Текст книги "Lost Empire"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

CHAPTER 25

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

AFTER LISTENING TO THE REMAINDER OF JULIANNE SEVERSON’S presentation and her hunch about where they might unravel the next portion of Blaylock’s story, Sam and Remi booked an early-afternoon flight out of Dulles. They touched down in Savannah shortly before three.While Sam stood at the Hertz counter and made arrangements for a car, Remi checked her voice mail. Car keys in hand, Sam walked up to her.

“Selma got the bell this morning,” Remi announced.

Sam smiled and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I have to admit, after all we went through to get that thing, I had visions of it falling off the plane and dropping into the ocean.”“Me, too. She says it’s in great condition. She called Dobo; he’s coming to pick it up.”

Alexandru Dobo-who preferred to be addressed only by his last name-was a full-time surfer/beach bum, part-time restoration expert, and their go-to guy for projects beyond their expertise. As the former curator of Romania’s Ovidius University’s Architecture, Restoration and Conservation Department and the primary consultant for Constanta’s Romanian Navy Museum and the National History and Archaeology Museum, Dobo had yet to encounter an artifact he couldn’t restore.As Selma was herself from Romania’s next-door neighbor, Hungary, she and Dobo liked to both reminisce and quarrel about the “old country.”

“She said he’s going to work on it throughout the night,” Remi added.

“What, the surf’s bad?”

“Terrible.”

“How’re they doing on the journal?”

“All she said was ‘still working.’”

In Selmaspeak that meant slow but steady progress that could be imperiled by any further questions.

“She also mentioned the spiral and the Fibonacci sequence. They’re finding both of them repeated everywhere. Like a mantra. What an interesting man, Blaylock.”

Sam jingled the keys and said, “Let’s get moving.”

“What did you get?”

“Cadillac Escalade.”

“Sam . . .”

“Hybrid.”

“Okay.”

FOR SAM AND REMI, Savannah epitomized Southern charm and history-it was in every turn of her shaded oak– and Spanish moss– lined streets; in her cherry blossom-filled squares and around her well-tended monuments; dripping from balconies and stone walls in the form of hydrangea and honeysuckle; and in the facades of the pillared Greek Revival plantation houses and the sprawling neoclassical estates. Even the buzz of cicadas was part of Savannah’s charm. In fact, it was their love of Savannah that led them to accept Severson’s travel suggestion without question. When pushed for a hint, the librarian had merely smiled and said, “I think you’ll find something familiar there.” DESPITE THE HEAT, they kept the Escalade’s tinted windows rolled down so they could admire the scenery. With one hand on her fluttering beach hat, Remi asked, “Where exactly are we going?”“Whitaker Street, near Forsyth Park. Very close to the Heyward House, I think.”

The former summer house of a onetime plantation owner and one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, Heyward House was just one of the many landmarks in the city’s Bluffton’s National Register Historic District. A stroll in Bluffton was a stroll through history.

They parked on the east side of Forsyth Park under a sprawling oak and walked a block south to a taupe-colored house with mint green shutters. Sam checked the address against the one Severson had given them.“This is it.”

A hand-painted sign above the porch steps said in flowing cursive: MISS CYNTHIA’S MUSEUM AND GALLERY.

As they mounted the steps, a bony, white-muzzled coonhound lifted its head from the mat on which it was lying, let out a single howl, then put its head back down and went back to sleep.

The front door opened, revealing a wizened woman in a white skirt and pink blouse standing behind the screen door. “Afternoon, folks,” she said in a melodic Georgia drawl.“Good afternoon,” Remi replied.

“Bubba is my doorbell, you see.”

“He’s good at it,” said Sam.

“Oh, yes, he takes his job very seriously. Please, come in.”

She unlatched the screen door and pushed it open a few inches. Sam opened it the rest of the way, then followed Remi through.

“I’m Miss Cynthia,” the woman said and extended her hand.

“Remi-” “Fargo, yes. And you would be Mr. Sam Fargo.”

“Yes, ma’am. How did you-”

“Julianne told me to expect you. And I don’t get many visitors, you see, so it was a safe guess. Please, come in. I’m making tea.”

In an unsteady yet strangely elegant shuffle, she led them into what Sam and Remi could describe as a parlor. The heavy ornate furniture, lace curtains, and velvet-covered settees and chairs could have been taken straight from the set of Gone with the Wind .Sam asked, “Miss Cynthia, how do you and Julianne know each other?”

