“Oh! Haupt—Erich Haupt,” replied the other. “He’s Professor of Hebrew at the University, and author of several well-known books. His ‘Christology of the Old Testament’ is a standard work. Besides Griffin in London, he is, I consider, the only other man in Europe competent to give an opinion upon the problem you have put before me.”
“How can I find him?”
“You’ll no doubt find him in Leipzig.”
Frank felt that this German was a man to be consulted, yet he was anxious to pursue the inquiry he had started in Denmark. The man who had died in Paris, and had been so careful to destroy his secret, had been a Dane, and he felt that the originator of the remarkable theory must have been a Dane himself. Briefly this was what Farquhar explained, but Professor Anderson assured him that no such theory could have come out of Denmark without his knowledge.
“Search in Gothenburg, or in Stockholm, if you like,” he answered with a smile. “My own idea is that the unfortunate man was deceived by some ‘cock-and-bull’ story, probably an attempt to raise money in order to carry out a scheme to recover the treasure of Solomon. He believed the story of the existence of the temple treasure, and in order that no other person should obtain knowledge of the secret destroyed it before his death.”
“But who was the discoverer of the secret?” asked the Englishman.
“Who can tell,” remarked the Danish professor, shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps it was only some ingenious financial swindle. You have surely had many such in London in recent years. You call them in English, I believe, ‘wild-cat’ schemes.”
“There are many ‘wild-cat’ schemes in the City of London at the present moment,” Frank remarked with a laugh, “but I guarantee that none is so extraordinary as this.”
“Probably not,” laughed the Dane. “I confess that, to me, the whole thing seems like a fairy tale.”
“Then you don’t discern any foundation in fact?”