‘You will get a tiger skin, Felu Babu, but what about me?’ Lalmohan Babu asked, sounding disappointed. We had finished dinner an hour ago. Our host had regaled us after dinner with exciting stories about his experiences in the wild. We had only just wished him a good night and returned from the drawing room. ‘Why do you say that, Lalmohan Babu? Whoever solves this code will get that skin. At least, he should. So why don’t you give it a go yourself, eh? You are a writer, you have a good command over your language, and you have imagination. So come on!’ ‘Pooh! My command over language would never get me through all that hollow-follow and hands- stands and what have you. You’re the one who is going to get the reward. Do you think he might give you this one?’ He looked at the skin that lay sprawling on the floor. ‘No, I don’t think so. Didn’t he mention a big tiger? I have no interest in leopards.’ Feluda had already written down the few lines that made up the puzzle and was now staring at his notebook. ‘Is it making any sense at all?’ Lalmohan Babu persisted. ‘No, not really, except that I am positive it involves hidden treasure,’ Feluda replied without looking up. ‘How can you tell? What’s all that about following a hollow old man?’ ‘I don’t know yet, but I think the word “follow” is important, and so is “pace”. Perhaps it’s simply telling you where you should go—take paces to something, or from something. Nothing else is clear. So we must—’ Feluda couldn’t finish speaking. Someone had walked in through the open door. It was Devtosh Babu. He was still wearing the purple dressing gown. His eyes held the same wild look, as though he suspected everyone he met of having committed a crime. He looked straight at Lalmohan Babu and said, ‘Did the Bhot Raja send you?’ ‘Bh-bhot?’ Lalmohan Babu gulped. ‘Do you mean vote? El-elections?’ ‘No, I think he is talking of the Raja of Bhutan,’ Feluda said softly. Devtosh Babu turned his eyes immediately on Feluda, thereby releasing Lalmohan Babu from an extremely awkward situation. ‘Are the Bhots coming back?’ he wanted to know. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Feluda replied, his voice absolutely normal, ‘but it is possible now to travel to Bhutan quite easily.’ ‘Really?’ Devtosh Babu sounded as though this was the first time he’d heard the news. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘That’s good. They had once been very helpful. It was only because of them that the soldiers of the Nawab couldn’t do anything. They know how to fight. But not everyone knows that, do they?’ He

sighed deeply, then added, ‘Not everyone can handle weapons. No, not everyone can be like Adityanarayan.’ He turned abruptly and began walking to the door. Then he stopped, turned back, looked at the leopard skin on the floor and said something perfectly weird. ‘Do you know about the wheels of Yudhisthir’s chariot? They never touched the ground. Yet . . . in the end, they did. They had to.’ Then he quickly left the room. We sat in silence after he had gone. After a few minutes, I heard Feluda mutter: ‘He was wearing clogs. The soles were lined with rubber to muffle the noise.’ Our first night turned out to be quite eventful. I shall try to describe what happened in the right order. A grandfather clock on the top of the stairs helped me to keep track of time. The first thing we realized within ten minutes of going to bed was that although we had been given thick mattresses and beautiful linen, no one had thought of checking the mosquito nets. There were holes in all three, which simply meant an open invitation to all the mosquitoes in the region. Thank goodness Feluda always carried a tube of Odomos with him. Each of us had to use it before going back to bed. When I did, suitably embalmed, I could hear the clock outside strike eleven. The clouds had dispersed to make way for the moon. I could see a patch of moonlight on the floor and was looking at it when, suddenly, someone spoke on the veranda. ‘I am warning you for the last time. This is not going to do you any good!’ It was Mahitosh Sinha-Roy. He sounded furious. There was no reply from the other person. On my right, Lalmohan Babu had started to snore. I turned to my left and whispered, ‘Feluda, did you hear that?’ ‘Yes,’ Feluda whispered back, ‘go to sleep.’ I said nothing more. I must have fallen asleep almost immediately, but woke again a little later. The moon was still there, but the thunder was back, rolling in the distance. I lay quietly listening to it, but as the last rumble died away, it was replaced by another noise: khut-khut, khut-khut, khut-khut! It did not continue at a regular pace, but stopped abruptly. Then it started again. Now it became clear that it was coming from inside our room. It got drowned occasionally by the thunder outside, but it did not stay silent for long. I could hear Feluda breathing deeply and regularly. He was obviously fast asleep. But why had Lalmohan Babu stopped snoring? I glanced at his bed, but could see nothing through the nets. Then I became aware of another noise, a faint, chattering noise which I recognized instantly. A few years ago, during a visit to Simla, Lalmohan Babu had slipped and fallen on the snow as a bullet came and hit the ground near his feet. He had made the same noise then. It was simply the sound of his teeth chattering uncontrollably. Khut-khut, khut-khut, khut! There it was again. I raised my head to look at the floor. The mosquito net rustled with this slight movement, which told Lalmohan Babu that I was awake. ‘T-t-t-tapesh!’ he cried in a strange, hoarse voice.