Bryson rushed up the stairs, and waited for the others to appear, from behind him.
“Well, what will we do now?” Mortimer asked, panting.
“We’d better have the police here, with their guns. We don’t know what this guy could do!”
Once the police moved to his side, he pushed the slab up, expecting a heavy weight to stop him.
Bryson climbed out, almost in complete darkness, without his torch being on, considering everything that he was up against, attempting to observe every place.
He listened, but all that he noticed was the wind blowing the door about up the stairs.
Before he darted out, Mortimer shone his torch about.
“There are his footsteps!” Merton announced, pointing.
The police moved in front, with their guns held out.
By their reactions, he was sure that they did not have a clue what they were dealing with, and that they had not seen the place before. They were in a dark vault, at night, within the grounds of desolate castle, and they were chasing a vicious serial killer.
The police rapidly shifted up the stairs to the door, as they tracked the prints. And they easily traced them out into the dark wood, blanketed in deep snow.
Then they stopped at the door, and Bryson froze, expecting a gun battle to break out.
When it did not, Bryson moved to their side to see what the problem was, expecting to see the person in the thick currents of snow. But instead he saw that the prints vanished, into the blizzard, and heaps of snow, falling from the pine trees.
Yet, at the side of his eyes, he spotted traces of shoe marks, in a sheltered area going along the side of the building. They were facing his direction, and came back to the door – indicating the killer, for some reason, had moved along it, back into the vault, and had perhaps taken his shoes off, to stop him making any further prints. And there was nothing indicating that he had left.
He slowly turned, and faced the blackness at the other end of the upper vault. And the others turned.
Inspector Bailey stood frozen, holding his gun out at a faintly visible black figure with a gun.
Bryson’s heart exploded, beating faster than he could recall it ever beating.
As the seconds, which felt like minutes, passed, he watched the figure almost fall over, barely able to stand. Then finally the figure dropped to the ground, with a thud. And he spotted a trail of blood going over the floor to him.
They strolled there, not shining their torches at the killer – as though not daring to! – approaching in wonder, as though they were going to meet the devil himself.
But, when a torch beam shone there, they were only dumbstruck – at what had happened to the real killer.
And Bryson stared down in horror at Sir Richard, crippled on the ground!
Was he a form of ghost? He had died!
A weak splutter came off him.
“Do you know him?” Inspector Bailey muttered, gritting his teeth, avoiding looking.
“I’m sure ...” he muttered back.
And they then waited for him to say something.
“Leave me, for a few minutes!” he finally pleaded, and they moved away, to the other side of the vault, where they stood silently, panting, and resting.
He stared down at her diminishing body, cringing on the ground, holding onto life.
Bryson fell to his knees, at his side, staring in horror at Sir Richard! Was he really a ghost?
“Thomas!” his weak and aged voice spoke.
He pulled out a crumbled bit of paper, and allowed it to fall at his side, unable to move any further.
Bryson instantly picked it up and examined it.
“It’s a copy of the missing page from the diary!”
“It’s more! It’s definite proof of the treasure – which I’ve been searching for: for most of my life.”
“So your money doesn’t exist?”
“That’s it! All of you were to find it. Ever since I inherited this estate, I’ve looked for it.
“When I found that I was dying ...!”
“I’ve lived at many places – across the globe ... Spending money ... They believed I ...”
He stared down at his diminishing body, cringing on the ground, holding onto life.
Bryson nodded. “Was that reporter your hit man?”
“I didn’t ask that bloody idiot to do that ... Hit man! Those blasted bugs ... They were going to ruin it, and so was he ...!”
Bryson saw blood pouring from his mouth, and that he was about to die. The pain was fading ...
“Why did you fabricate all those supernatural disturbances – with the speakers in the vents, newspapers, and ...?”
His gaze went straight to his.
“To cover what we were doing, of course!”
“You accidentally shot yourself!” he stated.
His face went blank, and he fell over dead; and Bryson strolled away.
“Who was that?” a policeman asked.
“It was one of the servants who used to work here – many years ago! I met him when I first visited the castle. He was going to take our money!”
Chapter 58
The Hidden Chamber
At a top floor window, Bryson observed the last of the police cars rolling away into the trees.
A glance behind him, along the corridor, once again showed him that the workmen had properly removed the lower ceiling, to reveal the original ceiling, made of solid oak beams.
The wires from the lights had rot and webs over them, and had been easily broken, and were in bits on the floor.
The workmen had been from the village, and had been surprisingly keen to work in the old haunted castle.
“So where is it?” Helen asked, arriving at the top of the stairs, in front of the others. “We read the diary!”
Bryson marched along the corridor, and James and Robert followed, occasionally looking into the rooms, which the others had rigorously searched.
