“I believe so.”
“Then I think their meaning must be quite plain,” replied the other coolly. “I should decipher it as the duration of the Kingdom of Israel. Did it not end after 255 years—namely from B.C. 975-721—under nineteen kings and seven dynasties, not reckoning among the latter, of course, the ephemeral usurpations of Zimri and Shallum?”
“I never thought of that!” gasped Griffin. “Those figures have greatly disturbed me, my dear Stevens. They have appeared twice in circumstances extremely strange—traced by an unknown hand.”
“But the hand of a scholar without a doubt,” was the other’s reply. “Perhaps some crank or other who has the habit of signing himself in that manner. I have known men addicted to such peculiarities. There used to be a don at Oxford who had the humorous habit of appending his signature in most excellent imitation of that of Napoleon.”
Griffin, recognising that Stevens was correct in his elucidation of the mysterious signification of those figures, became more puzzled. The man in search of the great secret was evidently a crank. That was most conclusively proved. Yet why should that mystic signature appear upon his blotting-pad?
Was it possible that Gwen and he were acquainted, and that he had actually entered the house.
The Professor was beside himself in his utter bewilderment. His daughter had slipped away, and left him without a word of farewell. Yet towards his friend Stevens he wore a mask, and only laughed heartily at the rapid solution of the problem which he had placed before him.
Was it possible, he thought many times, that Gwen, with a love-sick girl’s sudden yearning, had slipped across to the Continent to join her lover? There could be no reason whatever for that, because he had never for a moment opposed their engagement. Yet girls were a trifle wild sometimes, he reflected, especially motherless girls like the dainty Gwen.
After an hour, however, he bade farewell to Stevens, and re-entering his “taxi” in King’s Avenue, drove back into London, refusing his friend’s invitation to remain for luncheon.
He crossed Westminster Bridge, and alighted at the British Museum to inquire if the mysterious searcher had been seen there of late.