The Olbas will eventually run out, and the inventions of the aged relatives down in the cellar are unlikely to bring in the funds this crumbling pile so desperately needs . . . so it is back to the treasure hunt for me. Hidden within these walls lies Great Uncle Sebastian’s Fortune. So carefully hidden to avoid it falling into the wrong hands that nobody to date has been able to discover it.
Great Uncle Sebastian was also an inventor. It runs in the family. Likewise an adventurer, a traveller, a historian and several other activities that I can’t at present remember. His inventions however made his name. He always maintained he owed much of what he knew to yet another of our many ancestors, a certain Titus Gore, who had also been an inventor of no little merit before him. In addition, this Titus Gore pursued the profession of Private Investigator. A most particular kind of Investigator, too : of Things Phantasmagorical. We still have some of his business cards lying about somewhere . . .
(Ah, there's one . . . )
Be that as it may, Great Uncle Sebastian took it into his head to collect all the adventures and anecdotes concerning Titus Gore – more, he decided to use these tales to lay a trail of clues for the not entirely witless, leading to the Fortune. A veritable treasure hunt. I know this because of the last message he left behind :
‘Dear All, If you are reading this, I am up in the old Attic in the Sky, and will not have got around to telling you where all the jolly moulah is stashed. Well, there are any number of gold-hunters about, so to avoid nasty surprises, I have elected to hide it. You will find it once you start reading my account of Titus Gore. This account is spread about the house, but each tale will lead you, with a little perspicacity, onto the next tale – and the next clue.
‘I fear I have made this needlessly complicated. Too late now. ‘Tis done. Good luck anyway.
Toodle-pip.
Seb.’
Dear Great Uncle Seb. How would we pass the winter evenings otherwise . . . probably at the card tables of Paris, or the Ridotti of Venice. Ah well, to work. On with the search.
The first tale I found quite easily. Uncle Seb sealed his final letter with his own stamp : An S with the head of a serpent at one end and the head of a lion at the other.
What simpler than to go to the main hall, where those old carvings stand on a pedestal, the one of a lion, the other of a huge snake, with an urn lying between them. I felt about inside the urn and found a crackly roll of parchment which I drew out. It was the first tale of Titus Gore.
Titus Gore and the Case of the Undead Housekeeper
The fortunes of Gore and Nightingale are in a steep decline. But there is one flicker of hope. A treasure hunt laid by Great Uncle Sebastian. If we can only puzzle out the hints he left behind in his stories of Titus Gore. So far, one story has been found. Titus Gore and the Case of the Undead Housekeeper. Still trying to work out what clues it holds . . .
I narrowed it down in the end to the three items mentioned, the Crystal Eye, the Golden Feather and the Anubis statuette – there is a large, clear lump of what I imagined always to be glass, sitting in the centre of one of the curio tables. It caught the sunlight poking through the shabby shutters only the other day, and , drawn by it, I began looking over the objects strewn about it – almost immediately came upon a small statue of Anubis, carved out of some dark material. Very grimy and in need of a good clean. While I was handling it I noticed a seam, or hair-line crack around its middle. It seemed only a crack, yet was very regular and straight, so unlikely to be accidental; I applied a very little pressure, twisting it, and I felt it shift in a most intriguing way. One more twist . . and it separated – to reveal a rolled up piece of parchment nestling in its hollow.
I removed it carefully, and have spent all this time ironing it out.
The title running across the top of it reads : Titus Gore and the Phantom Horse of Hertmond House
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