A Vandal In Academia

A hugely respected professor of archaeology is invited to accept a bullion in precious stones as a philanthropist’s bequeath to his varsity. Unforeseen factors play spoil-sport and left with no option the academic has to resort to a bank’s sanctuary and avail there of its latest vault for safekeeping of his responsibility. Thus, the wealth in precious stones is deposited in a locker in a vault that can only be opened by the manager – an upright and honest and quite wealthy individual. But next morning not only is the manager found dead but also the wealth goes missing! To compound the mystery further the manager had been working all night at the bank and was never seen to leave his office by no less than eighteen sworn witnesses. Who then killed him? Who was the audacious criminal that was able to crack a safe which only the hand-print, iris-scan, and voice print of the manager could open? The police are left witless by the crime and in their zeal to deflect their own failings all but convict an innocent man who though later released is doomed forever to an ignominious fate. For five years the professor languishes in self-loathing, and bitterness before one fine day Fate plays a lucky card and chance makes him the fellow-lodger of the greatest detective in the living world. The redoubtable Gremlin Greaves, the only Specialist In Rhyme. But can even motormouth Greaves, the self-proclaimed maven, solve a crime that is more than five years old and which had befuddled the best intellectuals?