Professorwill, I'm sure, be delighted to meet you, and you can discuss the matterthoroughly with him. I'll see him this evening."
Therefore Diamond had taken a cab out to Notting Hill Gate, and oninquiring for Griffin and giving his name, was shown at once upstairs tothe study.
The Professor, with his usual courtesy, expressed his pleasure at themeeting, though if the truth were told he had not expected to see a manof the little Doctor's extreme ugliness. Then, when his visitorproduced the precious copy of the dead man's manuscript, the greatscholar sat down and breathlessly read it through from end to end.
"This is exactly what I surmised from the burnt fragments," he remarked,taking off his glasses as he turned to where the Doctor was sitting."But the great and fascinating problem we have to solve is thewhereabouts of the two keys to the cipher. One thing seems clear fromthe document, namely, that the dead man was Holmboe, the discoverer ofthe hidden secret."
"Exactly. He knew the uncertainty of his life. Indeed he told me sowhen he had his first attack," replied the little man, "the initials`P.H.' were also upon his clothing."
"He told you he was a Dane. But in all probability he was a Russian ora Finn," remarked Griffin slowly turning over the leaves of a referencebook before him. "Yes--here he is--Peter Holmboe, Professor of Hebrewat St Petersburg, University, appointed four years ago. He apparentlyoccupied a very high post for so young a man. He made the declarationin Hamburg, I see, therefore he had, no doubt, resigned hisprofessorship in order to devote his time to finding capital to exploitthe remarkable secret he had discovered."
"Yes. But what's the use of the secret without the key to the cipher?"queried the Doctor.
"None whatever. We must work to discover the key," Griffin replied."If I close study, discover the key myself."
"Farquhar's journey to Copenhagen was utterly fruitless. We were ledthere upon a wild goose chase," the Doctor said. "The unfortunate factis that others are also in search of the secret."
"I am aware of that. But how did you discover it?"
"I was told by my friend--the man who secured for me this copy--an oldfriend named Mullet. He knows more than he will tell me!"
While the Doctor was speaking, Gwen had opened the door and entered theroom.
She heard the visitor utter the name of her protector, and becameinstantly interested.
"This is Doctor Diamond, dear," explained her father. "You have heardMr Farquhar speak of him."
The little Doctor jumped to his feet and bowed, while the girl, in darkskirt and clean white blouse, graciously acknowledged his greeting.
She was anxious to learn what connection this dwarfed man could havewith her mysterious protector.
"I heard you speak of a Mr Mullet, Doctor," she remarked. "Is that aman known as `Red Mullet'?"
"Yes, Miss Griffin. He is a friend of mine."
"Or rather you are a great friend of his, I have heard--eh?"
"Then you know him!" exclaimed the Doctor, much surprised. "You met himabroad, I suppose?" The girl did not reply. She was puzzled at thecurious connection between the red-haired man who had been her janitorand the ugly little Doctor who was Frank's friend.
"I know him," she said at last. "And being a friend of yours, he is afriend of ours."
"That's so," declared the Doctor, laughing. "Some people say ill thingsof him, but I have known him for some years, and he has always actedstraight and honourably towards me."
"Well," exclaimed the Professor with some impatience. "Leave us, child.We want to get on with the examination of this paper which DoctorDiamond has just brought me."
"Does it concern the Treasure of Israel, dad?" inquired the girl,walking up to his table.
"Yes, dear. It is a copy of the complete document, so you may imaginehow deeply I'm interested in it."
"Has Frank seen it?" she asked quickly, to which the Doctor replied inthe affirmative.
Then when the girl had, with some reluctance, left them together, theyresumed their discussion.
"We can discover nothing tangible without a knowledge of the cipher,"remarked Griffin very gravely. "And in my belief, though it is herestated that the key is concealed in two separate cities, at the time ofHolmboe's death he had it in his possession. That was a portion of itwhich you rescued--the one folio in manuscript. The typewrittendocument was evidently prepared to place before a financier with a viewto the equipment of an expedition to Palestine. But the additionalmanuscript was evidently a record of the cipher, together with its key.Have you a copy of it?"
"Yes," replied the Doctor, taking from his breast-pocket some papersfrom among which he took a copy he had made in his own handwriting. "Asfar as I could judge, the manuscript of which this is one folio,consisted of about seven folios. I recollect quite well noticing, as Iplaced it in the stove, that certain characters in Hebrew were writtenupon it."
"Well," exclaimed Griffin, spreading the copy of the half-destroyed leafbefore him, "that the cipher is a numerical one is quite apparent. Itseems that it is based upon the waw sign, or sixth letter of the Hebrewalphabet. Six is the sign of evil. Nevertheless I have turned up thereference to Ezekiel, xli, 23, but cannot find anything unusual in theHebrew text."
"Because we do not possess the key," remarked the hunchback with a sigh.
"Admitted. But we have the basis of the calculation--the regularoccurrence of the letter `w' or `v' in the text. For days, nay, weeks,I have been trying to solve that problem, using each of the knowncabalistic ciphers of the ancients, but without the slightest success."
