“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 fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. he became a prophet of consolation, promising the eventual deliverance and restoration of the chosen people. Give me down the Bible, Gwen, dear, and also Skinner – the ‘Expositor’s Bible.’ You’ll see it in the second case – third shelf to the left.”
The girl crossed the room, and after a moment’s search returned with the two volumes, which she placed before her father.
“Nebuchadnezzar received certain vessels from the temple at Jerusalem. Well, we know that,” remarked the old man, as he opened the copy of Holy Writ and slowly turned its pages.
“The reference in the book of Ezra,” he said, referring to the open book before him, “concerns the proclamation of Cyrus, King of Persia, for the building of the temple in Jerusalem, how the people provided for the return, and how Cyrus restored the vessels of the temple to Sheshbazzar, the Prince of Judah.” Then, turning to Gwen, he said: “Read the verses referred to, dear – seventh to the eleventh in the first chapter.”
The girl bent over the Bible, and read the verses aloud as follows:
“Also Cyrus the King brought forth the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods;
“Even those did Cyrus King of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the Prince of Judah.
“And this is the number of them: thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers of silver, nine and twenty knives,
“Thirty basons of gold, silver basons of a second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand.
“All the vessels of gold and silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem.”
“Surely that is sufficient historical fact!” the old Professor said in his hard, “dry-as-dust” voice. “Again, farther on, there is, you see, a statement that Titus destroyed Jerusalem and that he built the Arch of Triumph in Rome and placed a representation of the candlesticks upon it. Does not every schoolboy know that! Bosh! my dear Frank!”
“True,” exclaimed Frank, “but see! in the next line but one is a reference to the existence of something in ‘the whole prophecy of Ezekiel’ – something in ‘black and white.’”
Professor Griffin shrugged his shoulders.
“Ezekiel develops the doctrine of individual responsibility and of the Messianic kingdom as no prophet before him,” was the Professor’s reply. “It may refer to that. The prophet’s style is not of the highest order, but is extraordinarily rich and striking in its imagery. The authenticity of the book is now admitted, all but universally, but the corrupt state of the Hebrew text has, for ages, been the despair of students. Cornhill, in 1886, made a brilliant attempt to reconstruct the Hebrew text with the aid of the Septuagint.”
Griffin noticed that his young friend did not quite follow that last remark, so he added:
“The Septuagint is, as you may perhaps know, the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures made directly from the Hebrew original during the third century before Christ for the use of the Hellenistic Jews. In the literary forgery produced about the Christian era, known as the ‘Letter of Aristeas,’ and accepted as genuine by Josephus and others, it is alleged that the translation was made by seventy-two men at the command of Ptolemy II. You will find portions of it in the British Museum, and from it we find that the translation is not of uniform value or of the same style throughout. The Pentateuch and later historical books, as well as the Psalms, exhibit a very fair rendering of the original. The prophetical books, and more especially Ezekiel, show greater divergence from the Hebrew, while Proverbs frequently display loose paraphrase.”
“But is there anything in those typed lines which strikes you as unusually curious?” demanded young Farquhar, pointing to the smoked and charred fragment upon the blotting-pad.
The Professor was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed upon the disjointed and unfinished sentences.
“Well – yes. There is something,” was his answer. “That statement that something exists in ‘the whole prophecy of Ezekiel.’ What is that something?”
“Is it what Doctor Diamond suspects it to be, do you think?”
“I can form no definite conclusion until I have investigated the whole,” was the great scholar’s response. “But I would, at this point, withdraw my own light remarks of half an hour ago. There may be something of interest in it, but what the picturesque story is all leading up to I cannot quite imagine.”
“To a secret – to the solution of a great and undreamed-of mystery!” declared Frank excitedly.
“The last few lines of this scrap before me certainly leads towards that supposition,” was the answer of Gwen Griffin’s father.
“Then you do not altogether negative Diamond’s theory that there is here, if we can only supply the context, the key to the greatest secret this world has ever known!”
“Ah! that is saying a good deal,” was the reply. “Let me continue the investigation of this wonderful document which the dying man was so anxious to destroy.”
