It was freezing, and the visible landscape was a mess of wild vegetation and trees.
What he saw of the dark shape of the building was heavenly and deadly and he wondered why everything was such a mess, and he realized that Howard Eisenberg could not stayed there and he wondered why he had bought such place.
At the door he knocked when he saw it never had a doorbell and eventually he removed the keys he got and tried them until he found one that fitted the lock and swiftly entered it, and realized he had finally visited the place and he started to explore what he could see in the darkness, and he realized how ancient the place was, but had new things added to it and he felt deep satisfaction to discover it actually had a light and hunted down the light switch.
Once the light was on he stood dazzled trying to get why Howard Eisenberg bought such a place, as nothing added up, and wondered if he had bought and got stuck with it many years ago, before he got his empire.
As he wandered about he swiped away webs going across corridors and doorways, and he found what looked like a living room and switched on the light and sat on an ancient form of sofa, which creaked and cracked up one side, and he sat back with a sad expression staring an ancient painting over the fireplace, covered in dust and webs, and he studied the figure in the portrait with some amazement and gasped when he saw the eyes, and gasped at the age of it and rushed over to see it up close.
It looked so ancient, and centuries old, and the person wore clothes from centuries ago, and he knew the person had to be a distinguished nobleman of wealth and power.
He studied his sword he had at his waist and saw marks he was sure were bloodstains, and sat back down considering if it was from some war.
The place looked altered from a far earlier structure and had been repaired and altered and he wondered if it had a high value to collectors, and he realized that he now wanted more than ever to discover the treasure chest Howard Eisenberg had hidden away, and he sat back contemplating everything he could, and the clue they found in the giant stone skull at the lake, which was: In The Oldest Grave.
He was sure none of them knew what the clue meant or anything, and that it was too vague, but he was sure they thought they would find it because of its simplicity and their detection methods were improving, and he was sure they were searching on their own again in an attempt to get it for themselves, and even Kurt seemed to be up to something.
He had been searching graves all over the place for days, and started to doubt he would get it again!
He decided to find somewhere to sleep in the building, even though it was not late, and he wondered what the place would be like at midnight, and decided to properly check the place out in the morning, and try and find a way of selling the place, and as he looked about he spotted an ancient staircase along the corridor and as he marched over to it he decided to try and get the lawyer to show the old video over again, as he had done earlier in his career, as a private investigator, and he would try and film the video if he could not get a copy of it, as he was sure there would be things in it that he had not noticed, and he also wanted to question the lawyer about Howard Eisenberg, and especially about what he thought he had been doing, and he was also sure he might be able to make a deal with him and get the location of the treasure chest.
Chapter 5
The Morning
Eisenberg woke early and left to go back to New York and was walking up the road when he turned and saw the full size of the mansion, and was staggered, as it was colossal, and he started to realize its true value, and was left confused as he had no idea of how such an ancient structure could be built like it and realized most of it had been built in more modern times and made to look like the original structure.
What fascinated him was him sleeping there thinking its size and value was far less, and it was colossal, and he was sure it had a value as a historical building. Yet he could not explain how it could be there, and be the age it seemed, and why it had been built there, and all he saw in the surrounding landscape was a river behind it, which would have been there for the occupants.
Eisenberg rubbed his hands and shoved them deep into the pockets of his thick jacket, and was sure it was colder there than it was in the city, and wondered if he could sell the thing as he could not imagine living in it, and wondered again why Howard Eisenberg wanted it and realized it had to be worth something, but why had he not sold it.
It was like some form of entity and hideous, as he walked back to it, and walked around it, and at times he was sure it had deadly things behind its black windows, and cursed Howard Eisenberg.
The sun faintly shone over it and through gaps in the thick walls, and through windows, casting long shadows from the trees over it, and he was sure it resembled some form of castle.
He studied distant clearings in the surrounding wood, in the mess of vegetation, and saw structures, and at a higher point at its side he saw there was empty land further out, and he shifted along to the nearby river, and realized he may have picked up the structures identity wrongly and that it could be a vast country mansion built for someone that wanted away from city life, where there was isolation and desolate wilderness.
Though size and amount of rooms was astonishing and he realized it must have been for a lot of people and servants at one point, and he wondered what sort of life his uncle had led and what people he had known.
What amazed him was he still did know what to do with it and what it was worth, and he returned to the front of it, and entered the trees, going through the wood surrounding it, considering it, going towards a structure he saw.
The words of the clue echoed through his mind, as it had done before he had arrived there, and he had almost done in his sleep, and he suddenly recalled a strange dream he had entered in the mansion of him dreamily going through strange graves, and as he recalled things he watched the structure he was walking to emerge across his front.
