Bricks and stones still lay scattered in front of the broken part of Kanchan's ancestral home.
He sat down in a corner of the courtyard with the papers found in the old iron box.
One paper was so old that the slightest carelessness could tear it.
Kanchan unfolded it with the utmost care.
Then, suddenly, his eyes caught on a strange map drawn in the middle of the paper.
The map wasn't complete.
One side of the paper was torn.
Drawn there was part of an old house, a large tree, and the mark of a small Shiva lingam.
But the rest of the map was missing.
Kanchan's brow furrowed.
— "This isn't the whole map..."
He turned the paper over.
A few old letters were on the back.
Then he unfolded the second paper found in the box.
It was an old account written by his great-grandfather, Harinarayan Chowdhury.
Many years ago.
The region lived then in fear of foreign invasion.
Fear and uncertainty were everywhere.
The village folk were trying to protect their homes and their valuables.
Harinarayan Chowdhury was a man of means.
He held his family's savings of many years, some valuable jewelry, and a few important documents.
He had understood —
if the invaders broke into the house, none of it would be safe.
So, deep in the night, without telling anyone in the family, he gathered the valuables together.
He bound some of the wealth into a sturdy cloth bundle.
He set some important documents aside separately.
Then he made his way to a quiet part of the house.
There stood a small shrine to Shiva.
A very old stone lingam.
Harinarayan looked around and made sure no one was watching.
Then, in a hidden part of the shrine, he safely concealed a portion of the wealth.
But he knew —
hiding the wealth alone wouldn't be enough.
If its location somehow fell into the wrong hands, that same wealth could one day become a danger to the family.
So he made a plan.
Harinarayan had drawn up a map.
But he didn't keep the whole map in one place.
He divided it into four separate pieces.
Each piece would carry one sign.
Without one sign, another would make no complete sense.
He had written—
"Keep not the truth in one place. I have divided it into four pieces, so that the complete path may never reach unworthy hands. Unless the four signs are brought together, the door to the true secret shall not open."
Kanchan's heart began to race.
He looked at the map again.
So the paper in his hand wasn't the complete map after all!
It was only the first clue of the four pieces.
But where were the other three?
Harinarayan's account held a hint about that too.
"The first sign shall show the path to the second. The second shall tell of the third. At the end of the third shall lie the key to the fourth. And the fourth path shall lead to the place where, many years past, I preserved the wealth of our family."
Kanchan sat silently for a while.
Then he said, slowly,
— "So the Shiva lingam isn't the final secret then... it's only one of the early signs."
His eyes fell on the map again.
The mark of the house.
The mark of the tree.
The mark of the Shiva lingam.
Each seemed to be part of some invisible path.
Before dawn the next day, things had turned even worse.
The foreign invaders had broken into the village.
Harinarayan hadn't fled the house.
Trying to move his family to safety, he was gravely wounded.
Even in his final moments, that hidden secret stayed in his mind.
He knew —
only if someone of his line ever found these signs would the truth come to light again.
But that chance never came in his own lifetime.
Harinarayan died in that very attack.
Generations changed with time.
Much of the house crumbled away.
Old memories were lost.
But the first of the four signs —
after all these years, it had finally reached the hands of his great-grandson, Kanchan.
Kanchan laid the two papers side by side.
Then he gazed at the torn part of the map.
He understood —
this wasn't just some old story of family wealth.
Behind it lay something Harinarayan had wanted to keep hidden, even in his final moments.
Kanchan said, slowly,
— "Four signs... four separate places..."
Then he asked himself,
— "But where are the other three?"
He looked all around.
The broken wall.
The old door.
The huge tree in the courtyard.
And, standing in one corner, that very old Shiva lingam.
Suddenly, it struck him—
Harinarayan might have left the first clue somewhere inside this very house.
But where?
He carefully folded the map and kept it with him.
He wouldn't tell Supriya anything, not yet.
He needed to first understand—
where the first sign would lead him.
Kanchan didn't know that this small paper now in his hand would, in the days ahead, lead him to places he had never even imagined.
And he didn't know this either —
that news of the collapse in his ancestral house hadn't reached only him.
Across town, sitting in his own grand house, Arindam Chowdhury had received that news as well.
He said, slowly,
— "The old part of the Chowdhury house has collapsed?"
The man standing before him nodded.
Arindam stayed silent for a while.
Then, looking out the window, he said,
— "So, after all these years... perhaps the time has come again."
What does he know?
Kanchan has no idea.
But one thing is clear —
the first door of the four-piece puzzle has already opened.