And by the sphinx-like expression upon the old man’s face it was apparent that he had already gathered more information than he was willing to admit.
The truth was that the theory he had already formed within his own mind held him bewildered. His thin fingers trembled as he touched the dried, crinkled folio.
There was a secret there – without a doubt, colossal and astounding – one of which even the greatest scholars in Europe through all the ages had never dreamed!
The old man sat staring through his spectacles in abject wonder.
Was Doctor Diamond’s theory really the correct one? If so, what right had these most precious papers to be in the hands of an irresponsible journalist?
If there was really a secret, together with its solution – then the latter must be his, and his alone, he decided. How it would enhance his great reputation if he were the person to launch it forth upon the world!
Therefore the old man’s attitude suddenly changed and he pretended to regard the affair humorously, in the hope of putting Frank off his guard.
If the world was ever to be startled by the discovery it should, he intended, be by Professor Arminger Griffin, and not through any one of those irresponsible halfpenny sheets controlled by Sir George Gavin and his smart and ingenious young brother-in-law.
Both Frank Farquhar and Gwen noticed the old man’s sudden change of manner, and stood puzzled and wondering, little dreaming what was passing with his mind.
Few men are – alas! – honest where their own reputations are at stake.
Chapter Seven
In which the Professor Exhibits Cunning
Frank was fully aware that Professor Griffin was an eccentric man, full of strange moods and strong prejudices. Most scholars and writers are.
“But, dad,” exclaimed his daughter, placing her soft hand upon his shoulder, “what do you really think of it? Is there anything in this Doctor Diamond’s theory?”
“My dear child, I never jump to conclusions, as you know. It is against my habit. It’s probably one of the many hoaxes which have been practised for the last thousand years.”
The girl exchanged a quick glance with her lover. She could see that Frank was annoyed by the light manner with which her father treated the alleged secret.
“Well, Professor,” said the young man at last, “this, apparently, is the next folio, though the numbering of each has been destroyed,” and he placed before the man in spectacles another scrap which presented the appearance as shown.
In an instant the old man became intensely interested though he endeavoured very cleverly to conceal the fact. He bent, and taking up a large magnifying-glass mounted in silver – a gift from Frank on the previous Christmas – he carefully examined each word in its order.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “the first three lines, underlined as you see, are apparently a portion of some prophecy regarding the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, ‘the period of the Blood-debts,’ after which comes the period when the oppression will lose its power, which means their release by Cyras. Come now, this is of some interest!”
“Read on, dad,” urged the dainty girl, excitedly. “Tell us what you gather from it.”
The pair were standing hand-in-hand, at the back of the old man’s writing-chair.
“Not so quickly, dear – not so quickly. That’s the worst of women. They are always so erratic, always in such an uncommon hurry,” he added with a laugh.
Then, after a pause during which he carefully examined the lines which followed, he pointed out: “You see that somebody – not the writer of the document, remember – has stated that Moses’ tablets ‘The Cha – ’, which must mean the Chair of Grace, between two cherubims of fine gold, a number of other things, including the Ark of the Covenant itself and the archives of the Temple down to B.C. 600 are – what?”
And he raised his head staring at the pair through his round and greatly magnifying-glasses.
“Doctor Diamond’s theory is that the treasures of Solomon’s Temple are still concealed at the spot where they were hidden by the priests before the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.”
The Professor laughed aloud.
“My dear Farquhar,” he exclaimed, “on the face of this folio it would, of course, appear so. One may read it as a statement of fact that all the relics of the Temple and all the great treasures of the ages bygone – the Treasure of Israel – are concealed ‘beneath’, somewhere – ‘which is a series’ of something. To this, there are three entrances, one only being accessible. Then in the final lines, we have another prophecy that the tablets shall ‘remain in their hiding-place – that is with the Ark of the Covenant – till the coming of the Messiah who alone may open the treasure-house, or place of concealment, in order that he may show proof of – ’, and the rest is lost.” he added with a sigh of disappointment.
“I admit,” said Frank, “that is one reading of it. But what is your reading – that of an expert?”
