Late one night, Jones secretly followed Meera.
She entered the underground chamber.
But she wasn't alone.
Another figure emerged from the shadows.
Inspector Roy.
Martin gasped.
The police inspector?
The two appeared to be searching for something.
When Jones confronted them, Roy confessed.
He was investigating the Order independently.
Meera had become his informant.
Neither was the killer.
Then Meera revealed the greatest secret.
The missing final page had already been stolen.
By Dr. Sen himself.
And before his death, he had hidden it somewhere inside the library.
Now everyone was searching for it.
Including the murderer.
The National Library was never truly silent.
Even after midnight, when the last lights were extinguished and the gates were locked, the old building seemed to breathe.
Wooden shelves settled with quiet creaks.
Ancient beams groaned beneath the weight of history.
Rain tapped softly against the stained-glass windows.
And somewhere within the endless corridors, shadows stretched far longer than they did during the day.
Professor Adrian Jones stood outside the eastern entrance, his coat pulled tightly against the cool night air.
Beside him, Martin checked his watch.
"Are you certain she'll come?"
Jones never took his eyes off the library.
"I don't know."
"Then why are we here?"
"Because people who hide secrets eventually return to them."
Martin looked toward the darkened building.
"You still think Meera is hiding something."
"Yes."
"But I no longer believe she's hiding murder."
The distinction mattered.
For several days Jones had quietly observed Meera Dutta's routine.
She arrived at work punctually.
She left at predictable hours.
She spoke little.
Yet on three separate occasions she had remained inside the library long after everyone else had gone home.
She had offered reasonable explanations each time.
Cataloguing.
Preservation work.
Inventory.
All believable.
Perhaps too believable.
Tonight, Jones intended to discover the truth.
Nearly forty minutes passed before movement appeared.
A lone figure emerged from the staff entrance.
Even in the darkness Martin recognized her.
"Meera."
She carried a small leather satchel and moved quickly across the courtyard, frequently glancing over her shoulder.
Jones waited until she disappeared around the side of the building.
Then he nodded.
"Come."
They followed at a careful distance.
The rain muffled their footsteps.
Meera crossed the deserted courtyard and unlocked a service entrance leading into the basement.
The heavy door closed quietly behind her.
Martin whispered,
"She's going underground."
Jones simply nodded.
Inside, the library felt colder than ever.
The basement corridors were illuminated only by emergency lights.
Long shadows stretched across the stone floor.
The hidden shelf concealing the underground passage remained exactly where they had left it after the previous investigation.
Or so it appeared.
Jones crouched beside it.
"The scratches."
Martin looked down.
"They're fresh."
Someone had moved the shelf again.
Very recently.
Together they eased it aside.
The concealed passage opened before them.
No words were necessary.
The two investigators slipped into the darkness.
The underground tunnel seemed different at night.
The silence was oppressive.
Every footstep echoed through the narrow passage.
Martin's flashlight remained switched off.
Only the faint glow ahead guided them.
Someone deeper inside the chamber carried a lantern.
As they approached the entrance to the hidden room, voices drifted toward them.
Low.
Careful.
Impossible to distinguish.
Jones raised a hand.
Martin stopped immediately.
The voices grew clearer.
One belonged to Meera.
The other—
Martin frowned.
"I know that voice."
Jones looked at him.
Martin's eyes widened.
"No..."
The realization struck him almost instantly.
The second figure stepped into the lantern light.
Inspector Roy.
Martin gasped.
"The police inspector?"
For a brief moment he simply stared.
The man who had led the investigation from the beginning now stood inside the secret chamber with Meera Dutta.
Neither appeared surprised by the underground room.
Both moved confidently among the tables and cabinets.
As though they had been there before.
Martin instinctively took a step backward.
Jones remained perfectly still.
Roy was examining one of the coded journals while Meera searched through a cabinet near the Ashvattha symbol carved into the wall.
Neither noticed they were being watched.
Martin whispered,
"They're working together."
Jones remained silent.
Inside the chamber, Roy carefully unfolded an old map.
"This isn't it."
Meera shook her head.
"No."
"We've checked this cabinet twice."
"Then Dr. Sen hid it somewhere else."
Roy sighed.
"We're running out of time."
Martin looked toward Jones.
"What are they talking about?"
Jones had heard enough.
He stepped into the chamber.
"Perhaps," he said calmly, "you should explain."
The effect was immediate.
Roy spun around.
Meera froze.
For several seconds no one spoke.
Only the lantern flame flickered between them.
Martin entered behind Jones, his eyes fixed on Roy.
The inspector slowly lowered the journal in his hands.
"I wondered how long it would take."
Jones folded his arms.
"I've been wondering something myself."
Roy gave a tired smile.
"I imagine you have."
Meera looked genuinely anxious.
"This isn't what it looks like."
Martin couldn't contain himself.
"It certainly looks like the police inspector is sneaking into a secret chamber in the middle of the night."
Roy nodded.
"A fair observation."
Jones remained calm.
"Were you planning to tell us?"
Roy looked away for a moment.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I wasn't certain whom to trust."
The answer lingered in the chamber.
Martin frowned.
"You didn't trust us?"
Roy looked directly at Jones.
"I trusted you."
