The Lost Treasure Map Series (18 page)

Psychics were supposed to be able to solve
crimes, but, as far as he was concerned, it was a crazy idea.

Yet the room was cold, colder than he
had ever felt it
–
almost making them shiver.

However, he doubted if he would be able to
detect any change in temperature, signifying a real presence,
especially with the slight breeze that kept appearing.

A slight click rhythmically interrupted the
outer silence, from a wooden clock at the fireplace.

The medium chanted like a witch doctor,
provoking the spirits.

Then she looked as though she changed her
mind, and she returned to what she had been originally doing. She
ignored them, but occasionally checked them.

She seemed to have some beliefs in her
powers. She was playing with them, with it as a party trick.

As she seemed to show that she had given up
attempting to do it for real, her face tensed, and she reacted,
showing she now felt the presence of someone.

Her acting then became worse than ever, and
he guessed what she could not do it.

For a moment, it annoyed him: her trying to
contact his dead uncle in such a fashion.

Even if they did it, would Sir Richard tell
them?

How absurd! How could anyone believe it?

He examined them again, considering how much
they believed it.

“
Have you any further details to help
us find the money?
”
Helen requested, making James temporary lose
control, with an ecstatic snigger.

“
You
’ll
find it,
”
the medium replied, with a smile,
making faces as though something were manipulating her mind.
“
You should search
where your heart takes you!
”

Everyone at the table looked either
confused or good-humored. It had been what they had been waiting to
hear
–
even
if it had turned to an absurd joke.

Bryson sniggered, seeing one of their
expressions.

Mortimer pointed to the door, now looking
satisfied. And Merton encouraged him to leave swiftly, and Bryson
followed them.

Robert stayed behind
–
with a bemused
smirk stuck on his face
–
with his eyes glued on the medium, waiting
to see if she would still do anything. But the medium now was doing
a comic act, bordering on the absurd
–
probably owing to her doing it for
so long, and enjoying that more.

She even looked as though she had done
it on stage. Parts of it resembled a stage act, which the public
wanted for amusement
–
instead of the real thing. She surely
considered herself as a form of fortune-teller.

Outside the room, Bryson listened to Merton
and Mortimer talking, and he wondered if they did believe that she
could do it.

“
Well, that was
close,
”
Bryson jokingly muttered, leading them to the library.
“
Think what could
have happened there, if that had worked ...
”

“
She had trouble!
”
Merton explained, thinking
deeply to himself.

“
Do you believe that it
works?
”
Bryson remarked, seeing the opportunity to acquire some more
information.

“
I did not know, when we went in
there! What about you?
”

“
I hadn
’t
seen it before
–
except on television. So I
could not fully believe or disbelieve it.
”

“
I have never fully checked it
either.
”

“
Perhaps we should! We could carry out
a proper regulated scientific experiment.
”

“
Doing what?
”

“
We could meet with her, after they
finish.
”

“
To do what?
”

“
We can invite her to visit that
room
–
later
–
tonight!
”

“
What will we do?
”

“
We can wait until the disturbance
occurs. Then we can take her there to hear it
–
to find out her opinion.
And we can carry out experiment, and have her contact
what
’s
there.
”

Mortimer glared at the floor, looking
slightly shocked, and he realized what his real beliefs were.

“
If she cannot do the task, it will
only prove that she cannot contact anything there after all. But,
on the other hand, you may have the chance to find out something,
if it really works, which you may never get another chance to
do.
”

“
I
’ll
ask her. However, I don
’t
really know what
she
’ll
pick
up!
”

Chapter 36

Beyond Their
Limitations

Bryson stood silently in the morning sun,
beaming through the window of the top floor corridor.

Robert left what he had been doing in a
room, and joined him.

They observed the people that James had
brought in to help with the search.

Their heavy voices mingled and altered.

“
They
’re
still sure that
there
’s
another structure out there
–
somewhere!
”

“
And I gather you want to look about
that wood!
”

Bryson was more surprised that they were
thinking along the same lines now.

It slightly alarmed him, and he tried not to
reply, before he had considered it more.

Even if it did sound insane.

“
We
’re
going out there ourselves, but
we
’re
going
to the tombs. They
’ve
set up some of their equipment out
there.
”

For a moment, Robert looked a little
surprised. Perhaps at the scientists checking their ancestral
graves.

Bryson thought of how insane it was: all of
them looking through that wood with that killer about. But was he
capable of killing them in groups?

“
We
don
’t
have much time left ... They
’ll
speed up the search
anyway.
”

Bryson spotted the spiritualist leaving the
castle, crouched in the back edge of a car, looking guilty of
something in particular.

