They examined small writing on the side of it but the stone had deteriorated and it was too dirty and dark and none of them could identify any of it.
Bryson took out a piece of paper and drew a vague plan of where they had traveled giving the exact angle and distance that they had walked from the entrance hole for him later to find where the tomb was actually under, and he realized there had to have been an entrance nearby as someone would not have taken such a bulky heavy object across any great distance. They were practical people, which he had proven in the last castle as well.
He searched around looking for it above and found a large slab entrance hidden in dirt on the above floor in front of the tomb.
“What’s that?” Mitchell asked, hardly seeing him, too busy trying to find clues on the object.
“I worked out that they had to have had a nearby entrance to get that down here ...” he replied, shoving the thin slab up and sideways, out of the way, and examined the floorboards over it and found that they were not nailed down there, but fixed together, and he carefully removed them and pushed the carpet over it up, ripping the areas of it up where it was nailed down.
Sunlight from outside beamed down through the above room through the entrance, lighting everything around them, and Mitchell’s men congratulated it and some of them left through the hole, and Bryson climbed out to see where it was and was surprised that it was over the central region, where it had been in the last castle.
He searched about for anything else but only found that it was faraway in the opposite direction than they had been searching in, and he climbed down to the tomb when they started to lift the lid off. Then he wondered who was buried there and why they had been placed there? And he gasped when he recalled all the disturbances and deaths that had occurred there?
“Who will it be?” Mitchell asked, astonished, looking at the tomb, seeing if Bryson had any idea.
“I do not know!” he replied, moving over to his side at the side of it, standing as though he were standing at the front of an altar, which amused Mitchell.
As they started to shove the thick slab covering the tomb onto the floor Bryson examined the writing on the tomb again and cleaned away as much dirt as he could by washing it in water, from a bottle he borrowed from one of the men, and he started to see vague outlines of the writing but could not fully understand it, and took photos of it to examine afterwards.
“Check that stuff later,” Mitchell moaned, amazed at the sight of the cover of the tomb moving from the tomb.
Something stopped the lid being shoved any further again and they gave it a quick heavy shove pushing it only slightly sideways, and it seemed fixed in position, and it needed much more force to shift it or the heavy block of stone would have to be lifted off it.
Before they lifted it one of the men from above climbed down with a crowbar and they used it to shift it sideways again, and as Bryson rested and the cover went over onto the ground his sight fell on a skeleton, and he wondered if any of them knew it might be one of his ancient ancestors, as it could very well have been a descendant or relative of William Randall, his ancestor, and why he had been at the other castle in the first place.
Chapter 19
The Ancient Tomb
Most of the words on the tomb were by all means to do with William Randall but words were missing and they were in riddles and were only comprehensible to someone who would have known the things that they suggested.
The skeleton had to be someone connected to William Randall or the original people at the castle, and it might be the only source of any information about the occurrences and treasure.
“Do you get any of it?” Mitchell pleaded, seeing him intensely examining the words on the tomb again, after he saw little in the tomb itself, and he had stayed watching him crouching in front of the tomb reading over what he could, trying to find something.
All of it was confused, and it was turning to a disappointment, and Bryson nodded in disagreement and stood up and ignored it.
Mitchell and he moved around looking baffled, as well as tired, and examined the skeleton again.
“What do you think they buried this here for?” Mitchell asked, probing, curious and looking for more.
Bryson rested and never replied and as he did his sight fell on the skeleton, and he wondered if he should react to having the privilege of encountering a great ancestor, and he saw that it had the same height as he had.
Traces on the skull showed that he had had similar looks too!
Mitchell grew annoyed and poked it, and it moved and shifted position and he saw something sparkle as it did, and Bryson stuck down his hand at where it was in a pile of dust in the center of the skeleton and he probed through its bones and felt an object, and he pulled it out.
“What do you think?” Mitchell asked, trying to see what was there.
He cleaned the dirt, which was encrusting most of it, and found that it was a large ring, and he started polishing it with a cotton handkerchief that he had in his pocket and revealed an expensive ancient large diamond gold ring, and he examined the diamond realizing that it had been it that had sparkled.
The large size of it was peculiar and he had not seen any normal ring that size before.
“Can I see it?” an archeologist asked, which one of Mitchell’s men had brought over, and he swiftly shifted in beside him, and put out his hand. “I’ve seen something like that before ...”
Bryson handed it over seeing that he knew something, and the archeologist twisted and unscrewed the area that held the diamond, and removed it from the ring.
“People concealed small objects in them,” the archeologist stated. “Just below the jewel!”
