Some ravens croaked, and flew up into the air, from nearby trees, as though someone was there.
A gentle breeze blew up some snow on the ledge, like grains of salt.
The furniture, about him, held his attention, as he was unable to determine what its use was. There was no bed. Just furniture – giving it the look of a study. It also had a door at its side, which had not been in any of the other rooms.
Its brass handle was stiff, feeling as if it had been that way for a long time, and he had to give it a hard jerk to make it budge. As it creaked open, a black switch became faintly visible on the white wall. It activated the lights, which flickered and grew bright.
It took a few seconds for the sight before him to sink in, and he stood steady, glaring at shelves of books, covering its walls.
As he approached them, it became clear that it was a small library.
He had dismissed that there were any books, as they’d not been aware of there being a book on the entire estate.
If an answer to the clue existed, he knew that it could well be there! Even though they seemed to be mainly only outdated books on city affairs, which had to have belonged to Sir Richard.
He scribbled down the subjects of the books, and added any interesting facts that he noticed. If he could find out more about Sir Richard, and what subjects he had been interested in, he might be able to discover where he would have been most likely to put it.
Yet, as he went through them, he became aware that they were very old business books, and that he might have changed considerably over the amount of time that he had acquired them to when he had made his video. His business past interests spanned a wide variety of subjects.
Some other books grabbed his attention, but only proved, to his amusement, that he had had an interest in pirates and ships. And, of course, even that somehow seemed to connect to his business interests. He tried to think of where a businessman such as him would have put things, but he could not think of anything.
It was going to take a considerable amount of time to check them in more detail, which could waste a vast amount of his time.
He was starting to enjoy the empty corridors, and vast limits of space, which existed there. His own home, and even the hotels, would never compensate for it. The silence, lack of crowds and city sounds was so unusual and glorious he would surely miss it.
Bryson made his way up to the top floor, listening to the voices there. He glanced about, and saw Sarah, with a mischievous smile. He instantly believed that they had been wrecking the place, to find what they wanted.
The women had rolled up the carpets, at part of the corridor, beside Sir Richard’s room. While the men were searching through everything in the rooms further along.
“Has anyone found anything?” he uttered to James, detecting a scent of a perfume, which he did not recognize.
“I don’t think so, but we are making good progress,” he replied, with a slight smile.
Bryson tried to work out how many rooms they could properly check before the time limit.
They would not even progress close to it, but they were only searching the places where it was most likely to be, and there would be enough time to do that.
Bryson moved over to one of the rooms, where he heard Robert, checking the walls, for any hollow places.
“There he is!” he grunted.
“We were considering trying the outer walls,” Robert announced, without hesitation. “What do you think?”
“That’s a good idea!” Bryson answered, seeking a change of scenery, and to go outside. “We can have a good look at the castle. There may be something outside that will help us answer that clue.”
“Perhaps it’s in something on the outside of it!” James revealed.
Robert shrugged. Bryson could tell that Robert was beginning to lose faith in their plans.
He wondered if Sir Richard would have actually hid it on the outside. However, he could not imagine him climbing out to hide it, or putting it at the ground level. Outer parts of the structure were also crumbling away.
“Have you completed searching here?” he asked.
“We’ve searched most of it,” James replied. “We’re searching where we believe it could be.”
James looked about him. “Why did such a rich guy not have anything of value about him?”
“He explained that in ‘his video’!” Robert moaned.
“Even with his views, he should have had things: such as expensive jewellery.”
“Perhaps someone took everything out of his room!”
Chapter 9
The Map
“Here’s an interesting one!” James loudly announced – standing up, and sitting back down – holding a tattered book by his fingers, allowing them to view it.
“It’s about castles!” Robert remarked excitedly, holding out his hand. “This castle may be in it!”
Robert took it, and laid it down.
But it was obvious that there was nothing to see, and he just flicked through the pages.
“Well, it’s a start! There may be some useful books.”
Suddenly Bryson saw a page from it lying on the floor, under the table – which clearly had fallen from it.
He picked it up, and unfolded it on the table in front of them.
“Well, what’s this?” James asked, frustrated.
“It’s an old drawing of this castle,” Robert replied.
But Bryson realized that it was more than a drawing – it was an ancient plan. It had far more detail, and it was a map of the interior – drawn by someone. (Something a tourist might use!)
After a few minutes, Robert lost interest.
“Are we going outside?” he announced, with a little hesitation. “What do you think?”
“That’s an idea,” Bryson answered, wondering if Sir Richard would really have hidden it on the outside.
“Good. We’ll go out later then!”
