The Lost Treasure Map Series (3 page)

He yelled through the crack.

The startled features of the butler emerged
next to it. Then his hands felt the wall.

“
Where are you?
”

“
We are in a
passage!
”

Robert shoved the heavy mass with his
shoulder, making the crack creak and widen.

The brightness from a window beamed out, and
they entered the storeroom, at the back of the kitchen.

Someone had made the entrance out of castle
stones (put together to hide it). The large cracks between the
other bricks hid its shape well!

Chapter 5

Ghost Psychology

The bedroom
still seemed the same, with just the bed remaining there. The
psychic research equipment was all over it, everywhere, and they
speedily were monitoring it.

The night sky
did not seem as dark with heavy snow floating about in it. The
faint tread mark of a car was below, under a layer of snow. And the
wood remained silent and lifeless.

“
Someone
seems to have a deep interest in your movements!” Mortimer
muttered, at the doorway, glancing sideways, along the
corridor.

Bryson knew
that it had to be either Robert or James, over at the rooms. But
James had been watching everyone! He looked the type that followed
his orders to the word.

Bryson
examined their thermometers carefully placed at the wall. It was
just less than fourteen degrees centigrade. He estimated that the
temperature outside was just below freezing point.

“
What
are the thermometers for?” he asked, for something to say, and to
see if he could find out anything, which he did not already know.
They were more silent than they normally were.

“
Where
there have been some manifestations, there have been drops in
temperature – discovered before and during occurrences. Although I
have never proven to myself that it happens.”

“
It
would be a good way of detecting if there is something near you!”
he replied. “So the room should
theoretically
feel cold before it!”

Bryson looked
about the room. Most of the equipment was on loan. And, according
to Merton, was being used in the field for the first time. (They
would be carrying out tests and experiments with the equipment to
test its capabilities, which could not be properly done in a
research laboratory.)

Some of it he
recognized from the work that he had done in the laboratory. In
fact, he was sure that he had helped in the making of some of their
components.

They would be
checking for virtually all known forms of energy and matter
disturbances (perhaps, if it was possible, fluctuations in time).
Presumable if it could alter temperatures and produce all the
effects that he had heard could be done, it could produce effects
with air currents, gravity, magnetic fields, radioactivity, scent,
sound waves, static, and the light spectrum. Most of the equipment
was there to check everything in a degree that had not been done
before!

“
Why
have you so many recorders along here?”

“
We’re
trying to capture the best recording that we can, from here, as
well as in the room behind the wall.”

Bryson moved
over to a different device. “Is this to detect vibrations?”

“
Of
course, and we’ve machines here that we’ll use to check the
different sound frequencies, to show us the exact sounds that are
occurring, and what we are unable to hear. This information will be
vital. We may be able to acquire some type of insight into what is
happening here, with the right information.”

“
Have
you any of your equipment in the room
below
?”

Mortimer
strangely glared at him. “Why would you want to put anything down
there?”

“
To find
out if there are any sounds there! And, if there are sounds, if
they are louder or less louder than here. It may help to locate the
exact position that the sounds are emerging from.”

“
That
may be a good idea,” Merton replied. “But do you think that it
could be occurring there ...? This room surely had the loudest
sounds!”

“
I’ve a
few ideas, which I would like to check.”

Mortimer
moaned: “We wanted to get the right places.”

“
We can
carry out your experiment tomorrow!”

Bryson picked
up a glass, off the table, and poured some water into it. “That is
perfect! What type of camera are you using over there?”

“
That is
a video camera to film our experiments. It’s the best we could get,
in case anything becomes visible. That one next to it is an
infrared camera ...”

Bryson began
to leave. He was getting tired, and he needed the sleep. He
silently tried to quench his thirst.

“
Do you
consider that it will capture anything?”

“
Probably not ...!” Merton quickly replied.

Chapter 6

Spiritual Manifestation

Mist shifted
about, beneath him, lingering in distant places.

A whisper came
from an unseen place.

Radiant rays
shone down, from a powerful light in the sky, which neither was the
sun nor the moon. Its lunar-like radiance was visible
everywhere.

The sky was
golden in regions; lights twinkled through thick areas of mist on
the horizon. A bright light suddenly appeared, deep in the vapor.
It oscillated, and intensified.

A face emerged
out of the mist, over its light. It resembled Sir Richard. It was
somehow different, and put there by his mind, perhaps trying to
control the dream.

A gurgle came
from somewhere. He sensed the presence of many mysterious things,
which existed about him.

The deep
groans of something came from the edge of what he saw. Powerful
movements rapidly brought it close.

A creature
shape, in a mass of red energy, floated through the mist, towards
him ...

A loud screech
ripped through him! Its unbelievable loudness making him conscious,
and open his eyes wide.

The deep
blackness of the room completely blinded him; and he stayed where
he was, breathing silently.

In the
blackness, at the end of his bed, something edged out, and he
waited, stunned, for whatever was there to hit him hard.

Chapter 7

Psychic Experiments

Bryson’s anger
faded with every stride he took through the empty corridor, heading
towards the stairs.

He would
always remember that creature’s red features, glaring at him from
the end of the bed, out of the blackness of the place, before it
had vanished, after him virtually dying in disbelief.

