The mountainous little Himalayan country of Nepal exploded into the headlines last week on the strength of an incident as bizarre, as mysterious -- and as bloody -- as the final scene of "Hamlet." On Friday, June 1, Nepal's King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was shot to death along with his wife and seven other family members during a dinner at the royal palace in Katmandu. The country has been in a state of near-crisis since then; indeed, as the days pass without clarification of what happened, or why, or even who was responsible for the shootings, the Nepalese people's unease and frustration have mounted. By midweek, protesters had taken to the streets. It is to be hoped that those who are already predicting a total political and constitutional collapse in the wake of the tragedy are not proved right.

Unfortunately, the omens for a swift resolution of the crisis are not good. In the first place, the scene itself is murky with unanswered questions and competing accusations.

An early suspect was the king's own son, 29-year-old Crown Prince Dipendra, who was said to be unhappy about his mother's opposition to his choice of bride and who eyewitnesses say indiscriminately opened fire on his family with an Uzi submachine gun and an M-16 assault rifle. Given these accounts, the world, like the Nepalese themselves, was baffled to learn that the crown prince had been declared his father's successor over the weekend. Not that this counted for much: The prince had been in a coma since the incident, supposedly after turning his weapons on himself, and he died on Monday without regaining consciousness. His uncle, Prince Gyanendra, Birendra's brother, was then named king and immediately ordered a probe into the massacre.

That, one may have thought, would clear the matter up, enabling the stunned and grieving country to move on. It was not to be. Many people reportedly consider the latest king himself a suspect. He was out of the country at the time, some believe not by chance. The Nepalese public is also described as confused and disturbed by King Gyanendra's initial announcement that the massacre was an "accident," caused by an automatic weapon exploding (though in truth it must be wondered why a guilty man would seek to exonerate a rival suspect, now conveniently dead). Protesters in Katmandu this week certainly appeared to share the view of America's National Rifle Association that it is people, not guns, that kill people.

In any event, the new king's inquiry fell into disarray within two days: The main opposition party withdrew from the panel, saying it was unrepresentative, and there is no indication of when the panel will begin its work or whether its findings will be respected when it does.

The fact is, whoever is ultimately implicated in the crime, the country faces an uphill battle in maintaining its political stability, let alone its recently achieved and tenuous hold on democracy. Although he began his reign in 1972 as an absolute monarch, King Birendra won the Nepalese people's regard and even affection despite -- or perhaps because of -- having let go of power over the years to the point where he was little more than a figurehead. In a country as poor and politically fractured as Nepal, the king remained an important symbol of unity -- or at least the possibility of unity.

But symbols are fragile things, easily shattered. When the gunman opened fire in the palace last Friday, he killed more than just those 10 unfortunate people. He may also have killed the one idea that still held the Nepalese together, not because a new king could not be found, but because the murder suddenly exposed the ugly reality behind the ceremonial facade of unity that was the royal family's only reason for being. The Shahs, it turned out, were as fractious and divided as their subjects -- a perception that will likely hold even if the murderer turns out to be simply a prince gone mad with bitterness. It will take an exceptional king to restore the beneficent illusion, and King Gyanendra has hardly gotten off to a good start.

The danger is that the vacuum of confidence that has ensued will provide an opening for one or other of the extremist groups that have long threatened to reverse Nepal's sluggish transition to democracy, be it Maoist guerrillas on the left or the army on the right. The best that can be hoped is that the inquiry into the massacre, reconstituted so as to meet all charges of bias, will get back on track as soon as possible. Nepal needs to put its Shakespearean blood bath behind it and return to the more humdrum business of pulling itself up out of poverty and corruption -- without reverting to demagogy. Now that would really be worth headlines.