‘Moss is in Ireland,’ MacSuibne said suddenly, when they had finished dinner. As he spoke he refilled the Professor’s glass with champagne.
Schliemann did not start, but he paused before he replied. ‘I was sure he was,’ he said, emphatically. ‘He was at Clonard, as I wired.’
‘Your promptitude enabled us to make a discovery. This champagne is excellent.’
The Professor pushed the glass away. ‘I am a temperate man,’ he replied. ‘Where is Moss?’
‘In this country, we believe. He can’t get out of Ireland with the books. But he has tried to send them out of the kingdom. His vast wealth may enable him to succeed, unless—Sai Schliemann, perhaps you will kindly examine the parcel you carry.’
The Professor straightened himself. He stared with something of amazement at the detective. Then the corners of his mouth tightened as he determined to do battle for his charge.
‘How you are aware I carry one is beyond my knowledge,’ he said. ‘But as I have been entrusted with its safety, I certainly shall not open a parcel given into my care, and whose contents are probably confidential, though their exact nature I do not know.’
MacSuibne looked all admiration. ‘You act like an honourable gentleman, Sai, and exactly as I expected you to do. But you have been deceived. The parcel is not what you take it to be.’
‘That is of no matter. I have undertaken a charge. And the parcel shall not be opened by me, nor leave by hands till I place it in those—’
‘Of a lady in green and black.’
‘Ah!’ Defiance still looked from the Professor’s eyes in spite of his surprise.
‘This lady—we will call her Frau Shultz—will not carry the parcel to a jeweller in Berlin, whose property you believe it to be, but, on receiving it will leave Europe in one of the Hamburg line of steamers for New York.’
MacSuibne paused; the Professor felt a slight sense of relief. The detective, clever as he was, knew nothing of the special mission from the Embassy, or that the parcel was of political importance.
‘You know that Moss—’, he began.
‘I know that Moss, unable to take the books himself out of Ireland, or by any one of his agents, who are all well known, has placed them in your care, leading you to think that the contents of the innocent-looking parcel you carry, belong to a not very important jeweller in Berlin. Moss heard you were returning to Berlin, and formed this somewhat ingenious plan, making you his tool.’
‘This young man knows nothing of the real mission,’ the Professor thought; and looked with knitted brows at MacSuibne.
‘How do you know this?’, he asked.
‘By the simplest means. The person who brought you the parcel has been arrested. He lied to you about Shultz. And it was a lie that Shultz’s wife would meet you. Moss has paid all these people, including the woman.’
‘Is he deceiving me?’, the Professor again thought. ‘And is this a ruse, that I may give up the ambassador’s despatch?’
‘If you have arrested this man,’ he said aloud, ‘he has probably told you where Moss is.’
‘No. He pretends to have no connection with Moss. If you now open the parcel you will find that you have been deceived, and that it contains the two stolen manuscripts.’
‘I refuse to betray my trust,’ said Schliemann doggedly. ‘Even what you say gives me no right to open the parcel.’
MacSuibne looked gentle and persuasive. ‘I admire your high sense of honour and sensitive conscience,’ he answered. ‘But the stolen manuscripts are in that parcel. There is a seat in the window behind us. Open it there while I remain at this table, and if you find I am wrong, close it, and I shall not ask to see its contents.’
The Professor made no reply. He searched the face before him for some moments. But the young and somewhat pensive countenance looked like that of a student rather than that of a man whose business was to detect crime. Schliemann rose, and went to the window.
For a full minute he hesitated, resting his hand on the parcel. Then slowly, with deliberation and compressed lips he broke the seals. He would have to explain his action in Berlin he thought; but, clearly, this was the only course to follow if he was to prevent MacSuibne from getting possession of the papers.
He removed the covering, and then his jaw fell. Two manuscripts were revealed, the stolen vellums, and the detective was right. Moss’s agent, not an attaché of the German Embassy, had met him in Caislean-an-Barraig.
Presently he turned. MacSuibne was reading a small closely-printed book that he had taken from his pocket. He laid it on the table, and the Professor saw it was the Odyssey.
He placed the vellums on the table, and sat down, keeping one hand on them. He did not speak. MacSuibne smiled.
‘Moss may leave Ireland now,’ he said. ‘For several reasons the Government do not wish to prosecute him. And I congratulate you, Sai Schliemann, in having helped us so effectively in this matter.’
But the Professor’s eyes were wandering over the cover, and his fingers moved. Suddenly he opened the book and stared at the script. MacSuibne’s gaze followed his action. After reading for a minute, he laid the book aside, and examined its companion. Then he closed it, folded his arms, and looked across the room. A glance a minute later at the detective’s face told him that MacSuibne was waiting for an explanation.
