Kitabı oku: «The Great God Gold», sayfa 4

Chapter Eight
Presents another Curious Problem

In the solution of a problem such as that placed before Professor Griffin, knowledge meant power.

Though he had successfully concealed his excitement he had, truth to tell, learnt much from the perusal of those charred papers – much that held him in utter amazement. A theory had presented itself of which no one had ever before dreamed.

He had derided the manuscript as a clumsy story by some half-educated person. But, within himself, he knew quite well that the problem had been propounded and the suggestion made by some person equally well-read as himself, some Hebrew scholar of highest attainment, if not of highest standing. Alas, in these days of impudent self-advertisement, it is not the cleverest man who is the most notable, or who looms largest in the public eye. The same rule applies to Professors of Hebrew, as to men in every other walk of life.

That night, after Frank had left and Gwen had kissed him good-night and gone to her room, he sat for over an hour, smoking his long pipe in silence at his study fireside. He had resolved that he would be the first to reveal the startling secret to the world. Yes. He would write an article in the Contemporary, and he knew full well that words, coming from such a high authority as himself, would be quoted by almost every newspaper in the whole civilised globe.

It was astounding – never before in the whole history of the world had such a wonderful discovery been made. The Christian religion would be shaken to its very foundations – not weakened, be it said, but actually strengthened a thousandfold.

He laughed aloud as he sat with his pipe in his hand, his eyes cast down upon the bright red hearthrug.

“What would the Bishops of the Anglican Church, the Cardinals of the Romish Church, the Rabbis of the Jewish Synagogues and all the other heads of our religion give for possession of this secret which is mine – mine only!” he exclaimed, speaking to himself in a low whisper. “What would men in the city, the financiers, speculators, and the thousand-and-one varieties of money ‘sharks’ give me to reveal the truth to them. The truth?” he repeated thoughtfully. “The truth? No. I have not yet got at the actual truth. To discover it will be my work to-morrow. And I will not pause for a single instant until all is plain, and I have the secret open and revealed.”

Again he hesitated, smoking on in silence, his brow heavy and thoughtful, for he had taken off his glasses and placed them in their big, bulky case.

“Two men, this fellow Diamond, whoever he may be, and Frank Farquhar stand between myself and the secret!” he muttered to himself with a grin. Then he rose impatiently and snapped his fingers. “They shall not stand in my way for long,” he laughed. “The secret is mine – it is in my possession!”

The Professor rose early next day, as was his habit.

As he sat at the breakfast table, Gwen who looked bright and fresh in her neat white blouse and plain navy serge skirt, noticed that he was unusually silent and morose. They were devoted to each other, but at such times when her father, rendered irritable by his studies, betrayed impatience she always remained silent.

“I’ve asked Frank over to luncheon, dad,” she ventured at last to remark.

Whereupon the old man replied in a snappy voice: “I fear I shall not be bade. I’m going along to the Museum, and may be there all day. I have a number of researches to make. Apologise for my absence.”

Gwen promised to do this; but instead, an hour later, she sent her lover a wire, suggesting that, as the Professor would be absent, they should lunch together at Princes’, which idea the young man gladly adopted.

At eleven Professor Griffin, descending from a cab, entered a small office in Oxford Street, the office of a firm of photographers whose specialty is the reproducing of ancient documents for the official publications of the British Museum, the Paleographical Society and similar institutions. To the manager, he produced the carefully preserved scraps of typewriting and manuscript, and ordered photographic reproductions to be made with as great a speed as possible.

The manager examined the charred folios closely, and declared that the work would be useless for reproduction in any journal or magazine.

“I don’t want them for that purpose,” was Griffin’s reply.

“We’ll do them as clearly as possible on whole plates, Professor,” was the man’s reply, “but they will not come out very satisfactorily, I fear.”

“As long as I can decipher them easily is all I care,” replied the older man. “I shall call for the originals at four o’clock.”

“We will have finished with them by that time, sir. I will send them down to the studio at Acton.”

“And take the utmost care of them please,” urged the Professor.

“We are used, as you know, sir, to handling the most valuable manuscripts in the world. The Museum give us all their work, and we often have, in our safes, manuscripts worth thousands of pounds each,” replied the manager.

A sudden thought occurred to Griffin, and taking from the table the scrap of writing upon the ruled paper, he held it up to the light to examine its watermark. The design was at once apparent – the head of a lady of the seventeenth century with hair dressed in the style of Charles the First, low-cut bodice, puffed sleeves, and a necklet of pearls, while above the words placed in a semi-circle was “Sevigne Paper.”

“H’m,” grunted the old man, “evidently one of those imitation English papers, made in France. Well, Macdonald, get as good results as you can from the scraps, won’t you?”