“I try to make it up to Washington once a year. I love its history. I met Miss Julianne about five years ago during a tour. I guess she found my pestering questions endearing, so we stayed in touch. Whenever I find a new piece I can’t identify, I call her for help. She’s been here to visit. Excuse me while I check on our tea.” She disappeared through another door and returned two minutes later. “It’s steeping. While we’re waiting, let me show you what you came to see.”She led them back out of the parlor, across the foyer, down a short hall, and through a door into a spacious, sunlit room painted snow white.

“Welcome to Miss Cynthia’s Museum and Gallery,” she said.

Much like in Morton’s Museum and Curiosity Shop in Bagamoyo, Miss Cynthia had assembled a plethora of artifacts-these all related to the Civil War-from musket balls and rifles to uniform patches and daguerreotypes.

“I collected all of this with my own hands,” Miss Cynthia said proudly. “On battlefield sites, garage and estate sales . . . You’d be surprised what you find if you know what you’re looking for. Oh, my, that sounded very wise, didn’t it?”Sam and Remi laughed. Remi said, “It did indeed.”

“Those bits come to you now and again as you age. Well, you can look around at your leisure later, but let me show you this.”

Miss Cynthia walked to the room’s northern wall, which was packed from floor to ceiling with framed photographs and sketches. She stood before it, lips pursed, as she scanned her eyes back and forth.

“Ah, there you are.”She hobbled to the corner, reached up, and took down a black-framed four-by-six-inch image. She shuffled back and handed it to Sam.

A grainy daguerreotype showed a three-masted wooden ship sitting at anchor.

“My God,” Remi breathed. “It’s her.”

“Remi, look at this.” Sam brought the picture closer to their faces.

In the photo’s lower right-hand corner, etched in faded ink, was a single word: Ophelia.

FIVE MINUTES LATER in the parlor, teacups in hand, they were still staring, dumbfounded, at the photograph. Sam said, “How did you . . . ? Where . . . ?”

“That Julianne has quite a memory-eidetic, I think it’s called.”

“Photographic memory.”

“Yes. She spent hours in my museum. This morning she sent me a pencil sketch through the e-mail whatsahoozit and asked me to compare it to mine. I assume the sketch was yours?”“Something tells us it’s more yours than ours,” Remi replied.

Miss Cynthia smiled, waved her hand. “I told Julianne the two could be twins, despite the difference in media. The same right down to the inscription.”

“Ophelia.”

“Yes. Sadly, we never knew much about her.”

“Pardon me?” said Sam.

“My apologies. I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, William Lynd Blaylock was my great-great-great-I’m not sure how many ‘great’s, but he was my uncle.”

Miss Cynthia smiled sweetly and took a sip of tea.

Sam and Remi exchanged glances. Remi pursed her lips, thinking, then said, “You’re a Blaylock?”

“Oh, no, no. I’m an Ashworth. So was Ophelia until she married William. After Aunt Ophelia was killed, my great-great-my grandmother Constance stayed in touch with William. It was never more than a friendship, of course, but I imagine there was some fondness there. He wrote her often, starting a few months after he got back from England and all the way until the end. Around 1883, I think.”“The end,” Sam repeated. “You mean his death?”

“Oh, I don’t know. In fact, no one knows what became of him. I’m simply talking about the last letter he sent Grandmother Constance.” Miss Cynthia’s eyes brightened. “Goodness, there are dozens of them, with the most wonderful postmarks and stamps from all over. He was quite the character. Always on some kind of adventure or quest. As I understand it, Grandmother Constance was worried that he was a bit touched in the head. She took all his stories with a grain of salt.”“You mentioned letters,” Remi said. “Do you still-”

“Oh, yes, certainly. They’re in the basement. Would you like to see them?”

Sam, not trusting himself to speak, merely nodded.

THEY FOLLOWED HER through the kitchen and down a set of narrow steps near the back door. Predictably, the basement was dark and dank, with rough stone walls and a veined concrete floor. Using the light streaming down the stairs, Miss Cynthia found the light switch. In the center of the basement a single sixty-watt bulb glowed to life. The walls and floor were stacked with cardboard boxes of all sizes and shapes.“You see the three shoe boxes there?” Miss Cynthia said. “Beside the Christmas-tree box?”

