We were then taken to the room where the negatives were kept. My eyes nearly popped out. Shelves rose almost from the floor to the ceiling. Each was crammed with square brown boxes, bearing the date and description of their contents.

Feluda inspected the shelves and peered closely at some of the dates. Then he glanced at his watch and said, ‘Why don’t you two go for a walk? You can come back in an hour. I have some work to do here.’

We went back to the lift. ‘Your cousin’s wish is my command,’ said Lalmohan Babu, ‘I could never say no to him. He has such a tremendous personality! Anyway, let’s go to Frank Ross.’

We left the car parked in Suren Banerjee Road and walked down Chowringhee towards the Grand Hotel. I had no idea why Lalmohan Babu wanted to go to a chemist, nor did I need to know. Our only aim was to kill time.

We proceeded through the crowded streets, trying to avoid bumping into others. After a while, Lalmohan Babu asked, ‘Do you have any idea what your cousin is thinking?’

I was forced to admit that I was completely in the dark. All I could guess was that someone other than Feluda had read Charlotte Godwin’s diaries and that was somehow linked with Thomas Godwin’s grave being dug up.

‘Do you know that a skeleton can remain intact even two hundred years after the body is buried?’ Lalmohan Babu asked me.

His question reminded me of a story Feluda had told me about Job Charnock’s tomb. I repeated it to Lalmohan Babu. Two hundred years after Charnock’s death, a priest at St John’s Church suddenly grew suspicious about what lay underground. Had Charnock really been buried there, or had someone simply erected a tombstone? His doubts began to worry him so much that the priest had the grave dug up. At first, his men dug four feet, and found nothing. Then they dug deeper, and another couple of feet lower, the arm of a skeleton slipped out. The priest quickly had the grave refilled.

We entered Frank Ross. Lalmohan Babu walked up to the counter. Just as he had started to say, ‘One Forhans for the gums, family size,’ I spotted a man coming into the shop, and recognized him. It was Naren Biswas’s brother, Girin Biswas. He did not recognize us immediately. I saw him glance at us two or three times before a smile appeared on his face. In his hands was a large parcel. The words Hong Kong Dry Cleaners were printed on it. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘I’ve come to buy some medicines for my brother.’

‘How is he?’ Lalmohan Babu asked.