Suddenly one of the screens on the equipment reacted, and the scientists all went around it, and they all started excitedly discussing what they thought of it, and what could cause such a disturbance, and I saw that many were disappointed, but thought there was definitely something there, and I waited to find out what they had and if it would be a disappointment!
Yet they realized what they were receiving was scrambled images, from some interference, and the images were badly blurred, and they argued over what it could be.
They adjusted the equipment and image they got and they started getting a better image of the region below, and they no longer checked for equipment problems, and they gradually perceived there was nothing visible below, and they began their search of everything, in a greater degree than every before, as they knew something was there!
Chapter 17
Marple arrived and I watched him again wondering what he was doing, and I sensed he was up to something, and when I attempted to leave with the archeologists and scientists he kept me doing things for him, and when there were only a few archeologists left, at the other side of the cavity we sat at a central table, where he removed a folder out his case.
Marple looked more confident than I had seen him in a long time and I wondered why as all our scans had showed nothing, and many of the others lost confidence in finding anything, and I sensed he wanted me there to tell me of his search for the treasure, and I confirmed it a few minutes later.
Marple studied me for a few seconds, and asked, “I am investigating McMurdo’s treasure map!”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“He’s still working for the train company, but they have put him at another location!”
I looked up startled wondering why he suddenly wanted to search for the treasure, and I could not imagine anything like it there, and I considered if he was closing the investigation for it.
I had investigated everything I could, and had checked all the information and history of the region, trying to grasp something, and some clue, and any lost treasure.
“What’s that?” I asked, seeing Marple play happily with a document, inside his folder.
“I think we have not started the actual search for what McMurdo was looking for…”
“That’s perfect!” I replied, wondering why he was so confident.
“From my recent questioning of McMurdo he eventually told me he heard of its existence many years ago from his father, who heard it from his ancestors… He agreed that we could have equal shares of it if we find it…”
I was astounded, by the fact there was a treasure now, and he had been looking for it there all along, and that he was so confident in finding it, and that he had got me an equal share in it, and I was also happy to have a new case to investigate.
Marple continued, “I have had a few sources search for it, and from an accumulation of sources, to which led here…”
I gasped at what we might confront, and I could not grasp where, and I realized it could be in the Roman graves, of which only a few had been searched properly.
“Where was McMurdo searching before he went crazy from what we thinks is here…” I asked, curiously.
“He’s obsessed with witchcraft and demons…” he moaned. “That don’t exist… He gave me the map…”
He removed the map from his folder and showed it to me, and I realized McMurdo had been searching for something authentic!
“I have where he was searching… But I believe he chose the wrong spot! I examined there and there is nothing there! He was probably affected by this place and being here himself in the dark, and by the hideous occurrences…”
I left it, as I thought of what had happened and what the earthquake had been like.
“I investigated it further and managed to reveal faded shapes on the map. Which was what I was searching for…”
“The treasure was marked there…?” I asked, surprised.
“I knew it was here and I needed to investigate here… I believe the person that drew the map might have been chased — which might explain why it was left where it was — and hidden away…”
He grabbed his pipe off the table and began smoking.
“Who could have chased him?” I asked, confused.
“I do not know! It was too long ago! There is little history of the era! I believe it was valuable, and far too heavy to carry. Perhaps jewels of some form of ancient king!”
“So there are incredible valuable and historical jewels hidden somewhere here…”
“I think the person, in fear of his life, escaped to safety and marked it on the map, with different writing, in a different style, which faded, and that is where our investigation shall be.”
“As the place is marked in here?”
“Correct! Which is what we shall do, as the last of the archeologists and people here have left…”
Chapter 18
What was unbelievable was Marple took me to an insignificant area of the cavity wall, which I not recall, where there were small rocks and boulders piled up, and he slowly started taking away rocks, and I joined in.
Also while we did so I felt fluctuations occasionally shudder through the stone ground from something, which sounded deep below it, directly going through the rock there, from some form of power surge, as though threatening to do something, and I imagined my remains being found days later scattered everywhere as investigators tried to fit together what happened.
It surprised me Marple was the only one that seemed to not consider there was anything unearthly there, and I did not know what to believe.
When I rested I started examining the cavity further, in more detail, from there, with nobody there, and I saw it was far more perfectly shaped, and I tried to work out how it was formed.
I examined it further, and the heap of rocks, and area above where part of the cavity had collapsed, and realized it looked deliberately done by someone, and I gasped, and wondered why, and if it was to hide something valuable, or stop something escaping, and I returned to removing rocks and throwing them away to our side, with Marple, and we eventually speeded up throwing small rocks and dirt away, and Marple uncovered a hole, and we increased the size of it until it was large enough to allow us to safely enter its dark confines.
Marple grabbed his torch and shone it in and scanned its depths, and sat down and rested, and we sat getting ready to enter it, and when we entered it, and climbed through the dirt and rocks, I was surprised to see the tunnel continued in a form of straight line, doing downwards, and I wondered if it was a natural tunnel and if it was how it was formed, as I had not seen anything like it, and if it was not why had the builders gone to such lengths to build it, and as we marched into it I realized it had to have been built by the Romans, and I wondered what they had been up to.
It must go somewhere, where someone wanted to go, and I tiredly thought it over, and wondered what Marple thought was there, and I followed him into its black hole with his light and I started to see marks of humans having been there, and I kept wondering what we were going to find.
Though, after all we had been through, I had no idea what we were going after, dealing with, and I realized what we had found could be nothing compared to what was ahead!
Chapter 19
The torch slowly shifted to specific calculated positions, probing its way into the deep blackness ahead, and our feet threw up clouds of dust through beams of light; and some entered my lungs, causing me to give short convulsions, while inhaling stale air.