“Yes,” said Sam.

“That’s them.”

Back in the parlor, Sam and Remi opened the boxes and were immediately relieved to find the letters had been divided and stored in gallon-sized Ziploc baggies.

Sam said, “Miss Cynthia, you’re our hero.”

“Nonsense. Now, I have one condition,” she said sternly. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sam. “Take care of them and bring them back when you’re done.”

“I don’t understand,” Remi replied. “You’re letting us-”

“Of course. Julianne said you were decent people. She said you were trying to find out what happened to Uncle Blaylock in Africa-or wherever he ended up. It’s been a mystery in our family for a hundred twenty-seven years. It would be nice to have it solved. Since I’m too old for that kind of adventure, at least I can hear about it later from you. Providing you promise to come back and tell me everything.”“We promise,” Sam said.

CHAPTER 26

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

“PETE, WENDY, GET THESE INTO THE VAULT AND DO A QUICK assessment,” Selma said. She slid the shoe boxes across the worktable, and her assistants picked them up and disappeared into the archive chamber.Unsure of the Blaylock letters’ condition, Sam and Remi had resisted temptation and refrained from opening the Ziplocs before they got home.

“A fruitful trip, it seems,” Selma said.

“Your friend Julianne is one of a kind,” Remi said.

“Tell me something I don’t know. If I’m ever hit by a bus, she should be your first call for a replacement.”

“Before or after we call 911?” Sam said.

“You’re a funny one, Mr. Fargo. This Ashworth woman . . . she seemed genuine?”

“She did,” replied Remi. “Between Blaylock’s journal and Morton’s biography we should be able to definitively prove or disprove the letters’ bona fides.”

Selma nodded. “While Pete and Wendy are working with those, care to see what progress we’ve made on the journal?”

“Can’t wait,” said Sam. The three of them sat down at the worktable facing the nearest LCD screen, and Selma used the remote to scroll into their server. She located the file she wanted and double-clicked it. It filled the screen:

“Wow,” Sam murmured. “That’s a busy mind. Could be the thoughts of a genius or a nut.”

“Or someone who did a lot of daydreaming,” Remi said. “But in this case Blaylock doesn’t strike me as the fanciful type. He was a type A personality before the term was coined.”

Selma said, “This is a fairly representative page. Some have nothing but writing, but the majority are a mishmash of notes and drawings, some freehand and some probably done with a template or drafting tools.”

“Clearly the image in the upper left-hand corner is a hand-drawn map,” Sam said. “And some text in the middle of it . . . ‘Great green jeweled bird.’ To the right of that, some more text-can’t make it out-then some geometric symbols in the corner. Have you tried enlarging the text?”Selma nodded. “I had Wendy work on it-she’s the graphics wizard. The more we enlarged it, the fuzzier it got.”

“What’s at the bottom right? Was ‘Orizaga’ there? Selma, have you seen that elsewhere?”

“The name? In many places.”

Remi stood up and walked closer to the screen. “In the middle, on the left and right . . . ‘Leonardo the Liar’ and ‘63 great men.’ Between them, these numbers here . . . ‘1123581321.’ Boy, talk about cryptic.”“The bottom right is clearly a bird of some kind,” Selma added.

“The ‘great green jeweled bird’?” Remi suggested.

“Could be. As for two images in the middle-the one that looks a little like a cave painting and the arc below it-they’ve appeared on dozens and dozens of pages so far.”

The three fell silent, staring at the screen for several minutes. Eyes narrowed, Sam stood up and walked to screen and tapped the number sequence Remi had pointed out. “I must be more tired than I thought,” he said. “These numbers are the Fibonacci sequence.” Knowing his wife didn’t share his love of math, Sam explained: “When added together, the sum of the first two digits equals the third digit. You add the third and fourth digit together and get the sum of the fifth digit, and so on.” He walked back to the worktable and scribbled on a pad:

“You get the idea,” he said. “It’s also the basis of what’s known as the golden ratio, or the golden spiral, or even the Fibonacci spiral. Here, I’ll show you.” He walked to one of the computer workstations, did a quick Google search, and double-clicked a thumbnail. It filled the screen:

“You simply build a grid with whatever Fibonacci numbers you choose and overlay it with an arc,” Sam said. “Your first box could be an inch square or a foot square. Anything.”“That’s what’s on the journal page,” Remi said. “A Fibonacci spiral.”

