The Lost Treasure Map Series (10 page)

To his
amusement, he saw a large group surrounding Inspector Bailey, and
two policemen.

News programme
cameramen and newspaper cameramen rushed about filming him from
every angle, while microphones were being shoved in front of him.
They obviously were all part of the national news media. And they
seemed very interested in the castle, with its haunted castle look,
which they vigorously tried to capture on film.

“
Is
there anyone famous there?” James inquired, from the side of the
room.

“
I
recognize two of the women with microphones ...” Robert
muttered.

Bryson and the
others shifted back into the room, and sat listening to Inspector
Bailey, with a little astonishment, almost transformed by the
experience.

“
So did
anyone discover
anything
from
that video?” Robert asked, standing in front of them, slightly
copying Inspector Bailey – who was at the same time now loudly
giving a speech on how he would solve the case soon.

Their ears in
the room mostly shifted from side to side, verifying their
suspicions.

“
I think
we should now check the castle ourselves!” James uttered loudly,
from the side of him.

“
What
...?” Sarah moaned, bemused, at what he meant.

“
I don’t
trust anyone any more!” he argued, losing his temper at something,
confusing everyone.

Sarah made a
stupefied grin. “What do you mean?”

James jumped
to his feet, and paced about in front of them. Then he stopped in
front of the television screen, giving indications that he was
going to come out with an embarrassing speech about something, or
argue with them.

“
There
is nothing mentioned there that says that we could share the
search. It said that the person who finds it could have
it!”

Instead of
everyone in the room arguing with him, as Bryson expected would
occur, a few of the women suggested that they believed that he was
wrong, and the rest agreed, and they all ignored him.

Robert just
laughed, and remained silent.

When the room
turned silent, Robert moved beside James. “What do you think you
are doing ...?” he argued.

Bryson noticed
that the women in the room now had worried looks.

Sarah glared
angrily at James. “You search on your own then!” she grunted,
sounding slightly drowsy.

“
What’s
wrong now?” Inspector Bailey spoke, smiling, as he entered the
room, looking content at finally handling what he had been doing.
Some vehicle doors banged outside, making him stop to
listen.

Bryson heard
them leaving, at the front.

“
Has
someone discovered anything?” Robert uttered, glancing about him.
“There’s still a good chance of finding it.”

Bryson looked
about him, but nobody said anything.

“
Look!”
Inspector Bailey vented, seeing the other policemen losing
interest, and leaving. “Try looking less on your own more – in
whatever groups you want to be in.”

Robert agreed,
and James rapidly agreed with the idea.

They accepted
the arrangement, and Inspector Bailey left to go to where the other
policemen had gone.

Chapter 23

Faint Traces

When they
entered the library, through the darkness, Bryson sensed something
unusual. But he only grasped that there was less snow on the
ledge.

Yet things
still seemed different.

It was
thoroughly black outside, and they all grouped about the table, on
seats, sitting on the floor, or standing at walls, becoming
familiar with their new surroundings. Most of them were the people
whom James had brought into to help.

Bryson then
realized that there had been one difference in the room – the door
to the library had been slightly open, and he had firmly shut it.
It was strange, as even if it were not open, as he remembered it to
be, he could not realize why it was unusual. Powerful drafts were
capable of pulling as well as pushing objects around.

He examined
individual objects in the room, from different perspectives, trying
to see if there were anything altered – and it was apparent that
different bits of furniture about the room were in different
positions.

“
Where
are they?” Merton moaned, as he arrived, at the outer
door.

“
They
are in here.” Bryson called out.

Snow sprayed
across the window, creating a feeling of warmth, from being in the
warm and sheltered confines of the room.

Before Bryson
spoke, Merton and Mortimer entered, and, with some satisfaction,
glared over at the books.

“
There
has to be something here!” Merton declared, following Mortimer in
the doorway, looking all about it.

“
There’s
a lot ...” Mortimer muttered, trying to see their titles. “But why
would they mostly about business?”

“
Where
will we begin?” Merton asked.

“
At the
start!” Bryson announced, getting a smile from some of the others
sitting or standing in the corner, near to the books. And he
reached out, to grab a handful of books.

Merton just
randomly chose a pile of books, and put them onto the table, next
to him, and sat beside Bryson. He quickly confirmed that the first
book was what he believed it was, by examining things in it – until
he lost interest in it.

They were soon
flickering through pages, trying to speed up the process.
Nonetheless, it was apparent that it would take them a long time to
look through them.

“
There’s
a fireplace in there,” Merton explained, standing up, feeling the
cold. “If we fetched some logs, built a fire in it, and shut the
outer door, we could make it warm in here.”

“
Good
idea!” Bryson answered, with some of the others agreeing, and
following Merton to the door.

Bryson
considered helping, but did not bother. However, he removed two
bottles of wine and glasses, which he had brought with him.

He gave
everyone a glass, and returned to work.

He sipped the
wine, while relaxing into the seat.

He turned the
pages of books sometimes confused at the contents.

Sometimes
having to dust the edges of a book, and hold back a sneeze.

“
There
does not seem to be very much to see in these!” he finally admitted
to himself out loud, thinking of ways to cover the whole
library.

