Kitabı oku: «The Great God Gold», sayfa 8

Chapter Sixteen
Owen Learns the Truth

When the Professor seated himself at the breakfast-table and the news of Miss Gwen’s absence was broken to him by Laura, the parlour-maid, he started up in surprise.

“Miss Gwen went out late last night instead of going to bed, sir, and took the latch-key,” the girl was compelled to admit.

The old man pursed his thin lips. His daughter was not in the habit of going out on midnight escapades.

“Late last night Miss Gwen received a telegram, sir,” the girl added. “It seemed to excite her very much; she dressed at once, and went out.”

The Professor rose from the table without eating, and went to the study to think.

Upon the blotting-pad lay a sheet of ruled manuscript paper. He stared at it in horror as though he saw an apparition, for there upon the paper, scrawled boldly in blue chalk, were the mystic figures:

255.19.7

They danced before his eyes, as he stood staring at them. How came they there, in his own study? What could they mean?

He looked around bewildered. Nothing was out of place – nothing disturbed. Those puzzling figures had been written there by some unseen hand.

During his wakeful hours that long night he had applied Hebrew letters of those numerical values to the array of figures. But the result was chaotic. It was some mystic sign. But what, he could not determine.

He had found them on that scrap of paper cast aside at the Bodleian Library, and now again they appeared in the privacy of his own study, to puzzle and confound him.

Through the next hour he waited, from moment to moment, in the expectation of a telegram from Gwen explaining her absence and assuring him of her safety. But, alas! none came. Therefore, he put on his boots and overcoat and went round to the police-station, where the inspector on duty received him most courteously, and took a minute description of the missing young lady, a statement which, half an hour later, had been received over the telegraph at every police-station throughout the Metropolitan area.

He had taken the precaution to place one of Gwen’s photographs in his pocket, and this he handed to the inspector.

“Well do our very best, Professor, of course,” the officer assured him. “But young ladies are often very erratic, you know. We have hundreds of girls reported missing, but they usually turn up again the next day, or a couple of days later. Their absence is nearly always voluntary, and usually attributable to the one cause, love!”

“But my daughter’s lover is in Denmark,” the Professor protested.

“That is what you have been led to believe,” remarked the inspector with an incredulous smile. “Girls are very cunning, I have two myself, sir.”

“But you will help me, will you not?” urged the old gentleman earnestly.

“No effort shall be spared to discover your daughter, sir,” answered the rosy, clean-shaven man seated at his desk. “I’ll report the matter to our superintendent at once. Do you,” he added, “happen to know what dress she was wearing? I will want a close description of it, also the laundry mark on her underlinen. Your servants will, no doubt, be able to supply the latter. Perhaps I’d better step round with you and see them.”

So the inspector at once accompanied the Professor back to Pembridge Gardens, and there was shown some of the girl’s clothes with the laundry mark upon them. Afterwards he left, leaving the old man in the highest state of apprehension.

He put aside all thought of the inquiry upon which he had been engaged. His sole thought was for the safety of his child.

Meanwhile Jim Jannaway and Sir Felix Challas were still in deep consultation in the privacy of that quiet, sombre study in Berkeley Square.

“Erich left for Paris by the nine o’clock service this morning,” Jim was saying. “He wants to consult some early manuscript in the National Library, he says.”

“He’s a decidedly clever old fossil,” declared the Baronet, knocking the ash off his cigar, “and I’m convinced he’s on the right track. If we can only keep these other people off, mislead them, or put them on a false scent, we shall win.”

“Erich has done that already,” laughed the other. “He’s been down to Oxford and pretended to study certain manuscripts, knowing well that Griffin’s researches must lead him there. By putting Griffin on a false scent he’s simply tangling him up. Oh! yes, I agree, Erich Haupt is a wary old bird.”

“Then he is now making investigations in various quarters with the sole object of misleading Griffin, eh?” laughed Sir Felix. “Really, it’s quite comical.”

“Yes, and he lets drop just sufficient information to excite the curiosity of the officiate of the various libraries and place them on the qui vive. He does that, so that they shall inform Griffin.”