Sam nodded. “Part of one, at least. The spiral is central to a lot of sacred geometry theories. You see the spiral in nature-the way shells form, in the buds of flowers. The Greeks used the spiral in a lot of their architecture. Even Web designers and graphic artists use it to create layouts. There’ve been scientific studies that show the golden spiral is inherently pleasing to the eye. No one’s exactly sure why.”“The question is,” Remi said, “why was Blaylock obsessed with it? What else can it be used for, Sam?”

“Anything to do with geometry, really. I read that the NSA uses the Fibonacci sequence and the spiral in cryptography, but don’t ask me how. That’s far outside my wheelhouse. Selma, are there any more images that repeat?”

In response, Selma picked up the phone and dialed the archive vault. “Pete, do you remember image twelve-alpha-four? Right, that’s the one. How many repeats so far? Have you digitized it yet? Good, put it on the server, will you? I want to show it to Mr. and Mrs. Fargo. I’ll hold.” A few moments later: “Thanks.”

Selma hung up, grabbed the remote, and used it to scroll back into the server’s file system. “The image we’ve named twelve-alpha-four has repeated nine times so far, usually in the margins but sometimes as a central image. Here it is. Wendy worked her magic and plucked it off the page. It’s still pretty messy.” On the screen, Selma moved the pointer over a thumbnail and double-clicked it. The image enlarged:

“Looks like a skull,” Sam said.

“My thought as well,” replied Selma.

Sam looked at Remi, who was staring at the image, her head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed. He said, “Remi . . . Remi . . .”

She blinked her eyes and looked at him. “Yes?”

“I know that expression. What’s happening in your head?”

She didn’t reply but shook her head absently. Without a word she got up, walked to one of the workstations, and sat down. Her fingers began working the keyboard. Without turning she said, “Just had a moment of deja vu. Ever since we ran into Rivera and his men, their names have been stuck in my head. Why Aztec names? I thought it was just an oddity. I did a semester of Ancient Mesoamerican Studies at B.C., so I knew I’d seen that image before.” She tapped a few more keys and murmured, “There you are . . .”She turned in her seat and pointed at the TV screen. “It’s called Miquiztli. In Nahuatl, the Aztec language, it represented death.”

CHAPTER 27

“THAT’S MORE THAN A LITTLE OMINOUS,” SAM SAID AFTER A moment.

“It also doubled as the symbol for the afterlife. It’s all about context. Selma, do we have others?”

“Yes, three.” Selma brought them up on screen:

Remi peered at them for a few moments, then said, “Do we have images we can use to compare?”

Selma picked up the phone to check.

Remi went on: “Unless I’m wrong, they’re all Aztec, too. The one on the right is Tecpatl, which represents flint, or obsidian knife; the middle one is Cipactli, or crocodile; the last one is Xochitl, or flower. It represents the last day of the twenty-day month.”Sam asked Selma, “And these were isolated like the first one? No annotations?”

Selma was off the phone. “None. Wendy’s uploading some clean images onto the server now.” Selma used the pointer to back out of the current image files until she found the new ones.They were labeled “Flint,” “Crocodile,” and “Flower”:

“They look like a match to me,” Selma said.

“Me too,” replied Sam. “Remi, all of these are from the Aztec calendar, correct? It might be useful to see the whole thing.”

“I have the one Remi downloaded for me,” Selma said. She scrolled around the screen, found the correct file, and double-clicked it:

“Now, that’s

a calendar,” Sam muttered. “How in the hell did they make sense of that?”

“Patience, I would imagine,” Remi replied. “The symbols we’ve found so far all belong to the month ring. It’s the fourth one from the edge.”

“No wonder the one in Mexico City’s so big. How big exactly?”

“Twelve feet in diameter and four feet thick.”

“It’d have to be that big for anything to stand out. It’s fascinating.”

“More so when you realize it’s over five hundred years old. Three hundred of those it spent buried under the main square. Workers found it while doing repair work on the cathedral. It’s one of the last vestiges of Aztec culture.”The three of them went silent.

Selma’s cell phone rang. She answered, listened, then said, “We’ll be here. Bring it to the side gate. I’ll have Pete meet you.” She disconnected and told Sam and Remi, “Dobo’s on his way with the bell.”“That was fast,” said Remi.

