3. The Case Of Taman Shud
In December 1948, a middle-aged man was washed up on an Australian beach. The man was bloated from having been in the ocean and had no fingerprints or dental records on file, which made him hard to identify. Despite this, somebody seems to have gone to great lengths to ensure that his identity remained a mystery: even the inner labels of his clothing had been removed.
His jacket did contain one unique curiosity; a pocket had been sewn to the inside, which contained a note simply stating the words ‘Taman shud’. The phrase in itself appears in a poetry book by Edward Fitzgerald, called The Rubaiyat. Following the publication of the existence of the scrap of paper, the actual copy of the book that the paper had been torn out of was discovered in the back of a cab. Who was Taman Shud? He was believed to be British in appearance but that is highly speculative in itself. While the autopsy was inconclusive, theorists believe that he could have been a spy and was poisoned, with the note being part of a larger code. Nearly 70 years on, even the best guesses remain purely speculative.
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