Of course, the
psychic researchers had only believed in what they had encountered
(and preferably at night).

His thoughts
turned to their hunt for the money.

The others had
been constantly surprising him with their determination to find it.
They had branched out, from the few rooms that they were searching,
and they were now searching almost everywhere, in the same rigorous
way.

They had even
persuaded the servants and lawyer to help them. The lawyer had been
going to leave, but they had persuaded him to stay around,
especially to give them any advice, whenever they required it.

A few people,
who he had never seen before, were roaming about, behind him
somewhere, going in the direction that he went in.

Their sounds
faded into the distance, when he arrived at the room where the
psychic investigators were in.

It surprised
him how long they had spent in the room.

Mortimer was
still checking the equipment, but he stopped, and watched him enter
from the corner of his eyes.

“
Well,
what did you discover?” he asked, settling down.

“
We
found a great deal!” Merton replied frankly, coming away from the
window, where he was standing, glaring at the snow shrouding the
landscape.

“
But no
break through ...?”

“
No
proper leads ...”

Bryson walked
over to a digital thermometer, and tapped it, seeing if it would
change. It then adjusted slightly to his body heat.

“
Did the
temperature change when
it
took
place?”

“
Those
thermometers were not accurate enough to detect anything,”
Mortimer answered.

“
Did you
capture anything with the cameras?”

“
Psychic
energy appeared all over these rooms, from many locations
...

“
But we
never saw anything, anywhere, and there’s nothing on the cameras. I
don’t believe that it will be visible! We had to have recorded what
must be the most advanced and highest degrees of psychic
fluctuations so far discovered. If we could come up with a
way to get visible pictures, and it recorded ...
”

“
Will
you be checking the room below? We can establish that its nucleus
is around that wall ...”

Mortimer
stopped what he was doing. “That’s
good!”

Merton nodded.
“Okay, we’ll do that!”

“
Your
uncle must have been raving mad putting you in that
bed!”

“
So what
else did you discover?”

“
We
found some incredible frequencies from the wall.”

“
There
must be a reason why that is mainly at the wall, and the other
equipment is detecting
nothing
!”

“
And why
is it so loud?” Merton queried. “It produces an effect that it’s
occurring all about the place, from other locations – as well as it
appearing at other locations! – which we detected.”

“
Can I
hear your best recordings?” Bryson asked, as he glimpsed Merton
playing with a machine.

Mechanically,
Merton activated it, and a few crackles emerged, and chanting
loudly came from its speakers.

“
That is
just before it occurred,” Merton called out, with his ear at
it.

With utter
astonishment, Bryson staggered back, absolutely spellbound,
marginally gaining control of his features, while intensely
listening to a creature’s roar, as though it were happening in
front of him.

The sounds and
the time that it had occurred were so precise that he knew that it
could not have been from anything else except the thing that had
been in his dream, and at the end of his bed.

Chapter 8

The Castle Library

Most of his
relatives were sitting in the dining room, chatting excitedly.

The hunt for
the money was an exciting game, and he was sure that they were
mainly overconfident. But why worry about it! They would either
find it or they would not. They had nothing to lose.

Why not have a
good time? Who knows! They might get something else of great value
in the place. There were many generations of eccentric owners of
the castle. Things in it had been there for an immense amount of
time. Perhaps some valuable antique existed somewhere!

He lifted his
soupspoon, which was far too flat, and managed to consume the small
amount of soup on it. He heard the servants giggling, in another
room.

He jerked, as
two loud crackles came off the logs burning furiously in the
fireplace, behind him. The heat from it made his back sweat.

“
Well,
how are your two friends
doing
?”
Robert moaned, moving into a vacant seat.

“
What
...?”

Bryson
anxiously took a sip of soup, and watched his chunky face smiling
at him at the corner of his eye. For a moment, he wondered if he
had found the answer to the clue, or something.

“
They
made some incredible recordings!”

Robert
hesitated, and stopped smiling.

Bryson felt
the warm air in the surrounding room, and he relaxed against the
back of the seat. The corridor and rooms were cold, and he felt the
coldness coming from there, through the door.

He lifted his
wine glass, and tasted the sweet white German wine.

“
That’s
odd! Did they not find anything else with all that equipment that
arrived here?”

“
They’ve
not finished.”

He lifted his
arm, and allowed it to fall to his side.

Robert
stretched his arms. “It’s time to start work! I was thinking of
bringing in some local workmen ...”

“
That
could be a mistake! Even though it seems a good idea. I think we’ll
have to do more thinking – instead of taking up ever floorboard in
the castle.”

“
Have
you any ideas about the answer to that clue? None of us have come
close to finding anything.”

“
It’s
too soon! It’s too vague! But there must be an answer, and I shall
continue ...”

Robert stood
up, and followed some of the others out of the door.

Bryson
realized that the others were not properly searching the entire
castle. They had agreed to concentrate in the right places!

Therefore, it
would be a good idea for him to spend the morning wandering about
the rooms, looking for anything. Perhaps it would help solve the
clue.

He always
wanted to search this castle. He had been unable to do it the last
time that he was at it as the servants had kept him in the lounge,
and had persuaded him not to go anywhere else.