The room slowly grew silent, and the outside traffic seemed to vanish into the distance, and I sat deep into my seat, and felt the suspense Marple was reacting to, but I could not quite grasp all of it, but realized he had to have something and tried to identify what his reactions were to, from the past.
It was intriguing and baffling! What could make such a guy react in such excitement, with such intrigue?
His secretary was clearly affected, which was also noticeable in her knock, and was silent and impeded, and Marple withheld from rushing up and over, and I was staggered when she brought in an aged man, she announced was Dr Barrymore, and he shifted forward, with some pain, and I realized he could hardly walk properly and had serious medical conditions.
I examined him wondering why he was even there, and realized he could be a politician or with the government, and it made me gasp as I considered the war again and I realized they could be looking for our help.
Dr Barrymore stopped in front of us and removed an envelope, which had the top ripped off.
He observed us sitting at a small table, between us and the fireplace, where our drinks and Marple’s pipe and ashtray were resting, and he anxiously shuffled over to a seat next to Marple.
He showed us a typed label on the envelope with his fingertips, with a glint of humor, followed by happiness, and he cheerfully rolled the envelope into a ball and threw it into the fireplace and removed chewing tobacco and chewed off a lump, placed the remainder in his interior pocket, and chewed off a chunk from the chunk in his mouth and spat the piece into the fire in the fireplace and started hungrily chewing the remainder.
Marple rushed over and got a drink, and returned, and placed it in front of him.
He removed something ancient looking from the envelope and started playing with it in front of our faces, considering what to say, as I watched the sun go down into the horizon at a side window, and golden shades beam over city buildings.
“What’s that?” I conclusively asked him, slightly annoyed at him not doing anything for so long, unable to maintain waiting.
“It’s an eighteenth century document!” Marple announced, and made Dr Barrymore look up, startled.
He stared annoyed at it, and Marple continued, “I’ve some experience of dating documents!”
“The origins of the artifact I am looking for come from the majority of accumulated sources, which have been proven to be from around 1568 …”
“1568?” Marple replied, looking slightly surprised, and sat back considering it.
“Yes!” Dr Barrymore continued. “According to accounts and legends! Valuable treasure was left near where it was concealed!”
“Near where what was concealed?” Marple swiftly gasped, looking confused.
“The artifact!”
Marple looked at him calmly, and looked deep into the fire, and listened to what he had to say.
“For centuries it has been thought to exist by a few scholars and explorers, who have carried out meticulous investigations and searches, of which none have been lucky enough ...”
“What you’re saying is there is treasure somewhere?” I replied, unable to hold back my surprise and enthusiasm.
“Of course!” he shouted. “That’s what I said on the phone!”
“What do you want us to do?” I replied, cautiously.
“Help me find it!” he moaned. “I’ve recently come into some new information that could allow me to locate it!”
I could not grasp if it actually existed, and sat considering it, and everything he said.
“According to myths,” he continued, “some people have been found dead searching for it! There could be something of great danger nearby, where it’s been concealed!”
I sat thinking it over wondering what could be of great danger, and from that century, and was left baffled, and spotted Marple was still confused by the case.
“What’ll we do then?” I asked, curiously.
“You’ll have to wait until I’m ready! I have a major clue to its location, and I’m sure I can discover something of significant importance! I will need your help to recover it!”
“We’ll do that!” Marple replied firmly.
I knew that he had major clues to its location and that he was confident in discovering it and that it was located somewhere in the region, but I had no idea what it actually was!
After he had left the building, and returned home, I started to doubt what he was after was of value as all the archaeology and museum discoveries found then were usually worthless, except to historians like him, for historical value, and I was sure he was just trying to get us to go out our way to get it for him, and I was sure Marple must also think so.
Though did he have a new way of discovering lost treasures, and had he partially located it as he suggested? He had not given any major clue to its location and identity, but he had given the date of what must surely have been the time of its origins.
He had been unraveling something for some considerable time and I went over it considering if he had deliberately disguised facts throughout his message, and if he was after something else.
Chapter 2
My First Investigation
All I had been given was that an elderly woman had witnessed something unusual in the night, while going to bed, and there seemed to me no case to investigate and no crime had been committed, and nothing seemed to suggest anything, and I went to the client confused and repeatedly going over the document I was given, which consisted of nothing but a few paragraphs about a few lines she had given the agency, and I came to the conclusion that she might have stopped an attempted burglary and wanted me to secretively handle the problem.
What could she have confronted at night in the hall of her ground floor tenement flat that could have caused her to seek such dramatic action?
