Bulakiprasad brought us tea in our room. He had already told Feluda about the attempt made to catch Sultan, and Chandran being injured in the process. It was Feluda’s belief that no one but Karandikar could catch the tiger alive. Lalmohan Babu took a long, noisy sip from his cup and asked, ‘Did you find anything interesting in those diaries? Or was Arun Babu right?’ ‘You tell me.’ Feluda opened a diary and pushed it towards Lalmohan Babu. ‘Self elected president of club—meeting on 8.4.46,’ he read aloud. ‘Tea party at Brig. Sudarshan’s, and, on a different page—Trial for new suit at Shakur’s . . . why, Felu Babu, you think any of this stuff has any relevance?’ ‘Topshe, have a look and tell me what you think.’ I had been leaning over Lalmohan Babu’s shoulder. Now I picked the diary up. ‘Bring it closer to the light,’ Feluda ordered. I went forward and put it directly under a table lamp. A shiver of excitement ran down my spine. The diary was fairly large in size. The main entries had been made in ink, but on the top of the page, over the printed date, something had been scribbled with a hard pencil. The words were barely legible. ‘Why, this seems to be a message of some kind!’ I exclaimed. ‘Read it out.’ ‘Conveyance destroyed because of two.’ Good heavens, more puzzles?’ Lalmohan Babu gave a start. ‘Yes. Now look at this. This is the first diary, going back to 1938.’ On the very first page, Mr Chowdhury had written: ‘Shambhu is ruled by two and five.’ ‘Who is Shambhu?’ Lalmohan Babu asked, surprised. ‘Shambhu is another name for Shiva, like Mahesh. Mr Chowdhury referred to himself in his diaries by using various names for Shiva.’ ‘All right, but what’s this about “two and five”?’ ‘Do you know about the six deadly sins that Hindus believe in?’ ‘The six ripus? Yes, yes. They are . . . let me see . . . kaam, krodh, lobh, maud, moha, matsarya.’ ‘Yes, but not in that order. The correct order is kaam, krodh, lobh, moha, maud, matsarya. What do they mean?’ ‘Lust, wrath, greed, attachment, drinking, envy.’ ‘Right. So two and five are wrath and drinking.’ ‘I see, I see. That’s easy, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes. Now if you look at the message Topshe read out, you’ll get his meaning.’ I had, in fact, already worked it out. ‘Conveyance destroyed because of two. Could that mean car destroyed because of wrath? Because of his temper?’ I offered.

‘Shabaash. But there’s more. I have not yet been able to understand what the second message means, and that involves these same six numbers.’ Feluda had marked the pages where coded messages appeared. He opened one of these and showed it to us. ‘2+5=X’, it said. ‘X is an unknown quantity, isn’t it?’ Lalmohan Babu asked. ‘Why don’t you just ignore it? Why are you assuming every strange message has a significant meaning?’ ‘If a man