“Excellent!” declared the Baronet. “As soon as he returns from Paris I must see him. I wonder if the secret record really does exist? If it does, then, by Jove! I’ll hold the key to the whole Jewish religion. But one thing is quite evident, my dear Jim, we must crush out all this opposition with a firm, relentless hand. You understand?”

“I quite follow,” remarked the great financier’s unscrupulous “cat’s-paw.”

And they continued the discussion of the present rather insecure situation.

Sir Felix Challas wore his mask with marvellous cleverness. The world – the people who read of him in the newspapers – never suspected that the man whose name so often headed subscription lists for charitable objects, and whose handsome donation was the signal for a hundred others, was an unscrupulous schemer. His had been the hand that, by clever financial juggling in which some other person was always the principal, had brought ruin to thousands of happy homes. He had, indeed, if the truth were told, climbed to the pedestal of notoriety and esteem, over the bodies of the men, both capitalists and workmen, he had, with such innate cunning, contrived to ruin.

The strange story told by that shabby Dane as he sat in the gorgeous room of the Grand Hotel in Paris, had attracted him from the very first. Here was a chance of getting the better of his natural enemies, the Jews. Ah! how he hated them! Yes. He would search, and if he found any of those sacred relics, his intention was to laugh in the face of the whole Hebrew community and hold the discovery up to the derision of the Christians.

What mattered it to him that the Dane had died in penury in that obscure hotel near the Gare du Nord? His secret agent, who had watched the poor fellow from the moment he left the Grand Hotel, had informed Sir Felix of the man’s tragic end, but he had only smiled with evident satisfaction. The agent had ascertained that the present document had not been found among the dead man’s possessions, hence the Baronet believed that the man, before his death, had destroyed it. It was a blow to him when he discovered that certain fragments of it had been carefully preserved by Doctor Diamond. It meant that opposition had arisen – a very serious opposition which he must forcibly crush down.

“Charlie returns from Brussels to-day, doesn’t he?” the Baronet was asking.

“Yes. He ought to be back in his rooms by now. And he’ll find the girl there. I’ve left him definite instructions how to act.”

“The girl must be sworn to silence,” Sir Felix said with heavy brow. “She must assist us. We must compel her.”

Jim Jannaway nodded. From instructions given by the man before him his eyes had already been opened, and ten minutes later he left the house, the Baronet’s last words being:

“Remember, Jim, there’s millions in this business. We mustn’t lose it for the sake of that chit of a girl, however innocent and pretty she may be. Understand that!”

An hour previously Gwen Griffin, struggling slowly back to consciousness, found that, straight before her, was a square window over which was drawn a smoke-blackened, brown holland blind. The gas was still burning, although the grey wintry day had dawned some hours ago.

She was lying upon the bed in a fairly big room, still dressed, but with her clothes torn, as they had been in the desperate struggle of the previous night. Slowly and painfully she rose, and as she slipped off the bed she felt her limbs so weak and trembling that she could scarcely stand.

She caught sight of her dishevelled self in the long mirror of the wardrobe, and her own reflection startled her. All the horrors of that struggle crowded upon her. She put up her hands and pushed her thick dark hair from her white fevered brow.

“Where am I?” she cried aloud. “What will dad think?”

She staggered to the door, but found it locked and bolted from the outside. Then she went to the window and pulling aside the blind judged by the light that it must be about eleven o’clock in the morning. She tried to open the window but the sashes had been screwed together. The outlook was upon a blank wall.

Before the glass she rearranged her disordered dress, and sinking upon the side of the bed tried to recollect all that had occurred. But her head throbbed, her throat burned, and all the past seemed uncertain and indistinct.

The only fact which stood out clear in her mind as she sat there, inert and helpless, was the bitter truth which the man had spoken. The scoundrel who had represented himself to be “Captain Wetherton,” the friend of her lover, had showed himself in his true colours. He had brought her there for one dastardly purpose alone – to ruin her in Frank’s esteem.

She wondered what had really occurred – and while wondering, and dreading, she burst into a flood of bitter tears.

At one moment she made up her mind to batter down the door, or smash the window. But if she did that, she would, she feared, bring forth that man now so hateful to her.

