While they silently observed it, loud pounds of something of immense weight rushed out - at them - causing them to scurry away.
They furiously moved their legs in and out of bogs, shifting away to hard ground.
They ran almost blindly, up and down, over humps and rough ground, rushing through thick trees and snow.
The heavy beast sounds furiously chased them.
It was like a strange nightmare!
They were breathless, and their legs could not take them fast enough, and the thing was closing in on them.
The shape of the castle was blissful from the black wood.
Its lights radiated the colossal tomb shape, through the wood, and they forced their legs to go faster.
The appearance of the hideous place, out of the night, amidst the jungle of vegetation, was staggering!
It was like a phantom castle, out on the edge of realism, on the bounds of what lay beyond - and that they were falling into the depths of hell, trying to return there - to reality.
The place looked static, with supernaturally glowing walls.
Branches broke to pieces as they ran through them!
The trees looked as if they were ready to fall to dust, but for the forces of something supernatural.
As though it were suspending the place - within reality!
Behind him, within shifting lights, darting about, through the wood, he saw ghost images of creatures, shifting too, doing hideous things.
Yet all his looks showed him nothing of the heavy monster thing, rampaging towards them - of clearly a hideous nature - as well as proportions.
Their minds conjured up hiding demon creatures, as they entered the edge of the wood - as they were ready to leave it - and they looked for ways to avoid them.
And they rushed across to the castle, and staggered to the doorway; where James banged at the solid wooden doors, almost bruising his knuckles.
A deep thud appeared from somewhere inside, and the door wearily creaked out.
Bryson swiftly recognized Sir Richard’s cousin, as he moved out from behind the door. And he studied his hunched elderly figure, and round glasses - glaring at him.
“Come in! They’re waiting on you ...!” he explained, angrily - not even noticing their appearances, or anything!
Chapter 14
A Hideous Death
The bright light in large dining room made their eyes bulge as they entered, making him look around.
Two men and a woman were sitting silently, while curiously watching them.
Their weary faces showed no recognition of them.
Sir Richard’s cousin pointed Bryson out to them.
One of the men, the youngest and tallest of them, removed a notepad and pen, and the young woman sat upright – and both got ready to help the older man in the middle.
“You’re Thomas Bryson!” he exclaimed, writing something.
“Is everyone here?” Bryson asked, examining their official clothing (that of plain clothed detectives).
“They’re up at their rooms,” the older man answered authoritatively, showing that he was in command, and the man and woman with him were there to help him out.
“They’ll all be back down soon,” the woman replied, helping him to explain.
At that point, the older man, in one swift movement, entered the center of the room.
He stood firmly, with his hands gripping the top of the pockets of his trench coat, covering his suit.
“They’re present,” he explained. “That is ... Except for one of the servants – Molly!”
Bryson made two attempts to identify him, but he was positive that he had not seen him before.
“Who’re you?” Robert finally asked, after resting.
“I’m Detective Inspector George Bailey.”
He silently studied Robert.
Robert and James then studied them, as a group.
Just as they finished, Inspector Bailey stepped back.
“I’m Inspector Bailey. I’m investigating her murder!”
“Here!” James asked, startled.
“Yes. Here!”
“Can you prove that you’re Inspector Bailey?” Robert asked.
Inspector Bailey produced his identification, which he grasped, with curiosity.
He adjusted his eyes twice to the light, before he examined it, and handed it back.
“You said that the others would be back down soon?”
“Yes ...” Inspector Bailey replied, and suddenly stopped, forcing himself to leave something until later.
Chapter 15
Law and Order
Inspector Bailey resumed his pacing, leaving a faint trail over the carpet. His expressions occasionally gave away how deeply troubled he was, and that, most of the time, he was not mentally in the room.
Bryson wondered how easily they normally solved such crimes. He was sure that Inspector Bailey was keeping hidden facts that they should know, which were troubling him, and which he probably did not intend to tell to any members of the public, unless forced to.
The others were mainly in the lounge, chiefly watching Inspector Bailey. They were waiting for something to occur, or him to come to some conclusion – perhaps waiting for him to lose his temper, and to argue with them. Then he might give them some information, to enlighten them.
Bryson gave occasional shudders, from the exertion he had experienced in the woods. His lungs felt as if they had sandpaper grated over them. The cold air that he had frantically pumped in and out him had to have given him some kind of illness.
Robert and James sat at his sides, silenced by the whole event, glimpsing the window, as if something were going to come crashing through.
“How did the three of you manage to lose yourselves ...?” the tall policeman inquired viciously – upset at Inspector Bailey not doing as he wished – examining again, trying to discover why they were so exhausted.
“The darkness and snow made us lose our way,” Robert explained, while keeping silent about what he thought had chased them.