He acknowledged that he should have
guessed the medium
’s
reactions, instead of imagining her as what
she had been portraying.

Merton had to persuade her to check the room
with cash, which she had insisted he immediately pay her before she
would go anywhere near it.

He had not believed that anyone could do
anything there by the time she had left.

Even though when she had started trying to
contact what had been there, it had deeply shaken him to see her
fall back onto the bed, violently shuddering, making the bed loudly
bounce, creak, and bang hard against the wall, as if something like
an epileptic fit had seized her.

It had soon become apparent that it had not
worked, and that she had decided just to act.

They had been too sleepy to explain anything
to her.

He had been wondering if she would have
believed it, if they had said what it had been. But he doubted it:
she would never have accepted it.

He disregarded the radiating light,
pulsating over his face from the sun.

He wondered what results other such
experiments would do.

They could find someone else, who to do it
correctly. Someone capable of giving them detailed accounts of it,
of which they might be able to find some clue to what was taking
place.

Perhaps they could find something that
could pick up such things
–
without the aid of humans.

He could imagine vast machines like giant
satellite discs receiving signals from the stars, monitoring
supernatural disturbances all about the universe.

The corridor, with its silence, became
noticeable, and he made slight reactions to it, thinking of what a
spiritualist might experience.

The brightness outside sucked his sight
away, vaguely blinding him, and he turned.

He pushed back the carpet with his shoe, and
properly viewed the full length of the floor.

He instinctively shook a floorboard, to
detect what condition it was in.

He decided not to check anything. He did not
want to start searching the rooms, as the others were doing. He was
sure that they were wasting their time. He would never have found
the library if he had just done that.

They should look in all the key places
first. And he would insist in trying to find it by other means,
when it was possible.

Chapter 37

The Search Party

People began emerging, and rushing about,
trying to search everywhere, like a club outing, organized for a
treasure hunt. Their apparent intentions, so it seemed, was to go
over the entire wood, in close formation.

Even though they had organized the
event together, they were furiously competing to find the
money
–
by
searching through the wood in their groups
–
with some people
surprisingly on their own.

The noise was strange, at an outstanding
level. Some of the people helping them had even gone out of their
way to find more people to help.

Bryson was sure that Robert, or most likely
James, had put an offer of a bonus figure for finding anything
leading to its discovery.

The emptiness was packed full of
action
–
with shouting, laughing, haggling, and arguing.

It was almost a shame to him that the wood
was full of such activity.

The scientists had rushed him away at
a tremendous pace
–
going straight to the vault
–
making sure that
they could not interfere with the delicate equipment.

The rooks sat bemused, listening and
observing, overwhelmed, with a hint of amusement. Their strange
chants and behavior echoed through the treetops, occasionally
making them flutter, and go up into the blue sky, in the golden
rays of the sun.

Two men emerged from the trees, closely
staring at them, studying their faces. But they were just making
sure that they were not any of the others, as they walked straight
across their path.

Their agile movements and speed surprised
Merton and Mortimer.

They would immediately carry out their
checks on the equipment at the vault, and return to the castle with
it.

But they also wished to search the wood.

Bryson
’s
hearing was now less sensitive in
the wood, listening to the loudness.

He now wished to acquire some of the knack
of the animals of the woods at surviving there, with a proper
perception of his surroundings, without it being impaired. He
thought of commandos, and survival specialists, handling jungle
terrain ...

It was really a matter of becoming
familiar with it
–
knowing where everything was and was like.
South American jungle tribesmen could easily detect a
person
’s
presence, deep within the undergrowth.

The rooks were almost useless to him
now.

He recalled legends that South American
tribes had about the spirits of the woods.

He heard faint familiar tones of
Robert
’s
voice, over to the side of them.

The visit to the castle could turn to a
disaster, and they might not be able to do anything about it. The
killer could be anywhere, out there in that tangle.

Yet there surely were too many people in the
wood.

It was risky, but there were advantages in
what they were doing. Before he had believed that it had not been
feasible to search the wood. Now he was sure that they were doing a
good job of it. He could hear some of them running through the
undergrowth, just behind them, and they were clearly covering
everything.

But another drawback was that they
would be leaving footprints everywhere
–
taking away one of their only
detection methods.

At the vault, Mortimer ignored everything
and rushed down to the tombs, imagining that he were within minutes
of saving the equipment; while Merton and Bryson slowly went to
where Merton had left the recorder, on the upper floor.

Nothing had moved, and there were no signs
of anything.

Bryson allowed Mortimer time to study the
stuff, while he observed Merton checking the machine. After he had
played around with it, making sure that it had been working
properly, he switched it on. But there had been nothing captured,
except for things such as their arrival, at least showing that it
had been functioning properly.