“This fragment is published in facsimile, if I remember aright?” he asked the assistant-keeper of manuscripts.
“Yes, by the Paleographical Society. I have a copy if you wish the loan of it.”
And the Professor gladly accepted the loan of the large thin volume of reproductions of the rarest treasures among the Biblical manuscripts.
The researches of the foreigner showed him to be in possession of some additional facts. What were they? Ah! if he could only meet the man whose footsteps he was following, if he could only watch unseen, and note what authorities he was consulting.
For a week he haunted the Museum at all hours, hoping to meet the old man who held possession of the dead man’s secret.
He wrote to Professor Cowley at Oxford, and received a reply stating that the foreigner had been again to the Bodleian on the previous day inspecting the two fragments of early texts of Deuteronomy preserved there.
Griffin lost no time in again going down to Oxford, and next morning early called at the library. He remained there all day, but to his disappointment the mysterious old man did not reappear. He had no doubt left Oxford before the Professor’s arrival.
From those two fragments of Deuteronomy which had so interested the stranger, Griffin could make out nothing. They did not contain anything bearing upon the theory that he had been following. Yet he was told that the stranger had spent five hours in studying them and making certain arithmetical calculations.
He was sitting in the same silent, restful, book-lined room in which the stranger had sat. He was in the same chair, indeed, and before him was the same writing-pad upon which he had written.
The precious fragment was lying upon the pad of red blotting-paper. At his side stood the official who had handed the stranger the piece of crinkled parchment which he had sought.