“Are you saying that you think that there’s treasure here too?” Sarah asked.
Everyone stopped near him, to listen.
“There’s a page missing from it,” Helen broke in.
“Yes, and I found it,” Bryson forced himself to reply, taking the page out of his pocket. “It was on the bottom of the bookshelf, where it had been ...”
Robert took it from him, and spread it out in front of him. And all their eyes seemed to go on it.
“It refers to a clue that her father passed down to her,” Robert muttered. “But it gives the clue that Sir Richard left!”
“I believe that’s because it’s the same money!” Bryson quickly added. “I believe that Sir Richard never had a great deal of money left ...”
For a moment, none of them seemed to accept it – not believing such a horrible fact. But their desperation to find something made them continue seeking answers.
“Are you saying that he left us chasing after a ‘fantasy’?” James resumed.
“No! I’m saying that he knew that it existed, and he spent his life trying to find it. And his last wish was just to have it found – to prove he had been right! But he never went through with his whole plan ... And he perhaps forgot about that video!”
“So you think that we should start looking for it instead!”
“No! Because I know where it is.”
Bryson opened a long bag, and removed an antique pole, which he had seen James playing with, and which resembled an ancient walking stick.
Bryson recalled that it had been at the fireplace, and that one of the servants might have placed it there, believing that it had been there to prod the fire.
Bryson held it, and considered what to say.
“The clue, given to us by Sir Richard, which the castle’s builder, William Randall, had left, is not actually a clue. It had been a message that William Randall had wanted his associates to give to his son, who had been away abroad. He had made it in case he had died, as he had predicted that it could occur. His e
nemies, the castle had been supposed to defend him and his family against, had then killed him. And the message had contained where he had hidden his fortune, from his enemies. But his son had died before he had reached the castle, and nobody had understood where the fortune had been, because it had been a message that only his son would have understood.
“But before William had died, he had foreseen more trouble from his enemies, than his earlier predictions, and he had even predicted that his associates might not survive. Thus he had left a second message, where his son surely would have seen it, and where his enemies would not destroy it. He had the message put on his tomb! Thus he had left the message with tomb sculptors to put there.
“They’re not really riddles! They’re hidden messages, giving a location, saying something such as: that he had put it at where their last dwelling or sanctuary would have really been if they had been in the castle, and they had invaded it.”
“So where do you think it is?” James moaned.
“Well, I believe that once the castle had been just about completed, they had believed that they might not have been able to escape by the hidden tunnel – if the castle had come under attack at night, or they had penetrated their defenses – and that they had somewhere else added, where they could have gone.”
Bryson stuck his hand deep in his pocket, and he pulled out the gold key that had been in the gold pendant. Then he carefully fitted the end of the key into a key-shaped hole at the end of the antique pole.
He glanced upwards at the roof, and he inserted the end of the stick into a minute hole in the ceiling, which only resembled the other holes in the wooden beams.
He felt and heard a click of the lock of something.
Suddenly, the corridor roof seemed to come crashing down, to his momentary horror.
Yet, as they shifted away, the thick beams opened at their different positions on the ceiling. And the entrance to a chamber overhead, made to fit into the ceiling, without being visible, opened out.
Everyone watched in wonder, as it opened up like the gates of heaven, sluggishly going to the last stage of its descent, and onto the floor.
It had the workmanship of that era, and he knew that William had designed it, as well as the castle.
Bryson then walked up into it, not knowing what was there.
In its blackness, he saw a winch, which they would have used to hoist the entrance back into place from the interior.
The chamber was not high, to keep it hidden, and he had to walk crouched down.
His torch gave him glimpses of insignificant objects scattered over places.
Robert and James moved to where he was, while the others silently followed.
“When did you realize that this was here?” Robert asked.
“We saw the roof outside,” James continued, “and we never saw anything. It did not look thick enough!”
Bryson removed a bit of paper.
“This is a representation of the castle,” he said, holding out the plan of the castle, which had fallen out of the book in the library. “It has a faint line going under the roof, which none of the other floors have. And I realized that this had to be a scribbled copy of an original map of the castle.
“It was done by the hand that wrote the diary.
“It’s a treasure map! It was her treasure map ...
“The thing is: she never did find a way to enter it!”
“How did you learn about the entrance?”
“I predicted that she had never found it because there had been a ceiling covering the wooden beams. The earlier inhabitants had not liked the bare wooden beams! And, of course, there had been another added just after her era, when they had put in the lights.”
It was difficult to see much. There were chimneys passing through to the roof all about it.
“What’s that?” James asked, pointing his torch.
Two shapes started to glow in the light there.
They approached them in stages, examining them at various perspectives.
One of the objects was clearly an immense chest.
“You’ve really found it!” Robert cheered, repeatedly ecstatically clapping Bryson hard on the back.
