“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.