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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Two of the directors wanted to walk around with us while we were searching for the secret passageways, but I said no. That got them quite angry and they said it was their right to do so. I told them no again and said we cannot work properly while being watched constantly, so if they want us to do the job, then they must stay away completely while we work.
Two of those that opposed us at the beginning agreed with us on this point and just asked for a daily progress report which I agreed to, even though I didn’t really want to do that either. Even though 4 opposed hiring us, thinking that their own museum security could do the job, it takes 5 negative votes to prevent hiring us due to the fact this is an emergency.
That is according to their own board of directors rules. Cristy is working hard at getting us a background check of the three prisoners that the thieves want out of prison, plus she is also checking each of the museum directors. It may not tell us much, but it might help tell us why some of the directors oppose us and if they might be sympathetic to the thieves.
This old castle is quite large though only part of it is actually being used for the museum, part is office and storage space and part has not been renovated. Right now the museum doesn’t have enough money for the costly renovations, so it could take years before it’s done.
We will have to check that area too, however, but first we need to check the main museum for a secret entrance to those passageways, if they actually exist, and I’m sure they do. These old castles always seem to have them, some more than others.
However, that doesn’t mean the treasure is still on the premises, it may have been taken elsewhere to ensure it is not easily found. They have had enough time to do that which would make things very hard indeed considering the time restraint we have to find the treasure.
We have several of the cats with us as well, and they are very busy running around, sniffing everywhere, trying to find that secret door. Muffin, Storm, Midnight, Jewel, Ginger, Tracker and Rascal are the best we have for this kind of work. My team is here today, plus 4 of our 5 “ghosts”.
I asked Jennifer to stay behind and look after things at the house for us, I wanted one of our ghosts to stay at the house at all times. Sky’s Bad Girls team is not far away if we need them and the guys are scouring the area around the castle to see if they can find where an escape tunnel might come out.
Rock is flying around in a helicopter with Clarence and Alfred, looking for anything that might seem out of place so the guys on the ground can check it out. About mid afternoon Muffin began to jump up and down meowing loudly, so we all ran over to see what she had found.
It was a door and it fit so perfectly that it seemed invisible in that stone wall. Now, how do we open it? The bottom of the door seemed to be off the floor about 18 inches, which seemed odd at first. We looked all over but could not find a way to open this door, unless it only opens from the inside, which means there is another way into those secret passages.
Carine was looking up at a light on the wall high above the door. The ceiling in this room is about 15 feet high and that wall lamp is about 10 feet high. Suddenly she jumped up, quite easily, and kind of stood there in mid air while she turned the lamp to the right.
There was a slight grinding noise and the door opened, hinged at the bottom, until it laid flat on the floor. That would explain why it was 18 inches off the floor. That was the thickness of the door. “You never said you could do that,” I said. “You never asked,” she replied.
“Must I always ask?” I responded. “Well, it helps,” she said, smiling. The passageway was completely dark, so I guess there is no electricity in there. However, we brought our large flashlights which illuminated the tunnel very well. All 50 feet of it. Then it stopped where it had caved in a long time ago.
Hmm, I thought this was going too easily. We checked thoroughly but found no other doors in that short passageway. “It doesn’t really make sense,” said Sky, “that door worked too nicely for one that hasn’t been used in a long time.” “Hmm, you do have a point,” I said, “but we didn’t find any other doors in there.”
However, her and Carine went back inside and while Sky lit up the walls, Carine seemed to be scanning the walls rather intently. While they were busy I was looking at that wall lamp that opened the door. I then took out a special gun from my backpack and shot toward the wall lamp. Then I looked inside the tunnel up toward where that wall lamp would be and shot again.
“Why did you do that?” asked Aasta. “There is a camera in that lamp and on the other side facing into the tunnel,” I replied, “now, there’s no point having one in the tunnel unless someone was expecting others to come in that way. That tells me they are using that tunnel, we just have to find another door on the inside. Now they can’t see us coming.”
Sky and Carine had stopped now and were just standing looking at a portion of the tunnel wall. We all waited until they came back out with their report. Meanwhile, Cristy has been busy with her background checks and she did find out some interesting things.
All 3 men in prison knew each other and between them they had killed 7 people, at least they were ones that could be proven. Another 10 people were thought to have been killed by them as well. Of the seven, 2 were men, 3 women and 2 children under the age of 10. These men were contract killers, very dangerous men.
Now comes the interesting part, one of the directors is a brother of one of these men, and another director was a sister to one of the men. But not the directors that I would have thought, it was 2 of the directors that wanted us to take this case. That was certainly an interesting revelation.
