“Yes,” remarked the Professor. “There is, I think, no question that Solomon obtained his gold from that district. The old workings are said by Hall and Neal to number seventy-five thousand, and hundreds of thousands of tons of gold ore must have been dug out during the Himyaritic era. The Kaffirs still call the place ‘Fur.’ and the Arabs ‘Afur.’ It was from there that Solomon’s ships brought the four hundred and twenty talents of gold mentioned in 1 Kings, ix, 26-28, and in 2 Chronicles, viii, 17-18. Again, we are told that in one year Solomon obtained six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold—each talent being worth eleven thousand pounds of our money—from the same region, most of which was used in the manufacture of the vessels for the temple.”
“Some of which we hope to recover, Professor,” laughed the ugly little man.
“We certainly might,” sighed the other, “if only we could discover the solution 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 glaring head-lamps drew suddenly up in the falling darkness before the big house in Berkeley Square, and from it stepped Sir Felix Challas in his heavy fur coat, cap and goggles. He was a motor enthusiast, and declared that his runs on his high-power racer cleared the cobwebs from his brain, and braced up his nerves.
He had started forth soon after breakfast, lunched at the Mermaid at Wansford, eighty miles away up the Great North Road, and was now home again, just as darkness had set in.
He had sat beside his chauffeur in silence while being whirled along the great northern highway, for he always thought out the most ingenious of his schemes while travelling thus.