His fingers probed in it and he removed a small piece of paper!
Chapter 20
The Secret Map
He unfolded and stretched it out, perhaps done for the first time in hundreds of years, and someone shone a light over it and its details became clearer and some of the men grouped around him, and they examined it.
“It’s an old drawing of this castle,” Mitchell replied first, seeing something that confirmed his beliefs.
But Bryson realized that it was more than that and that it was an ancient plan of it from a side view, showing where something was, and he knew it because it was so important that the person had it hidden in the ring, and he had seen something similar in the other castle. It had far more detail, and more than what it had looked like when first seen, and it was an accurate map of the interior.
Bryson’s thoughts went wild and he wondered what they had been up to! The other castle was just a place haunted, but this place in places never made sense anywhere! What did they find? What were they doing here? And why were there so many secrets involved?
Mitchell took it, and held it over his light, and he and Bryson considered the faint lines for a moment. He tried to realize what he had been like. What had he actually been like? And what had he thought of the castle?
“Could be anything to do with the treasure?” one of the men finally asked, desperate for clues.
They examined it for clues to its identity, and why it was there!
It could be more valuable as assumed but on the other hand it could be anything! They studied it from different angles, until they started losing interest.
“That looks like a faded cross marking something?” the man that had asked if it could be anything to do with the treasure asked, pointing at a very faint cross that he had found.
Bryson was surprised that he had not seen it, and that the others never seemed to have noticed it.
“Where do you think that is?” the man finally muttered, like he knew where it was and wanted to confirm it.
“It’s on the top floor and surely not far from here!” Mitchell finally answered, seeing they were not coming out with anything. “So let’s go and have a check ...”
After a few seconds of examining it the others started climbing out, into the room above, and Bryson put i
t away in his pocket.
The ring was valuable and could well prove there was more, and showed they had wealth, which he had known already by the massive castles and estates, and last treasure they had found. Yet he could not work out why there would be two treasures!
As he climbed out he vaguely wondered how safe the castle structure itself really was, and if it was safe to be in, as it had been built by ancient craftsmen with only a basic knowledge. Who would know if they had only designed it to last a few decades at the most? Yet if it had stayed up the amount of time that it had it must be strong enough not to collapse! They could have easily built it to last! He had only seen castles with no roofs that were crumbling away, and he had never heard of one such as it falling. Yet he had heard of parts of modern structures collapsing!
As they walked along the corridor Bryson noticed some signs of value in paintings, and took photos of them. There could even be a connection between something in them and the clue!
Chapter 21
The Discovery
What Bryson was surprised at was how easily and firmly they had identified where the mark on the map was in the castle, and he had not even considered that it had been when they had arrived there!
The man who had found the mark on the map seemed to be the best at it, and they all looked at the rooms there.
As Bryson examined the best places to look he remembered the plan of the castle and removed it, and he started trying to see what the mark was at, and he suddenly noticed the man that had found the mark and Mitchell were measuring the floor in the corridor, outside the rooms, and he wondered what they were thinking.
The map looked different in the light from outside at a window, and he saw things that had not been recognizable before and it slightly surprised him, as he had expected it to have dulled lines and blemishes, especially because of its already bad condition and ancient age.
Bryson glared, partially blinded by a sudden illumination from the sun, and its powerful glare from the snow. Then when it decreased he saw more detail and faint lines that had faded and that had not been visible before, and he wondered if the others had seen stuff that he had not seen there, and why they never bothered asking to see it again?
He studied things on it astonished at missing them and saw where the exact location of the small cross mark was marked at the castle, even though it was so faint that he could easily have taken it to be a badly drawn mark or correction rubbed away.
Yet though he knew that it was something its size was not big – it looked too small to be significant – and it was not just a bad drawing as it had been carefully drawn there! And he considered why the person had gone to such lengths to draw it so well into the sketch, and wondered how the man in his tomb had died and what the person had been like, and why he had been buried there?
Bryson stood up and joined Mitchell and some of his men measuring the room, who took it that he knew what they knew.
Bryson gradually realized what he had missed and that there was a large distance between a room wall and the wall in the room next to it, and when he knocked the wall it did not sound as solid, and it was not as solid as the stone walls in the other rooms.
He was sure a small chamber existed there, and wondered why it had been hidden away, and why they had been so secretive and had marked it on an old map?
Nonetheless, how could they check it? Where could the entrance to it be? It could be sealed, but there could be a way to climb into it!
Bryson considered it for a moment and realized that was what Mitchell was considering, and he wondered if he would knock a hole in the wall of the room where the map cross had been marked? Their faces still some showed puzzlement, indicating that he had a problem and had not realized how best to get into it.