She detested him. No. Rather would she starve and die there than ever look upon his blackguardly face again. The fellow was a coward, a vile scoundrel who had taken advantage of her eagerness to meet her lover, and had matched his brute strength against hers.

What should she do? How could she ever face Frank again?

She must have been carried there and placed upon that bed. She must, too, have lain for fully twelve hours in blank unconsciousness.

What had she done, she wondered, that this shameful trick should be played upon her? Alas! she had read accounts in the newspapers of how young girls had been decoyed and betrayed in our great world of London. Ah! it was no new thing she knew. Yet how long, she asked herself, was her imprisonment to continue? How long before she would be able at least to reassure her father of her safety?

For a full hour she sat in bitter tears, alone, disconsolate, and full of grave apprehension, until of a sudden she heard a footstep outside the door.

She held her breath. Horror! It was that man again.

The bolts were withdrawn, the door opened, and on the threshold stood a man, much taller, thinner and slightly older than the false “Captain Wetherton,” a pale-faced man she had never seen before.

“Hullo!” he asked, looking her straight in the face. “How are you this morning, my dear? You haven’t had any breakfast, I suppose?”

“I want none, sir,” was her haughty reply. “I only wish to leave this place. I was entrapped here last night.”

“Unfortunately, my dear girl, I know nothing about last night,” replied the man. “I returned from the Continent only this morning. These happen to be my chambers, and I find they now contain a very charming tenant!”

She looked at him with her big eyes.

“I hope, sir, you do not intend to add further in suit to that which I have already received here,” she said in a voice of bitter reproach, holding her torn silk blouse together with her hand.

He noticed the state of her dress, and saw what a fierce struggle must have taken place between her and Jim Jannaway.

“My dear girl,” he said in a reassuring tone, “providing you are reasonable, and don’t create a scene, my intention is to treat you with the deference due to every lady.”

“Is that your promise?” asked the girl in breathless eagerness.

“It is my promise – but upon one condition,” said the man in a slow voice. And then she detected in his closely set eyes a strange look that she had not hitherto noticed.

She asked him his condition, to which he replied in a few hard concise words, a smile playing upon his lips.

But the instant she heard him she fell wildly at his feet, and taking his hand in her trembling grasp, begged of him to show her mercy.

But the man only laughed – a laugh that was ominous in itself.

Chapter Seventeen
Contains an Expert Theory

Frank Farquhar had been at the Hotel Angleterre in Copenhagen, the hotel with the prettiest winter-garden in Europe, for four days.

They had been four days of constant activity. As guide, he had the resident correspondent of the morning newspapers of which he was one of the directors, and he had already satisfied himself that, in the Danish capital, there was but one first-class Hebrew scholar, namely Professor Axel Anderson, of the Royal University.

Copenhagen he found a bright pleasant little city full of life and movement, the shops gay and the streets thronged by well-dressed people. In ignorance of what had befallen Gwen, he was thoroughly enjoying himself, even though he saw that his visit could have no satisfactory result as far as the quest for the authorship of the mysterious document was concerned.

One morning he had called by appointment upon Professor Anderson at his pleasant house in the Norrevoldgade and sat down to chat. The Professor, a well-preserved, rather stout man of about forty-five, with a fair beard, spoke English quite well.

“As far as I am aware,” he said, “there are only two professors of Hebrew in Denmark beside myself. They are close personal friends of mine, and I feel sure that neither of them entertains any unusual theory concerning the Book of Ezekiel, or they would have consulted me. Of course, we have a good many scholars come to Copenhagen to study the Northern and Oriental codices in the Royal Library here. Hence I have become acquainted with many of the chief professors of Hebrew. Have you consulted Professor Griffin in London? He is one of the first authorities upon the matter in which you are interested.”

“Yes, I happen to know him,” responded the young man.

“And what is his opinion?”

“A negative one.”

“Ah! Then most probably this typewritten manuscript you tell me about was some baseless theory of an irresponsible crank. I would accept Griffin’s opinion before that of anybody else. There is only one other man of perhaps equal knowledge – old Erich Haupt, of Leipzig. He is a great Hebrew authority, as well as a recognised expert in cryptography.”

