‘Aurangabad!’ Uncle Sidhu’s eyes nearly popped out. ‘Do you realize what this means? Aurangabad is only twenty miles from Ellora, which is a sort of depot for the best specimens of Indian art. There is the Kailash temple, carved out of a mountain. Then there are thirty-three caves—Hindu, Buddhist, Jain—that stretch for a mile and a half. Each is packed with beautiful statues, wonderful carvings . . . oh God, I can hardly think! But why is this man going by train when he can fly to Aurangabad?’ ‘I think he wants to keep the yakshi’s head with him at all times. If he went by air, his baggage might be searched by security men. No one would bother to do that on a train, would they?’ Feluda stood up suddenly. ‘What did you decide?’ Uncle Sidhu asked anxiously. ‘We must go by air,’ Feluda replied. The look Uncle Sidhu gave him at this was filled with pride and joy. But he said nothing. All he did was get up and select a slim book from one of his bookcases. ‘This may help you,’ he said. I glanced at its title. A Guide to the Caves of Ellora, it said. Feluda rang his travel agent, Mr Bakshi, as soon as we got back home. ‘I need three tickets on the flight to Bombay tomorrow,’ I heard him say. This surprised me very much. Why did he need three tickets? Was Uncle Sidhu going to join us? When I asked him, however, Feluda only said, ‘The more the merrier. We may need an extra pair of hands.’ Mr Bakshi came back on the line. ‘I’ll have to put you on the waiting list,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t look too bad, I think it’ll be OK.’ He also agreed to make our hotel bookings in Aurangabad and Ellora. The flight to Bombay would get us there by nine o’clock. Then we’d have to catch the flight to Aurangabad at half past twelve, reaching there an hour later. This meant we would arrive in Aurangabad on Saturday, and Mr Mallik would get there on Sunday. Feluda rang off and began dialling another number. The doorbell rang before he could finish dialling. I opened it to find Lalmohan Babu. Feluda stared, as though he had seen a ghost, and exclaimed, ‘My word, what a coincidence! I was just dialling your number.’ ‘Really? Now, that must mean I have got a telepathetic link with you, after all,’ Lalmohan Babu laughed, looking pleased. Neither of us had the heart to tell him the correct word was ‘telepathic’. ‘It’s so hot and stuffy . . . could you please ask your servant to make a lemon drink, with some ice from the fridge, if you don’t mind?’ Feluda passed on his request to Srinath, then came straight to the point. ‘Are you very busy these days? Have you started writing anything new?’

‘No, no. I couldn’t have come here for a chat if I had already