"It is an unknown cipher, without a doubt--even though you recognise thebasis."
"Numerical ciphers are always most difficult," Griffin declared. "Yetwas it not Edgar Allen Poe who declared that human ingenuity could notinvent a cipher which human ingenuity could not solve. I have tried mycalculations upon the earliest known text, that preserved in StPetersburg--but in vain."
"What do you think of the dead man's statement that the key is dividedinto two parts--one portion being concealed in each city?"
"I don't accept that as genuine," declared the Professor. "I regard itas a mere embellishment of facts, in order to prevent any one fromtrying to unriddle the message. The unfortunate man ordered you todestroy the directions for reading the message, together with thestatement itself."
"I rather wish I had disobeyed," remarked the Doctor with a grin. "Thefact that it was in manuscript and not in typing shows that he would nottrust any one with sight of it."
"Which goes far to prove the truth of my argument. There is a keynumber, depend upon it. When once you have that, and we ascertain atwhat point to start, then the secret record will soon be revealed."
"But how can we obtain it--that's the question," the Doctor said. "Iwould like to know how far the inquiries of our enemies have advanced.This copy was obtained from the complete copy in their possession."
"Who are our enemies? Do you know them?" asked the Professor, startingforward quickly.
"No. My friend, though he had supplied me with this, refuses allinformation concerning them, except to say that they are both powerfuland wealthy."
"What do they know concerning the key?"
"Not so much as ourselves. They do not possess even the few wordsconcerning it that we do."
"But will not your friend divulge the identity of our enemies?" askedGriffin, "not if we take him into partnership with us, and allow him toshare in the huge profits which must accrue if anything is actuallyrecovered?"
"I thought that your opinion upon the whole story was a negative one,"remarked the Doctor with a strangely wily look.
The Professor, bent upon writing a learned article in the_Contemporary_, giving a story that should startle the world, held hisbreath for a moment. But only for a single instant.
"Well," he answered without hesitation, "at first I was, it is true,inclined to regard it as an amazing piece of fiction, but after certainresearches and study I have now come to the conclu
sion that there may bemore truth in it than would at first appear. I, of course, regard itfrom a scholar's point of view, and not from that of a financier."
"I believe in money," declared the ugly little man frankly. "It shouldbe put forward, when ripe, as a sound financial proposition--just as, nodoubt, its discoverer, Peter Holmboe, intended to put it forward."
"Then if so, why will not your friend Mullet join forces with us? Itwould surely be to his advantage!"
"Because he's tied to the other side."
"If it has not prevented him from supplying us in secret with this copyof the document, it surely would not prevent him assisting us further,and placing us upon our guard regarding the actions of our enemies.Have you no idea, Doctor, how these other people obtained a copy ofHolmboe's statement? It surely could not have been kicking about thestreets, having in view the fact that he was so careful to destroy itbefore his death."
"I haven't any idea how they obtained it, or even their names. Myfriend will tell me nothing."
"Who is this man Mullet? Have you any objection to telling me?"
"The man whom your daughter was discussing--the man known to his friendsas `Red Mullet'--is a cosmopolitan who lives mostly on the Continent,and, between ourselves, has the reputation of being an adventurer."
"And a friend of my daughter!" the elder man exclaimed in surprise."She seems to meet very undesirable people sometimes. The latitudeallowed to girls nowadays, Doctor, is very different from that of thirtyyears ago--eh?"
"What can we expect in this age of the `New Woman' and the Suffragette?"laughed the other, holding up his hands.
"But could we not induce this Mr Mullet to help us--or at least toreveal to us in what direction our enemies are working? They have withthem a very clever and ingenious scholar, of that I have alreadysatisfied myself."
"Ah!" sighed Diamond. "If we only could get `Red Mullet' with us. ButI fear that there are certain circumstances which entirely preclude suchan arrangement. At least, that is what I suspect."
"I wonder what my daughter can know of the man?" remarked Griffin,ignorant of the fact that Gwen's curiosity had got the better of her, orthat the door being ajar she had heard the Doctor's statement.
"It certainly does seem a rather curious fact that they are acquainted,"remarked the Doctor. "But, Professor," he went on eagerly, "I supposeyou now have no doubt that there is more in the remarkable story thanmere surmise."
Griffin was again silent for a few moments.
"Providing that the sacred relics remain still hidden--and therecertainly seems nothing against that belief, even though some havedeclared that Solomon's golden vessels were afterwards used in Persia--then we have, of course, precise knowledge of certain of them," he saidwith great deliberation. Opening the Hebrew-English Bible at 2Chronicles, iv, 19, he said: "Listen to this as an example," and he readas follows:
"`And Solomon made all the vessels that _were for_ the house of God, thegolden altar also, and the tables whereon the shew-bread _was set_;
"`Moreover the candlesticks with their lamps, that they should burnafter the manner before the oracle, of pure gold;
"`And the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs, _made he of_ gold,_and_ that perfect gold;
"`And the snuffers, and the basons, and the spoons, and the censers,_of_ pure gold; and the entry of the house, the inner doors thereof forthe most holy _place_, and the doors of the house of the temple, _were_of gold.'
