The Lost Treasure Map Series

by V Bertolaccini

  The night had crept by, and he was starting to feel the after-effects of the staying awake and the cold – making him feel drowsy, with a slight headache.

  “You were right about it being an active zone – whatever ‘an active zone’ is!” Mortimer grunted towards Merton and Bryson.

  Bryson imagined them putting a sign on the door reading: KEEP OUT – RESEARCH PROJECT!

  “Is there anything different though?” Bryson asked.

  “As far as I can see there apparently is nothing ... The sounds changing have confused things though, as I’m unable to accurately establish if they are louder here, or, in fact, more silent.”

  “We can easily check by going upstairs!”

  “Okay, let’s take that up there then.”

  Mortimer took a mental note of the levels on a monitor, places that he had put microphones, and he quickly packed it into its case. He then led them out of the door, and carefully marched through the dark corridor, listening to the sounds from the room behind him.

  They remained the same, and Bryson noted that he heard them reappear at the same distance away, when they made their way along the second floor.

  Once in the room, it was obvious that they were about the same, but Mortimer insisted in setting up the machine in the exact same way.

  “It’s about the same!” he eventually moaned, still looking confused, but standing with his hands on his hips, carefully considering all the possibilities left (which was not much).

  “This explains why there were no signs of anything,” Bryson said excitedly. “There were no real temperature changes! And nothing indicating the presence of anything. And, what is more, the sounds never responded to us ... or to anything that’s apparently happening.”

  “Where is it occurring? There is no noticeable difference in the volume!”

  “What’ll we do?” Bryson continued.

  “Let’s leave it! I need time to think ... We need time to think! We can discuss it back at the room, or at some other time ...”

  Chapter 19

  The Light in the Woods

  Merton stood, glaring in front of him, with his back to a blazing log fire, watching Mortimer, sitting at a small table, directly under the light.

  His shirtsleeves were at his elbows, and there was a pair of glasses hanging over his nose. In his hand he held a pair of pliers.

  Bryson’s entrance briefly disturbed him, but he continued working at the machine, opened up and sprawled across the table.

  Bryson strolled over to the window, examining the equipment, and the places that they had placed it.

  “There’s something strange about this place!” he revealed to them, mesmerized by the blackness outside, at the edge of his eyes.

  “Something strange,” Merton muttered indecisively, “about this place.”

  “This place is not like any haunted castle that I have ever heard about!”

  “It is different from anything I can recall,” Mortimer spoke, briefly looking up at the wall, behind the bed.

  “What happened over there?” Merton asked, referring to the police cars out of the window.

  “Oh! Just one of the servants being killed ...!”

  “Killed! How did she die?”

  “Of course, she was strangled to death – the usually!”

  “My god!” Mortimer remarked. “One of the servants was killed somewhere. Where was she killed?”

  “Her body was found under the rubbish, in one of the bins, along from the kitchen.”

  “How did that happen ...? How did the person manage to kill someone with everyone about? Do they have any suspects?”

  “I don’t know. We went out ... They do not seem to know who did it ... That’s why Inspector Bailey and two of his policemen are staying here!”

  “We were going to go along there, but we changed our minds.”

  “That’s not all! Something chased us through the wood.”

  “What do you mean?” Mortimer said, looking up in surprise. “What did it resemble?”

  “It was too dark! We were returning from a walk in the wood, over there, and some type of disturbance ... A beast ... Creatures ... An entity ... It came after us. We escaped from it ... By a hairbreadth!”

  At the window, he glimpsed something, like a light shining from something, within the depths of the wood. Though it could have been the moon beaming through a gap in the clouds, onto the snow, he knew that it must be the light that they had encountered there.

  Bryson recalled, when they fled from the wood, that there were other creature-like noises in the surrounding trees – including the peculiar whistles.

  The police cars, hidden in the dark, about the front, were so unreal – as though they were part of the set up of a television programme – as though they were there to create an illusion of realism.

  How would they handle the things that took place? They might not bother showing the wall and its sounds. Nobody would believe that they were not sounds created by them – it could come across as a joke.

  There were faint voices, then footsteps; and when he did not hear anything else, he looked.

  In the light from a police car’s headlights, two policemen stood having a discussion, conferring over some particular point.

  He tried reading their lips, checking their behavior, noticing any signs of anything, but it was no use. And one of them showed signs of being aware of his presence, seeing him in the light at the window, and then repeatedly turned his head sideways to see him. Bryson eventually just turned his back to them.

  What would happen if they told them about the things in the wood? Surely they could not leave it!

  How dangerous were they anyway? He was believing that they were paranormal things that not even the army could handle, and that they were best leaving them alone; and just to investigate them. They were doing the police a favor by not involving them. It would only confuse matters further, if they did exist. It also might mean more deaths.