The location was in the south of the city at Craigmillar Road in Langside, and when I entered I expected little. It was my first mission! And when I saw and talked to the elderly woman I realized she had recently become a widow, and was on her own there, and realized that she had encountered something that she believed was of a paranormal nature, but which was of the strangest nature that I had witnessed in all my encounters, and from everything I had ever heard of.
Surely if she had fantasized something it would be of a normal ghost, but it was far stranger, and I had to try to deduce what she meant by what she told me, and I then had her give me accurate descriptions of the visitation, or whatever she thought it was, and it gave me nothing and it left me confused.
She was not ill, or had taken anything, and had not had previous hallucinations, and still she insisted something had started to appear there, in her ground floor flat, at the same time it grew dark, and she claimed it floated over her hall floor, and its movement suggested it was doing something.
In the end I was so engrossed in discovering what would happen, and in the unusual case, I accepted her offers of staying to see it, and was given a bedroom to stay in, and was surprised that she insisted I should consider the occurrence after it happened, to give her advice, for when I met her in the morning at breakfast.
Chapter 3
The Haunting
For a moment I thought something of enormous danger could occur on the investigation, but I could not believe such a thing could happen on my first case for starters, and it had not occurred to any of the other investigators, and how could anything happen with such a case! It was absurd!
Yet I wanted to know what it was she was talking about, and placed a seat at the door of the bedroom and left the door partly opened, just enough to see the hallway, and entire area where she told me she had seen it, and I sat reading a book, and started to realize why she could have imagined something in the dark there, on her own, and then I started to see sense and that she might have some form of medical condition that could have caused her to observe something.
What really astonished me was the fact that she arrived near the time the occurrences h
ad taken place and apologized to me for something, and handed me a book, to which I believed she had given me as she felt sorry for me, leaving me there doing nothing, in the dark, with her elaborate plan, whatever it was, and I considered if she intended to use the story of the occurrences for somewhere for some reason.
Then when I started to read the book I sat back staggered, as the book was full of ghost stories! They were supposedly real accounts, which had been written like they had authentically occurred, and I started to believe she had it in for me, and realized it could be part of her plan to persuade me there was something there, and I even considered helping her fabricate it at one point, as she might need it.
Though after flicking through the pages, trying to see what was there, I was left even more staggered as there were accounts of occurrences actually taking place in the same region.
There were accounts claiming ancient inhabitants of the region had seen alarming evil mysterious magical forces and transcendent things dwelling there, which I could not grasp the identity of.
It grabbed my attention that the place had not always been a city region, centuries ago, and it sent a chill through me as I thought what could be buried away there.
There was an old newspaper account that reported and warned the readers of unexplained ancient occurrences, and one of the worst of the detailed accounts told of travelers that had come upon the mutilated remains of gypsies left in pieces in the region by some hideous occurrence, with their remains scattered throughout a wood nearby, and others of people being attacked and chased by things with fearful sounds.
Upon reading it with fascination my eyes fell upon something in corridor, which I had seen but had ignored, as I was engrossed in it, and I stared at it for almost a minute trying to recognize it but was unable to form an image of what was there, and what I was looking at, as it had no real form, and the darkness and my tiredness never allowed my mind to come to a conclusion.
It was the woman’s appearance there that brought me to, and she stood behind the door, out in the hallway, and I could say little, and she quickly entered my room and closed the door, and turned on the light.
After questioning her again about it, with me this time realizing that there was something there, I asked what she had been doing before its appearance, and if she had done something that could have caused its appearance, and she considered everything and was at a loss.
I then asked her if she had done anything anywhere that she had not done before!
For a long time she thought it over and came up with something!
The only thing she had been doing, which she could recall, was she had been using a metal detector, which she had borrowed off a friend, who had given it to her as she had lost her old wedding ring, and she could not find it anywhere.
While using it, searching for it, she had found a small hole in the floor and carpet, and she had taken up the floorboards under the carpet and had used it to examine all the heaps of rubble, dirt, and building remains below for it, and she had found the ring, but the metal detector stopped working, but was working again the next day.
I asked her when the occurrences had started and she eventually told me that it had appeared there that night.
So I asked her if she still had the metal detector and she took me into her living room and removed it from a box, behind her sofa, and I examined it and I realized how expensive it was, and that it was powerful!
It was then that I was sure the thing in the hall could be affected by it, and that I could solve the case by using it on it, and perhaps get rid of it, as I was sure ghosts might be affected by such forces.
Once I found out how to use it and its controls I went out into the hall with it, and prepared myself, and waited for the woman to turn it on at the mains, and I was so fascinated with the ghost or whatever it was I marched towards it trying grasp any detail in it that I could recognize, but I could not get anything, and up close it looked like a mass of red energy being generated by something, and to my amazement it exploded into a frenzy of activity, and I realized the metal detector had been switched on, and at that point I collapsed across the floor, unconscious.
