Marple rushed over and got a drink, and returned, and placed it in front of him.
He removed something ancient looking from the envelope and started playing with it in front of our faces, considering what to say, as I watched the sun go down into the horizon at a side window, and golden shades beam over city buildings.
“What’s that?” I conclusively asked him, slightly annoyed at him not doing anything for so long, unable to maintain waiting.
“It’s an eighteenth century document!” Marple announced, and made Dr Barrymore look up, startled.
He stared annoyed at it, and Marple continued, “I’ve some experience of dating documents!”
“The origins of the artifact I am looking for come from the majority of accumulated sources, which have been proven to be from around 1568…”
“1568?” Marple replied, looking slightly surprised, and sat back considering it.
“Yes!” Dr Barrymore continued. “According to accounts and legends! Valuable treasure was left near where it was concealed!”
“Near where what was concealed?” Marple swiftly gasped, looking confused.
“The artifact!”
Marple looked at him calmly, and looked deep into the fire, and listened to what he had to say.
“For centuries it has been thought to exist by a few scholars and explorers, who have carried out meticulous investigations and searches, of which none have been lucky enough…”
“What you’re saying is there is treasure somewhere?” I replied, unable to hold back my surprise and enthusiasm.
“Of course!” he shouted. “That’s what I said on the phone!”
“What do you want us to do?” I replied, cautiously.
“Help me find it!” he moaned. “I’ve recently come into some new information that could allow me to locate it!”
I could not grasp if it actually existed, and sat considering it, and everything he said.
“According to myths,” he continued, “some people have been found dead searching for it! There could be something of great danger nearby, where it’s been concealed!”
I sat thinking it over wondering what could be of great danger, and from that century, and was left baffled, and spotted Marple was still confused by the case.
“What’ll we do then?” I asked, curiously.
“You’ll have to wait until I’m ready! I have a major clue to its location, and I’m sure I can discover something of significant importance! I will need your help to recover it!”
“We’ll do that!” Marple replied firmly.
I knew that he had major clues to its location and that he was confident in discovering it and that it was located somewhere in the region, but I had no idea what it actually was!
After he had left the building, and returned home, I started to doubt what he was after was of value as all the archaeology and museum discoveries found then were usually worthless, except to historians like him, for historical value, and I was sure he was just trying to get us to go out our way to get it for him, and I was sure Marple must also think so.
Though did he have a new way of discovering lost treasures, and had he partially located it as he suggested? He had not given any major clue to its location and identity, but he had given the date of what must surely have been the time of its origins.
He had been unraveling something for some considerable time and I went over it considering if he had deliberately disguised facts throughout his message, and if he was after something else.
Chapter 2
All I had been given was that an elderly woman had witnessed something unusual in the night, while going to bed, and there seemed to me no case to investigate and no crime had been committed, and nothing seemed to suggest anything, and I went to the client confused and repeatedly going over the document I was given, which consisted of nothing but a few paragraphs about a few lines she had given the agency, and I came to the conclusion that she might have stopped an attempted burglary and wanted me to secretively handle the problem.
What could she have confronted at night in the hall of her ground floor tenement flat that could have caused her to seek such dramatic action?
The location was in the south of the city at Craigmillar Road in Langside, and when I entered I expected little. It was my first mission! And when I saw and talked to the elderly woman I realized she had recently become a widow, and was on her own there, and realized that she had encountered something that she believed was of a paranormal nature, but which was of the strangest nature that I had witnessed in all my encounters, and from everything I had ever heard of.
Surely if she had fantasized something it would be of a normal ghost, but it was far stranger, and I had to try to deduce what she meant by what she told me, and I then had her give me accurate descriptions of the visitation, or whatever she thought it was, and it gave me nothing and it left me confused.
She was not ill, or had taken anything, and had not had previous hallucinations, and still she insisted something had started to appear there, in her ground floor flat, at the same time it grew dark, and she claimed it floated over her hall floor, and its movement suggested it was doing something.
In the end I was so engrossed in discovering what would happen, and in the unusual case, I accepted her offers of staying to see it, and was given a bedroom to stay in, and was surprised that she insisted I should consider the occurrence after it happened, to give her advice, for when I met her in the morning at breakfast.
Chapter 3
For a moment I thought something of enormous danger could occur on the investigation, but I could not believe such a thing could happen on my first case for starters, and it had not occurred to any of the other investigators, and how could anything happen with such a case! It was absurd!
Yet I wanted to know what it was she was talking about, and placed a seat at the door of the bedroom and left the door partly opened, just enough to see the hallway, and entire area where she told me she had seen it, and I sat reading a book, and started to realize why she could have imagined something in the dark there, on her own, and then I started to see sense and that she might have some form of medical condition that could have caused her to observe something.
What really astonished me was the fact that she arrived near the time the occurrences had taken place and apologized to me for something, and handed me a book, to which I believed she had given me as she felt sorry for me, leaving me there doing nothing, in the dark, with her elaborate plan, whatever it was, and I considered if she intended to use the story of the occurrences for somewhere for some reason.
Then when I started to read the book I sat back staggered, as the book was full of ghost stories! They were supposedly real accounts, which had been written like they had authentically occurred, and I started to believe she had it in for me, and realized it could be part of her plan to persuade me there was something there, and I even considered helping her fabricate it at one point, as she might need it.
Though after flicking through the pages, trying to see what was there, I was left even more staggered as there were accounts of occurrences actually taking place in the same region.
There were accounts claiming ancient inhabitants of the region had seen alarming evil mysterious magical forces and transcendent things dwelling there, which I could not grasp the identity of.
It grabbed my attention that the place had not always been a city region, centuries ago, and it sent a chill through me as I thought what could be buried away there.