, looking for footprints. The ground being dry, I didn’t think he’d find any prints; but even so, something seemed to attract his attention, and he stopped. I glanced at him quickly, to find him staring at a tiny flowering plant. Something heavy had crushed it, and it had happened obviously in the last few hours. Feluda examined the ground around the plant, then stood looking at the pond. It was not used by the Haldars, so most of it was covered by weed and water hyacinth. Only a small portion looked as if it had been disturbed, for the thick growth of weed had parted to reveal the water underneath. Could it be that something had been thrown into the water? Feluda made no comment on this, so I didn’t venture to say anything either. We turned to go back to the house. ‘I thought I saw a chandana in the garden,’ Lalmohan Babu confided as we began walking, ‘it flew from a guava tree and disappeared into another.’ ‘Why didn’t you tell us immediately?’ Feluda sounded cross. ‘Well . . . because I wasn’t sure. It might well have been an ordinary green parrot. It’s not easy to tell the difference, is it? But this bird can talk.’ ‘What, you heard it say something?’ ‘Yes. You two were at the far end, inspecting the ground. I had just seen a scorpion and jumped aside, when this bird flew over my head and said something. I mean, I heard these words, looked up and found it was a bird that had spoken them.’ ‘Oh? And what did it say?’ ‘It said, “fake hair, babu; fake hair, babu”!’ Feluda gave him a level look. ‘The bird said, “fake hair”? What a rude bird! Casting aspersions on the absence of hair on your head?’ ‘See, that’s why I didn’t tell you anything!’ Lalmohan Babu returned, sounding peeved. ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me, and make fun of me instead.’ We said nothing more, since neither of us could really take it seriously. But the fact remained that in spite of the murder and the theft, Feluda continued to be intrigued by the disappearance of the bird. Two days after the murder, on the following Monday, he said to me, ‘A man gets murdered, and an old valuable letter gets stolen—now, unfortunate it may be, extraordinary it is not. But why should a small chandana vanish from its cage? I just cannot figure it out!’ Amitabh Haldar had called us the day before. Feluda had told him he didn’t think there was any reason for him to go back to their house, especially as the police were making their own enquiries.

Lalmohan Babu had given us