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 a ring a few minutes ago, to say that he would drop by to find out about the latest developments, although he didn’t normally visit us on Mondays. ‘Feluda,’ I said, ‘we didn’t find out whose blood it was on the cage, did we?’ ‘Well, I don’t really think a chemical analysis is necessary. Those stains were left there by a man, I am sure of it. Whoever had tried to take the bird out by force would have been injured. I mean, the bird would naturally have thought it was being attacked, wouldn’t it? So it would have used its claws and its beak to defend itself, and most certainly it would have left its mark on the hand of its attacker.’ ‘Did you notice any such mark on anyone in Mr Haldar’s house?’ ‘No. I looked at everyone very closely, including all the servants, but I found nothing. It would have been a fresh injury, it should have shown on someone. To be honest, I cannot focus my attention on anything else—I keep thinking of that bird!’ ‘Didn’t you make a list of people who had had the opportunity to kill?’ ‘Yes, the opportunity as well as the motive.’ Feluda’s notebook was lying next to him on the sofa. He picked it up and opened it. ‘Sadhan Dastidar. Our suspect number one. Everything we’ve learnt about him is pretty straightforward. The mystery lies in his disappearance. The only likely explanation is that he bribed the chowkidar adequately, and the chowkidar is lying through his teeth. If that is the case, I’m sure the police can handle that. They have means of dealing with liars. ‘Pestonji—suspect number two. He is seventy years old. It doesn’t seem likely that an old man would commit a crime that requires physical strength. Parvaticharan had been struck with a great deal of force. But then, age doesn’t always affect one’s strength. We cannot make a final decision about Pestonji without actually seeing him. ‘Achintya Haldar—the third suspect. He wasn’t fond of his father, but did he really dislike him so much that he’d want to kill him? We don’t know that for certain. All I can say is that if he could get hold of that letter written by Napoleon and sell it, that might make him rich. At a guess, Pestonji would buy it readily. I’m sure Achintya knew that. The fourth . . .’ I interrupted him, ‘You mean there is a fourth suspect?’ ‘Not exactly a suspect, but we need to know what exactly he was doing that morning. I am talking of our friend, Amitabh Haldar. In his statement to the police, he said he came down to the drawing room at nine o’clock to ring me, then went straight to the garden to tend to his flowers. He stayed there until ten o’clock, then left the garden and went to a side veranda on the ground floor. A servant brought him a cup of tea here. According to