“Feels like Christmas morning,” Sam replied.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER Pete Jeffcoat and Dobo came through the workroom’s side door, one pushing and the other pulling a chest-high wheeled enclosure constructed of two-by-fours; hanging inside it was the Shenandoah’s bell. Aside from a few darkened patches, the tarnish and barnacles were gone, swept away by Dobo’s magic. The bronze exterior fairly glowed under the workroom’s halogen pendant lights.Standing arms akimbo in his denim coveralls and white T-shirt, Dobo surveyed his handiwork. “Nice, yes?”

“Beautiful work, Dobo,” said Sam.

If not for his frequent and easy smiles, Alexandru Dobo would have looked sinister, with his bald pate and thick, drooping mustache. He was, Remi had once observed, a Cossack lost in time.

“Thank you, my friend.” He clapped Sam on the back. Sam took a steadying step, then one more-away from Dobo. “You see inside?” the Romanian asked. “See inside! Pyotr, help.”Dobo and Pete unlatched the bell from its hook, lifted it free, turned it upside down, then returned it, mouth up, to the cage. “Look, look!”

Sam, Remi, and Selma stepped forward and peered into the bell’s interior. Remi sighed. After a few moments Sam said, “Wish I could say I was surprised.”

“Me too,” replied Remi.

Carved haphazardly into the bell’s bronze interior were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of what appeared to be Aztec symbols.

After a few moments Sam muttered, “All aboard the Blaylock crazy train.”

SAM AND REMI GATHERED their team around the worktable, and over the next few hours, and a pair of family-sized pies from Sammy’s Wood-fired Pizzas, they mulled over the mystery before them. The crux of the issue, they decided, could be summed up in two questions:

1. Did Blaylock’s apparent mental instability cast into doubt all they’d found?2. Were Rivera and his people on a fool’s quest based on Blaylock’s influence, or on other evidence?

Clearly Rivera was either searching for something or trying to keep something hidden, something that was probably Aztec in origin.

Pete Jeffcoat said, “If you’re right about the tourists they murdered, then it seems clear they’re trying to hide something. It’s hard for me to believe they’d do that just because of Blaylock. Wouldn’t they have been asking the same questions about the guy that we are?”“Good point,” Sam said.

“If that’s the case,” Wendy said, “then maybe Blaylock wasn’t insane; maybe he was just eccentric, and there was something to his Aztec obsession.”

“As well as his fixation on the ship,” Selma added.

Remi said, “Okay, let’s take that as a given. How and why we don’t know, but Blaylock became obsessed with the Shenandoah, or El Majidi; at some point after that, his mind turned to all things Aztec. Before we go any further, we need to find out when that happened and what caused it.”Sam asked Pete and Wendy, “How’re we doing on Miss Cynthia’s letters?”

“Another hour or so, and we should have them all examined,” Wendy replied. “Another two hours to scan them and have the computer do an optical character recognition search. After that, we’ll be able to easily sort them by date and search by key word.”Sam smiled. “Got any big plans tonight?”

“I guess we do now,” Pete replied. ACCUSTOMED TO how her husband’s brain worked, Remi was not surprised to awaken and find him sitting up at the edge of the bed, Apple iPad propped on his knees. The nightstand clock read 4:12 A.M.“Lightbulb moment?” she asked.

“I was thinking about chaos.”

“Of course you were.”

“And how most mathematicians don’t believe in it. They know it exists-there’s even chaos theory-but I think secretly they all believe in underlying order. Even if it’s not obvious.”“I can buy that.”

“Then why would Blaylock go to all the trouble of randomly carving Aztec glyphs on the bell’s interior? And why the bell?”

Remi said, “I assume that’s a rhetorical question.”

“I’m working through it. Did you read this poem from Blaylock’s journal?”

“I didn’t know there was one.”

“I just found it. Pete and Wendy just uploaded it,” Sam said, then recited:

In my love’s heart I pen my devotion. On Engai’s gyrare I trust my feet. From above, the earth turns, my day is halved Words of Ancients words of Father Algarismo“Not bad for a mathematician,” observed Remi.

“I wonder if he used the bell because it’s durable, unlike paper. I also wonder if he used it because of its shape.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“The first line of his poem-‘In my love’s heart I pen my devotion’-he’s got to be talking about his wife, about Ophelia, which is what he renamed the El Majidi .”

