A minute later, a strange creature was shown in: a smallish man in his mid-sixties, clad in a loose and ill-fitting yellow suit, a green tie wound rather horrifically round his throat, a beard that stood out like the bristles of an old brush and a moustache that reminded me of a fat and well-fed caterpillar. His eyes were abnormally bright, and he carried a stout walking-stick. He looked around as he entered the room and asked in a gruff voice, ‘Tarafdar? Which one of you is Tarafdar?’ ‘I am. Please sit down,’ Mr Tarafdar invited. ‘And these three?’ The man’s eyes swept over us imperiously. ‘Three very close friends.’ ‘Names? Names?’ ‘This is Pradosh Mitter, and this is his cousin, Tapesh. And over there is Lalmohan Ganguli.’ ‘All right. Now let’s get to work, to work.’ ‘Yes, what can I do for you?’ ‘Do you know who I am?’ ‘You only mentioned your surname on the phone, Mr Thakur. That’s all I know.’ ‘I am Tarak Nath Thakur. TNT. Trinitrotolvene—ha ha ha!’ Mr Thakur roared with laughter, startling everyone in the room. I knew TNT was used in making powerful explosives. But what was so funny about it? Mr Thakur did not enlighten us. Feluda asked him a question instead. ‘Does an exceptionally small dwarf live in your house?’ ‘Kichomo. A Korean. Eighty-two centimetres. The smallest adult in the entire world.’ ‘I read about him in the papers a few months ago.’ ‘Now the Guinness Book of Records will include his name.’ ‘Where did you find him?’ Lalmohan Babu asked. ‘I travel all over the world. I have plenty of money. I got it all from my father, I’ve never had to earn a penny in my life. Do you know how he made his money? Perfumes, he ran a thriving business in perfumes. Now a nephew of mine looks after it. I am a collector.’ ‘Oh? What do you collect?’ ‘People and animals. People from different countries and different continents. People who have some unique trait in them. I’ve just told you about Kichomo. Besides him, I have a Maori secretary who can write simultaneously with both hands. He’s called Tokobahani. I have a black parrot that speaks three different languages, a Pomeranian with two heads, a sadhu from Laxmanjhoola who sits in the air—quite literally, six feet from the ground, and . . .’ ‘Just a minute, sir,’ Lalmohan Babu interrupted. Tarak Nath Thakur reacted instantly. He raised his stick over his head and shouted, ‘You dare interrupt me? Me? Why, I—’

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Lalmohan Babu offered abject apologies. ‘What I wanted to know was whether all these people in your collection stay in your house totally voluntarily?’ ‘Why shouldn’t they? They’re well-fed, well-paid and kept in comfort, so they’re quite happy to live where I keep them. You may not have heard of me or my collection, but hundreds of people elsewhere in the world have. Why, only the other day, an American journalist interviewed me and published an article in the New York Times called “The House of Tarak”.’ ‘That’s all very well, Mr Thakur,’ put in Mr Tarafdar, ‘but you still haven’t told me why you’re here.’ ‘You mean I must spell it out? Isn’t it obvious? I want that boy of yours for my collection . . . what’s his name? Jyotishka? Yes, I want Jyotishka.’ ‘Why? He’s being very well looked after here, he’s happy and content. Why should he leave me and go and live in your queer household?’ Mr Thakur stared at Sunil Tarafdar for nearly a minute. Then he said slowly, ‘You wouldn’t speak quite so recklessly if you saw Gawangi.’ ‘What is Gawangi?’ asked Lalmohan Babu. ‘Not what, but who,’ Mr Thakur replied. ‘He’s not a thing, but a man. He comes from Uganda. Nearly eight feet tall, his chest measures fifty-four inches and his weight is 350 kg. He could beat the best of Olympic heavyweight champions hollow, any day. Once he spotted a tiger in the jungles of Terai that had both stripes and spots. A perfectly unique specimen. He managed to knock it unconscious with a shot of a tranquillizer. Then he carried that huge animal for three-and-a-half miles. That same Gawangi is now my personal companion.’ ‘Have you,’ asked Lalmohan Babu, with considerable courage, ‘reintroduced the old system of slavery?’ ‘Slavery?’ Mr Thakur almost spat the word out. ‘No, sir! When I first saw Gawangi, he was facing a totally bleak future. He came from a good family in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. His father was a doctor. It was he who told me that Gawangi had reached the height of seven-and-a-half feet even before he had turned fifteen. He couldn’t go out anywhere for little urchins threw stones at him. He had had to leave school because his classmates teased and taunted him endlessly. His height and his size were a constant source of embarrassment to him. When I met him, he was twenty-one, spending his days quietly at home, worrying about his future. He would have died like that, had I not rescued him from that situation and brought him with me. He found a new life with me. Why should he be my slave? I look upon him like a son.’ ‘All right, Mr Thakur, we believe you. But even so, I cannot allow Jyotishka to go and join your zoo.’ ‘You say that even after being told about Gawangi?’ ‘Yes. Your Gawangi has nothing to do with my decision.’ For the first time, Mr Thakur seemed to lose a little bit of his self-assurance. I heard him sigh. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but can I at least see the boy?’ ‘Yes, that can be easily arranged.’ Nayan returned to the room. Mr Thakur looked him over, scowling. ‘How many rooms does my house have?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Sixty-six.’

‘Hm . . . .’ Mr Thakur slowly rose to his feet, gripping the silver handle of his walking-stick firmly with his