"Concerning the Ark of the Covenant, which the cipher says still lieshidden, we have in the next chapter, commencing at verse 7:
"`And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord untohis place, to the oracle of the house, into the most holy _place, even_under the wings of the cherubim:
"`For the cherubim spread forth _their_ wings over the place of the ark,and the cherubim covered the ark and the staves thereof above.
"`And they drew out the staves _of the ark_ that the end of the staveswere seen from the ark before the oracle, but they were not seenwithout. And there it is unto this day.
"`_There was_ nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put_therein_ at Horeb, when the Lord made _a covenant_ with the children ofIsrael, when they came out of Egypt.'
"The gold, of course, came from the ancient Ophir," remarked the Doctor,"and curiously enough the site of this El Dorado has only recently beenestablished by Dr Carl Peters as having been at Zimbabwe, and thesurrounding region in south-eastern Mashonaland."
"Yes," remarked the Professor. "There is, I think, no question thatSolomon obtained his gold from that district. The old workings are saidby Hall and Neal to number seventy-five thousand, and hundreds ofthousands of tons of gold ore must have been dug out during theHimyaritic era. The Kaffirs still call the place `Fur.' and the Arabs`Afur.' It was from there that Solomon's ships brought the four hundredand twenty talents of gold mentioned in 1 Kings, ix, 26-28, and in 2Chronicles, viii, 17-18. Again, we are told that in one year Solomonobtained six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold--each talent beingworth eleven thousand pounds of our money--from the same region, most ofwhich was used in the manufacture of the vessels for the temple."
"Some of which we hope to recover, Professor," laughed the ugly littleman.
"We certainly might," sighed the other, "if only we could discover thesolution of this most fascinating yet tantalising problem."
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
A PAGE IN PICCADILLY.
A long, grey, hundred-horse-power racing motor-car with its two glaringhead-lamps drew suddenly up in the falling darkness before the big housein Berkeley Square, and from it stepped Sir Felix Challas in his heavyfur coat, cap and goggles. He was a motor enthusiast, and declared thathis runs on his high-power racer cleared the cobwebs from his brain, andbraced up his nerves.
He had started forth soon after breakfast, lunched at the Mermaid atWansford, eighty miles away up the Great North Road, and was now homeagain, just as darkness had set in.
He had sat beside his chauffeur in silence while being whirled along thegreat northern highway, for he always thought out the most ingenious ofhis schemes while travelling thus.
Ere he had ascended the steps of the house, the splendid car, which onlya few weeks before had made a record on the Brooklands track, moved offto the well-appointed garage, where he kept his three other cars.
On entering his own luxurious little den on the left of the hall, hefound Jim Jannaway comfortably ensconced before the fire, smoking one ofhis choicest cigars and with a whisky and soda at his elbow.
"Hulloa!" exclaimed Sir Felix surprised. "I thought you were on yourway out to the East? You were to have left this morning, weren't you?"And he threw off his heavy coat and stood with his back to the fire.
"Yes. But I've remained, because I've discovered something," repliedthe other. "I've found out the reason why that girl Griffin got away."
"Oh! Why?" asked Challas quickly. "It was a great misfortune for us.She's evidently discovered who we are, and why we wanted theinformation."
"Well--he played us false."
"Who--Mullet?"
"Yes. The girl appealed to his honour, and all that, and he found outthat she was a friend of that Doctor Diamond, the fellow who attendedHolmboe before he died and got hold of a portion of his papers. Thisman, it appears, had befriended Mullet in some way--so he, like a fool,let her go."
"Fool--idiot!" cried Challas. "Then the brute's betrayed us!"
"Absolutely!"
"By letting the girl go, he's exposed us. Griffin now knows that we areworking against him. And he is, according to old Erich, the only man wehave to fear."
"Except that man Farquhar, partner with Sir George Gavin, the newspaperowner."
"Ah! I forgot him. But surely he doesn't count?"
"Yes, he does," protested Jannaway. "He's in love with the girl. Hencewe must see that he turns his back upon her, or there may be furthertrouble. I foresee pretty awkward complications in that dir
ection."
"Very well, my dear boy, all that I leave to you," answered Sir Felix,with a heavy, thoughtful look.
"But it does not lessen our danger. If we're not careful we'll lose thething altogether," Jannaway pointed out. "I've been a full fortnightmaking careful investigations. The Doctor called on Griffin the daybefore yesterday, and what's more, the girl has written to Charlie,asking him to meet her."
"How have you found that out?"
Jim Jannaway smiled.
"No matter," he laughed. "Except that Laura, the parlour-maid atPembridge, is a friend of mine. I took her to the Tivoli last Thursday.Told her I was a lawyer's clerk."
"By Jove, Jim," exclaimed the Baronet, "you're always ingenious whenyou've set your mind on worming out a secret."
"A little love costs nothing," laughed the nonchalant adventurer, "andvery often does a lot."
"Well, we must know what's going on between them, that's quite plain,"remarked Challas. "I never expected Charlie to give us away."
"Bah! he always