However, that does not mean these directors are criminals just because their brothers are, but, we will need to check on that possibility. Here comes Sky and Carine, both smiling…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
We are safely back from our two week vacation, and surprisingly enough, nothing happened. We had a great time, no one got hurt and no one asked us to work on a case. It was positively great and relaxing for all of us. We are still in Mandar’s hideaway house, although not so hidden anymore since Medina managed to find us here. However, no matter where we live, one of our enemies will find us sooner or later.
In this business it’s impossible to hide away completely, otherwise we would not be in business for very long. People must be able to find us, to a certain extent anyway. Mandar took Jennifer and I, plus the other “ghosts”, Aari and Misty, on a house hunting adventure for the last 3 days. He is showing us some of his properties which basically sit idle, but he bought them with the intention of using them more.
Each one is an amazing, large, grand old house. A couple were more like old castles dating back several hundred years and totally renovated for our modern world. He even has 3 places in the US that we can look at too if we want, however, there were a couple of places here that we all enjoyed. And they were large enough for our large team.
We would have to make some minor adjustments to both in order to have enough bedroom space for all the girls. Both places also have extra buildings which would be quite suitable for the guys to use. It would be nice to have them closer at hand, and yet still give everyone the space that each needs. One is a large manor house in northern Italy, the other is a chateau in France.
We took a lot of pictures of each one, plus 2 others, which we will show to the whole team. Then we will talk about each and let the team ask any questions and then we will vote on which one to accept. Mandar is giving us whichever place we choose. He told us there is no point in having all his billions if he does nothing with it. And he told us there is no way he could possibly spend all his money.
He basically lives off of the interest he makes on investments. So, he is quite happy to help us out. He is an amazing man. When we first met I would have thought he would become one of our enemies. He was just a hard man to figure out. But he has become a wonderful friend for all of us. He is also taking over looking after our financial needs until Baldwin is back to normal again.
So far there is no real change with Baldwin, and that is a bit concerning. The laser gun used on him was set at 10, the highest setting possible. He may never return to normal, according to the doctors. That is a terrible thought. I would like Kat to take a look at him, but it requires getting permission from his next of kin. That would be his niece, a 28 year old woman who is now looking after the Baldwin Corporation.
We did get an appointment to see her and she is a very nice woman and eager to get help for her uncle. Once things are finalized and she becomes the official CEO of Baldwin Corporation, then she will continue what her uncle had been doing in looking after The Investigators. However, she also wants to return the ownership back to me once again and I would become the CEO.
But she would still continue to take care of our financial needs. Her name is Sienna and she seems to be quite at home behind that huge desk and talking to Mandar about big business and finances. My head was spinning just listening to them talk. Oh well. When we got home there was a possible case waiting for us.
There is a museum, located in an old renovated castle that seems to be having problems with some “ghosts”. They don’t believe they are real ghosts, but some thieves who may be living in secret passages, or rooms, in that castle. There is no record of any secret passages having been made in that castle, however, that is the point in calling them ‘secret’.
Now and then some of their exhibits disappear and are likely stolen by these thieves. They have been able to keep it quiet so far, but now, an exhibit of a priceless national treasure has been stolen. It was supposed to be on display until the end of the month, which is a week away. We need to find it before it needs to be returned.
My guess is that this treasure is still on site, but hidden in one of those secret passages or rooms. I asked the museum if they could shut down the museum for a day while we looked around, but we were told it could only be shut down in an emergency. “Like a bomb threat?” I asked. “Yes, we could definitely do it for that reason,” they told us.
So, we took the case and planted a bomb in the museum, a real bomb of Catalina’s making, and the museum was closed immediately and did not even get a chance to open that day. Now we have 24 hours, until they are set to open the next day, to find these secret passages. Once we find them, then we can work behind the scenes looking around those passages and rooms.
Unfortunately, many of these old castles also had a secret tunnel that could be used to escape if they needed to do so. That means we need to be watching around the area to make sure no one gets away with that treasure. They also showed us a note they had received, kind of a ransom note stating they wanted 3 men to be released from prison where each are serving a life sentence for murder.
The government has said no to releasing the men, so that was no help. I’m sure we could get the men out and although the government didn’t say we could do it exactly, they did hint at turning the other way if we should want to give it a try. But, if we get caught, we would be on our own. Nothing new about that.
We actually got to the museum at 5am to begin our search, so that gives us an extra 4 hours to look around. There are 7 directors of this museum and 4 of them seem to be quite hesitant to get us involved saying that it will just make things worse. I found that to be rather interesting.
Could they be working with these thieves? If so, we are in trouble because now the thieves know we are on the case and that eliminates the element of surprise. Maybe I’m just too suspicious, but I already sense that something is not quite right about this case…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 