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“According to the history books,” I replied, “the battle at the site of the woman’s house and the hospital occurred at the same time as it!”

“Correct?” Marple instantly replied, confused. “It was a clue!”

“So have you found something?” I replied eagerly, seeking answers, and why he was so joyful.

“Perhaps! If there is lost treasure! The lost jewels could easily have been found by someone! If it exists! There are only a few accounts of it! It was thought to exist there by only a few explorers, who have carried out searches for it.”

Marple handed over an ancient map of Langside and I immediately scanned it and searched where Queen’s Park was, and the rest of the hill and wondered if someone could actually have hidden it away it the park.

“So you have found out something?” I moaned, depressed at the lack of finding anything on the map.

“I’ve recently located a form of map!” he gasped, trying to rest.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, curiously.

“I discovered something of significant importance that could be of great interest! I will need your help!”

“Alright!” I gasped, and sat back examining him, and silently gulped, and watched him put his pipe in his mouth.

“According to Dr Barrymore and legends there have been people that have been found dead after searching for it…” he announced, silently.

“Legends?” I replied, and watched the flames ignite as Marple rolled up an old newspaper and threw it into the fire flames.

He nodded in agreement, and examined my face a little more.

For a moment I considered there being a danger in the treasure hunt, and why he wanted my assistance, and I also wondered why it would still exist, and doubted the value of the objects, and waited patiently.

What I knew was that I had been given a major clue to its location and I wondered if he wanted me to determine where it was, to see if we came to the same conclusion.

I got out a recent map of the region and studied it in detail, and he watched on with curiosity, and I watched him open the document Dr Barrymore had when he had first met us, and told us of the treasure.

He examined the ancient tattered piece of parchment with a magnify glass, where there were lines and words scribbled over it, as though the writer had been doing something and was in a great rush to finish it!

“So it’s a verified 1568 map?” I asked, and he nodded, and continued to try to grasp what it meant.

Marple finished examining it and placed it on the table, and looked over and asked, “So you want to know what’s on the map? I’ve had it rechecked and it is Langside, and the area you’ve been working in…”

I realized it was there, but it never gave the proper location, and there was only a mark of something on it, which I was sure was something that was not part of the landscape.

“The paranormal investigators phoned earlier and they asked you to join them in their investigation of the hospital.”

“You want me to join them working there and to search for it?”

“Yes! I’d like you to search for it, when you do, and to phone me with anything of interest, or for information!”

Chapter 15

The Shaft

I was staggered at the deadliness of it altering in magnitude or something was playing tricks with me and it was being magnified!

Sounds were unidentifiable and I realized that I was observing another form of the encounter! This time it was far different than the last. Even though I had collapsed and went unconscious at the last occurrence, when I had activated the metal detector.

What was going on! The world about me seemed to be going crazy! The war was accelerating on and the Home Guard I was in was being activated more for a potential attack. Marple was going crazy trying to capture the killer, with his ultimate challenge, and all the investigators were pursuing every lead.

The hospital seemed to be on the brink of an entrance point to the afterlife or some form of supernatural region of space, and all the paranormal scientists were working away there, every night, as occurrences were occurring everywhere, and though they were delighted in it they were not only not making any progression in what was occurring and they were accumulating a repeatedly increasing amount of unsolved mysteries, and I was investigating one of the most baffling of them.

Something was occurring down a major shaft in one of the walls, which we found hidden away in a wall at the top of the hospital, and I had entered it and was going down it, when something had activated, at precisely the same time the occurrences occurred in the hall of the house in Craigmillar Road.

I had only entered and shifted down the shaft, when the sounds emerged below me and had amplified, and as I slowly moved down, they had gone mind-bending!

They were screaming up at me through the shaft with a dangerous fury that stunned me, and no matter how I tried to shake them off and contemplate their identities I could not form stable recognitions of what was there.

I never had a clue what was there, and had never thought paranormal could be so strange, and unrecognizable.

I shifted around in complete darkness, entirely alone, with nobody at the opening above anymore, where there was darkness now, and I finally managed to find my blasted light in my backpack and tried to grab it and force it out to use it.

Clouds of powdered cement from walls swirled about all over me, going into my lungs, and I tried avoid coughing it out, while I tried to breathe in, in a way I could avoid the dust clogging my lungs up, while occasionally gasping at the sounds below blaring up at me, taunting me, threatening me about something I could not grasp, as if I was hovering over the depths of some form of hell.

Once I got the light and attached it to me I put the light on and I realized straightaway that the batteries were far more used and the small torch was virtually going out, and I realized that I might not be able to climb back up as there was nothing to grip and I would have to climb the thin rope itself, and I was sure the harness I had on stopped me doing it.

I examined the dust that swirled about me through dim barely visible beams of light and I released some rope, edging me downwards, seeking to get away from it, and I avoided touching the sides and making more of the dust blow up, and I started to consider if I should go to the bottom after all.

The others were bound to emerge eventually at the opening above and get me out but the harness and dust was choking me, and then decided that I would have to go down again anyway, and that my mission would be a failure if I never competed it and I decided then to investigate what was there, and wait at the bottom for them to arrive and help me up.

What was incredible was I did think it was dangerous, and I was in actual danger! While I was listening to the blasted sounds, another sound appeared that I felt going through the ground below and I knew it was entirely different, and was positive it was a bomb or something going off.

The Second World War was going on, and I wondered if the hospital could be bombed as it was a major structure.

For a few seconds I even considered being left trapped at the bottom of the shaft, and builders or archaeologists discovering my skeleton remains away in the future.

I groaned and dangled about on the rope, spun around and around, and grabbed hold of part of the wall to steady myself, while I glimpsed parts of the shaft all about overhead.

I really wanted to explore what was there and what was below! The last encounter had left an increasing amount of unanswered occurrences and questions and I knew I would have to answer them eventually. It was as if it was my destiny and something would have to happen.