Feluda is called to Gosaipur by Jiban Mallick, the son of the local Zamindar Shyamlal Mallick to investigate a threat of his father's life. Everyone in the village knows that father and the son are at loggerheads. Shyamlal is also an eccentric who eschews anything modern. Then, instead of Syamlal, his son Jiban Mallick is killed and the wealth of Mallick's looted. Oddly though, the dead body of Jiban Mallick vanishes, only to reappear again. Feluda works this out with a mixture of investigating skills and deception. The oxymoric title adds a lot to the story.

A TV movie was made around 1996.^[2]