"How far is the town from here?"

"About five miles. The road in front goes straight east to the town."

Just then, Himangshu came out of the house. He said, smiling at us, "Come, Byomkesh and Ajitbabu, let me show you my armoury!"

We followed him eagerly. It was evening — Dewanji went off quickly to prepare for his evening prayers.

Himangshu took us to a middle-sized room. On a table at the centre of the room, a light shone. We noticed that the floor was covered with the skins of tigers, bears and deer. There were some almirahs on the wall. Himangshu opened them one by one, and showed us different types of guns, pistols, revolvers and rifles. We were a little surprised to see this man's great affection for all those terrible weapons. He described the quality of each, and even recalled which was used to kill what animal. He said that he never allowed anyone to touch these; he cleaned and oiled them himself.

After seeing the arms, we sat there in the room, and started chatting. We talked about many subjects. People reveal their characters in different ways, in different environments. The relaxed atmosphere of the room helped Himangshu to unravel himself. I was quite certain that this man was a simple person, and that his mind went in a straight direction like the bullet of his gun.

We unwittingly began talking about estates, and the problems in managing these. Himangshu told us a lot about himself and about the estate he ran. He told us frankly that he was bitter about the constant clash with his subjects. The earnings were virtually nil — court cases were costly. So in these last few years the debts were running into lakhs. I noticed that this bitterness had made him turn away from property matters. He was not very sure of the impending dangers because he was inexperienced about money matters, but he was vaguely aware of some unknown catastrophe in the near future. To divert his mind from this fear, he plunged himself into his favourite sport — hunting. Such was the present situation.

It was eight thirty in the evening; we were called for dinner. Now we saw Anadi Sarkar. He had come to call us. His eyes had a restive and anxious expression — as if he was afraid of being caught for a misdeed.

Byomkesh observed him with sharp eyes. Then we followed him to the dining room. After dinner, we were escorted to our room by Bhuban — Himangshu's personal bearer. We relaxed on chairs and lit cigarettes. Bhuban put up the mosquito curtains, placed a jug of water on the table, and was about to leave, when Byomkesh asked, "You had seen Harinath for the last six months, did he always wear his spectacles?"

Bhuban probably knew that we had come to investigate the theft — so he was very eager to speak.

"Yes, sir, he wore it all the time. One