“What is your opinion broadly upon the matter?” Farquhar asked.

“Well, candidly, I believe the theory to be without foundation,” answered the Danish scholar. “I do not believe in the existence of a cipher in the Hebrew scriptures. There is nothing cryptic about the sacred record. As regards the vessels of gold and silver from Solomon’s temple, they were restored by Cyrus. It is true that an ancient Talmudic tradition exists to the effect that the Ark of the Covenant, together with the pot of manna, the flask of anointing oil and Aaron’s staff that budded are still hidden beneath the temple mount at Jerusalem. And my opinion is that your half-destroyed document is simply based upon this ancient tradition with which every Jew in Christendom is acquainted.”

“But, Professor,” exclaimed the other, “I know that you yourself are an authority upon cryptography. Have any ciphers been discovered in the original of the Book of Ezekiel?”

“Well, yes,” was the Dane’s answer as he stirred himself in his armchair, and reaching his hand to a bookcase took down a Hebrew-Danish Bible. Then turning to Ezekiel, he said: “There is certainly something in the Hebrew of the thirty-sixth chapter which has puzzled scholars through many centuries. It begins at verse 16: ‘Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man – ’ Now in the constant repetition of ‘Son of man’ certain scholars declare they have discovered a numerical cipher. In the first verse of this chapter we have, ‘Son of man, prophesy unto the mountains.’ In the third verse of the following one he asks: ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ Again in verse 9 of the same chapter, he says: ‘Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind.’ And in verse 11, still addressing him by the same title, he tells the prophet: ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.’ By the title ‘Son of man’ Ezekiel is so often addressed, ‘Son of man’ is so constantly sounded in his ears and ours, that it forces on our attention that God deals with man through the instrumentality of men, and by men communicates his will to men. Hence certain cryptographers have set to work and formed the theory of a hidden meaning in all this.”

“But is the actual cipher known?” asked Frank, at once excited.

“Certainly. It was deciphered by Bamberg, of Paris, forty years ago. But the secret message had no bearing whatsoever upon the lost vessels of Solomon’s temple,” was the Professor’s reply.

“What was the message?” inquired the young Englishman.

“Well – the alleged message which Bamberg deciphered commenced in the thirty-sixth chapter beginning at verse xvi. The passage has peculiar claims upon the attention of any one searching for cryptic writings. Addressed in the first instance to the Jews, and applicable, in the first instance, to their condition, it presents a remarkable summary of gospel doctrines, and that in a form approaching at least to systematic order. In the seventeenth verse we have man sinning: ‘Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings.’ In the eighteenth verse we have man suffering: ‘Wherefore, I poured my fury upon them.’ In the twenty-first verse man appears an object of mercy: ‘but I had pity.’ In the twenty-second verse man is an object of free mercy – mercy without merit: ‘I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel.’ In the twenty-fourth verse man’s salvation is resolved on: ‘I will bring you into your own land.’ In the twenty-fifth verse man is justified: ‘Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.’ In the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses man is renewed and sanctified: ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.’ In the twenty-eighth verse man is restored to the place and privileges which he forfeited by his sins: ‘Ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.’ ‘This land that was desolate is become like the garden of the Lord.’ We have our security for these blessings in the assurance of the thirty-sixth verse: ‘I, the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it;’ and we are directed to the means of obtaining them in the declaration of the thirty-seventh verse: ‘I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.’”

“And in these verses the French professor discovered a hidden message?”

“Yes. It read curiously, and was most difficult to decipher. But according to Bamberg it was an additional declaration of God’s kindness to man. God was named as ‘the God of Salvation,’ and ‘the author and finisher of man’s faith.’ It consisted briefly in an exhortation to those who discovered the cipher to read, and to believe. But as for the hiding-place of the treasure of Israel being therein designated – well, even Bamberg, whom half the scholars of Europe denounced as a crank, had never dreamed of such a thing. No, Mr Farquhar,” he added, “you may rest assured that the remarkable screed never emanated from a Hebrew scholar in Denmark. Perhaps it might have come from Gothenburg,” he laughed; “more than one hare-brained theory has come from over there!” Anderson was a Dane, and the Danes have no love for the Swedes.