The police obviously would not accept the full account, and Robert and James clearly did not wish to be involved in any way with the horrendous crime that had taken place in their absence.
Inspector Bailey turned his back to them – a yellow radiance flickered over the wall from him – and gray wisps of smoke rose from behind his shoulders. He swiftly gasped and blew out a cloud of smoke, from a cigarette.
He gradually turned, coughing into his handkerchief.
“I don’t understand,” Helen argued, “why someone would want to kill one of the servants?”
“Did anyone see anyone having an argument with her?” Inspector Bailey spoke, to Bryson’s amusement.
Nobody moved in the room, and Inspector Bailey continued to pace along in front of the fireplace.
“Where did she die?”
“Oh, the usually!” he muttered nervously. “The killer buried her body under the rubbish in one of the large metal bins, along from the kitchen door.”
“Who found her?” Bryson asked.
“She managed to stay alive until all of you left!
“They realized that she was missing, and searched where they had last seen her. They found strange marks on the floor, and followed them to her body.”
If it had been one of them, and not one of the other servants, who had done it, how could the person have done it? They had been in groups! If anyone had been missing, it would have been obvious.
Had this infernal place a killer? Yet who would want to kill an innocent, harmless, old servant?
Nothing about it made sense – but neither did anything else! – it was completely obvious that they would at least replace her (which was all he could make out).
From the looks that that he caught, he knew that the incident had affected the policemen. Some of them were now argumentative. And he was sure that they had not found any clues.
The killer had to be ruthless ... And carefree, to have done it in the
way that it had been done. The person had done it under their noses.
One of the policemen, wearing a uniform, who had been at the murder scene at the bins, strolled into the room, and silently conferred with Inspector Bailey. He spoke just out of range of their hearing his whispers. And Inspector Bailey never replied, or showed signs of what he said. Then they left the room.
Bryson touched his sore forehead with his fingers, feeling the coldness.
He saw that it had still stopped snowing, and there was a good chance, according to the forecast, that the weather would stay that way until the following day. Therefore, there was a chance that if there had been anything physically in the woods, chasing them, that the prints would be there.
He was beginning to believe that the place might have turned Sir Richard insane.
He wondered if the killer had an interest in the hidden money.
A vehicle screeched to a halt, outside the window, attracting the attention of the policemen in the other room, making one of them rush by, going to the door, with his walkie-talkie blaring out.
The policeman had a hard time opening the door, and Bryson listened to the woman’s voice on his walkie-talkie. She had clearly been communicating with the police in the vehicle outside.
Bryson then spotted the stunned looks of some of the women in the room.
Inspector Bailey remained normal, giving no reactions.
Nobody debated leaving the room, but Inspector Bailey insisted that they should see the body first.
When they entered the kitchen, Bryson turned his head to look in the direction of the open kitchen door, where the wind blew in short rhythmical gusts.
Through a window he saw the dark shapes of police cars, hidden in the dark, about the castle.
The brightness beamed from bright lights off a window, as they entered a room, and he recognized that it was the storeroom, at the back of the kitchen.
Then Bryson’s eyes followed Robert’s startled glare down to an area of the floor, where there was a body, covered over with a white blank.
“How did the killer manage to do it?” Sarah inquired. “Surely someone would have seen or heard something!”
Inspector Bailey placed his hands together behind his back and turned away, and strolled up to the window.
“She was on her own. And she then entered the kitchen – then here – to fetch something to eat ...”
Bryson looked away, towards the hidden tunnel.
“Could the killer have used that tunnel to surprise him?” he muttered, slightly astonished.
Inspector Bailey walked towards it, examining it, and shoved it shut, feeling the weight of it.
Bryson examined it in more detail, astonished by it.
Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make it with the castle stones. The large cracks between all the bricks hid it. It looked as though the builders had just badly built the wall.
“It’s peculiar!” Bryson went on, interrupting their examination. “That this secret passage is at the exact location of the murder.”
The outer door opened, and a forensic investigator, wearing a white garment over a suit, appeared, and Inspector Bailey rushed over to him.
“So you’ve not found any fingerprints or DNA!”
The man’s face showed only signs of disappointment.
“We’ve not found anything,” he muttered, as he shook his head.
Inspector Bailey’s face was cold and empty, showing little of what he was thinking.
A pale blue radiance appeared and flashed over the wall, at the window, from one of the police cars.
Voices of policemen discussed what they were investigating.
Inspector Bailey stopped in front of Robert.
He anxiously attempted to grab his attention.
“I want to stay here, with two of my men, and I want them to question all of you further. Some of you! I want more details on who accompanied whom. And I want who killed your servant!”
“Poor Molly!” Robert whispered.
“If anyone has any information, whatsoever, disclose it now, before it happens again!”
