I tried straining my eyes repeatedly to see further and to spot the features of anything new, and when I landed on the ground I pulled himself upright with the help of the rope, and released the rope’s tight grip against my body, and shivered at the coldness there, and realized how much I was on my own.
I cleaned dirt off my clothes and glanced at the rubble, and wondered what the outcome of our investigations would be and I realized the others were dramatically staring down at me, in the above torchlight.
There really was only one object in the chamber that I saw and I was surprised at the actual size of it, as it had seemed far smaller above, and I strode over to it, examining it, at different angles, checking if it was connected to something, and perhaps some form of equipment, and considered if it could have something like a generator leading to it, and considered what it was used for, and I realized the chamber and it had to be there for a good reason.
Once at it I dreamily wandered about it and touched its black surface, which I was sure had to be metal, and I started examining it in detail and I was staggered to feel a form of energy pulsating through it, which I sensed had far more magnitude than it felt, and I wondered what the hell it was as it looked as though it belonged to the military, and I shined my torch up close and over it while I marched around it, and I slowly realized how much it was a perfectly symmetrical black sphere.
Chapter 24
Marple Arrives
I sensed there was something that they were not saying, but I knew I only needed to wait for them to tell me, but I kept wondering repeatedly if we were in danger and tried to grasp it, and what I needed to know.
I was glad to see Marple arrive later in the evening, after we had spent hours searching the cavity, and documenting everything we could, and getting some sleep.
Nobody but a few archeologists and scientists wanted to leave there and miss anything, and any discoveries, at such a crucial moment, but I was surprised that little was found after all, and could not fully believe it, and still waited.
Marple’s appearance was magnificent and I questioned him on how he had known and he told me he had not until he arrived at the top of the shaft, where the scientists there had told him.
The scientists kept consulting each other and still came up with little, as there was no proof of anything, and the black sphere object remained a mystery, and they had little on it, and what it was doing there, and they monitored it with everything they had trying to discover what it was doing, and found virtually nothing, and some thought it was being controlled from somewhere else!
With the war most thought it was some form of colossal weapon, atom bomb, or surveillance device, which might have been recently partially awoken, and made ready for use.
“It could be highly classified!” I announced to Marple and Oswald. “We’re still just playing around ...”
“But if it is a bomb and is going to be used we could move it away!” Marple stated.
“Who would put a bomb under a hospital?” I replied.
“We’re best not revealing it anywhere unless we have to!” Marple replied.
Fluctuations occasional shuddered through the stone ground from it as it had some form of power surge, threatening to do something, and I imagined my remains being found days later scattered everywhere as investigators tried to fit together information and try to explain what occurred.
It surprised me that Marple was the only one that seemed to not have considered there was anything unearthly about it.
He seemed to be holding back doing something, and checking something out, and what we thought of things and I knew he had come to the hospital for some reason.
When the others were getting some rest or eating, he started examining the cavity further, in more detail, and eventually me and Oswald helped him.
“You agree that the stairs above the cavity go in a straight course forward, and the cavity cut it off, and it fell down …?” he asked me.
I nodded, wondering what he meant, and I watched his eyes go on a point directly ahead, where he briskly went to, and Oswald watched him and followed him, and I went after him.
At the place he went he carefully examined it, and a heap of stones where part of the cavity had collapsed over, and started removing rocks and throwing them away to his side, and Oswald and I eventually joined in throwing rocks and dirt away from the spot, and Marple finally found a hole, and increased the size of it.
“What’s that?” I finally asked, curiously, wondering what he wanted there.
“The above stone steps and tunnel continued in a straight line, and they must have gone somewhere, where someone removed them and created the cavity, and cut and allowed a small part of the stairs remaining there to fall …”
I tiredly thought it over, and wondered what he thought was there, and followed him in the hole with his light, and I started to see the steps and tunnel, and I wondered where they had been going to after all, and I considered if someone had put the cavity there to hide something further along, and I kept thinking it over, wondering what we were searching for.
Yet, after a long time, I still had no idea what we were going after, and I realized what we had found could be nothing compared to what was ahead!
Yet why did Marple not think there was anything dangerous, and why was he so desperate to get there, and make sure nobody else came with us.
Chapter 25
The End of the Tunnel
The white radiance off Marple’s torch slowly shifted to specific calculated positions, probing its way into the abyss ahead, scattering beams through clouds of silky dust our feet blew up; and occasionally stuck deep in my lungs, causing me to give short sharp convulsions, and I continued on going, inhaling enough air.
Faint echoes of our breathing could be heard in our shuffling movements and in the deep silence of the thick underground walls, and I felt the coldness of the walls and it penetrate my limbs; while uniformly marching along, into obscurity, with expectations of plunging into something.