He rhythmically crunched through layers of branches and thought of it as a type of mansion pavilion and saw columns of stone going about it like a Greek temple and at the other side he spotted gravestones, and small ancient graveyard, and he walked over to the nearest graves, curious of what was written on them.
Chapter 6
The Ancient Graveyard
The words carved into the stone of one of the large gravestones left Eisenberg staggered and searching the surrounding landscape for signs of anyone, and he searched areas of mud and for signs humans had recently been there, and he read the words over again and realized that he had to be imagining what he thought and that it was just an amazing coincidence.
Suddenly he stepped back, and gasped, positive the words on it were certainly the clue, but he could not grasp what they were doing there, in a small graveyard out in the middle of nowhere.
The words In The Oldest Grave were the only words on the grave, and he stood hypnotized by it, and realized he was tired from marching through the vegetation, and calmed himself down, and thought what it meant and gasped when he thought of the only thing he could do was search the grave, and wondered who the hell had a grave with those words on it, without a name.
When he thought of the money and the businesses he realized he needed to check it as he could not let it go, as he would be the only one to answer it and be able to move on in the treasure hunt, and surely solve the other answers someday, which he surely would do by some means.
He had the right to do it as the property and graves belonged to him, and he wondered what the hell Howard Eisenberg had been up to, and if he had been there and supervised it being put there.
For a long time he strolled around in the morning sunshine examining other graves and words engraved on them, and proved it was the only abnormal grave there, and he checked the mansion structure through the trees, and finally returned to it with an old spade he found near it and started digging it up, while he watched strange crows watching him from the trees.
Though the words were there he could not grasp what they
meant, as it clearly was not the oldest grave, and his mind was keyed into trying to decipher them as a clue, and he thought they perhaps were in a riddle only comprehensible to someone else.
What had surprised him about the graves was the amount of them for one building, and he decided to check the place out and check libraries, and as he dug away at the ground of the grave, throwing the soil in a pile nearby, where he could quickly return it back after he got what he wanted, he wondered if any of the graves belonged to his ancestors, and if not who had they been.
Who did Howard Eisenberg buy the place off and why? Why the hell did he want the place? Was it just an early business deal? Did he overestimate the value?
It was incredible as he had been sitting inside the mansion on the previous night trying to figure where it had been and how to get what he had been looking for, and it had been sitting out in the grounds of the mansion.
He realized that Howard Eisenberg must have thought he would find it eventually! He realized that the game of solving the clues and his treasure hunt was designed not to be answered in a few days, as he had made out, but over a long time, and that they were lucky in discovering the small lake, which had not even been marked down on many maps for some reason, and he was sure they had been really lucky.
The soil was hard and had surely not been put there in a long time, and he recalled how old the video of Howard Eisenberg had been, and he was sure it could have been from then.
Howard Eisenberg did everything for a reason and he could not grasp what the hell he was up to, and why he originally wanted it done, and if he changed and forgot about the video and plan.
There were things on the other graves and suggestions of war, and the civil war, and the usual things, and the grave and its strange wording was all that was different, and as he dug faster and harder into the ground he wondered if it was talking about the other graves and was mentioning a grave that was older, and perhaps not marked or known as such, which someone else knew the location of and the grave was put there to indicate its existence for some reason, or had Howard Eisenberg seen the grave and remembered it and had used it for some reason.
The graveyard was ghostly beside such a building, and he watched the building glow in the sunlight, through the trees – and watched crows sitting on branches sleepily watching.
He slowly became exhausted and thought of climbing out the hole, and was about to rest, when the shovel hit solid wood, and he immediately started cleaning muck away from it, and banged it hard with the shovel and heard it was hollow, and the grave.
While he rested he saw it was a normal old grave, and he heard a distant noise and saw a crow react and followed its gaze to a strange black shape away in the distance, and saw that it was just a dark tree.
When he removed all the muck from the coffin he started shoving the thick wooden cover off, and something stopped the lid being shoved any further, and he spotted the edge of a boulder sticking out blocking it and he gave it a quick heavy shove and pushed it away, and shifted it away, and lifted the lid off the coffin and threw it over to the side, and rested.
In its dark interior he tiredly examined an old dried out object and realized it was part of a tree trunk, and he sat back wondering what it was doing there, and thought of the trouble he would have filling the grave back in and wondered if he would end up staying another night at the mansion, and realized he had little food left, and spotted a tube of translucent plastic buried away in the coffin and grabbed it, astonished at seeing such a modern looking object there, and spotted a rolled up piece of parchment in its interior.