The old man merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
“I don’t think that the Doctor’s theory is the correct one. The belief that the Treasure of Solomon’s Temple still exists is far too wild and unsubstantiated. Of course, it is not quite clear in history what became of the contents of the Temple, but I think we may safely at once dismiss any possibility of the relics of Moses as being intact after a couple of thousand years or so. Stories of hidden treasure have appealed to the avarice of man throughout all the ages, from the days of the Roman Emperors, down to the day before yesterday, when a ship went forth to search for the lost gold of President Kruger. There have been hundreds, nay thousands of expeditions to search for treasure, but in nearly every case the searchers have returned sadder and poorer men. No, Frank,” he exclaimed, decisively, “I don’t think any one would be such an utter fool as to attempt to suggest that the Treasure of Israel still exists. At least no scholar would. Whoever would do such a thing would be a clumsy bungler, ignorant of both the Hebrew language and the history of the Hebrew nation. Doctor Diamond, from what you tell me, is, I gather, one of such.”
“But they are not the Doctor’s documents,” Frank hastened to point out. “As I’ve told you, a man dying in Paris ordered him to burn them. He did so, but they were not all consumed.”
“The Doctor worked a trick upon a dying man,” sniffed the Professor. “Hardly played the game – eh?”
“I quite agree with you there,” answered young Farquhar. “Yet, according to the Doctor’s version, he was in no way responsible for the fact that only half the folios were consumed.”
“Well, whatever it is,” declared the Professor, very decisively, “it seems to be some rather clumsy ‘cock-and-bull’ story. In what I’ve read. I, as a scholar, could pick many holes. Indeed, such a screed as this could never have been concocted by any one with any pretence of knowledge of old Testament history. There are certain statements which are utterly absurd on the face of them.”
“Which are they?” inquired Frank eagerly.
“Oh – several,” was the rather light reply. “As you are not a scholar, my dear boy, it would be useless me going into long and technical explanations. The disjointed bits of prophecy are, I admit, really most artistic,” he added with a laugh.
If the truth be told, Arminger Griffin was concealing the intense excitement that had been aroused within him. He was making a discovery – a wonderful, an amazing discovery. But to this young journalist, who would merely regard it as a good “boom” for one of his irresponsible halfpenny journals, he intended to pooh-pooh it as a mere clumsy fairy tale.
“Well,” he asked, a moment later, in an incredulous tone. “What else have you to show me?”
“No more typewriting,” was Frank’s reply. “The only other folio is one of manuscript, and it will probably interest you, for it contains two Hebrew words,” and he placed before the great expert a half-consumed fragment of lined manuscript paper which bore some close writing in English of which the present writer gives a facsimile here.
“H’m,” grunted the old man, after a swift glance at it. “A copy, evidently. The Hebrew words are too clumsily written. No scholar wrote them. Probably it’s a translation from German or Danish – I think you said that the man who called himself Blanc, was really a Dane – eh?”
“Yes. He told Diamond that he came from Copenhagen,” Farquhar replied.
But the old man was too deeply engrossed in the study of the neat manuscript. How he wished that the context had been preserved, for here, he recognised, was the key, or rather the commencement of the key to the whole secret. He was now anxious to get rid of Frank Farquhar, and be allowed to pursue his investigations alone. There was certainly much more in it than he had at first suspected.
With such a sensation as that contained in the half-burnt documents to launch upon the world, he would be acclaimed the most prominent scholar of the day. The whole of academic Europe would shower honours upon him.
“What does it mean about the ‘wâw’ sign?” inquired the young man. “Does that convey anything?”
“Nothing,” laughed the Professor with affected indifference. “What can one make out of such silly nonsense? It says, apparently, that in Ezekiel the ‘wâw’ sign appears with great regularity. Well, so it does in all Hebrew texts. The letter ‘a’ appears often in English doesn’t it? Well, so does the Hebrew ‘w’ or ‘v’. Therefore it’s all bunkum – that was my first impression – and I still retain it!”
