“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “I don’t wish you to come to any premature conclusion, Professor. You have really not had sufficient opportunity yet of thoroughly investigating the affair, have you?”
“No. That’s quite true. I—well—I’d like to keep these scraps for a day, or say a couple of days—if I might, my dear Frank. I’ll be most careful of them, I promise you, and they shall not leave my possession. As a matter of fact,” he added, “Ginsberg from Berlin happens to be in London, and I’m extremely anxious to show them to him, and hear his views.”
Frank Farquhar was a smart young man, and in a second realised danger in this.
“I fear, Professor, that I cannot allow you to show them to Professor Ginsberg. I made a promise to Diamond that they should be shown only to yourself.”
“Very well, very well,” laughed the Professor, “if you care to trust them with me till the day after to-morrow I will promise to show them to nobody. I only wish to study the extraordinary statement myself, and consult certain original Hebrew texts.”
At first Frank was reluctant, remembering his promise to Doctor Diamond. But at Gwen’s persuasion he was induced to leave them to be locked up in the old-fashioned oak bureau at the further end of the cosy room. The three then passed into the small drawing-room on the same floor, where Gwen, at her lover’s request, sat at the piano and sang in her sweet contralto several pretty French chansonettes which she had learnt.