It had been incredible when the tunnel had stopped going downwards and had gone in a straight line in another course, and Marple had told me we were going back under the hospital, far below the ground, and I sensed we never had far to go until we reached our final destination.
Glimpses of Marple’s darkened crouched figure in the illuminating light over the walls wavered rhythmically as he investigated the tunnel, and it fluctuated and Oswald reacted behind me and I followed his eyes to where Marple’s eyes had suddenly gone, and I gasped, and I once saw both of them were gasping, and I realized it was something, and then realized it was the end of our adventure and exploration, and I was left disappointed as I really thought we were going to discover something incredible.
The entire tunnel had collapsed in and we could go no further along, and we had reached our final destination and had not found out what had been there, and I realized the mystery could be left there forever without us knowing what was there.
The rubble blocking the tunnel was too deep down and giant boulders there too immense to move, and were firmly fitted together, and we stood saying nothing, and I watched Marple make some calculations, and check what he had.
By his reactions I sensed that he was up to something, and I knew we were located near the hospital, and realized that we must be deep under Battlefield Road, and I was sure that the builders of the tunnel might not have been able to build it properly in the above ground, without using wood or metal to properly hold it up, as it was surely soil.
It was strange, as we walked back up, I kept sensing Marple had a plan, or was making a plan, and was not saying anything at the moment, but I could not quite grasp what, and why the hell someone wanted what was there to be there, and had gone to such lengths to put it there.
Chapter 26
The Treasure Discovery
Marple rushed into his seat with a drink as I entered the headquarters of Reality Investigations and sat beside him next to the fireplace, and watched hi
m go through a pile of documents.
It was incredible! Marple looked more confident than I had ever seen him, and he wanted me there to tell me about his search for the treasure, and I knew he had to have something! He also told me his investigation of the serial killer had progressed and could reach a conclusion soon, and he left that without any further explanation, or anything really, and he was extremely happy how things were going, and that he could solve the unsolvable case.
Marple studied me, and asked, “Has anything happened at the house at Craigmillar Road?”
“Nothing!”
“Have you been there lately?”
“Nobody has been there since the paranormal scientists found the disturbances at the hospital and moved all their equipment over there!”
“I want you to take them there again, and investigate it again!”
I looked up startled wondering what he wanted there, and I considered if they would go there, as we finished our investigations there as far as I was concerned.
“What for?” I muttered.
“I have had someone contact them and they agreed to take the exploration association scientists and their equipment there to scan the building …”
I was left confused, and wondered what would happen, as what was there had reacted to the metal detector and I wondered what it would react to the stuff they had, and I had just about lost all the powers I had after my last confrontation in the hospital shaft, and I did not like it, as I had not found any real use for it, and the powers had only created problems for me as far as I was concerned, as I had no real control of what it could do, and I was not so sure they were even mine as they seemed to do things for something else, which I was not sure I knew what.
It was incredible as the two paranormal scientists became fascinated with the occurrence at the woman’s house again and they wanted to carry out a proper investigation of what was there, and they had grown tired of their investigation of the cavity and the hospital and I was left confused as to what they had found, or thought they had found, and realized there was little that would be recorded in the history books from the occurrence after all, even though they were still investigating the black sphere in the cavity.
After all that here was no sign of proof of anything, which the public would accept. Was it a new form haunting, of paranormal? And if so what the hell was happening?
Even though the site at that region had been the site of a large famous battle, and massacre that could have caused such an occurrence, of which the bodies could well be below the region, I could not grasp what.
We investigated everything we could, and all the information and history of the region, trying to grasp something, and some clue, and the main regions of the battle that had occurred, and at Battlefield Road, where the tunnel had gone.
“What’s that?” I asked, seeing Marple play happily with documents, inside an envelope.
For a few seconds his face held a sad expression and he considered the occurrences and his investigations.
He finally replied, “The late Dr Barrymore …”
“He died!” I gasped, and wondered if it really was the end of the investigation for the treasure.
“Sadly so! I think we should find what he was looking for anyway, as he wanted it very much … His wife can have her share of it if we find it, and he will be remembered for the discovery …”
“That’s perfect!” I replied, wondering why he was so confident now, after so many people throughout history were unsuccessful.
“From my questioning of his wife I found Dr Barrymore found the treasure from an accumulation of sources, which surely grasped his imagination with the mentions of the strange magical artifact, which was mentioned like the Holy Grail …”
I gasped at what he had said and knew he never believed in such magical things, and I considered what he meant.