  He tried to imagine it as a real, normal thing. And the sounds from living animals.

  Would they leave a killer lion roaming freely through the woods, ready mall any people that happened to be passing?

  The region was a perfect hiding place for something – if it had the instinct to stay away from humans.

  He was determined to leave things, so he could carefully determine what to do, instead of rushing in, and ruining things.

  A bang from the car door captured his attention, and he saw the two policemen in the car, in the light in the interior. The one in the driving seat then bent his head down, observing the key, and the roar of its engine interrupted the outer silence.

  Why had it vanished, when they had approached the castle? Why had it not tried to enter the castle, if it had been as bloodthirsty as it had seemed? Why did it not attack them during the day? What was it? What real origins had it?

  There had to be a way of destroying it, before something serious occurred. It might someday confront the new owner of the castle.

  He could not imagine anyone staying confined to the castle, without going out there.

  Bryson could tell that Mortimer was now upset; his behavior gave it away – he restlessly thought deeply, while he worked. He was probably desperately thinking of a way to draw more than just noises from the wall. Not many people these days would believe what they had acquired, with all the sound recording studios and computer equipment available (it would not be hard to produce something like it).

  He was sure that it would just be like one of the many hazy pictures of ghosts, Loch Ness monsters, and flying saucers.

  Even though it was a fascinating project, beyond their wildest dreams, he was sure that they were losing confidence in anything else taking place. They hardly believed his account of what had happened in the wood.

  Merton seemed more satisfied believing that he had exaggerated what it was. He said little, and gave away very little, about what he thought. He stood for a long time, just absorbing the warmth o
f the fire, occasionally keeping it burning, listening to Mortimer trying to repair some part of the machine.

  They seemed to ignore his antics over it, perhaps being professional. They had never heard of the phenomenon.

  If he could only think of a way to force their attention onto the phenomenon ... He could pretend that he saw a werewolf or something, which would more than grab their attention.

  Yet how dangerous was the thing in the wood anyway? Would it be more dangerous to encounter it ...? And was there actually a way of investigating it, without it mauling him?

  Bryson made them notice him. “If we could just check out that thing,” he muttered, “without being killed ... We may even save someone’s life!”

  He suddenly wondered why he was wasting his time.

  “If there’s something dangerous out there,” Mortimer mumbled, “then it should have left traces of it being there. Therefore, we could take a look there, when we go out there tomorrow!”

  “That’s a good idea,” he replied, feeling how tired his legs were. “I’ll go and get some sleep.”

  Bryson left the room, remembering he needed the sleep.

  The outer corridor was cold and dark, with a slight musty odor, with a resemblance to the above corridor with the lights off. His footsteps interrupted the silence, and he deliberately made them less obvious, almost creeping past the doorways, vaguely visible.

  The rooms were very dark, and he fumbled along, looking for a light switch, while the floorboards creaked and shook under his feet.

  He soon found it – much further up the wall than he had anticipated it to be – above where it normally was. A few bare bulbs, shrouded in webs and dirt, on worn wires, lit the whole corridor.

  A door gently closed behind him, making him slightly jerk. It was obviously the air current from him rushing past, making the door move in a strange way.

  Bryson removed a bottle of brandy from his bag. “Well, we should at least be comfortable.”

  He was still going to have as much of a good time at the castle as he could.

  He rotated the bottle in his hands, trying to recognize it. It was either so old that it was not made any longer or an import.

  Bryson gently poured it into brandy into his throat, putting a slight gurgle into the emptiness.

  He sipped more, and he wanted more.

  Bryson felt the alcohol warm him.

  For some reason, Bryson felt like to questioning Merton – to see what he thought – to find out what his views of the psychic phenomenon were.

  Yet, somehow, he believed that he would not tell him very much.

  Chapter 20

  The Gold Pendant

  Bryson rested on a seat at the window. While Robert stood at the bed.

  By his attitude, he sensed something had recently upset him. However, the fact that it was something to do with their hunt for the money made it slightly amusing. Not even a murder, and a vicious killing of a servant, could keep upsetting him. It had to be something preventing them acquiring the money. What else could be so dramatic?

  Bryson moved close to the window, allowing the sun and white glow from the snow, covering the landscape, to go over him. And he removed the pendant that he had removed from William Randall’s decomposed remains.

  It gleamed under the morning sun, its rays streaming in through the bedroom window, beaming golden shades over the walls.

  It swayed beneath his hand, on its chain, wrapped around his hand, as he glared at it, captured by its hypnotic influence.

  He disregarded the radiating light, pulsating over his face, and he studied the ancient artifact, with increasing interest. It was the first time that he had seen it in daylight – and not in the dim surroundings of the vault.

  “Are all those police cars still parked there?” Robert remarked, moving to look more closely.

