"Well," exclaimed the Professor with some impatience. "Leave us, child.

We want to get on with the examination of this paper which Doctor Diamond 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 doc.u.ment, so you may imagine how deeply I'm interested in it."

"Has Frank seen it?" she asked quickly, to which the Doctor replied in the affirmative.

Then when the girl had, with some reluctance, left them together, they resumed their discussion.

"We can discover nothing tangible without a knowledge of the cipher,"

remarked Griffin very gravely. "And in my belief, though it is here stated that the key is concealed in two separate cities, at the time of Holmboe's death he had it in his possession. That was a portion of it which you rescued--the one folio in ma.n.u.script. The typewritten doc.u.ment was evidently prepared to place before a financier with a view to the equipment of an expedition to Palestine. But the additional ma.n.u.script 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 papers from among which he took a copy he had made in his own handwriting. "As far as I could judge, the ma.n.u.script of which this is one folio, consisted of about seven folios. I recollect quite well noticing, as I placed it in the stove, that certain characters in Hebrew were written upon it."

"Well," exclaimed Griffin, spreading the copy of the half-destroyed leaf before him, "that the cipher is a numerical one is quite apparent. It seems that it is based upon the waw sign, or sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Six is the sign of evil. Nevertheless I have turned up the reference to Ezekiel, xli, 23, but cannot find anything unusual in the Hebrew text."

"Because we do not possess the key," remarked the hunchback with a sigh.

"Admitted. But we have the basis of the calculation--the regular occurrence 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 known cabalistic ciphers of the ancients, but without the slightest success."

"It is an unknown cipher, without a doubt--even though you recognise the basis."

"Numerical ciphers are always most difficult," Griffin declared. "Yet was it not Edgar Allen Poe who declared that human ingenuity could not invent a cipher which human ingenuity could not solve. I have tried my calculations upon the earliest known text, that preserved in St Petersburg--but in vain."

"What do you think of the dead man's statement that the key is divided into two parts--one portion being concealed in each city?"

"I don't accept that as genuine," declared the Professor. "I regard it as a mere embellishment of facts, in order to prevent any one from trying to unriddle the message. The unfortunate man ordered you to destroy the directions for reading the message, together with the statement itself."

"I rather wish I had disobeyed," remarked the Doctor with a grin. "The fact that it was in ma.n.u.script and not in typing shows that he would not trust any one with sight of it."

"Which goes far to prove the truth of my argument. There is a key number, depend upon it. When once you have that, and we ascertain at what point to start, then the secret record will soon be revealed."

"But how can we obtain it--that's the question," the Doctor said. "I would 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, starting forward quickly.

"No. My friend, though he had supplied me with this, refuses all information concerning them, except to say that they are both powerful and wealthy."

"What do they know concerning the key?"

"Not so much as ourselves. They do not possess even the few words concerning it that we do."

"But will not your friend divulge the ident.i.ty of our enemies?" asked Griffin, "not if we take him into partnership with us, and allow him to share in the huge profits which must accrue if anything is actually recovered?"

"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 his breath 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 certain researches and study I have now come to the conclusion that there may be more truth in it than would at first appear. I, of course, regard it from a scholar's point of view, and not from that of a financier."

"I believe in money," declared the ugly little man frankly. "It should be put forward, when ripe, as a sound financial proposition--just as, no doubt, its discoverer, Peter Holmboe, intended to put it forward."

"Then if so, why will not your friend Mullet join forces with us? It would 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 copy of the doc.u.ment, it surely would not prevent him a.s.sisting 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 of Holmboe's statement? It surely could not have been kicking about the streets, having in view the fact that he was so careful to destroy it before his death."

"I haven't any idea how they obtained it, or even their names. My friend 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 friends as `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 lat.i.tude allowed to girls nowadays, Doctor, is very different from that of thirty years 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 to reveal to us in what direction our enemies are working? They have with them a very clever and ingenious scholar, of that I have already satisfied myself."

"Ah!" sighed Diamond. "If we only could get `Red Mullet' with us. But I fear that there are certain circ.u.mstances which entirely preclude such an 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, or that 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 suppose you now have no doubt that there is more in the remarkable story than mere surmise."

Griffin was again silent for a few moments.

"Providing that the sacred relics remain still hidden--and there certainly seems nothing against that belief, even though some have declared that Solomon's golden vessels were afterwards used in Persia-- then we have, of course, precise knowledge of certain of them," he said with great deliberation. Opening the Hebrew-English Bible at 2 Chronicles, iv, 19, he said: "Listen to this as an example," and he read as follows:

"`And Solomon made all the vessels that _were for_ the house of G.o.d, the golden altar also, and the tables whereon the shew-bread _was set_;

"`Moreover the candlesticks with their lamps, that they should burn after 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 for the 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 lies hidden, we have in the next chapter, commencing at verse 7: