‘I may as well give up. I do not deserve to be called a sleuth,’ said Feluda. I had never heard him talk like this. But then, we had never been in a situation like this before. A whole day had passed after Shashi Babu’s death. Durga Puja had begun the day before. We had just finished breakfast and were sitting in our room. Mr Tiwari had rung a few minutes earlier to say that Shashi Babu’s son, Nitai, had been arrested. He had never got on well with his father. In fact, Shashi Babu had threatened to hand him over to the police on many occasions. So Nitai might have had a motive for killing his father, although he had denied it. He had apparently been watching a film at the time of the murder. The police did find a torn ticket in his pocket. The knife with which Shashi Babu was stabbed had not been found. According to what Vikas Sinha had told the police, Shashi Babu had finished painting the eyes of the goddess and put the last finishing touches by 6 p.m. that evening. Then he had gone straight to Vikas Babu to get some more medicine as his temperature had risen again. Vikas Babu gave him a fresh dose of homoeopathic medicine, and Shashi Babu left for his home soon afterwards. Someone stabbed him on the way. ‘It is perhaps a good thing,’ Feluda continued to speak, more to himself than the two of us, ‘to fall flat on my face occasionally. At least it stops me from getting arrogant, and reminds me that I am no different from most men . . . Hey, Lalmohan Babu, you’ll come with us to the play, won’t you? I believe their standard of acting is pretty high.’ ‘Yes, of course, that is if you decide . . .’ ‘And what shall we do tomorrow? See a film? Why not? Let’s go and see Tarzan. And a Hindi film after that. I’ll also take you to Durga Bari. You’ll find lots of monkeys there. Each one of them has more intelligence than your Felu Mitter.’ In the end, we did go and see Kabuliwala at the Bengali Club, and discovered that Feluda was right. It was a very good performance. The next day was Mahashtami, the third day of Durga Puja. We went out to visit a few places where Puja was being held, including Mr Ghoshal’s house. He invited us to lunch, but Feluda declined. We ordered lunch in the hotel. Feluda normally had a light meal but, to my surprise, today he had a huge plate of rice and curry and went to sleep straight after. I realized later that this was only the lull before a storm. But, at this precise moment, it broke my heart to see Feluda so depressed. In the evening, we went to see Tarzan, the Ape Man. But Feluda, for some reason, left the hall virtually as soon as the