briefly explained in my letter,” he answered. “Isn’t it very remarkable? What’s your opinion?”
“Ah! you journalists!” exclaimed the old professor reprovingly. “You’ve a lot to answer for to the unsuspecting public.”
“I admit that,” laughed Frank. “But do you really dismiss the matter as a ‘cock-and-bull’ story?”
“That is how I regard it at the moment – without having been shown anything.”
“Then I can show you everything,” was Farquhar’s prompt reply. “I have it all with me – at least all that remains of it.”
The old man smiled satirically. As Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, Dr Arminger Griffin was not a man to accept lightly any theory placed before him by an irresponsible writer such as he knew Frank Farquhar to be.
He suspected a journalistic “boom” to be at the bottom of the affair, and of all things he hated most in the world was the halfpenny press.
Frank had first met Gwen while he had been at college, and had often been a visitor at the professor’s house out on Grange Road, prior to his retirement and return to London. He knew well in what contempt the old man held the popular portion of the daily press, and especially the London evening journals. Therefore he never sought to obtrude his profession when in his presence.
“Well?” said the old gentleman at last, peering above his glasses. “I certainly am interested in the story, and I would like to examine what you’ve brought. Burnt papers – aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“H’m. Savours of romance,” sniffed the professor. “That’s why I don’t like it. The alleged secret itself is attractive enough, without an additional and probably wholly fictitious interest.”
Frank explained how the fragments had fallen into his hands, and the suggestion which Doctor Diamond had made as to the possibility of a financial value of the secret.
“My dear Frank,” replied the professor, “if it were a secret invention, a new pill, or some scented soap attractive to women, it might be worth something in the City. But a secret such as you allege,” – and he shrugged his shoulders ominously without concluding his sentence.
“Ah!” laughed the young man. “I see you’re sceptical. Well, I don’t wonder at that. Some men of undoubted ability and great knowledge declare that the Bible was not inspired.”
“I am not one of those,” the professor hastened to declare.
“No, Frank,” exclaimed the girl. “Dad is not an agnostic. He only doubts the genuineness of this secret of yours.”
“He condemns the whole thing as a ‘cock-and-bull’ story, without first investigating it!” said Farquhar with a grin. “Good! I wonder whether your father will be of the same opinion after he has examined the fragments of the dead man’s manuscript which remain to us?”
“Don’t talk of the dead man’s manuscript!” exclaimed the old professor impatiently, “even though the man is dead, it’s in typewriting, you say – therefore there must exist somebody who typed it. He, or she, must still be alive!”
“By Jove!” gasped the young man quickly, “I never thought of that! The typing is probably only a copy of a written manuscript. The original may still exist. And in any case the typist would be able to supply to a great degree the missing portions of the document.”
“Yes,” said the other. “It would be far more advantageous to you to find the typist than to consult me. I fear I can only give you a negative opinion.”
Chapter Six
Gives Expert Opinion
Frank Farquhar was cleverly working his own game. The Professor had scoffed at the theory put forward by Diamond, therefore he was easily induced to give a written undertaking to regard the knowledge derived from the half-burnt manuscript as strictly confidential, and to make no use of it to his own personal advantage.
“I have to obtain this,” the young man explained, “in the interests of Diamond, who, after all, is possessor of the papers. He allowed me to have them only on that understanding.”
“My dear Frank,” laughed the great Hebrew scholar, “really all this is very absurd. But of course I’ll sign any document you wish.”
So amid some laughter a brief undertaking was signed, “in order that I may show to Diamond,” as Frank put it.
“It’s really a most businesslike affair,” declared Gwen, who witnessed her father’s signature. “The secret must be a most wonderful one.”
“It is, dear,” declared her lover. “Wait and hear your father’s opinion. He is one of the very few men in the whole kingdom competent to judge whether the declaration is one worthy of investigation.”
The Professor was seated at his writing-table placed near the left-hand window, and had just signed the document airily, with a feeling that the whole matter was a myth. Upon the table was his green-shaded electric reading-lamp, and with his head within the zone of its mellow light he sat, his bearded chin resting upon his palm, looking at the man to whom he had promised his daughter’s hand.
A scholar of his stamp is always very slow to commit himself to any opinion. The Hebrew professor, whoever he may be, follows recognised lines, and has neither desire nor inclination to depart from them. It was so with Griffin. Truth to tell, he was much interested in the problem which young Farquhar had placed before him, but at the same time the suggestion made by Doctor Diamond was so startling and unheard of that, within himself, he laughed at the idea, regarding it as a mere newspaper sensation, invented in the brain of some clever Continental swindler.
From his pocket the young man drew forth the precious envelope, and out of it took the cards between which reposed three pieces of crinkled and smoke-blackened typewriting, the edges of which had all been badly burned.
The first which he placed with infinite care, touching it as lightly as possible, upon the Professor’s blotting-pad was the page already reproduced – the folio which referred to the studying of the “Mishna” and the cabalistic signs which the writer had apparently discovered therein.
The old man, blinking through his heavy round glasses, examined the disjointed words and unfinished lines, grunted once or twice in undisguised dissatisfaction, and placed the fragment aside.
“Well?” inquired Farquhar, eagerly, “does that convey anything to you?”
The Professor pursed his lips in quiet disbelief.
“The prologue of a very elegant piece of fiction,” he sneered. “The man who makes this statement ought certainly to have been a novelist.”
“Why?”
“Because of the clever manner in which he introduces his subject. But let us continue.”
With delicate fingers Frank Farquhar handled the next scrap of typewriting and placed it before the great expert.
The folio in question apparently attracted Professor Griffin much more than the first one presented to him. He read and re-read it, his grey face the whole time heavy and thoughtful. He was reconstructing the context in his own mind, and its reconstruction evidently caused him deep and very serious reflection.
A dozen times he re-read it, while Frank and Gwen stood by exchanging glances in silence.
“The first portion of the statement on this folio is quite plain,” remarked the Professor at last, looking up and blinking at the young man. “The writer indicates the Biblical fact that, after the Babylonian imprisonment the tablets of Moses were never again exhibited in the Temple. Surely this is not any amazing discovery! Every reader of the Old Testament is aware of that fact. The prophet Ezekiel himself was one of the temple priests deported to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. You’ll find mention of it in Ezekiel, i, 2-8. His message consisted at first of denunciations of his countrymen, both in Babylon and in Palestine, but after the