The Great Detective Chatterjee

Dr. Vikram Sharadindu Chatterjee, the legendary Calcutta detective, is dead.

Found face down in the garden of his Marble Palace – a sprawling Palladian mansion in central Calcutta, packed with souvenirs of his many exploits. Not a scratch on his body. Mohini, his beloved white peacock, pecking at his bald head, trying to wake him up. Criminals everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.

Charles Tegart, Police Commissioner, suspects foul play. Is getting nowhere. The autopsy has been thwarted by the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Chatterjee’s body from a locked morgue in the dead of night.

Chatterjee’s butler, Seth, is overwhelmed. Requests for the great polymath’s assistance continue to pour in. He’s employing part-time investigators, using the hefty chunk of money set aside for this purpose in Chatterjee’s will. That’s you.

He is looking for a suitable successor. Somebody to inherit Chatterjee’s fortune, and his job.

It’s a hard act to follow.

Chatterjee was a chess master with a 100kg deadlift and an encyclopedic knowledge of drugs and poisons. Published in the British Medical Journal. Wrote a humour column for the Statesman. Corresponded with Satyendra Bose on quantum physics.

Only failings were romantic. In the presence of beautiful women, he became physically unable to speak.

Seth poisoned him, of course. Twenty years of faithful service were building to this moment. Knows the people of Calcutta loved Chatterjee – they will trust him as the good doctor’s faithful sidekick to vouch for a new detective hero. One completely under his control. A pet Sherlock Holmes.

Would like to find Chatterjee’s body. Doesn’t like loose ends.

Faithful slave of the legendary mastermind Wu Fang – said to govern all the crime in Asia from a lair in the plateaus of Northwest China. Understands what happens to the fools who let the Devil Doctor down.

The Marble Palace.

A fenced-off oasis in the middle of Calcutta’s traffic chaos.

Trams rumble. Rickshaws clatter. Impatient bullock-drivers abuse their beasts. Palm trees around the property deflect some of the noise. At night the coffee shops of Mechhobazar teem with thieves and dacoits. None of them would dare climb the palace’s wrought-iron gates.

Whole unemployed Bihari families inhabit the streets. Half-naked Naga mendicants from the eastern hills squatting by fires. Stern babus in spectacles with rolled-up umbrellas, on their way to the Writers’ Building for their government jobs. Chai-wallahs on bicycles. Paan shops. Bright saris and fruit purveyed from makeshift market stalls.

Beyond the gates – untrimmed lawns. Wilting rows of sunflowers. Stately marble lions. Busts of Queen Victoria, Caesar, for some reason Pocahontas. Nereids atop fountains, smiling vacantly, holding dry conches – scum floating on the inch-deep water. All the gardeners have been let go.

Behind the house – a menagerie. The one remaining keeper has saved himself some work by semi-accidentally leaving the cages open. Javan mynahs, South Australian parakeets, Rio macaws. Peacocks canvassing the dirt for grubs. Monkeys freaking out at a quiet shuffling porcupine, climbing on the statues, trying to catch the birds.

A few spotted deer hiding in the underbrush. Shy.

Inside the house – more busts of Victoria. Elephant tusks. Mughal punch daggers. Kalighat paintings of scenes from the Ramayana and preening babus. A wind-up clockwork tiger clawing a redcoat to death. Paintings – a Titian here, a Rubens there – hanging lopsided, gilt frames peeling.

It’s never been properly catalogued, Seth apologises. Dr. Chatterjee was always busy with other things.

A gilt-edged Versailles mirror – once a gift from Louis XIV to some Coromandel potentate. A sword from Damascus. Porcelain Dresden figurines, Bavarian beer steins, Sèvres ormolu vases. A stuffed stag’s head, one eye popped out, hanging above a fireplace that has clearly never been used. Crystal chandeliers. Cobwebs too high to sweep.

Secret doors.

Behind the shelves of the well-stocked library, with its rows of scientific literature, its fat leatherbound History of Chemistry and slim, well-thumbed volumes of Tagore. Inside the master bedroom wardrobe. Underneath the stairs. In the billiards room, activated by playing Tagore’s music on the grand piano. A whole second house’s worth of hidden passages, with peepholes, inside the walls.

A secret laboratory, with samples of every drug and poison in neatly-labelled glass tubes. An even more secret laboratory that Seth doesn’t know about. A kitchen with a hundred different types of tea, from Assam to Ceylon. The same amount of spices. Chatterjee was an expert cook – and strict vegetarian, of course.

A gymnasium. A trophy room. The weapons of Chatterjee’s enemies – the silken cord of a strangler cult, the lucky kris of Three Toe Lau, the plutonium ray of Madame U. An armoury with rifles, grenades, Maxim guns. A firing range. Foul-smelling tunnels, slick with river water, locked from the inside, leading God knows where.

A small shrine to Jagannath. Flowers heaped in front of it. Chatterjee made an offering for every case he took.

Three of Chatterjee’s sidekicks.

Sandeep, the Marathi strongman. Rescued by Chatterjee from a circus where he slept in a cage and even the trained apes pushed him around. Waxed moustache. Shiny head. Loyal but indisputably dim. Refers to himself in the third person. Afraid of fire. Has sworn never to use a weapon or harm an animal. Basically indestructible. SANDEEP STRONG!

Hemendra, the Jain doctor. A committed pacifist – will not raise a hand against another living creature, even in self-defence. Won’t swat a mosquito, or eat after sunset in case a bug lands in his food. Works in a bird hospital. Medical genius. Chatterjee got him off a murder charge by proving that the victim faked her death with yogic breathing techniques.

Raghavan, the Tamil sadhu. Dreadlocks. Orange robes. Forehead smeared with ash. Bathes in the Hooghly every morning. Sleeps on a bed of nails. Flexible. Smokes ganja from a chillum pipe – will offer you some. Showed up on Chatterjee’s doorstep one morning, unannounced, having been commanded by Shiva to teach the detective the holy ways.

They all live in the Marble Palace. Won’t come on adventures with you – have their own stuff going on. But you can ask them for advice, or just hang out with them, if you want. All pretty friendly and will cook for you. Won’t show you any of the mansion’s secrets until they’re 100% sure you’re trustworthy and competent.

Seth plans to frame one of the three for Chatterjee’s murder. Not sure who yet. Can make it look good. Tegart will be convinced. The sidekick will hang – unless you catch the real killer first.