Another reference in the next line of the half-burnt screed was Ezekiel xl, xli and xlii, no verses being designated.
On turning to these chapters, the doctor found that they contained a description of Ezekiels vision of the measuring of the temple.
Continuing, he read the further dimensions of the temple, the size of the chambers for the priests, and the measures of the outer court to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place.
All this conveyed to the deformed man but little.
That it had some connection with the strange secret was apparent, but in what manner he failed to distinguish.
He had gathered broadly that the dead mans discovery was an amazing one, and that a strange secret was revealed by those documents when they were intact, but it was all so mystifying, so astounding, that he could scarce give it shape within his own bewildered brain.
The enormous possibilities of the discovery had utterly dumbfounded him it was a discovery that was unheard of.
In order to present to the reader some idea of the fragments of the dead mans papers lying upon the table before him, it may be of interest if the present writer gives a photographic representation of one of the badly burned folios.
As will easily be seen, the undestroyed fragment of the document showed but little that was tangible. Of interest, it was true, but the interest was, alas! a well-concealed one. The dead man was a scholar. Of that there was no doubt whatsoever. The doctor had recognised from the first that he was no ordinary person.
The document seemed to be a portion of some statement made by a person as to the curious and unexpected result of certain studies.
He who made the declaration had apparently been a student of the Talmud, and especially the school of the Amoraim, or debaters, who about A.D. 250 expounded the Mishna.
Raymond Diamond had long ago read Wunsche, Bacher and Strack, and from them had learned how the Amoraim had expounded the Mishna, and how their labours had formed the Gemara, while the united Mishna and Gemara formed the books of the Talmud. By that time, and even earlier, the teachers of Judaism were also working in the schools of Babylonis. Hence the Talmud now exists in two forms the Palestinian Talmud, or Talmud of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbi Jehuda compiled the Mishna which, in general, sums up the outcome of the activity of the Sopherim, Zugoth and Tannaim, and thus became the canonical book of the oral law.
He was recalling these facts as he sat staring at the half-charred fragments on the table before him.
The person making the declaration, he said aloud to himself, appears to have discovered certain hidden meanings in the Mishna. Well one can read hidden meanings in most writings, I believe, if one wishes. Yet he seems to have come across something which amazed him some cabalistic message very complicated and ingenious. It caused him great astonishment when he found himself able to able to what? Ah! thats the point, he sighed.
Then, after another long pause, he decided that nine ch meant nine chapters, and that the final lines of the page dealt with some declaration opening with the arrival of the Messiah.
Yes, he said in a hard decisive tone, straightening his crooked back as well as he was able. There is a mystery explained here a great and most astounding mystery.
Chapter Four
Concerns a Consultation
Late that same afternoon Raymond Diamond walked up the long muddy by-road which led from Horsford station to the village, about a mile distant.
Horsford was an obscure little place, still quite out-of-the-world, even in these days of trains and motor-cars.
About four miles west of Peterborough on the edge of the fox-hunting country, it was a pleasant little spot consisting of a beautiful old Norman church, with one of the finest towers in England and one long, straggling street mostly of thatched houses.
There were only two large houses Horsford House, at the top of the hill on the Peterborough side, and the Manor, an old seventeenth-century mansion, half-way down the village.
It was not yet dark when the Doctor, the only arrival by train, turned the corner by the Wheel Inn and entered the village. As he did so, Warr, who combined the business of publican and village butcher, wished him a cheery Good evenin, Doctor.
And as the little man trudged up the long street he was greeted with many such salutes, to all of which he answered mechanically, for he was thinking thinking deeply.
The fragrant smell of burning wood from the cottages greeted his nostrils the smell of that quiet little village which for some years had been his home.
He breathed again in that rural peace, as a dozen cows slowly plodded past him.
At last he turned from the main street, up a short, steep hill where, at the end of a small cul-de-sac, stood a long, old-fashioned, two-storied cottage with its dormer-windows peeping forth from the brown thatch. In summer, over the whole front of it spread a wealth of climbing roses, but now, in winter, only the brown leafless branches remained.
In the small, well-kept front garden were a number of well-trimmed evergreens, while an old box-hedge ran around the tiny domain.
As he lifted the latch of the gate, Mrs Diamond, a neat, well-preserved woman in black, threw open the door with a cheery welcome, and a moment later he was in his own old-fashioned little dining-room, warming himself at the fire, which, sending forth a ruddy glow, illuminated the room.
For such a humble home, it was quite a cosy apartment. Upon the old-fashioned oak-dresser at the end were one or two pieces of blue china, and on the oak overmantel were a few odd pieces of Worcester and Delft. On the walls were one or two engravings, while the furniture was of antique pattern and well in keeping with the place.
The doctor possessed artistic tastes, and was also a connoisseur to no small degree. In the days when he had possessed means, he had been fond of hunting for curios or making purchases of old furniture and china, but, alas! in these latter days of his adversity he had experienced even a difficulty in making both ends meet.
I received your telegram, Raymond dear, exclaimed Mrs Diamond. Im so glad you were successful in finding Aggies father. Its taken a great weight from my mind.
And from mine also, he said with a sigh seated before the fire with his hands outstretched to the flames. Mullet wants me to take the child over to Paris to see him in a week or so.
Why does he not come over here?
The Doctor pulled a wry face, and shrugged his shoulders ominously.
His wife, by her speech, showed herself to be a woman of refinement. She had been the widow of a medical man in Manchester before Diamond had married her. Though it was much against her grain to submit to registration as a foster-mother of children, yet it had been their only course. Raymond Diamond was too ugly to succeed in his profession. The public dislike a deformed doctor.
He told his wife how he had been at the end of his resources in Paris, and how, just at the moment when things had looked blackest, Red Mullet had returned. But he made no mention of meeting the stranger, or of the record of the curious secret which, between two pieces of cardboard, now reposed carefully in his breast-pocket.
Its possession held him in a kind of stupor. From what he had been able to gather or rather from what he imagined the truth to be he already felt himself an immensely wealthy man. He was, in fact, already planning out his own future.