The photographer’s manager, who knew Griffin well, and who had often photographed Hebrew and Greek manuscripts for him, assured him that the very greatest care should be taken in the work.

Thereupon, the Professor rose and left, urging that the originals should be returned from Acton well before four o’clock.

In his thick and somewhat shabby overcoat and soft felt hat, he walked through the drizzling rain to the British Museum, where, as he entered, the attendants saluted him. In that national institution he was a well-known figure, for during the greater part of his lifetime he had studied there, especially in the Department of Manuscripts.

It was to that he at once made his way. The Keeper of the Department was absent, but a man of Professor Griffin’s reputation has the “run of the place;” therefore after wishing good-day to one of the assistant-keepers he began searching the catalogue of manuscripts for the Hebrew ones which he wished to consult, writing their numbers upon a slip. This he handed to the assistant-keeper who, having glanced at the numbers and recognised to which they referred, regarded him with a glance of quick curiosity.

“One of the earliest originals of the Book of Ezekiel – eh, Professor?” remarked the man. “And the other is the Muratori Manuscript.”

“Exactly,” was Griffin’s reply, and when the man had left the little room in which he was standing, he drew from his pocket a small book in which overnight he had made pencilled memoranda from the half-confused fragments which Frank had placed before him. Then he waited in undisguised anxiety.

Presently the assistant-keeper returned with two of the most important Biblical manuscripts the Museum possessed, and placed them before the man whose opinion upon Hebrew originals of Holy Writ was always decisive.

The first manuscript, one of the earliest originals of the Book of Ezekiel and one used by the revisers of the Bible a few years ago, was upon yellow and discoloured parchment of great age, bound in old calf of the early sixteenth century. The binding had practically perished, but the writing within was still plain and quite decipherable to an expert.

Originally written upon a long roll, it had in later times been cut into folios and bound, as being readier of access, and easier to consult. Of its early history from the time of being written until A.D. 1421, practically nothing was known. In the year in question it was brought to Constantinople from Palestine, and in 1627 was given by the Patriarch to Charles the First.

The Professor removed his hat and overcoat seated himself, and with reverent fingers turned the time-dimmed pages from which a portion of our Holy Bible had been translated.

To the person unacquainted with early Hebrew script the pages were covered by meaningless hieroglyphics; but to him they were as clear as any printed column in the Times newspaper.

He searched through until he discovered a certain passage. Then, eagerly consulting his notebook, he began translating it, word for word, writing down the English equivalent upon the paper that had been placed before him.

He did not hurry, but alone in the little room, he worked on, slowly and deliberately. For fully two hours he continued but the result was, judging from the expression upon his face, by no means gratifying.

The assistant-keeper came and went, for the Professor, being such a great authority, was always allowed to work in the keeper’s private room. Indeed only a man of Griffin’s rare attainments and knowledge would have been able to translate from the original Hebrew of that ancient character, so often indistinct and involved in meaning and in sense.

At times, with a rapid hand, he made an exact reproduction of the original, especially that of chapter xli, verse 23 to the end which, as will be recollected, was given in the dead man’s manuscript as an illustration.

Heedless of the fact that he had had no luncheon, he continued copying the original very carefully and with a sure and expert touch until he had made a complete copy of the original of chapters xl, xli, xlii, xliv, and xlvii, a work which occupied him till nearly four o’clock.

He took no count of time, so wholly engrossed was he in his work. The assistant-keeper entered prior to his departure at four o’clock when the department closed, and began bustling about, hoping that the “dry-as-dust” old fellow, being disturbed, might abandon his work for that day.

But nothing interrupted him in making his rapid copying of those Hebrew characters that had been written before the birth of Christ.

Presently, in sheer despair, the assistant-keeper remarked:

“That’s rather heavy work for you, Professor, isn’t it?”

“No. Not exactly,” was the old man’s quick reply without looking up, “I am about to make a most interesting investigation; therefore, I dare not employ any copyist. He might so easily make mistakes.”

“An investigation!” echoed the younger man. “Why, curiously enough for the past three days we’ve had a man here copying that same book for some mysterious purpose. He finished only yesterday afternoon. But he refused to tell me the reason he was making the copy other than that he, like yourself, was making some investigations. He used the same expression as yourself, curiously enough.”

“Another searcher!” gasped the Professor, laying down his pen, and staring at the speaker. “Another investigator of the original of the Book of Ezekiel! Who was he? What was he like?” demanded the old man quickly, his face blanched in an instant.

“I don’t know who he was, for we’ve never seen him here before. He was an old gentleman, a foreigner evidently – and a scholar, for he wrote the Hebrew characters almost as quickly and accurately as you yourself.”

Professor Arminger Griffin sat back in his chair, his mouth open, staring into space.

Was it possible that some one else besides himself had obtained knowledge of the great secret, and was actively engaged upon investigations!

