The Old Villa

"I want to be a hotelier," Aniket said as his eyes looked admiringly at the picture of a luxury hotel on his laptop.

"Sure," I smirked. "But, what about the money?"

"Here lies the answer." He showed a picture of an old bungalow on his mobile phone.

"Whose's house is this?"

"This is my ancestral house," he smiled at the picture, "and it's worth millions."

"It doesn't look like one," I doubted.

"Then why don't you come along?"

The next week we set out for Aniket's ancestral house.

"How is the house?" Aniket asked.

"It's beautiful," I said to please him. "Are you sure this house is going to bring you the money you need for the hotel business?"

"No," he surprised me, "it's not the house. There is an antique statue of gold in its basement that is going to fetch the money. It's been said that the statue is guarded by a spirit for the last 2 centuries. I still remember my forefathers describe the spirit as a beautiful lady with long curly hair and sharp nails like fangs of a serpent."

"Are you sure that there is such a statue or is it merely a story?" I mocked.

"Come with me," he said pulling me by hand, "I'll show you."

He took me to an underground cellar and pointed his finger at a statue. My eyes became glued to the marvelous idol of a Goddess. Aniket took the idol and locked it securely in his bag. He showed me around and then we retired to our room after having dinner.

The next morning, I was woken up by alarm raised by the servants. I rushed downstairs and found Aniket lying dead by the feet of the deity. I informed the police and a group of forensic experts came along to scrutinize the crime scene. Two days later, I went to meet the police inspector to know about the progress of the case.

"Well," the police officer said, "the postmortem report has thrown light over some facts that are extremely bizarre."

"What facts, officer?" I asked curiously.

"We have recovered strands of long curly hair from Aniket's body that probably indicates that the culprit is a woman. Along with that, we had recovered some pieces of nails too."

"But what's so strange about it?"

"They have found out that the nails are very old...err... almost 200 years old."

"What?" I was unable to believe my ears.