The door swung as a forensic investigator, wearing a white garment over a suit, marched past, and Inspector Bailey rushed out to join him.
Bryson wondered what would happen now. And why he insisted that it could happen again. Would the killer attempt to take the money or wait to see if they found it?
Chapter 16
Strange Encounters
Robert then led Inspector Bailey, two policemen, and them out of the room.
They crept up the dim and gloomy stairs, trying not to create any disturbance.
At the second floor, a few lights at the stairs was all that lit the corridor, and Bryson saw a light still on at their rooms, at the end of the dim corridor.
Bryson approached the rooms with noises, in the middle, with urgency, deeply overcome by the hideous place.
He swiftly went past the first room, wondering what Inspector Bailey would think of it.
But he seemed to do nothing else but continually thinking of everyone and their movements.
He recalled his arrival there, a few days ago. The interior of room had been stunning, as he had wandered through, into its realms. Everything had been identical! It had actually been identical to the way that he had left it – as if it had stayed there – frozen in time – waiting for his return ...
A painting with some sort of animal (which he still could not identify) wearily hung above the bed.
Its strangeness awe-inspiring, and its similarities to modern paintings bewildering.
Inspector Bailey observed them, staying silent, as they past, almost from a scientific perspective.
At the rooms at the end of the corridor, Bryson entered his room, as Robert gave Inspector Bailey and the policemen the rooms next to it. He then came in his room.
“The strange thing is that nobody seems guilty of committing such a crime,” Robert muttered. “And I cannot imagine anyone here doing anything to ...”
“Inspector Bailey must be wrong then!”
“Something else may have occurred.”
“Sir Richard’s death might have triggered something. Perhaps it affected Molly enough to make her do something stupid, causing someone to commit the crime. History is full of occurrences strangely happening simultaneously.”
“Maybe Inspector Bailey knows something else ...!” he wearily moaned, and rested on an old seat.
Bryson unpacked things from his case and neatly placed them about the room. And he finished the task by placing a clock at a table beside the bed.
He rested on the bed, observing the room, from different perspectives, giving an occasional nervous listen for anything, and he recalled the events that had taken place there many years ago.
Robert stood, yawned, and marched out of the door.
“We’ll see ...” he muttered, in the direction of Inspector Bailey’s room, and closed the door behind him.
At the back of the table, Bryson spotted a jar of water and two glasses, and he poured the water into one of the glasses and drank it.
He then switched off the light, and stopped at the window to glare out at the dark trees.
In the distance, a haunting glow illuminated, strangely cast around an animal-like shape, through mist, as if the moon were beaming from behind some beast.
The shape randomly drifted through the mist. Its movements roaming, as if searching for something.
He then heard the low chanting whispers that he had heard in the other room, before the other had sounds emerged. As if the wind were blowing gently against all the castle windows. Then as if it were emerging out of nowhere, with no particular source. And as if phantoms were flying about the ancient castle.
With the light switched off, he rested in bed, and glared out at the dark wood at the front of the castle.
He heard a distant croak, like from a rook watching there from somewhere. He could not detect where it was. It was too dark!
There were no lights anywhere. It was strange, as there was no streetlight, and no glowing sky of the city.
Chapter 17
Celestial Wonderland
Specks of light endlessly glittered, as though he were floating in a celestial wonderland, with no thoughts or cares. Finally, free of all his depressing disturbances.
A curtain of mist occasionally appeared beneath him.
A glow illuminated it, strangely casting an animal-like shadow from him, through the mist, as if the moon were huge and beaming lunar rays from behind him.
He had a mild perception of dreaming, but it was like no dream that he could recall. It was so lifelike that he could not even imagine being in bed. He had no real thoughts, and his attempt to imagine things in it failed.
For a moment, he believed that he was floating over the clouds, with the world below.
Low chanting whispers created a hypnotic effect.
In the distance, a shape randomly drifted through the mist. Its movements endlessly roaming about, shifting towards him, as though searching for something.
It was slow, and he was so tired that when it reached him, he did not entirely perceive its presence.
His radiant celestial surroundings filled with shapes, like flying phantoms, moaning and wailing.
While their eerie murmurs grew loud and vicious, a sensation of great danger mesmerized him ...
He silently shrieked as he awoke. The darkness of the room instantly blinding him, and he endeavored to pierce it with his weary eyes. However, as he awoke more, he realized that there was nothing there, but there were silent sounds howling through the corridor.
He jumped from the bed, throwing the blankets out of his way, darting at where he remembered the switch was – and instantly clicked on the light.
His mind was full of horror at what he was hearing and from what he had experienced, and he realized that the events had happened again.
A loud knock, from behind him, rattled a chair against the wall.
The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition) Page 104