Bryson started tapping the room wall and listening to see how hollow it was in different places.
Mitchell decided to do more, suddenly looking more energetic!
“It would be a shame to ruin this wall,” Bryson explained, considering the hole that they had made in the floor to enter the chamber beneath the floor. “It could make a hell of a mess!”
The man who had found the mark on the map suddenly used the opportunity to show them what they were missing and went over to the corner of the room and lifted up the edges of the wallpaper, showing them that there was, in fact, a gap going around the entire wall, and looked like a large crack and was deliberately concealed.
“What do you think it is then?” Bryson asked, confused, not fully grasping what it was or what he was explaining it was.
“We’ll need to find a way to tug it out from the side at the door as the hinges are at the other side,” he replied, and Bryson shrugged and decided to wait for him to show him what he was talking about.
He went to different places of the wall examining the crack and inserted a tool into the gap, which allowed him to grip the wall and yank it slightly outwards, proving nothing was holding it, and Bryson recalled an inner library that they had found at the last castle, and realized that the wall was really a giant doorway concealing something behind it, and he helped the man pull it out, and soon realized that it opened out on hinges at the opposite side.
It opened out like a giant door revealing a hidden chamber full of old books and scrolls, and Mitchell’s men saw value in the books and the information they could hold, and Bryson wondered why the map had it marked on it and why someone would keep just books as a secret?
Chapter 22
The Police Investigation
A bright large fire burning furiously in the fireplace in the lounge enticed Bryson in and to a seat, where he intended to rest and go through all the things that they had found in detail, and he was sure he missing things and that he would realize them now, while resting on his own.
Yet as soon as he sat down three of the policemen marched in, and looked him over!
The heat from the fire made the central policeman’s eyes bulge out as they entered further in, making their way to the fireplace, and Bryson saw he was the policeman in charge there.
“So you’re Bryson!” he exclaimed, looking about him. “I’m Lieutenant Spelman. I’m in charge at the moment ...”
“Have you found anything?” Bryson asked, becoming interested, examining their official clothing, wondering what they would make of the disturbances there, and wondered if they had encountered anything or what they had heard and thought of it.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re at the top floor rooms,” he answered authoritatively.
“They’ll all be back down soon?” he asked.
“I don’t know when they’ll be down! But I’m sure most of them will be down soon ... It’s dark now! Have you found anything out about the death of the man in the kitchen?”
“Various things! But we don’t have the killer yet!”
“So have you found any fingerprints or DNA?”
“You’re one of the scientists here! This place is strange!”
“Strange? Stay here long enough and I’m sure you’ll never see anything as strange again!”
The policemen showed signs of confusion and surprise, but Bryson was sure that they had been informed of some of the things that had happened there or had already seen something. He was sure someone in the ex-military men with Mitchell had been telling them what had happened. It was also them that had called the police in and he was sure one of them also knew them.
In distance Bryson realized that there were noises of trouble, and action by the police, and he realized that something was happening, especially going by the reactions of the police in the room, and a policeman rushed in the door.
“We had him but he escaped!” he hollered, breathing faster. “We know where he went and two of our men are going after him!
“We were investigating the castle where his footprints were and we found him at the floor of a room. He escaped down a tunnel there!”
They followed him out and they rushed over to the room, and Brys
on sensed that he was going to be in danger of getting it!
At the side of the room the carpet had been rolled over, and the person had removed a hidden entrance to a tunnel and had escaped without covering it over, and Bryson heard scrambling movements and panic-stricken voices deep in it, where the police were clearly chasing the killer out towards the wood.
It was worse than he had imagined! More police were rushing in determined for action, and they were contacting the rest of the police force, and he now positively knew that they never knew of the dangers out there and that great danger was there! And yet if he told them, warned them, he not only knew that it would be a mistake, it could very well make things far worse.
He just did not know what to do and was too tired, and he hoped that Merton and Mortimer would appear and help prevent things escalating further.
Then he realized that they might be able to catch the man before he left the tunnel, and he thought he could either catch him or make them go faster, and he rushed into the tunnel with the others.
“That guy was sneaking around up there!” Bryson gasped, speaking to a policeman at his side.
“If he escapes we may never have a chance to get him again.”
“Let’s go as fast as we can!” Bryson announced, checking his watch.
He swiftly led them deeper into the tunnel, surprising them with how fast and experienced he was in going through tunnels.
He surely did not have that much of a head start! If they moved fast enough they might catch him in the wood.
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