“You mentioned some one in Leipzig. Who is he?” asked Farquhar.

“Oh! Haupt – Erich Haupt,” replied the other. “He’s Professor of Hebrew at the University, and author of several well-known books. His ‘Christology of the Old Testament’ is a standard work. Besides Griffin in London, he is, I consider, the only other man in Europe competent to give an opinion upon the problem you have put before me.”

“How can I find him?”

“You’ll no doubt find him in Leipzig.”

Frank felt that this German was a man to be consulted, yet he was anxious to pursue the inquiry he had started in Denmark. The man who had died in Paris, and had been so careful to destroy his secret, had been a Dane, and he felt that the originator of the remarkable theory must have been a Dane himself. Briefly this was what Farquhar explained, but Professor Anderson assured him that no such theory could have come out of Denmark without his knowledge.

“Search in Gothenburg, or in Stockholm, if you like,” he answered with a smile. “My own idea is that the unfortunate man was deceived by some ‘cock-and-bull’ story, probably an attempt to raise money in order to carry out a scheme to recover the treasure of Solomon. He believed the story of the existence of the temple treasure, and in order that no other person should obtain knowledge of the secret destroyed it before his death.”

“But who was the discoverer of the secret?” asked the Englishman.

“Who can tell,” remarked the Danish professor, shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps it was only some ingenious financial swindle. You have surely had many such in London in recent years. You call them in English, I believe, ‘wild-cat’ schemes.”

“There are many ‘wild-cat’ schemes in the City of London at the present moment,” Frank remarked with a laugh, “but I guarantee that none is so extraordinary as this.”

“Probably not,” laughed the Dane. “I confess that, to me, the whole thing seems like a fairy tale.”

“Then you don’t discern any foundation in fact?”

“Only of tradition – the Old Testament tradition that the treasures are still hidden in the temple mount. Yet, in opposition to this, we have another tradition to the effect that the vessels of Solomon’s temple were used in Persia four hundred years after the captivity. Mention is made of this in a Persian manuscript preserved in your British Museum in London. I forget the number, but it can easily be looked up in the catalogue of Oriental manuscripts.”

“You believe that statement authentic?”

“As authentic as any statement in the ancient records,” was his reply. “But I would suggest that you consult Haupt. He knows more of Hebrew cryptograms and ciphers than any one else on the Continent of Europe. What does Professor Griffin think?”

“He’s inclined to treat the whole theory with levity.”

Professor Anderson smiled.

“Of course,” he said. “Supposed ciphers in certain books of the Old Testament are many. And as you know quite well, a cipher may be invented to fit any message or record desired. Your Baconian theory in regard to Shakespeare was sufficient proof of that.”

“Then in your opinion no real cipher exists in the Book of Ezekiel?” asked the Englishman.

“The Bible was inspired,” was his reply. “If so, there is no cipher in it except what cryptographers invent.”

Frank Farquhar was silent. His inquiries in the Danish capital had nearly carried him into a cul-de-sac.

The dead man was, according to his own story, a Dane. But what more natural than that he had received the extraordinary manuscript from Germany, or from Sweden?

“To me,” remarked the Professor, “the situation of the man who died in Paris was this. Either he himself was the inventor of the whole story or else he had paid something for it and was trying to dispose of it to some financier or other.”

“Doctor Diamond, my friend who attended him before his death, says that the man was evidently a scholar.”

“Then possibly he was the inventor,” remarked Anderson decisively. “But if he was a scholar he was certainly unknown to us. Therefore we may be permitted to doubt his bonâ-fides. My advice to you is to find Haupt.”

“Yes, Professor,” answered the young man, “I will.”

And an hour later he sent a long telegram to the Doctor at Horsford, while that same afternoon he received a brief telegraphic message from Professor Griffin, asking him to return to London at once.

His belief was that the great expert had found some clue, and he left that same evening direct for London, by way of Kiel, Hamburg and Flushing.