Secrets and Serpents

The next day, Captain Fayyaz sat in Imran's room, staring at him in amazement, while Imran was saying with great seriousness, "I am pleased that a great traitor and betrayer of the country has met his end at my hands. Who could have thought that a respected and reputable man like Sir Jahangir could be a spy for a foreign country."

"But who was the caretaker of the grave?" Fayyaz asked impatiently.

"I'll tell you. But don't interrupt me in between... He wanted to handle this matter alone, but I spoiled his game... He met me last night... He recounted the whole story... And now he has probably gone into hiding forever. He has suffered a great defeat. He doesn't want to face anyone now."

"But who is he?"

"Ayaz... Don't be surprised, I'll explain! This same Ayaz was the man who was traveling with the Foreign Office Secretary along with the documents! Half of the documents were with him, and half were with the Secretary!

They were attacked. The Secretary was killed, and Ayaz somehow survived. The criminals only got half the documents! Ayaz was a man from the Secret Service of the Foreign Office. He survived. But he didn't report to the office! He was a renowned man of his time, so this defeat forced him not to present himself in the office without retrieving the documents from the criminals.

He knew that half the documents were of no use to the criminals! They would definitely search for him for the remaining documents. After some days, he found out about the criminals. But he couldn't find the trace of their leader! He actually wanted to catch the leader!...

Days passed, but Ayaz didn't succeed, so he set up a new trap! He bought that building and started living in it with one of his loyal servants. During this time, he discovered a grave to implement his scheme and set up the whole mechanism. Suddenly, his servant fell ill and died. Ayaz came up with another plan. He made up the servant's body, buried him, and started living in his disguise! Before this, he legally transferred the building to the judge's name, keeping only one room for himself...

After that, he began to draw the criminals' attention to that building in such ways that they were convinced that the deceased was indeed from the Secret Service and had hidden the remaining documents somewhere in that building.

Recently, they accessed the room where we found the bodies! There were actual documents in the secret compartment of the wall!... Ayaz himself had hinted at this. Whenever anyone approached the wall with the compartment, Ayaz would start making eerie sounds from beneath the tombstone, scaring the person into clinging to the wall...

At that point, Ayaz would activate the mechanism from inside the grave, and three knives would shoot out from the wall, piercing the person's back...

He did all this just to catch the leader. But the leader fell into my hands... Now Ayaz might never inform anyone about himself! And Captain Fayyaz... I promised him that his name would not come up during the case! Understand! And you must respect my promise, and you should write your report in such a way that it does not mention the one-eyed beloved at all."

"That's fine," Fayyaz quickly replied. "Where are the ten thousand rupees that you got from Sir Jahangir?"

"Yes, that's right," Imran said, rolling his eyes. "Let's split it half and half, why not?"

"That's nonsense. I'll hand it over to the authorities," Fayyaz said.

"Absolutely not!" Imran snatched the leather handbag from the table that he had received from one of Sir Jahangir's men the previous night.

Fayyaz grabbed the handbag from him... and then started to open it.

"Watch out, be careful..." Imran shouted like a watchman, but Fayyaz had already opened the handbag... and then with a shout of "Oh my God," he jumped and took refuge on a sofa. A black snake slithered out of the handbag and onto the floor.

"Oh God, curse you, you wretched Imran... scoundrel!" Fayyaz roared, standing on the sofa.

The snake, raising its hood, lunged towards the sofa. Fayyaz screamed and jumped onto another chair... The chair toppled over, and he fell face-first onto the floor. This time, if Imran hadn't swiftly placed the heel of his shoe on the snake's head, it would have bitten Fayyaz. The rest of the snake's body coiled around Imran's calf, and he felt as though his calf bone would break.

Meanwhile, Fayyaz was raining punches and slaps on him. With great difficulty, Imran managed to free himself from both.

"You're absolutely crazy... insane... savage," Fayyaz said, panting.

"What can I do, my dear? Well, now you can hand it over to the authorities. If I had been even slightly careless last night, it would have sent me to meet God!"

"What about Sir Jahangir...?"

"Yes... We exchanged frogs and snakes!" Imran said, and started chewing gum in a melancholy manner. Then the same old foolishness returned to his face.

[***THE END OF THIS VOL***]