The Scholar's Cipher
He spent thirty years decoding a dead language. Last night, it killed him.
The scene
The Sanskrit College, College Street, Calcutta, February 1965. The college is preparing its centenary volume, and its most senior Sanskritist has been working alone in the manuscript vault for six months on a palm-leaf chronicle dated 1857.
The victim
Dr. Pranab Mukherjee, 67, found at his vault desk just after dawn by the sweeper, slumped over an open manuscript, a brass paperweight beside his head. The door was bolted from the inside, and the only key kept on his person is missing.
The suspects
- Prof. Avijit Haldar (Reader, Dept. of Sanskrit)
- Nandini Sengupta (Doctoral Researcher)
- Principal Sudhir Bose (Principal)
- Tarapada (Night Watchman)
- Lakshmi (Vault Sweeper)
Every one of them is hiding something, and their alibis form a single shared timeline. Somewhere in it, one statement cannot possibly be true. Find the contradiction and you have found the killer. This is as far as any file goes without spoiling it, the rest is yours to work out.