"Then why keep this secret?"
"To protect the investigation."
Jones said nothing.
He simply waited.
Roy understood.
He took a deep breath.
"I've been investigating the Order independently."
Martin blinked.
"What?"
Roy walked toward one of the stone tables.
"When Dr. Sen was murdered, I quickly realized official procedures weren't enough."
He looked toward the Ashvattha symbol.
"Too many records disappeared."
"Too many witnesses became frightened."
"Too many clues seemed deliberately planted."
Jones nodded slightly.
"So you started your own investigation."
Roy smiled faintly.
"Without informing anyone."
Martin folded his arms.
"That wasn't exactly wise."
"No."
Roy admitted it.
"But it was necessary."
Jones turned toward Meera.
"And where do you fit into this?"
She looked uncomfortable.
"I became his informant."
Martin stared.
"You?"
Meera nodded slowly.
"My grandfather spent years researching the Order."
"I inherited his private journals."
Jones remembered their earlier conversation.
"You never mentioned that."
"I couldn't."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't know who was involved."
The chamber fell silent again.
Roy spoke quietly.
"I asked her to keep it secret."
Martin looked from one to the other.
"So neither of you is working for the Order."
"No."
Roy answered immediately.
"We're trying to stop whoever is."
Jones studied both faces carefully.
Years of solving impossible mysteries had taught him to recognize rehearsed lies.
He saw none.
Only exhaustion.
Concern.
And something else.
Fear.
After several moments he finally spoke.
"I believe you."
Martin looked surprised.
"So do I."
The tension inside the chamber eased slightly.
Roy exhaled.
"Thank you."
Jones looked around the room.
"Now tell me what you've been searching for."
Meera exchanged a glance with Roy.
Then she reached into her satchel.
She removed an old notebook.
Not one Jones had seen before.
"It belonged to my grandfather."
She opened it carefully.
Most pages contained translations of ancient texts.
The final entries had been written only months before his death decades earlier.
One sentence had been underlined repeatedly.
Jones read it aloud.
"The final page must never remain with the manuscript."
Martin frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Meera looked at Jones.
"My grandfather believed the last page was the most dangerous part."
"Why?"
"Because it didn't contain history."
"It contained instructions."
No one spoke.
Even the dripping water somewhere in the tunnel seemed to stop.
Jones looked back at the notebook.
"Instructions for what?"
"We don't know."
Roy answered.
"That's why we've been searching."
Jones thought carefully.
"The page disappeared before Dr. Sen was murdered."
"Yes."
"We assumed someone stole it."
Meera slowly shook her head.
"No."
Jones looked at her.
She took a slow breath.
"The missing final page had already been stolen."
"By whom?"
Her answer came quietly.
"Dr. Sen himself."
Martin stared in disbelief.
"What?"
"He removed it from the manuscript."
"When?"
"Several days before he died."
Jones felt the pieces shift inside his mind.
"So he wasn't trying to destroy it."
"No."
"He was protecting it."
Meera nodded.
"My grandfather predicted someone would eventually search for the manuscript."
"And Dr. Sen believed him."
Martin spoke slowly.
"Then the murderer..."
"...never found the page."
Roy finished the sentence.
Jones looked toward the torn space in the manuscript they had examined so many times.
Everything suddenly made sense.
The hidden compartment.
The forged maintenance request.
The staged break-in.
The underground chamber.
The murder.
None of it had been about the manuscript itself.
It had always been about the missing page.
Jones turned back toward Meera.
"Where is it now?"
She shook her head.
"We don't know."
"You just said Dr. Sen took it."
"I did."
"Then what happened?"
She closed the notebook.
"Before his death..."
Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.
"...he hid it somewhere inside the library."
Martin slowly looked around the enormous underground chamber.
The realization was staggering.
The National Library contained millions of books.
Thousands of shelves.
Hundreds of rooms.
Hidden corridors.
Secret chambers.
And somewhere within that vast labyrinth...
One missing page.
Jones finally understood why every suspect seemed to be searching instead of fleeing.
Why evidence kept appearing.
Why people were being poisoned instead of immediately killed.
The investigation had never been about eliminating witnesses alone.
It had been a race.
A desperate search.
Roy looked directly at Jones.
"We've searched everywhere we could."
"The underground chamber."
"The restricted archives."
"My office."
"Meera's records."
"Nothing."
Jones remained thoughtful.
"If Dr. Sen hid it..."
"He chose a place no one would think to examine."
Martin looked toward the endless shelves above them.
"Which means it could still be anywhere."
Jones nodded.
"Yes."
"And we're no longer the only people looking."
No one needed to ask who the others were.
They all knew.
The murderer.
The hidden members of the Order.
Anyone connected to The Master.
All were searching for the same thing.
One missing page.
One final secret.
One piece of paper capable of explaining why two people had already been poisoned.
As the lantern flickered against the carved Ashvattha symbol, Jones looked at the underground chamber with new understanding.
The mystery had changed once again.
The killer was no longer merely covering up a crime.
The killer was hunting something.
And now everyone else was too.
Somewhere inside the National Library, hidden among centuries of forgotten knowledge, lay the missing final page.
Whoever found it first would finally uncover the truth behind the Order of Ashvattha.
Or die trying.