Gwen looked genuinely disappointed. She had hoped that this wonderful manuscript which had fallen into her lover’s hands would turn out, as he had declared it would, to be of utmost value, both to history and also of financial value to its possessors.
But her father, recognised as one of the first authorities of the day, had decisively condemned it as a clumsy fraud.
“The reference given in the manuscript is, I see, Ezekiel xli. 23,” remarked the girl, and turning over the pages of the Bible which she still held in her hand she exclaimed:
“Here it is. Let me read it: ‘And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors. And the doors had two leaves apiece, two burning leaves; two leaves for the one door, and two for the other door. And there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubims and palm trees, like as were made upon the walls; and there were thick planks upon the face of the porch without. And there were narrow windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch, and upon the side chambers of the house, and thick planks.’”
“Yes,” remarked the old man. “The first Hebrew word in the manuscript means either ‘palace’ or ‘temple’. That occurs as the third word of the quotation. But there is no mention of ‘cupbearer’. If I recollect aright, there is a mention of the doors of the Temple in the First Book of Kings. I believe it’s in the sixth chapter. Look, dear, and see if you can find it.”
His daughter turned over the leaves quickly, found the chapter he had indicated, and scanned over the verses.
“Ah!” she cried, a moment later. “Yes. You are right, dad. Here it is, beginning at verse 31: ‘And for the entering of the oracle he (Solomon) made doors of olive tree: the lintel and side posts were a fifth part of the wall. The two doors also were of olive tree: and he carved upon them carvings of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, and spread gold upon the cherubims, and upon the palm trees. So also made he for the door of the temple posts of olive tree, a fourth part of the wall And the two doors were of fir tree: the two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. And he carved thereon cherubims and palm trees and open flowers: and covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work.’”
“I looked up the reference in Ezekiel,” remarked Frank, “but I could not understand it. Perhaps, you, Professor, may be able to throw some light upon it?”
The old man turned to the speaker, and held up his thin, almost waxen hands.
“How can I?” he asked with an air of bewilderment well feigned. “How can I possibly? The latter half of this fragment of scribble is a mere copy of a verse out of the Old Testament, and seems to have nothing whatever to do with the theory – whatever it may be – expounded in the upper part of the page.”
“Then what is your candid opinion, dad?” asked Gwen, placing her hand softly upon her father’s shoulder again as she stood behind him, and at the same time turning her eyes affectionately upon the tall, good-looking, young man at her side.
“My candid opinion, my dear,” grunted the old Professor, “is that it is one of the many extraordinary theories we have had of hare-brained persons who have gained a smattering of Hebrew, and believe themselves to have discovered some very wonderful secret. To put it bluntly, Gwen – the whole thing is bunkum!”
The young man said nothing. His spirits fell. Of course, he had expected the Professor, in the habit of all scholars, to throw cold water upon Doctor Diamond’s suggestion, but he was hardly prepared for such a drastic dismissal of the subject.
“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “I don’t wish you to come to any premature conclusion, Professor. You have really not had sufficient opportunity yet of thoroughly investigating the affair, have you?”
“No. That’s quite true. I – well – I’d like to keep these scraps for a day, or say a couple of days – if I might, my dear Frank. I’ll be most careful of them, I promise you, and they shall not leave my possession. As a matter of fact,” he added, “Ginsberg from Berlin happens to be in London, and I’m extremely anxious to show them to him, and hear his views.”
Frank Farquhar was a smart young man, and in a second realised danger in this.
“I fear, Professor, that I cannot allow you to show them to Professor Ginsberg. I made a promise to Diamond that they should be shown only to yourself.”
“Very well, very well,” laughed the Professor, “if you care to trust them with me till the day after to-morrow I will promise to show them to nobody. I only wish to study the extraordinary statement myself, and consult certain original Hebrew texts.”
At first Frank was reluctant, remembering his promise to Doctor Diamond. But at Gwen’s persuasion he was induced to leave them to be locked up in the old-fashioned oak bureau at the further end of the cosy room. The three then passed into the small drawing-room on the same floor, where Gwen, at her lover’s request, sat at the piano and sang in her sweet contralto several pretty French chansonettes which she had learnt.