Chapter 10
Castle of Horrors
A bitter breeze blew across Bryson’s cheek, through a crack in the window frame. His fingers touched the cold surface of the glass, and he brushed his hand across it, cleaning it.
He left his hand on it, heating the frost on the other side, allowing it to melt enough for him to see out of it. He soon confirmed that it was not bright outside.
The brightness of the room light made him turn, to see Mortimer, with his hand at the switch. Bryson immediately went over to admire a Victorian painting on a wall, with his ears sensitive to any sounds.
The painting was like a view into the past, holding hidden clues to what he had experienced there, and he searched it trying to find clues. There had to be something that would slightly suggest something that might answer the mysteries of the castle.
He was soon racking his brain again, trying to scientifically determine what the sounds had been. He could tell that Merton and Mortimer had checked the rooms along the corridor from that room. The castle’s vastness and that the scientists could encounter something unprepared seemed to stop them exploring it further.
Mortimer slightly turned his head from the window.
He had expected some of the others to take some interest and check the scientists and equipment, and give their opinions of what they thought of it. But they insisted in holding to their rule of avoiding there. They only marched past the rooms, taking small glances.
The two psychic investigators had offered no explanations, keeping their views to themselves, and were probably keeping their minds open until they had properly investigated the rooms. With the amount of equipment that they had brought, he was sure that they would shed some light on things.
For some reason, the whole corridor seemed to have dud light bulbs, making it look more dangerous, as well as gloomy. However, he was starting to believe that something had recently damaged the line of lights. It was very hard to imagine them allowing all the bulbs to go dud without replacing any. The rooms had their bulbs working, but he was unsure if a
nyone had been using them.
As he roamed the dark corridor, listening to the sounds at the other half of the corridor, he still searched for anything that they might have missed.
He wondered if it had been Sir Richard’s intention, by giving him that room, to scare him out of coming back to the castle.
However, he considered it plausible that he might not have known it, as he was sure that he had not stayed in the rooms, because a servant had led him to it. Even though she might have been carrying out his commands. There were too many mysteries and not enough facts to accuse Sir Richard of anything.
Chapter 11
Treasure Hunting
At the front of the castle, Bryson rubbed his hands, and shoved them deep into the pockets of his thick jacket.
He had forgotten how hideous the castle looked from the outside. It had a look of having deadly things behind all its black windows.
The sun faintly shone through gaps in the thick clouds, edging under the trees, casting long shadows, through wild eddies of falling snow dust, making the castle resemble a castle out of an old horror film.
Bryson studied a clearing going through the wood, in the mess of vegetation in front of him.
Robert and James finished walking around it, and started to move away to it.
They entered the trees, going through the woodland surrounding the castle, as flakes of snow blew about them.
Robert determinedly stayed in front of Bryson and James, as they marched off.
“Where’re we going?” Bryson asked, watching Robert leading them away.
“We want to go over to a structure, out there,” he replied, to his surprise. “It’s in this direction! We saw it from a window on the top floor. None of us knew what it was! It’s in the estate, but not on the plan.”
The words of the clue echoed through Bryson’s mind, as the structure emerged.
When they finally approached the structure, a blanket of snow started falling. The thickness of it, and the surrounding darkness, engulfing them, covered up the looks of it. And he was only able to get one proper look at it before they reached it.
They rhythmically crunched through layers of snow (reaching up to his knees in places), and as they arrived at it, he thought of it as a type of castle pavilion.
The door surprisingly never had a lock, but it was heavy, solid, and it firmly shut behind them.
Columns of stone went about its interior like a Greek temple, and, in the middle, stone steps descended to somewhere below.
“Let’s check the underground chamber then,” Robert spoke, not waiting any longer, moving down the steps.
At the bottom, Bryson stopped to watch Robert examine some large tombs.
Robert’s dark figure, evidently startled, and strangely crouching, was speedily reading either something small or something hard to understand – but he saw that he had stumbled on something.
Chapter 12
The Vault
Most of the words carved into the tomb were by all means to do with the clue. Yet, though the most important words were there, they were in a riddle only comprehensible to someone who would have known the things that it suggested.
What had grabbed Robert’s attention had been that the tomb, of William Randall, had been the oldest. It had been what he had been looking for, as it was where his ancestor who had built the castle had been buried.
There were mentions of William Randall on surrounding tombs, of immediate descendants – with haunting mentions of him – many years later, as if he had been still around to read them.
“Do you get any of it?” James pleaded to Robert, after he had stayed watching him crouching in front of the tomb for an unbearably long time.
Robert pointed at the final words. “It’s that part of it that’s interesting: where sanctuary dwells for the last,” he mumbled.
“Does it refer to him as being one of them?” James asked.