He picked up
many books, astonished at how little they had to interest him. The
temptation to flicker through them increased, and he occasionally
glanced through the titles.

Once the wood
was freely burning away in the fireplace, heating the room, and not
filling the room with smoke, or, as far as he could see, setting
the chimney on fire, he added more wood; and he retreated to the
books.

He recognized
Merton and Mortimer’s behavior and that they intended to stay late
into the night. However, he did not know how long he would stay
there, as he was tired already.

James was
flickering through pages without observing them, as Bryson
carefully checked the options open to him.

“
Here’s
an interesting book!” Merton announced – standing up, and sitting
back down – holding the tattered book by his fingers, allowing them
to see it. It looked old, and from around the First World
War.

“
It’s a
book about castles!” Mortimer remarked, hold out his
hand.

“
We’ve
seen it!” James answered.

“
This
castle may be in it!”

Mortimer took
it from him, and studied its contents.

It finally
became obvious that he did not see it, and he started flickering
through the pages.

Bryson felt
the warm air from the fire slowly surrounding them. It now felt
more like a proper library.

“
Well,
it’s a start.” Merton muttered. “There has to be more books like
it, and luckily there will be one that will be of use.”

Mortimer
nodded his head.

Mortimer
finally examined it on the table.

Bryson removed
the map that he had found in the book, and showed it to Mortimer,
telling him how he had found it.

Mortimer
carefully unfolded the tattered piece of paper on the table, as
they watched on, trying to see what it was.

“
Well,
what is it?” Merton asked, frustrated after waiting, watching him
examining it.

“
It’s an
old drawing of the castle.”

Merton took
it, and held it over the table.

He and Bryson
considered the faint lines for a moment. It was a map of the
interior – drawn by someone. Perhaps something someone visiting
might have drawn.

After some
consideration, Bryson was sure that it had not been made by Sir
Richard, and that he had not drawn it when he had inherited the
castle.

Yet he
realized that he might have put it in the book, and perhaps even
forgot about it.

He tried to
realize what he had been like. What had he actually been like
younger? And what had he thought of the castle?

There was a
chance that he might have stayed the way that he had been, in many
ways, and he might have always had a dream of hiding his money, and
had thoughts of it being a good idea, for some reason.

He might even
have obtained the idea of where it had been best to hide it from
his first searches of the castle. It could be more valuable to them
than Mortimer had assumed.

Merton
studied it from different angles, and became uninterested in it. He
obviously wanted to know why he was
so
interested it.

“
That
looks like a faded cross marking this library,” he
muttered.

Bryson viewed
it, with much interest, realizing that he had forgotten about it.
The library was older than he had thought. It even looked strangely
marked on it.

This
interested him, as he wondered where the original books had been
put. So far he had not seen any of them. He randomly searched
through the titles for them. But he only saw the books that Sir
Richard had put in it.

What did
he do with the original books – which must have been there? On the
other hand, he might have thrown them away
over the years
, especially if they had just been
unwanted books from the previous person.

Once he
spotted Merton had lost interest in it, he swiftly took it away
from the table, and put it in his pocket. He then pulled over the
book that it had been in, for a close look at it.

Chapter 24

The Treasure Hunters

Mortimer became
more interested in observing the room.

“
How do
you know that Sir Richard never invested his money in something?”
Mortimer suddenly remarked. “He could easily have concealed it
somewhere – without it being noticeable.”

“
Such as
that bottle of wine!” Sarah joked, and Bryson stopped piercing the
cork with the corkscrew, to smile back to her.

“
Bottles
of wine are not worth that much,” he joked, checking the label, and
continuing with the operation.

“
He was
a businessman ... You kept saying to us. Businessmen like investing
in things ... Perhaps there’s an item that he expected to grow
dramatically in value.”

“
Such as
one of the paintings,” Bryson commented, making them look at each
other.

“
What
about the paintings ...?” Mortimer muttered, turning around,
looking at the painting behind him. “Has anyone checked the value
of this one?”

“
We
would have noticed a valuable painting,” Bryson replied, taking the
glass of wine, and gently sipping it, to taste it first.

“
That’s
not that valuable,” Merton responded, remembering he had been
checking them. “They are all over the castle. They are mostly only
pictures of the estate.”

“
But
there may be one somewhere else ... Hidden!”

Bryson
considered the idea again. “You may be right – there may be – we
have not even been in some of the rooms yet. I cannot imagine any
of the furniture and antiques that I’ve seen being worth that much.
There would have been a serious risk of someone damaging it, not
realizing its value – or even future owners just discarding it. It
has to be something that would not have been damaged, and be in a
place where it would have been safe.”

“
That’s
could be correct,” Mortimer replied.

“
I think
that we should just continue to search objects about the castle as
we go along.”

“
Let’s
have another look in here ...” James replied.

Sarah lifted
part of the carpet, at the corner of the room. And James grabbed a
loose plank, and pulled it up. Then he placed it against the wall,
and used a torch to observe under the floorboards.

They removed
more, and examined the stone of the original floor under it, under
the thick layer of dirt and old pieces of building materials
accumulated there – mostly from when they had built the upper part
(built when they had installed the electricity into the
castle).

James tapped
the foundations, and original castle floor, trying to realize how
thick it was. It obviously was very thick and solid, like the
walls.