By the time the sun's first rays touched the crenellations of Nahargarh Fort, the news had already slithered down the hill and into the city, carried by hushed phone calls and panicked whispers. It twisted and grew with each telling, transforming from a police report into a ghost story. The spirit of Nahar Singh has claimed a victim. An archaeologist, a man of science, struck down in a sealed room for disrespecting the royal abode. By breakfast, it was the only topic of conversation in the tea stalls of the old city and the lavish dining rooms of the new.
Inspector Vikram Rathod, however, had no time for ghost stories. He stood outside the splintered doorway of the king's bedchamber, the morning light doing little to dispel the gloom that clung to the place. The forensic team from Jaipur had arrived, their clinical efficiency a stark contrast to the superstitious dread that had paralyzed the local constabulary.
"Locked from the inside, sir," a junior officer reported, stating the obvious for the third time. "The bolt is solid iron. No trick springs, no hidden levers. We checked. The window bars haven't been touched in a century. There's no other way in or out. No hollow walls, no secret passages—at least none that we can find."
Rathod grunted, chewing on the end of a cold cigarillo. He hated this case. It was a circus. The press was already gathering at the main gate like vultures, and his superiors were calling every fifteen minutes, demanding answers he didn't have. He was a good cop, a man who believed in evidence, motive, and opportunity. This crime scene offered none of those. It offered a ghost. And you couldn't put a ghost in handcuffs.
His gaze fell on the bloody symbol on the wall. The forensics chief, a meticulous man named Puri, was examining it closely.
"The blood matches the victim's, of course," Puri said without looking up. "But the symbol is… odd. It's not from any known Rajasthani or Mughal period. It doesn't match any religious iconography I'm familiar with. It looks ancient, yes, but it also feels… theatrical. Staged."
"What are you saying, Puri? That the ghost has a flair for the dramatic?" Rathod asked, his voice laced with sarcasm.
"I'm saying the paint—the blood—is applied crudely. The lines are too perfect, too deliberate. An ancient curse mark would be rushed, frantic. This was drawn by a steady hand. Someone who wasn't in a hurry." Puri pointed a gloved finger at the floor. "And look here. Not a single drop of blood on the floor beneath it. If you're painting on a wall with a liquid, it drips. No matter how careful you are. Unless…"
"Unless what?" Rathod pressed, leaning forward.
"Unless it was already drying, already coagulating when it was applied. This symbol wasn't painted immediately after the murder. It was done later."
It was a small crack in the impossible facade, but it was something. A human detail in a supernatural tale. Still, it didn't explain the bolt on the door. It didn't explain how a killer could vanish from a sealed room.
The Inspector's phone rang, a shrill, modern sound that was profane in the ancient silence. It was the call he had been dreading.
"Sir, she's here," the constable at the gate informed him. "Dr. Sharma's daughter. She's demanding to be let through."
"Damn it," Rathod muttered. "Hold her there. I'm coming down."
He found her standing beside a dusty sedan, a slim figure in a simple black kurta, her face pale but composed. Maya Sharma was in her late twenties, with her father's intelligent eyes and a stubborn set to her jaw that Rathod recognized immediately. She was an architect, he recalled from the victim's file, based in Delhi.
"Inspector," she said, her voice clear and steady, betraying none of the grief he expected. "I want to see my father."
"Ma'am, that's not possible. It's an active crime scene," he began, falling back on procedure.
"I'm not here to grieve, Inspector. I'm here to see how he died," she countered, her gaze unwavering. "My father was not a popular man. He was arrogant, obsessive, and he made enemies easily. He was also a man of logic. He didn't believe in curses or ghosts, and neither do I. Someone murdered him. I want to see where you're going to fail to find them."
The words were a slap in the face, but Rathod saw the raw pain behind the defiance. He also saw a brilliant mind, sharp and analytical, much like her father's.
"The room was locked from the inside, Ms. Sharma," he said, his tone softening slightly. "There was no way in or out."
"There is always a way," she replied instantly. "My father taught me that. Every structure has a weakness. Every lock has a key. You just haven't found it yet. You're looking for a ghost because it's the easy answer, the one that requires no thought."
She looked up at the imposing silhouette of the fort against the bright morning sky. "He found something up there, didn't he? Something important."
Rathod didn't answer. She was too close to the mark. Alok Sharma's preliminary notes, found in his office in the city, spoke of a discovery that would "fundamentally reshape the accepted timeline of Jaipur's founding." It was the kind of thing that could build a legacy, but it was also the kind of thing that could shatter them.
"You won't solve this," Maya stated, not as an insult, but as a fact. "You're good policemen, I'm sure. But you're city cops. You investigate thugs and thieves. You are not equipped to hunt a monster who hides in plain sight." She reached into her handbag and pulled out a folded newspaper clipping. It was almost a year old, the paper yellowed and soft from handling. The headline read: 'Ghost of the CBI' Unmasks Umaid Bhawan Killer.
She held it out to him. "I need a ghost hunter," she said, her voice finally trembling, the first crack in her iron composure. "A real one. Where can I find him? Where can I find Neel Verma?"