The first thing we did on getting off the train in Jaisalmer was to stop at a tea stall and have a cup of tea and some sweets. It was a new kind of sweet, one that we hadn’t had before. Feluda said it would do us good as it had glucose in it. A lot of activity lay ahead, the glucose would provide extra energy. We emerged from the station to find that there was not a single vehicle we could hire—no tongas, ekkas, cycle-rickshaws, or taxis. There was a jeep waiting, but it was obviously not meant for hire. When we got off the train, I had noticed a black Ambassador standing outside. But now even that had gone. ‘It’s a small town,’ Feluda said. ‘I don’t think a place is all that far from another. My guide book says there’s a dak bungalow. Let’s go and find it.’ We set off, carrying our luggage. Soon enough, we found a petrol station, where a man gave us directions. In order to get to the dak bungalow, we would not have to climb the hill, he said. The bungalow was located on the plains, to the south of the hill. As we began walking again, Feluda looked at the tyre marks on the sand and said, ‘That Ambassador must have come this way!’ About fifteen minutes later, we came upon a bungalow. A wooden board fixed to its gate told us that we had come to the right place. The black Ambassador was parked in front of it. An old man wearing a khaki shirt and a short dhoti came out of an outhouse. On his head was a turban. Perhaps he had seen us arrive. Feluda asked him in Hindi if he was the chowkidar. The man nodded. It appeared from the way he was looking at us that our arrival was unexpected, and he didn’t altogether approve of our sudden appearance, as no one was allowed to stay in the bungalow without prior permission. Feluda said nothing about staying there. All we wanted to do, he told the man, was leave our luggage in the bungalow. Then we’d try to get the necessary permission. ‘You’ll have to see the Raja’s secretary for that,’ said the chowkidar and pointed us in the right direction. The palace, also made of yellow sandstone, was at some distance; but certain portions of it were visible, rising above the trees. The chowkidar raised no objection to our luggage being left there, He showed us into a small room, where we dumped our suitcases and holdalls. Then we filled our flasks with fresh water, slung them on our shoulders and asked him the way to the fort. ‘You want to go to the fort?’ The question came from the far end of a passage. A gentleman had just come out of a room. He appeared no more than forty, had a clear complexion, and a sharp nose, under which was a thin moustache, very carefully trimmed. A second later, he was joined by an older man, who was clutching a stick—the kind that we had seen in the market in Jodhpur—and was wearing an odd, somewhat ill- fitting black suit. I could not tell which part of the country they might be from. The second man was limping slightly, which explained the need for the stick.

‘Yes, a look at the fort might be interesting,’ said Feluda. ‘Come along with us, we are going that way.’ Feluda thought for a few moments, then agreed. ‘Thank you very much, it is very kind of you,’ he said As we made our way to the car, Lalmohan Babu whispered into my ear: ‘I hope these men won’t try to throw us out of a moving car!’ The car began its journey to the fort. The man with the stick asked us, ‘Are you from Calcutta ?’ ‘Yes,’ Feluda replied. To our left, in the distance, rising from the sand, were stone pillars. We had seen something similar in Devikund. Feluda said such structures were quite common in Rajasthan. Our car started going uphill. About a minute later, we heard another car. It was tooting urgently. That was a bit surprising, since we were not driving all that slowly and getting in its way. Feluda was sitting at the back with the two gentlemen. He turned round, peered through the glass and suddenly said to our driver, ‘Stop! Please stop!’ Our car pulled up by the side of the road. At once, a taxi came along and stopped on our right. Holding its steering wheel was Gurbachan Singh, greeting us with a smile. The three of us climbed out. Feluda said to the two men, ‘Thank you so much for your help. But this is our own taxi. It had broken down on the way to Jaisalmer, but now it’s caught up with us.’ When we were back in his car, Gurbachan told us how, at half past six that morning, he had spotted another taxi going back from Jaisalmer. He knew its driver, and managed to get a spare tyre from him. Then he covered ninety miles in two hours. When he reached Jaisalmer, he simply waited at the petrol station, until he spotted us inside the black Ambassador. A little later, we found ourselves going through a market. There were shops everywhere, a loudspeaker was playing a Hindi song and, outside a small cinema, was a poster advertising a Hindi film. ‘You want to see the fort?’ Gurbachan asked. ‘Yes,’ Feluda told him. Gurbachan stopped the taxi and said, ‘This is its gate.’ To our right was a massive gate, beyond which rose a road, paved with stone, which led to a second gate. That, I realized, was the real entrance to the fort, the first one acted as the front gate. Behind the entrance, rising steeply, was the golden fortress of Jaisalmer. A guard was standing outside the front gate. Feluda went and