And the stranger who had copied that very manuscript which he was copying, was an unknown foreigner and a scholar into the bargain!

Was it possible that the secret was already out?

Chapter Nine
Concerns “The Other Man.”

“What was the stranger like?” asked the Professor eagerly, his thin hand resting upon the ancient parchment he had been so carefully copying.

“A short, stout, elderly man with white pointed beard,” was the assistant-keeper’s reply. “Four days ago he came here, carrying with him a number of references which he turned up in various early Hebrew manuscripts. But it was the one you have there before you which attracted him most. He worked three days upon it, and made a complete and most accurate copy.”

“He didn’t tell you whence he came, or for what purpose he was making the researches?”

“No, for, as you well know, Professor, students seldom do. They are not very communicative, unless they be young,” laughed the official. “But he was a foreigner.”

“Undoubtedly. From the north of Europe, I should say – Norwegian or perhaps Russian, not German, I think. But he spoke most excellent English.”

“A scholar?”

“Without a doubt. He went about his work in that careful methodical manner that at once betrayed the specialist. He concluded his work only yesterday.”

“How was he dressed?”

“Fairly well. He wore a dark-grey suit and a black bow cravat.”

“His searches were confined to Ezekiel?”

“No, not exactly. He copied some references from our earliest manuscript of Deuteronomy – you examined it a few months ago, I remember. The thirty-second chapter seemed to attract him, as he copied it in its entirety.”

“Ah, that’s the Song of Moses,” remarked the Professor. ”‘Give ear O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear O earth, the words of my mouth.’ I wonder what can be his object,” he added thoughtfully.

“He merely told me that he was making an investigation in order to put a remarkable theory to the test.”

Griffin started. A remarkable theory was being put to the test by this stranger! Was it possible that another scholar was in possession of the dead man’s secret, besides himself!

He held his breath. Then, when a few moments later he had recovered himself, he began to make many inquiries concerning the unknown foreigner. But it was already past four o’clock, and the assistant-keeper had his train to catch to his home at Epping. Therefore he declared that he knew no more, and taking the precious manuscript, replaced it with the others and hastily bade the Professor “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” was the old man’s reply. “I am sorry you are in such a hurry. I’ll return to-morrow.”

Then he struggled into his overcoat, and left the Museum full of vague misgivings.

Already dark outside, the street-lamps were lit, and the steady downpour was unceasing. But he trudged across to the photographer’s, and there obtained the scraps of half-destroyed manuscript, which only a few moments before had been brought back from the studio at Acton.

“We shall have prints ready for you to-morrow evening,” said the manager. “I’ll send them to you, shall I?”

“No, don’t do that,” Griffin said quickly. “I would rather call for them. I’ll be in about this time to-morrow.”

Then placing the packet in his pocket, he walked along Oxford Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road.

His mind was full of the alarming discovery that another person was investigating the same problem as himself. This meant that the secret was known, and if known to another, what more likely than that the stranger possessed a complete manuscript – a manuscript which gave the context, not only of the curious statement, but of the directions of how the truth could be verified.

Of the latter, he possessed only that one scrap of written manuscript. There must have been other folios, but all were, alas! missing. They had, no doubt, been consumed by the flames before the eyes of the dying man.

He was beside himself with anxiety. It could not have been Diamond himself who had been at the Museum, for the Doctor was not a Hebrew scholar and, besides, he had been told by Frank that the man was badly deformed. Therefore, his deformity would certainly have impressed itself upon the assistant-keeper.

By the “Tube” from Tottenham Court Road Station he travelled to Notting Hill Gate, and turning into Pembridge Gardens, let himself in with his latch-key.

Frank was with Gwen in the drawing-room, and they were taking their tea tête-à-tête when the old man entered. After luncheon he had taken her to a matinée, and the happy pair had only just returned.

“Tell me, Frank,” asked the Professor, almost before he had time to greet him, “did that friend of yours, Diamond, show those papers to any one else besides you, do you think?”

“Certainly not. Why?” inquired the young man in some surprise.

“Oh, nothing,” replied the Professor with slight hesitation. “I – well – I only thought that it would be a little unfair to trouble me if somebody else had already been making any researches.”

“Nobody has seen it save myself, I can assure you. Diamond is a most careful and cautious man,” Frank declared. “He brought them straight over from Paris, and came at once to me.”

“He might possibly have shown them to somebody in Paris,” the elder man suggested.

“I asked him, and he distinctly told me that nobody save myself had set eyes upon them.”

The Professor sank into an armchair, and in silence took the cup of tea which Gwen handed to him.

“You’re tired, dad,” she said. “I see it in your face!”

“A little, dear. I’ve been at the Museum all day.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go to that horrid old place. It always gives you a headache, you know,” said the girl anxiously.

