The Colonel Investigates

A book that eludes everybody’s grasp, including the colonel. Impersonations thefts and even murders are committed for the sake of the book. It calls for a trip to the country estate of Ram Sharma in Ramshankarpur. The colonel has to intervene to trace the murderer and the possible connection with the book, yet he is also totally perplexed by a magic square in it. An opium-addict with an unknown benefactor, an anonymous letter with a challenge to witness a spine-chilling spectacle in the deserted temple of the ill-omened goddess, the nocturnal horror of clanging utensils and the thud of unknown inhabitants in the Lohagora palace, a Raja Bahadur who does not seem to be quite in his senses. What have all this to do with a card trick and a nonsensical rhyme in a diary? A boy who gets kidnapped or murdered while playing football near the forest of Harmatmatia, a bear-like beast or god that roams around the forest killing people, a precious inlaid box misplaced after being dug up during an excavation. All these seem to be tied up with a numerical puzzle in an old Sanskrit manuscript.