‘They are not the stolen manuscripts,’ he said.
‘I judged so from your first look,’ the young man replied, with composure. ‘Then Moss has outwitted us. What books are these?’
‘The two vellums placed by the Tanist in my room, when he did me the honour to suspect that I intended to steal the other and precious works.’
MacSuibne looked at both books. ‘These were missing,’ he said, ‘since the day they were left by the Tanist in your room. It would be interesting to know how they got into Moss’s possession. He is even a smarter man than I thought. These books were to be trailed as a false scent before us while he, or one of his agents, carried the other books out of the country.’
He called for his bill. Then putting the books in their cover, rose from the table.
‘The Tanist is in Baile-Átha-Cliath,’ he added. ‘I will see him at once. Will you come with me, or do you intend to leave for Berlin? I shall be glad if you will remain in Ireland for a few days longer, if it will put you to no inconvenience, as your evidence may be required.’
It did not take the Professor a minute to decide upon what course he would follow. He had been carried away by the prospect opened of seeing his country again by the offer of Moss’s agent. Now he was calmer. There was important work to be done before he left Ireland: the securing of the vellums and the recovery of his notebook. These things would be evidence of his visit, mementoes, as it were, of an extraordinary experience.
‘I will telegraph to Berlin—to my home,’ he said with an emphasis on the last word, ‘to acquaint my sister with the fact that business keeps me for the present here. And, young man, I am willing to help you in your efforts to bring Moss to justice.’
MacSuibne thanked him; and soon afterwards they left the hotel. The Central Post Office stood two streets away, and here the Professor got out to send his telegram. The detective motored on to the street in which the Tanist was staying, saying, as they parted, that he would send the motor back for Schliemann.
On entering the building, the Professor went to one of the desks, and taking a telegram form, wrote slowly and distinctly (which was not his usual habit): ‘To Anna Hertzig, 15 Strasse Kaiser,’ he pencilled. ‘I am in Dublin. Cannot return at present. Are you well? Reply at once to this office.’
As he watched the clerk take the paper he wondered why he had not thought of so simple and swift a means of communication with his own world before. Delays might occur in the post, letters miscarry, but telegrams were sure and rapid.
Having asked how soon he might expect an answer, he left the office, and went into the street. Pacing up and down the pavement before the great building, he glanced frequently at the illuminated clock above the carved façade. Nearly all traffic had ceased, though now and again some automobile glided by; and the car that was to take him to the Tanist presently stopped by the pavement. At a quarter past two he re-entered the Post Office, only to learn that no telegram had come for him. Ten minutes later his impatience led him within again, when a clerk handed him a green envelope.
As he took it a number of fibres met and clashed within him; his hand trembled. ‘So Anna has answered,’ he said to himself. He opened the envelope, drew out the form. Holding it up, he threw back his head a little and read in German: – ‘To Professor Schliemann, Archaeologist, Baile-Átha-Cliath. You are invited to undertake the excavation of the mounds of Hussian by the Euphrates. Before leaving, call at the Embassy, where details of the expedition will be given.’
He read the message twice before he turned to a clerk. ‘Who sent this?’, he asked in a quick, harsh voice. ‘Has no answer come from 15 Strasse Kaiser?’
‘The telegram was handed in at the Chief Office, Berlin,’ the man answered.
‘This is not the reply I expected,’ said the Professor. ‘Wire to know if my telegram was delivered at 15 Strasse Kaiser.’
The clerk went away to the operators’ room. The Professor took a seat by a desk and restudied the telegram. ‘Moss again,’ he thought. ‘Can Anna be dead? Or is it indeed impossible for me to communicate with her?’ A sudden chill ran through him.
After a time he rose and spoke to the clerk who had taken the message. The reply had come. The telegram had been given in at 15 Strasse Kaiser, that was all the man could tell him. The Professor went back to the seat. He waited, the green paper crumpled in his hand, till the hands of a clock on the opposite wall told him that it was three hours past midnight, then he stalked up to the clerk, left his Connacht address, and went out.
He was motored swiftly through the streets where traffic was commencing again, to the one in which the Tanist had a flat. He found MacSuibne reading in the hall, and apologised for his long delay by saying he had been waiting for a reply from Berlin. A lift took them to the second storey. Passing through a luxuriously-furnished room, lighted by one globe, they entered the Tanist’s bedroom. He was in bed, reading by the light of the electric globe above the couch. A number of novels and papers lay on a table by his side. As the two men came in he closed his book, and greeted the Professor courteously.
‘MacSuibne roused me to report this latest move of Moss,’ he said. ‘I should like to find out how he got the manuscripts. If we could only trace them from the moment when they disappeared from your room to this hour we should soon have a clue to the persons concerned in the theft, and know exactly the agents employed.’
