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.