‘Your ring?’ I could tell that Feluda was quite taken aback by the question. Bonobihari Babu did not reply. He only stared at Feluda, the pipe hanging from one corner of his mouth, a little smile on his lips. The crickets outside were silent. ‘Besides,’ Feluda continued, ‘what makes you think I have got it?’ Bonobihari Babu spoke this time. ‘I had my suspicions throughout. I knew it couldn’t have been stolen by an outsider. No one could have simply walked into the house and taken something from Dhiru Babu’s bedroom without anyone having seen or heard anything. I found that impossible to believe. But although I suspected you, I didn’t have any evidence to prove my theory. Now I do.’ ‘And what is that evidence?’ Silently, Bonobihari Babu picked up his tape-recorder and, placing it once more on his lap, switched it on. It froze my blood to hear what I did. ‘It was that ring, wasn’t it?’ spoke my own voice from the machine. ‘Since you have guessed it already, there is no point in hiding things from you . . ’ Bonobihari Babu turned the machine off with a click. ‘I had left it under your bed last night before you returned to your room,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t, of course, be sure that you would indeed talk about the ring. But since you did, I couldn’t miss such an opportunity to get what I wanted What better evidence would you need, eh, Felu Babu?’ ‘But how can you claim that the ring is yours?’ Bonobihari Babu put the recorder on the table, crossed his legs and leant back in his chair. ‘In 1948,’ he said, ‘that is, exactly eighteen years ago, I bought that ring from the Naulakha Company in Calcutta. It cost me two hundred thousand rupees. I got to know Pyarelal soon after this. He didn’t tell me he was interested in antiques, but I did show him the ring. The look on his face on seeing it made me instantly wary. Two days later, it disappeared from my house. The police were informed, but they couldn’t catch the thief. Then I came to Lucknow, and so did Pyarelal. I learnt that he had had the ring all these years only when Srivastava showed it to me. I don’t suppose Pyarelal thought he would survive his first heart attack. So he got rid of what he had stolen many years ago. But then he recovered, and I went to see him. What I had thought was that if he admitted to the theft, I could perhaps get the ring back from Srivastava. I’m sure he would have agreed, and I was even prepared to offer him some compensation. But do you know what happened? Pyarelal simply denied the whole thing. In fact, he went so far as to say he had never seen the ring in my house in Calcutta!’ Feluda broke in at this point, not a trace of fear in his voice, ‘I would like to ask you something, Bonobihari Babu, and I hope you’ll give me an answer.’

‘No, you tell me first if you’ve got the ring with you now, or have you left it somewhere? I want to recover myself what is my own!’ ‘Oh?’ said Feluda, speaking with undisguised scorn. ‘How come then that you didn’t hesitate to get other people to steal the ring for you, or even have me followed and threatened? That henchman of yours—Ganesh Guha, isn’t it?—is dressed like a Sikh taxi driver today. I believe he was the fake sannyasi, wasn’t he? You got him to break into Srivastava’s house and follow his car the next day. But then he was told to keep an eye on me. Throwing stones at me at the Residency, trying to chloroform both of us, showering threats on me—all these were his doings, weren’t they?’ Bonobihari Babu smiled, ‘One cannot possibly do every little thing oneself, can one? An assistant can be very useful, you know. Besides, Ganesh is strong and healthy and has spent years handling wild animals. So I knew he’d be good at this reckless game. And I have to say this—if he has done anything wrong, it is only because I asked him to. What you have done, Felu Babu, is far worse. You are hanging on to something that doesn’t belong to you. It is mine, I tell you, and I want it back. Today! Now!’ He practically shouted the last few words. I was still trying hard to stay calm, but my hands began to feel clammy. Feluda’s voice sounded cold as steel when he spoke. ‘What use will that ring be to you, Bonobihari Babu, when you are charged with murder?’ Bonobihari Babu rose from his chair, trembling with rage. ‘What . . . what impudence! You don’t know what you’re saying. How dare you!’ ‘I dare because I believe I see a murderer before me. Now will you tell me a bit more about the spy Pyarelal had mentioned? You appeared to know something about it.’ Bonobihari Babu smiled drily and said, ‘There’s nothing to explain. It’s all quite simple. I had set a few men to follow him around to find out more about the ring. I’m sure that’s what he meant.’ ‘And what if I tell you the word “spy” had nothing to do with your secret service?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You went to visit Pyarelal the morning when he had his second attack, didn’t you? You saw him before the attack came on.’ ‘So what? Are you implying that the very sight of me would give him a cardiac arrest? I had visited him often enough, even before that particular day.’ ‘Yes, but that day you were not empty-handed.’ ‘Empty-handed? What are you getting at?’ ‘You went armed with a box. In that box was an inmate of your zoo—that huge, poisonous African spider—the Black Widow. Isn’t that right? What Pyarelal had tried to say