  “Most of them left, last night. They probably will return though ...”

  “They should be – it was on someone’s radio – the police are holding a full murder investigation into the servant’s death here. Most of the detectives are coming down from London.”

  Was that why he was upset? It might possibly hinder their search.

  He felt like asking, but he just left it.

  Perhaps the pendant had a value as an even older piece of jewellery. Another ancestor could easily have passed it down to William. Royalty could have bestowed it upon him, or he might have paid a great deal of cash for it. Nonetheless, why would it necessary have a high value just because he had worn it? There were many reasons for wearing such a pendant.

  “I would love to see that video of Sir Richard over again,” Robert spoke, rustling through objects, in his hand. “What do you think?”

  “Why?”

  “There may be some clues on it that we have not seen!”

  His fingers parted, and he glimpsed a small notebook in his hand. He held a pen to his mouth.

  “That’s a good idea! But what sorts of clues?”

  “I am not sure ... Examining pictures and films can reveal things that you originally might not have seen. Everyone was listening to what he was saying – they were not expecting him to announce that he had hidden it – their might have been some clue at the beginning of it, which went unnoticed.”

  As he played with the pendant beneath his face, turning it around and around, seeking an answer to why he took it to his grave, he recognized a faint indentation over its edge.

  Many such pendants opened to reveal inner enclosures, where there were such things as photographs. Perhaps they had drawings in them in those days.

  “Your right – we might have missed something. He might have made a mistake somewhere – something that he had not noticed.”

  At the thought of it being something of value, Bryson became extremely keen to open it. He found that dirt, encrusted in it, was firmly fastening it.

  “He could easily have said something that he should not have. I’ll contact that lawyer – to have him show it again.”

  Bryson opened one of his bags, at the table, at the bed, and he removed things that might have things in or on them that he could use to clean it. But the best thing was a needle, inserted in a roll of thread.

  He carefully fitted it on the faint crack that went along its edge, without damaging the artifact.

  Its gold twinkled at him as though it were winking at him, just asking him to open it. But after many attempts at it – trying to break it open – his impatience increased. And he had horrible thoughts appear of it breaking – and him finding it to be an incredibly valuable instrument.

  His fidgeting aroused Robert, who gave slight glances at his figure at the window.

  “What are doing?” Robert moaned, trying to see him, in the bright light surrounding him, at the window.

  He ignored him, and he made less arousing sounds.

  As he thought of William Randall, the cover of the pendent shifted upwards, by a millimeter, giving him the knowledge that it had an inner chamber. The line around it could have been part of the design or there from the way a craftsman had made it, which he had been starting to believe due to its insistence in not moving.

  Even though it had lifted, the problem of opening it fully was still there – as something was jamming it. It neither lifted any further nor went back down. It had too much value to break it in any way – especially if it turned out to be a watch (but he doubted that they existed in those days).

  He amused himself, calming himself in the process. It had been his ancestor’s pendant – and Sir Richard had given them the estate for ten days. If he only could find something valuable, he could show them that the hunt was not a flop.

  If he had a few tools, watchmakers used, he could easily open it. He rummaged through his other stuff, with his mind carefully considering individual parts of things – considering them as tools. But there did not seem to be anything else.

  As he returned to trying to open it, the lid squeaked and slightly lifted further – making
him think of soaking it in oil. There was no need though as it came up, revealing a tattered bit of material.

  It then instantly dropped in value, as it was not a watch, instrument, and it was not even solid gold as he had originally thought. It was an empty container, which William might have used to hold things.

  He wondered if it could be a lucky pendant, and if it had something sacred in it. He shifted the piece of cloth around – feeling it for anything – touching a lump within it – and revealing a small key.

  It was like a jewellery box key, but the end of it was strangely shaped. But was it another disappointment?

  He went for the door, and decided to search Sir Richard’s room for something it might fit.

  “Where are you off to then?” Robert remarked, as he reached the door.

  “I’m going up to Sir Richard’s room,” he replied.

  “You don’t expect to find anything there,” he informed him. “Everyone has been through that room so many times ...”

  “Well. I found a key, and I want to find out if it fits a lock.”

  “What do you want to know that for? Even if it does, what use will it have?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m just inquisitive.”

  “I’m going up there ...” Robert announced – looking more determined.

  “Let’s look there together then.”

  “Okay. Let’s see that key first.”

  Bryson removed it out of his pocket, and he took it from him, with much interest. But he quickly lost interest in it, and handed it back.

  “It could fit something ...”

  “We are all going out there at some time.”

  “Do you mean everyone ...?”

  “Yeah – all of us.”

  “Why are they going out there? You mean that they are going for a walk – like when we went to the vault.”

  “I never said that we were going to the tombs,” he moaned. “I meant that we are going out there – into the wood.”