Chapter 7
The Third Clue
Eisenberg stood confounded, examining the piece of paper, which he had rolled out, from the translucent tube, with his eyes fixed on the words on it: Third Clue: The Treasure Map.
Suddenly he spotted a dark shadow over the grave and looked up startled and saw and man standing over him, looking down into the grave, just staring.
In seconds he saw a way to climb fast out the hole, and watched the man shift and hold something out, and he tried to identify it, and for a few seconds thought it was a gun.
“Well, where do you want it?” the man moaned.
He stared up at him and it and saw it was a brown box and he did not know why but he just reached up and took it, and instantly realized it was a parcel with his name on it, and the man introduced himself as his postman, and Eisenberg climbed out.
“You’re the postman?” he replied.
“You were not in, and I needed a signature and heard you over here at work …”
He signed for it and watched the postal worker march away into the trees, over to the mansion, where he saw his distant van.
What was incredible was he did not know what to be the most surprised at! The clue and finding it there, or the postman and the parcel with his name on it, and he shifted over to the old structure at the side of the graveyard and sat in a seat.
He had found the clue, and realized the man never seen it from where he was, and realized he could have recognized him from the newspapers, and their treasure hunt, and he considered the parcel with surprise, wondering what the hell it was and who knew he was there, and recalled he had not purchased anything or could think of anything that could be sent to him.
Even though he had found the third clue he realized how hard it would be solving what it was, and did not know what to do about the others as they would be searching for the third clue for the rest of their lives if he never found it and never told them of it, and he realized that Kurt would never forgive him, and he just could not realize how to solve it, as he had been lucky so far.
He tiredly looked at the box as he started filling the grave hole with the soil and when he finished he covered it over with grass and branches until it looked the same and he sat down and opened the parcel, totally confused of its origins.
Chapter 8
The Mysterious Parcel
Eisenberg sat in the back of the taxi cab as it returned to New York confounded at the occurrences that had occurred and sensed he was missing far more than he thought, and what was to come, and knew he would not grasp what, and continued examining the folded documents that were in the parcel the postman gave him.
He realized who had sent the parcel and that the documents were from Howard Eisenberg’s lawyer and he found a note written on one document from the lawyer explaining the documents and that they came with the mansion, and gave historical accounts and a brief history of it.
He was surprised it was built far later than he estimated, and he could hardly believe it, and discovered it was built from large sections from another far older building, and he wondered why there was nothing on the original building, and in the end realized that there could easily be nothing on it, and the era it came from, and he was delighted to find plans of the building’s interior, with vaguely drawn maps of each floor, and the rooms and corridors.
What was incredible was his thoughts of it had altered greatly from what he had found there on the previous night, and he realized the amount of land he owned, from a map and a document, and that it went out for miles about it, and he knew it was desolate, and felt happy that the mail was being delivered there, and that there was a nearby small town only a few miles along the road marked on it.
He was sure he could get Howard Eisenberg’s lawyer to show the video over again and he looked through the map of the building for where he thought he saw a phone marked on it, and examined it when he found it, and went over it searching corridors until he found how to get to it, and was staggered when he recalled the mess the place was in, and how long the place had not been used for.
He considered what to do about finding the third clue and did not want to give it away until he was positive of the outcome, and he would never forgive himself if one of the others got the answer to the clue and found the treasure and he was sure if such an occurrence was going to happen he could make some deal before giving it away.
He
had to search everywhere he could first and give it to them as a last resort, and he had to get a copy of the video or get to see it again as he was sure he could find something on it, or something he had forgotten, and an explanation of what was occurring and a suggestion of why the clue was in the grave.
Chapter 9
The Video Replay
Eisenberg rested up against the window of Howard Eisenberg’s lawyer’s office and silently watched the New York traffic rush by below and he shivered when he felt the coldness from the window on his back, and he turned and kept his eyes fixed on the room not wishing to miss anything, as the lawyer rushed into the room.
Eisenberg eventually gasped when the lawyer stopped in front of him with a strange sad expression, and a glint of amusement emerged on his face and Eisenberg realized his uncle could have done something to them, and he watched the lawyer anxiously go and get the old video out of a box, and immediately showed it to him, rotating it, and Eisenberg rushed over into a seat when someone arrived with the video player television, and gently fitted the video into it.
The picture showed Howard Eisenberg in his office by himself, looking like a hawk lurking over his large desk, smoking a large smoking cigar, and Eisenberg convulsed recalling the last one he smoked, and started studying everything Howard Eisenberg did, in far greater detail, and when the lawyer left the room he shifted right up to the screen.
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