“He was obsessed with its magical powers …” he continued. “Which I believed he never really thought existed … He never had the map he gave us examined any further as it was too valuable to him … I did though … And I had it investigated by a friend … Who had it investigated further and managed to reveal faded landscape shapes, before it had faded … From 1568 … Which was why I was at the hospital …”
“What the treasure was marked there …?” I asked, surprised.
“I also knew the archaeologists and scientists were investigating there … I believe the person that drew the map was being chased – and being chased by soldiers – and hid it …
He grabbed his pipe off the table and began smoking.
“Who could have chased him?” I asked.
“It was dated 1568! Mary Queen of Scots had a battle there, and I believe it was her valuable jewels. The royal jewels of a famous queen! I think she was visiting someone at the site, and had even taken her jewels there, as perhaps her enemies were after her and the jewels, and she gave them to someone there … To perhaps keep for her … The person must have been a good friend, and perhaps a soldier, and had either been seen taking them or was just chased by the other soldiers there …”
“So there are incredible valuable and historical jewels hidden somewhere … Do you believe they’re under the hospital?”
“At first I thought it could be there! There were two marks!”
“What about all the tunnels and the cavity …”
“That is something else! It is far more advanced technology, and it was all recently built …”
“What happened next?”
“I think someone took the jewels off him! And he could have died! Or at a slightly later time used the map to find them and move them to another safer location nearby … Where he had intended to get them!”
“Was there another mark on the treasure map?” I gasped, and stared at him intensely.
“I think the person, surely a relative, in fear of his life, took them to the safest place he knew, and marked it on the map, with different writing, in a different style, which faded, and he hid it somewhere near the house you were investigating, with the supposed haunting …”
“As the place is marked about there?”
“Correct! Which is why I want your paranormal scientists to investigate there! You’ll need the archeologists ...”
Chapter 27
The Killer
At a lane between two buildings we rested against a wall waiting for the killer, who was predicted to arrive by Marple, and he stood puffing away at his pipe, now tired of it, predicting the killer’s arrival, and I wondered how he knew he would arrive, and at that time, but he would not tell me, and I gasped when I saw someone pass a house window going somewhere, and thought of hiding, but Marple ignored it.
Although, a few minutes later, he jumped upright, as he spotted something, fully alert, and scrambling movements and panic-stricken curses came from the house we were monitoring, a house across a road at the end of the lane, and in the darkness of the lane we watched a dark figure rush out the building, and enter another lane beside the house, and the police came racing out of their cars and started chasing him.
As we ran after them, keen to catch and discover the identity of the killer, a man rushed out the house he had been in, shaken and holding a handgun, and saw he was gone and put it away inside.
I could not believe how accurate Marple had predicted the killer’s attack at the house, and I realized the killer might be getting away, and that we might not get the chance to catch him again, and I watched Marple and the others realize it and run after him, and I ran with them, as more and more police cars came racing in everywhere, with their sirens blaring at full blast.
The police clearly believed that they were chasing the killer, and I realized where he was heading, and towards a nearby cemetery, and I saw his dark shape in the distance rushing there, as other figures shifted towards him.
At another street Marple told a policeman getting out a police car that the killer was going to arrive a the other side of the cemetery, and he rushed back in his
vehicle, and we rushed up to the vehicle and he let us in the back seat, and it raced away.
At the other side of the cemetery there were blue lights flashing everywhere and it was lighting the cemetery up, and we looked everywhere for him, and for who had been chasing him, and the vehicles that had arrived there first, and saw that they did not know where he had gone.
He surely had not entered the cemetery and had taken another route beside it, where nobody would have seen where he had gone, and their faces started to look frantic and worried, and they decided to search all the buildings, and as I followed Marple to a nearby building I suddenly recognized it, and it was the back of the Home Guard building where I was a soldier at, where I had joined up, and I was surprised to spot a light flash on inside, and I realized it was from a torch, and I knew the killer had a torch, and I told Marple.
It was worse than I had imagined, as I knew we would be confronting him indoors, instead of the police making a quick outside arrest, and I watched Marple get the police, and they all started silently rushing about outside, getting into hiding places, and two were in the cars, contacting the rest of the police.
I wondered what the motive was, and if it was valuable jewels or he had been doing something else.
My eyes stayed on the place the light had appeared, searching for him, waiting for him, to take a quick look out, or attempt to attack us or escape, and I realized that the police had entirely surrounded the building and that we had him, and I guessed he never knew where we were.
When a policeman started going to a door I decided to join him, as I knew the layout of the inside of the building, and as I approached him Marple followed me there, and I considered all the options open to us. I then realized that the policeman had something to unlock the door, and silently opened it up, and we slowly climbed in, and heard him inside a room.
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