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 writes a code on just twenty occasions in a whole year—and don’t forget he writes in that diary three hundred and sixty-five times—then I must assume every code has a special meaning. I just have to work harder to find out what it is, that’s all.’ ‘Isn’t there anything else in the diary that might help?’ ‘No, but there’s another message ten days after he wrote 2+5=X. Look!’ I read the message Feluda pointed out: ‘Old friend—herbal hair oil. Calms two.’ ‘A hair oil that might help him control his temper? This one’s easy, Felu Babu. Only, I can’t make out why he calls it an old friend. Maybe he’d been using it for a long time?’ ‘No. You didn’t pay attention to the “dash” after the word “friend”. It can only mean an old friend is in some way related to the oil.’ ‘Akhil Chakravarty! He knows about ayurvedic herbs, doesn’t he? He must have given the oil to his friend!’ I exclaimed. ‘Very good, Topshe. Now read these other messages.’ There were two. The first said, ‘Getting rid of five from today.’ That meant he gave up drinking. But, only a month later, he wrote: ‘Bholanath goes back to five. Five helps forget.’ ‘The question is, what did he want to forget so desperately?’ Feluda muttered. Lalmohan Babu looked at me, I scratched my head. Now it was obvious why Mr Chowdhury had said his life was full of mysteries. Feluda opened another diary and showed us one more message. ‘I am as feather today. I took charge of SM. SM will be my salvation.’ ‘SM is Shankarlal Misra, surely?’ I said. ‘But why is he as a feather?’ ‘I think that simply means “light as a feather”,’ Feluda replied. ‘He was happy and possibly relieved by something. Maybe a load had been lifted from his mind. Taking charge of young Shankarlal clearly had a lot to do with it.’ Feluda rose and began pacing. I sat staring at the diaries. If Mahesh Chowdhury had lived a little longer, he and Feluda would have got on very well. Feluda was just as interested in word games and riddles. Lalmohan Babu was sitting quietly, frowning thoughtfully. After a while, he said, ‘Why don’t you have a chat with Akhil Chakravarty? He knew him pretty closely, didn’t he? He made his horoscope, gave him ayurvedic medicines . . . surely he’ll be able to tell you a lot more about the man than his diaries? Feluda stopped pacing and lit a Charminar. ‘I was trying to get to know the man myself, through his thoughts. Those few messages written with a pencil have kept him alive.’ ‘Did you find anything about his sons? Did he mention any of them?’ ‘There isn’t much in the first fifteen years. But later—’ Feluda broke off. A car had arrived outside. It stopped and tooted at the gate.

We came out on the veranda to find Arun Babu getting out of his Fiat. In