When Bryson arrived beside it, he saw that the other object was a small stone tomb. And he shoved away the thick slab covering it – revealing a rolled carpet in its interior.
He inquisitively pulled a piece of string from it – shifting tattered remains of cloth. Then he stopped, and left it – when he saw part of a bone.
The chest was massive and glowed under the bright torches!
The others moved in at their sides, glaring at it.
James then pushed the lid away, and a gold radiance exploded out – with sparkles of gigantic diamonds and rubies – gleaming off jewellery packed into its interior.
Chapter 59
The Last Witch
The thing must have come from beyond the boundaries of space and time, beyond normal reality. They had no way of knowing precisely where or what it was!
Bryson felt edgy just looking at its devilish features, similar to a skeleton of a demon.
He nervously rested at an angle to the decrepit corpse, lying over sheets, partly unwrapped, across the dining room table.
It was so despicable that nobody had objected to its presence there. But, as soon as the celebrating of the discovery of the fortune was over, someone would.
The content of the chest was worth immense millions as normal jewels! And the lawyer had it taken away to a bank.
The lawyer, with some historical experts, had already proven that they had belonged to a Scottish king, and that they were Scottish Crown jewels, and far more valuable than their normal value. There was even a king’s crown buried in them!
They sure had had the last laugh on Sir Richard!
It was late, and they still had not decided what to do with the thing on the table. He wanted to return it to where it had been, and observe it there.
What the hell had William Randall and his other ancestors thought it had been? They must surely have been religious after seeing it! Where had he found it? Had it been anything to do with his enemies, who had killed him? Had they been enemies of Charles I, Charles II, or whoever had been on the throne? How had William acquired such a vast wealth? Why had the treasure not been money?
Merton finally finished setting up their psychic research equipment about it.
Bryson imagined the thing dragging him into the afterlife, with them trying to film it.
“I’ve made sure that nobody will come in,” Mortimer spoke, coming through the doorway.
“Just one point, this could be a dangerous experiment,” Bryson revealed. “Those things in the woods could have killed us!”
“We’re going to go!” Mortimer moaned. “We’ll monitor it on a TV, from these cameras. And, if possible, approach in unhurried stages ...”
“As long as we’re leaving before anything happens,” Bryson warned, taking his word for it.
It was as if they did not believe that they would be able to remove it from the castle. Nobody would object!
Yet there was a chance that moving it might alter it.
Moreover, if those things in the wood went with it, they could have monsters rampaging through London.
Bryson started to realize that it would somehow have to stay. It was a shame! They could have showed it to the world. But they could record everything for science, and if anything else ever turned up, the people of the future would have a better understanding of it.
They must find a way to destroy it!
Perhaps, if they couldn’t, they could drop it into the deepest depths of the sea. But he could imagine people seeing strange lights out at sea, and monsters attacking ships. The disturbances had a definite attraction to people. Perhaps it would create another Bermuda triangle, with those things smashing massive holes in ships.
They could build a small rocket, and send its ashes into space. But if that did not work properly, and it
ended up in orbit, they could have haunted spaceships, space monsters attacking spaceships, and sightings of strange white lights.
Mortimer started unwrapping bits of material from it, making sure that he did not damage it.
The skeleton was entirely different – like a strange version of a human – like another species of human.
“What’s that?” Merton responded, jerking back, shifting onto his feet.
“It’s some sort of book.”
Bryson saw something similar to a book, made of some type of animal skin, in its claws. Merton pulled it away from it, as if it were welded to it.
Bryson saw James and Robert emerge, at the doorway, as if they had been listening to them, near the door.
“What are you going to do with this place then?” Bryson asked, wondering what Robert had in mind.
“I’m going to do it up and look after it, as Sir Richard wished. And I’m going to make it – as a historical place. It’s famous! It’s now been in most of the newspapers, and television ...”
Bryson realized that there could be many more deaths, if they did not rid the woods of those things.
“This is full of symbols and strange words!” Merton remarked, holding the book out for them to see.
“That may be her spell book!” Robert forced himself to confess.
“What?” Bryson instantly asked, looking alert.
“I told you that I knew a few legends ...”
“What legend ...?”
“Well, that legend that I told about them having built the castle on the site where something had killed those people was only one legend about it. There was another about a witch or something that had been living out here in a cottage. And they had hanged the witch! But the witch had placed a curse on them and this place before they had!”
“There has to be some truth in it,” Merton replied, vaguely disappointed. “There’s some truth in most legends!”
Bryson held back a smile, and returned to looking at the book that Mortimer was now grasping in his hands.
“I understand this ancient writing,” Mortimer uttered. “This stuff was used with witchcraft!”
The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition) Page 121
