The next morning, I woke at seven o’clock. Feluda was already up, and had finished doing his yoga, bathing and shaving. Mr Sengupta was supposed to collect us at eight, and take us to the temple. One of the three bearers, called Kanai, brought us our morning tea at half past seven. Feluda picked up his cup, then went back to staring at the notebook lying open in his lap. ‘Bravo, Adityanarayan!’ I heard him murmur. ‘What a brain you had!’ Lalmohan Babu slurped his tea noisily, and said, ‘Very good tea, I must say. Why, Felu Babu, have you made any progress?’ Feluda continued to mutter, ‘“Half ten”. That’s five. “Half again, century”. Century would mean a hundred, so half of that is fifty. Five and fifty, that’s fifty-five. OK, he probably means fifty-five paces. But what does it relate to? The tree? What is a people’s tree? I must think . . .’ My heart lifted suddenly. He had started to solve the riddle. I felt sure he’d be able to get the entire meaning before we left—with the tiger skin, of course. The clock outside struck eight. Mr Sengupta should be here soon, I thought. A few minutes passed, but there was no sign of him. Feluda didn’t seem to be aware of the delay. He was still engrossed in the puzzle. ‘Rising sun?’ I heard him say. ‘Could it mean the east? Yes. Fifty-five paces to the east of something. What can it mean? The tree . . . the tree . . .’ Someone knocked on the door. It was Shashanka Sanyal, not Mr Sengupta. ‘Er . . . haven’t you finished your tea? Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. Feluda put his notebook away and got to his feet. Mr Sanyal was looking visibly upset. ‘What is it? What is the matter?’ Feluda asked quickly. Mr Sanyal cleared his throat, then spoke somewhat absently, ‘There’s some bad news, Mr Mitter. Torit Sengupta . . . Mahitosh’s secretary . . . died last night.’ ‘Wha-at! How?’ Feluda asked. Lalmohan Babu and I simply stared speechlessly. ‘It seems he went into the forest last night. No one knows why. His body was found only a little while ago, by a woodcutter.’ ‘But how did he die? What happened?’ ‘Apparently, his body has been partially eaten by some animal. Quite possibly, a tiger.’ The man-eater! My hands suddenly felt cold and clammy. Lalmohan Babu had been standing in the middle of the room. He now took three steps backwards to grab the corner of a table and lean against it. Feluda stood still, looking extremely grim. ‘I am sorry,’ Mr Sanyal said again. ‘You only came yesterday for a holiday and now this has happened. I’m afraid we are going to be rather busy . . . I mean, we have to go and see the body for ourselves, naturally.’

‘Can we go with you?’ At this question, Mr Sanyal glanced swiftly at us and said, ‘You may be used to gory deaths, Mr Mitter, but the others . . . ?’ ‘They will stay in the jeep. I will not let them see anything unpleasant.’ Mr Sanyal agreed. ‘Very well. We have two jeeps. You three can travel in one.’ ‘Are we going to carry a gun?’ This question came from Lalmohan Babu. At any other time, Mr Sanyal would have laughed at the idea. But now he said seriously, ‘Yes. There’s nothing to be afraid of during the day, but we are going to be armed.’ None of us spoke in the jeep. I hadn’t yet got over the shock. Only last evening, he was alive. He had spoken with us. And now he was dead . . . killed by a man-eater. What was he doing in the forest in the middle of the night? The light we saw moving among the trees . . . was it coming from Mr Sengupta’s torch? There was another jeep in front of ours. In it were Mahitosh Babu, Mr Sanyal, a man called Mr Datta from the Forest Department, the shikari Madhavlal, and the woodcutter who had found the body and come running to the house. Mahitosh Babu, who had told us so many exciting stories only the previous night, seemed to have aged considerably in the last couple of hours. What I couldn’t figure out was whether it was because of the tragic death of his secretary, or because of the implications of having a man-eater running loose in the area. We did not have to go very far into the forest. Only five minutes after taking the road that ran through the forest, the jeep in front of us slowed down, and then stopped. The road was lined with large trees. I recognized teak, silk-cotton and neem. There was a huge jackfruit tree and a number of bamboo groves. Evidence of last night’s rain lay everywhere. Every little hole and hollow in the ground was full of water. ‘Look!’ Feluda said as our jeep stopped. I looked in the direction he pointed and noticed, after a few seconds, a light green object on a bush. It was a torn piece of the shirt Mr Sengupta had worn the night before, I had no problem in recognizing it. Our jeep stood at least fifty yards away from where Mr Sengupta’s body lay—hidden out of sight, thankfully. Everyone from the other jeep climbed out. The woodcutter began walking. Feluda, too, got out and said, ‘You two wait here. It must be a horrible sight.’ The others disappeared behind a bamboo grove. Although we were at some distance from them, I could hear what they said, possibly because the forest was totally silent. The first person to speak was Mahitosh Babu. ‘My God!’ he exclaimed, slapping his forehead with his palm. ‘It’s useless now to look for pug marks—the rain would have washed them away—but it does look like an attack by a tiger, doesn’t it?’ asked Mr