“Ah, my child,” replied the old man with a sigh, “the place holds, for me, much that is interesting in life – in fact all that is interesting, except your own neat little self.”

The girl laughed merrily, declaring that compliments should not be paid to her in the presence of Frank.

But the old man, sighing rather wearily, said:

“Well, Gwen, it’s the truth. I have nothing much to live for, except yourself and my studies. When your dear mother died, the sun of my life was extinguished. And now you have grown up to take her place.”

She and Frank exchanged quick meaning glances.

“I hope always to live near you, dear old dad, even after we’re married,” she said. “I shall never desert you.”

Her father smiled, saying:

“That is what every girl says to her parents before marriage. Few, however, fulfil their promise.”

“Well, dad, don’t let’s talk about parting till the time really comes,” exclaimed his daughter, in an endeavour to change the topic of conversation. Only a moment prior to the Professor’s return she and Frank had been discussing the future, and considering that very point.

“Have you been making researches in the Museum in connection with the burnt papers, Professor?” asked young Farquhar, who, standing in his well-cut suit of blue serge, looked a splendid specimen of the lithe, athletic young Englishman.

“Yes, I have.”

“And the result?”

The Professor shook his head in the negative.

“At present I have failed to discover the slightest title of corroboration of your friend Doctor Diamond’s wonderful theory. The construction which may be placed upon the scrappy statements are many, but none upon which I can yet form any absolute conclusion.”

He made no mention that he had caused photographic negatives of the burnt papers to be secured, or that, within his pocket, there reposed an accurate copy of the accepted original of the Book of Ezekiel.

“You are still in opposition, then, to Diamond’s theory?” asked the young man.

“Of course.”

“But why?”

The Professor drank his tea slowly, and replaced the cup upon the little table.

“Well,” he answered with much deliberation, “because Biblical history is entirely opposed to it. The first Book of Kings relates in detail the building of the temple by Solomon in B.C. 1012, the dimensions of the Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Within and without the building was conspicuous by the lavish use of gold from Ophir and Parvaim. Above the sacred Ark, which was placed as of old in the Most Holy Place, were made new cherubim, one pair of whose wings met above the Ark and another pair reached to the walls behind them. In the Holy Place, besides the Altar of Incense, which was made of cedar overlaid with gold, there were seven golden candlesticks instead of one, and the table of the shew-bread was replaced by ten golden tables bearing beside the shew-bread the innumerable golden vessels for the service of the sanctuary. Instead of the brazen laver we know that there was a ‘molten sea’ of brass, a masterpiece of Hiram’s skill, for the ablutions of the priests. It was called a ‘sea’ from its great size, being five cubits in height ten in diameter and thirty in circumference, and containing, it is estimated, about sixteen thousand gallons of water. It stood upon twelve oxen, three towards each quarter of the heavens, and all looking outwards. The brim itself, or lip, was wrought ‘like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies,’ or curved outwards like a lily or lotus flower. The front of the porch was supported, after the manner of some Egyptian temples, by the two great brazen pillars Jachin and Boaz, eighteen cubits high, with capitols of five cubits more, adorned, as we are told, with lily-work and pomegranates.

“But,” he added, “all this is historical fact. In the temple reposed the most valuable collection of gold and jewels ever gathered together, and the dedication of the House of Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the grandest ceremony ever performed under the Mosaic dispensation. And if you read 1 Kings, viii, and 2 Chronicles, v, you will there learn how, at the ceremony, Jehovah gave the sign of His coming to take possession of His house. Then Solomon built his own house, placing within it the wonderful ‘wealth of Ormuz and Ind,’ and to him came the Queen of Sheba, an event which marked the culminating-point of his glory. The very king who built the glorious temple, and to whom Jehovah had twice given solemn warning in his old age, however, and under the influence of his wives, turned his heart away from God. He served Ashtoreth, the moon-goddess of the Zidonians, and Moloch, the ‘horrid king’ whom the Ammonites worshipped with human sacrifice. Solomon died in B.C. 976, and very shortly after his death the prophecy of Ahijah was fulfilled: his kingdom was rent in twain, and the parts, weakened by the disruption, formed the separate kingdoms of Judah and of Israel.”

“It will be interesting to trace the history of the temple from that date down to the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar,” remarked Frank.

“That occurred about three hundred years after Solomon’s death – at least according to our latest chronologers,” replied the Professor, “and it is in tracing that history that we have many of the points before us negatived most decisively. Let me instance one or two of them.”

“Yes, do, dad,” cried Gwen, greatly interested. “I’m quite excited, over the mysterious affair.”

“Then listen, child,” the old man said. “But, first go and get a Bible from the study.”

And the girl rose to do her father’s bidding.