“It doesn’t! It doesn’t explain ... That’s what’s wrong ...!”
“Perhaps Sir Richard just put the money in it?”
“I’m trying to discover what it’s referring to!”
“So we’re at the same place as before.”
The whole event confused Bryson, and it was turning to disappointment. It had made him happy though – at its simplicity. And there it was sitting out here.
Robert moved away, looking slightly baffled, as well as tired, but thinking of it; and James started copying down the words. Bryson was able to take a close look, from next to him. But he knew that they would be lucky to find anything.
What sort of person had he been though?
He decided to take another look at the other tombs, which had been his immediate descendants.
However, by the lack of anything that could suggest any insight, and by the behavior of James, he knew that the chances of finding it there were vanishing. And he could not think of what to do to put them back on the trail.
For a long time, Bryson went from tomb to tomb, and Robert and James did likewise – continuing to read them – until it was obvious that it was the only clue.
“So, shall we look then?” Robert muttered, moving over to the tomb, examining the lid, which obviously was made solid and heavy.
“How would Sir Richard have opened that?” James uttered, staring at it.
Bryson touched its surface, feeling crumbling bits of stone, dirt, and rotting vegetation spread over it, considering what they were doing.
There were no signs that anyone had already opened it – which Sir Richard ought to have done entering it. Had he had people and equipment to help him though? Yet would he have had trusted anyone, and given away that it was there.
He played with bits of vegetation, like moss.
He gave it a quick shove, pushing enough to check if it would move easily sideways, but it seemed firmly fixed in position, and would need much more force to shift it. The lid had to have been there since they built the place.
“Look!” Robert explained, going around it, at the other side. “It has marks on it – at this side.”
Bryson saw that someone had entered it after all. The people who had buried him would not have had opened it with a crowbar – besides the marks were more recent.
“Why would Sir Richard have hidden the money in a grave?” Bryson asked, seeing his reactions.
“You may be correct! I know he was ‘eccentric’, but I don’t believe that he would have opened a tomb, to leave his money there – all those years ago – out here. And where some grave robber could get his hands on it ...”
“Let’s just open it,” James responded. “We can search for clues! It shouldn’t take long, and we can lift it easily together.”
Bryson moved over to the opposite corner from James, and Robert briskly went to the middle.
It being almost stuck together, combined with its weight, made it difficult, but they managed to budge it, so that it was balancing against the end.
As Bryson rested, his sight finally fell on a skeleton, and he reacted to having the privilege of encountering his great ancestor.
There was little dampness, apart from in the dirt that had fallen from the edges.
William’s height had been roughly the same as his.
Traces of hair on his skull showed that he had had similar looks too.
Robert poked under it, to see if there was anything under there, but it was solid.
Bryson looked for anything that he had not acknowledged, and, as he had predicted, he spotted something.
A pendant buried – hidden away out of sight – between his remaining ribs.
His fingers probed through the bones to fetch it.
The pendant had to be valuable: it was made of gold, with tiny jewels embedded in it. Mostly diamonds!
He wiped it, and fitted it in his pocket. Then Robert and James started moving the lid back around.
“We’ve the words on the tomb,” James stated, holding the bit of paper. “The three of us may find somethin
g with some time ...”
He tapped it with his finger, perhaps considering if they could.
“We can have a copy of it each,” Robert replied. “And started upstairs. “And it’s too dark and dingy here to concentrate ...”
They marched speedily up the stairs, as it became clear the darkness was completely engulfing the outside.
As they prepared leave, Bryson tapped the floor with his foot.
It was almost absurd! He dismissed the idea, and looked at the dark windows.
Pieces of material had fallen to the ground from curtains that had been at their sides.
He contemplated being buried there, out at the haunted castle.
Chapter 13
From the Depths of Hell
The pale sunlight had vanished under the horizon. Then the black winter night had rapidly engulfed them, and they had lost their way, as they had briskly returned.
Thick snow shrouded everything, creating a mind-bending landscape, which Bryson was too exhausted to attempt to recognize.
It was shocking how easily they had got lost. They should have stuck to the corridor, but, in the blackness and snow, it had turned indistinguishable – from the other gaps leading into the outer wood. But they knew the general direction, and they were too exhausted to go back.
A peculiar whistle from an unknown place shadowed them, driving him insane, trying to identify it.
Their legs almost became stuck in a deep bog of stinking vegetation, which resembled quicksand as it grew in depth. But Robert insisted that it was not, and continued to take them on through it, as if it only were another small obstacle.
Then, out of nowhere, a light emerged from the undergrowth.
Its radiance pulsated, like a living thing, magically illuminating the snow and trees.
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