Chapter 4
The Home Guard
Everything seemed to look weird and somehow unbelievable, and I studied everywhere trying to grasp what, and I kept recalling the moments before I collapsed and awakened in bed in the morning, wondering what the hell happened.
I was sure it damaged my brain and I had a bad time recalling things. I could not think of what to do and if I should try to help the woman further, but it was ridicules as I had never heard of such an occurrence, and never mind what the solution was, and I wondered if I had blown my first case, and I decided to ignore it and hope the woman never asked Marple for further help.
I wanted to join the Home Guard, even though I could not recall wanting to do it before, after I saw an advert looking for part time Home Guard soldiers, and realized I could fit it into my schedule.
I had immediately gone there, and sat bored in the Home Guard office waiting room, sitting on my own, with some faint sounds behind the office door in front of me, where I assumed I was to be interviewed, and I started wondering what I was about to do and how deadly this war could become, as if the Germans invaded it would equivalent to being on the frontline, and I was also getting desperate for answers and wondering repeatedly if I had received damage to his mind, and realized that I would be checked by an army doctor at some point and realized I could have him properly check me out.
I felt different somehow and I could not grasp what and stood and started checking myself, and feeling my head for damage where I collapsed and hit the floor, and realized the woman could have covered up me hitting something when I collapsed, as she would have felt responsible for it, and I started examining my whole body, trying to see how it functioned to me doing things, and I started jumping up and down and waving my arms about, and examined my legs, and they responded, and I did a handstand and noticed my body was weak and seemed to move differently than I intended, and I partially looked upwards and saw a large shadow shift across the floor, and saw someone standing over me, in front of me.
An officer was standing staring at me crazily.
“What in the hell are you doing?” the sergeant shouted, and I collapsed over the floor.
“I’m starting to get out of shape sitting in here!” I moaned.
He stood staring insanely, and not believing anything, and clearly thinking I was someone else.
“God help us!” he shouted. “If this is all we get …”
“This is the Home Guard?” I swiftly replied, trying to look normal.
“Well it surely isn’t the boy Scouts!” he moaned. “Yes! We’re the Local Defence Volunteers!”
He ordered me into the front office, and I knew I was in the army, and I sat in a seat at the desk and waited for an officer to come. Then I wondered what the hell I was doing there!
An officer entered, looked through a form about me, which I had filled in and handed in at the entrance office.
“Captain Godfrey!” he announced. “And that’s Sergeant Clooney my deputy officer.”
Clooney sat in the seat beside me, in front of the captain’s desk, and watched us both, and the captain shuffle through his stuff.
“We’re putting together a group of soldiers because of the war and you look suitable …” he announced, examining information on him. “So you’re a private investigator?”
Clooney looked sideways in surprise, and examined me over again, differently.
Suddenly the phone blared out and the captain picked it up and instantly realized who it was and launched into an argument with the person, and shouted not to phone him there unless it was an emergency, and thumped the phone down.
He glanced over and gasped, stopped what he was doing and examined me up close and looked straight into my face as if he suddenly saw something he did not want to see and could not fully grasp, and continued studying me.
“Your face it’s familiar!” he moaned, and he started tapping his finger hard against the desk, and tried to grasp something.
“I want to ask you a few questions!” he finally asked.
I sat upright and waited.
“Why do you want to join the army, Malone?” he asked firmly, studying me with confusion, and he started sipping tea from a cup.
“I can’t remember!”
“What?” he loudly gasped, also coughing up the tea in his mouth. “What can’t you remember?”
“I have had an accident recently and have had some memory loss!” I confessed, and suddenly wondered why I had done it, and sat depressed.
The captain seemed to alter somehow, and he suddenly grew interested in me, and seemed to want me.
“Okay! You’ve had a recent misfortune! Perhaps caused by this blasted war! But surely you can make a rough guess as to why?”
Clooney stood up and went over and got a cup of tea, and sat back down, and sipped it and watched us both.
“I can’t really remember at all!” I moaned, and made Clooney gasp and cough out all the tea in his mouth, blasting it all across his front, and he instantly started cleaning it up.
When I offered to help clean it Godfrey screamed, “Leave it!”
After resting and calming himself he looked over, and he finally asked, “Why do you think people join the army?”
“To go and see the world and universe!” I replied, wondering why they did join up.
“Universe!” he moaned back. “We’re the Home Guard! You’re hardly going to see anything …”
“Or to get about and do things people normally don’t get to do!” I continued.
“Let me explain!” he moaned, staring into my face for a few seconds, staggered by something, and putting his elbow in his tea cup and making it spill over the table, in a puddle, and he swiftly grabbed an old pair of pants out his bin and started using it to clean it up.
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