The Lost Treasure Map Series by V Bertolaccini

than he had thought. It even looked strangely
marked on it.
    This
interested him, as he wondered where the original books had been
put. So far he had not seen any of them. He randomly searched
through the titles for them. But he only saw the books that Sir
Richard had put in it.
    What did
he do with the original books – which must have been there? On the
other hand, he might have thrown them away over the years , especially if they had just been
unwanted books from the previous person.
    Once he
spotted Merton had lost interest in it, he swiftly took it away
from the table, and put it in his pocket. He then pulled over the
book that it had been in, for a close look at it.
     

Chapter 24
     
    The Treasure Hunters
     
    Mortimer became
more interested in observing the room.
    “ How do
you know that Sir Richard never invested his money in something?”
Mortimer suddenly remarked. “He could easily have concealed it
somewhere – without it being noticeable.”
    “ Such as
that bottle of wine!” Sarah joked, and Bryson stopped piercing the
cork with the corkscrew, to smile back to her.
    “ Bottles
of wine are not worth that much,” he joked, checking the label, and
continuing with the operation.
    “ He was
a businessman ... You kept saying to us. Businessmen like investing
in things ... Perhaps there’s an item that he expected to grow
dramatically in value.”
    “ Such as
one of the paintings,” Bryson commented, making them look at each
other.
    “ What
about the paintings ...?” Mortimer muttered, turning around,
looking at the painting behind him. “Has anyone checked the value
of this one?”
    “ We
would have noticed a valuable painting,” Bryson replied, taking the
glass of wine, and gently sipping it, to taste it first.
    “ That’s
not that valuable,” Merton responded, remembering he had been
checking them. “They are all over the castle. They are mostly only
pictures of the estate.”
    “ But
there may be one somewhere else ... Hidden!”
    Bryson
considered the idea again. “You may be right – there may be – we
have not even been in some of the rooms yet. I cannot imagine any
of the furniture and antiques that I’ve seen being worth that much.
There would have been a serious risk of someone damaging it, not
realizing its value – or even future owners just discarding it. It
has to be something that would not have been damaged, and be in a
place where it would have been safe.”
    “ That’s
could be correct,” Mortimer replied.
    “ I think
that we should just continue to search objects about the castle as
we go along.”
    “ Let’s
have another look in here ...” James replied.
    Sarah lifted
part of the carpet, at the corner of the room. And James grabbed a
loose plank, and pulled it up. Then he placed it against the wall,
and used a torch to observe under the floorboards.
    They removed
more, and examined the stone of the original floor under it, under
the thick layer of dirt and old pieces of building materials
accumulated there – mostly from when they had built the upper part
(built when they had installed the electricity into the
castle).
    James tapped
the foundations, and original castle floor, trying to realize how
thick it was. It obviously was very thick and solid, like the
walls.
    Bryson
considered if Sir Richard could have cut a hole in it and buried it
in it. However, if he had put it in a place such as that, it would
almost be impossible for them to find it, without taking apart the
castle bit by bit to find it. The immense amount of places that he
could have put it was tremendous – especially if he had cemented
into one of the walls, giving it a thick outer shell enough to stop
them detecting it as a hollow zone.
    He
vaguely wondered how safe the castle about him really was. Ancient
craftsmen, with only a basic knowledge, had built it. Who would
know if they had designed it to last a few decades, or something?
Yet if it had stayed up the amount of time that it had, it must