‘Can you not make it worth the man’s while to confess?’, said the Professor, ‘the man who fooled me into taking the parcel—’, he paused.
‘As a gift for Shultz the jeweller,’ said MacSuibne. ‘We have tried, but he evidently expects to get off clear, and knows that Moss will pay him an extravagant price if he keeps silent. Our side will have to depend much on your evidence, which you are kind enough to say you will give most willingly when he is brought before the Brehon next week.’
‘If I am still here,’ thought Schliemann, but aloud he said, ‘I can only repeat then that the person who met me in Caislean-an-Barraig, and whom I went to meet under the impression that it was yourself, asked me to take a parcel addressed to a jeweller in Berlin, and give it to a lady in Hamburg. Pressing private reasons made me wish to return to Germany; and in case I leave for Berlin before the man is brought before your Brehon (it is interesting to find that that ancient official survives) I will make a deposition of these facts.’
‘I am afraid we must have your presence in court,’ replied MacSuibne. ‘It is certain that some person took the manuscripts from your room and gave them to Moss or his agent, as the genuine ancient vellums, and Moss, who was already in possession of the real works, kept them to put us on a false scent, while he got the vellums out of the country. I have considered carefully all possible agents at Tir-da-glas and conclude that Cormac did it.’
‘There I disagree with you,’ said the Tanist. ‘Cormac is an old servant and fidelity itself.’
‘I would speak in his praise, too,’ said the Professor. ‘I consider him an excellent type of the old retainer, faithful and sincere.’
‘And yet, from my study of human nature,’ replied MacSuibne pensively, ‘extraordinary moral aberrations I find are more frequent than is generally believed; and a man after a life-time of honest and faithful service may suddenly in a moment yield to temptation. Moss’s gold probably awoke some dormant vein of avarice in Cormac. The American, as we know, had an opportunity of speaking to him when leaving the library, where unknown to himself he had secured you, Sai Schliemann, as a prisoner. Cormac knew that you, Tanist, had put the books in the Professor’s rooms, and falling before the man’s wealth, brought him the manuscripts, thinking at the same time that while he got the money, he had not inflicted any great wrong on his master as the books were not of any special value. Moss, of course, was only too ready to take any vellum that had the appearance of age.’
The Tanist again dissented, and the Professor, whose mind’s eyes saw Sorcha stealing into his room and gliding out with the books in her hand, remained silent for a few moments. Then he remarked that he would defer his return to Berlin for a few days, and take the early train that morning for the West.
MacSuibne thanked him. ‘This is very kind of you, Sai,’ he said in his gentle low voice.
‘And if either of you have any message to send to the Historian, I will have pleasure in delivering it,’ added the Professor. ‘You, Tanist, are you returning to the West?’
‘At the end of the week,’ the young man replied. ‘You will let the Historian know I shall be at Tir-da-glas by then. By that time I hope you will have the pleasure of unearthing some interesting relic in the ruin.’
The Professor gave a brief nod. ‘I trust so,’ he said shortly; his thoughts went to his notebook.
Refusing MacSuibne’s offer to drive him to the station, he parted from the men, and went out into the street. A cab was passing, and drew up at his signal. He told the man to take him to the western terminus; then, when a street away from the Tanist’s flat, he put his head out of the window and ordered him to drive to the German Embassy.
The dawn was near as the cab drew up before a house in Tireoghin street. Telling the man to wait, the Professor ascended a wide flight of steps, and touched an electric button. The massive door was opened at once by the night porter; and on giving his name, and stating that he had been directed to call at the Embassy, he was admitted, and left sitting in a dimly-lighted, big hall while a second servant went to rouse one of the attachés. After a considerable interval, a gentleman appeared in a dressing-gown, whom he recognised as the Ambassador’s secretary. He invited the Professor into a room off the hall.
‘His Excellency is asleep,’ said the secretary, ‘and cannot be roused. You gave Count Von Arnheim some information at the Prince of Midhe’s palace which was not absolutely correct. But relations are strained between our Court and that of Tara. And it is important that friendly ones should be restored, especially in view of the fact that England is anxious to draw Ireland into the Northern Alliance. Your information was based on some hasty words of the Kaiser, which were later explained away.’
In silence, with compressed lips, the Professor handed the secretary the telegram. The latter read it and laid it aside.
‘We have reported,’ he said, ‘that you have been mistaken for a distinguished explorer, and have thus got the entrée to the best houses in Ireland. In consequence the head of your department has somewhat boldly telegraphed to you to the Central Post Office in Baile-Átha-Cliath.’
‘And this exploration on the banks of the Euphrates?’ The Professor folded his arms and squared his feet.
‘Refers to the difficulty that has arisen between our Government and the Government of this country. You are aware that two very valuable manuscripts have been stolen from the Historian of Connacht.’
The Professor silently assented.
‘The theft might not have acquired the notoriety it has if the books had not already a peculiar value—distinct from their own as works of great antiquity—set upon them by the circumstances attached to their possession. The Irish nation has taken the theft seriously, and it has assumed a political importance.’
‘This I have heard,’ said the Professor, slowly, ‘from an emissary of the thief.’
‘The thief is the billionaire, Amos Moss. His enormous wealth has made him an influential person in Europe, and especially, as we know, in Berlin. The man, in spite of his splendid business head, is mad on one point. He is a collector-maniac, and is dishonest to an abnormal degree where art treasures are concerned. I believe that his palace in Chicago contains all the treasures stolen or missing from the art galleries and museums of Europe. He pays expert art thieves to steal and collect for him. For the last six months he has been forming his Celtic gallery, and paying great sums for ancient manuscripts in Irish, Welsh and Breton. Moss has taken the vellums in question to Berlin, and the Irish Government demand his extradition and the restoration of the manuscripts. Now, it is impossible to give up Moss. It would mean closing a number of banks in Berlin, a call on the Treasury impossible to meet, loss of credit, and a financial crisis that would put the Socialists in power and might endanger the throne.’
‘All this I heard from the emissary yesterday,’ said the Professor, ‘who has been arrested. And I think I have evidence that the books are still in Ireland.’
‘The man’s arrest is not important,’ answered the secretary. ‘The Irish Government, of course, knows our embarrassment. But your second statement is highly so. How do you know the manuscripts are not in Berlin?’
The Professor related what had occurred. ‘The emissary,’ he added, ‘labours, too, under the delusion that I am not myself, but a secret service agent of our Government. He told me so himself.’
The secretary passed over the first part of the statement. ‘How could he have found that out,’ he said. ‘Moss must have learnt it from one of his gang. If the man speaks it will be necessary for us to disown you, and have you arrested as an impostor.’
‘And sent back to Berlin?’ There was a sudden keen interest in Schliemann’s tone.
‘Certainly. However, I think we can prevent his speaking by your getting into touch at once with Moss. His Excellency had instructions to send you now to Berlin to meet Moss there, and to recover the manuscripts. But if the books are in Ireland, and it appears probable that they are, you will have to remain in this kingdom. The work is too delicate for the employment of ordinary detectives, and your adroitness and success on other political occasions has led to your being appointed to this task. The manuscripts must be found and returned to the Historian of Connacht, but Moss must not know that our Government is behind the transaction.’
‘Is Germany afraid to go to war with Ireland?’ The question was abrupt and ringing.
‘No German need ask that question,’ the secretary replied. ‘But it would send Ireland at once into the Northern Alliance. And it is the object of our Government to detach Ireland from the combination that England is anxious to bring about. All the London papers are writing fulsome articles about Ireland. Here’s a specimen from the Times.’ The secretary turned to a table, and took up a paper.
‘The days have long passed,’ he read, ‘since the brave and virile people of Ireland were regarded as Englishmen as an uncultured and, in some aspects, lower race than the Saxon. It amuses the student to-day to read the vituperations of Stanihurst, and Hanmer, and even Spenser, and to find such terms applied to the Gael in Elizabethan despatches as the mere Irish, the wild Irishry, and the barbarous and bloody Irish. A country which has given so splendid a roll of names to art and literature, whose kings since Aodh I—that great statesman and ruler—have made the history of Ireland brilliant among the histories of the world, and whose high standard of morality is a lesson to all European nations, can only be regarded, in spite of ancient and long-expired jealousies, as an honoured friend and ally.’
The Professor remained silent for a few moments.
‘I am returning to Connacht,’ he said. ‘I have to open a dungeon in a ruin on the Historian’s estate, into which my notebook fell, a book containing my observations on this unique country. The detective MacSuibne and the Tanist, Maelmuire MacFirbis, think I am on my way thither now, so it may not be wise to delay my departure.’
‘I agree with you,’ the Secretary replied. ‘And you must leave the Embassy at once. I’ll inform his Excellency as soon as he awakes that you have been here and are about to track Moss and get back the manuscripts. The excavation is most opportune at this moment, in case the man whom MacSuibne has arrested should have said you were in the employ of our Government.’ He wished Schliemann good-morning, touched a bell, and left the room.
As he drove to the western terminus the Professor once more gave a grim smile. ‘A comedy of errors,’ he muttered. ‘Yes, I must get the notebook, and then—’ he drew a deep breath and paused.