Remi caught on. “And a ship’s bell could be considered the heart of the ship.”

“Right. Now, the second line, ‘On Engai’s gyrare I trust my feet.’ In Swahili, Engai is one of the spellings for the Maasai’s version of ‘God,’ and gyrare is Latin for ‘gyre’; it’s a synonym for vortex or spiral.”“As in the Fibonacci spiral. God’s pattern in nature.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Blaylock was using the spiral to guide himself. Put the lines together and maybe you’ve got Blaylock inscribing the bell with the source of his devotion-his obsession-and using the Fibonacci spiral as some kind of encoding technique.”

“And since by the time he made the inscriptions his wife was dead and he’d found the Shenandoah, his ‘devotion’ was something else altogether,” said Remi. “What about the gyre? How exactly would that fit in?”“Picture a golden spiral.”

“Okay.”

“Now picture it superimposed on the interior of the bell, starting at the crown and spiraling downward and outward toward the mouth.”

Remi was nodding. “And wherever the spiral intersects a symbol it means . . .” She shrugged. “What?”

“I don’t know. Something to do with the last three lines of the poem, maybe. I’m still working on that. All I know is that two of the most frequently repeated items in his journal are the Fibonacci spiral and Aztec symbols. If he’s hiding something, they’re probably involved.”

THEY GOT UP, made a carafe of coffee, and headed down to the workroom. Selma was asleep on a cot in the corner. The overhead halogen lights were dimmed. Pete and Wendy sat at the worktable, laptops open, the screens’ glow illuminating their faces.“Coffee, guys?” Sam whispered.

Wendy smiled, shook her head, and nodded toward the collection of Red Bull cans on the table.

“We’re almost done,” Pete said. “Those Ziploc bags must have done the trick. It’s just a guess, but I’d say the letters have been protected in one way or another for most of their life.”“You got them all?” Remi asked.

Wendy nodded. “Aside from some illegible spots here and there. We’ll have everything uploaded and sorted in a couple hours.”

“Sam’s got a hunch he wants to play,” Remi said.

“We’re all ears,” replied Wendy.

Sam explained his theory. Pete and Wendy considered it for a few moments, then nodded in unison. “Plausible,” Pete said.

“Ditto,” Wendy added. “Blaylock was a mathematician. Those guys love order within chaos.”

From across the room Selma’s scratchy voice said, “Buy what?”

“Go back to sleep,” Remi said.

“Too late. I’m up. Buy what?”

She got off the cot and shuffled to the worktable. Remi poured her a cup of coffee and slid the mug down the table. Selma palmed it, took a sip. Sam reexplained his spiral/bell/symbol theory.

“It’s worth a shot,” Selma agreed. “The crown of the bell would be the likely place to start the spiral, but how do we know how big it is? And you’re assuming it would unravel and end at the bell’s mouth. What if it doesn’t?”Sam smiled wearily. “Killjoy.”

THE GROUP BEGAN BRAINSTORMING. At the top of their list was the question of scale. A Fibonacci spiral could be built to any scale. If Blaylock was in fact using a spiral, he would’ve used a reference size for the first box in the grid. They tossed around ideas for an hour before realizing they were getting nowhere.“It could be anything,” Sam said, rubbing his eyes. “A number, a note, a doodle . . .” “Or something we haven’t even seen yet,” Remi added. “Something we’ve overlooked.”

Across the table, an exhausted Pete Jeffcoat laid his head down on the wood and stretched his arms before him. His right hand struck Blaylock’s walking staff, which rolled off the edge and clattered to the floor.“Damn!” Pete said. “Sorry.”

“No problem.” Sam knelt down to retrieve the staff. The bell clapper had torn free of its leather bindings and was hanging by a single thong. Sam picked them up together. He stopped and peered at the head of the staff. He frowned.“Sam?” said Remi.

“I need a flashlight.”

Wendy pulled out a storage drawer and handed an LED across to Sam, who clicked it on and shone it onto the staff’s head. “It’s hollow,” he muttered. “I need some long-handled tweezers.”Wendy retrieved a pair, handed them over.

Gingerly, Sam inserted the tips of the tweezers into the opening, wriggled them around for a few seconds, then began withdrawing them.

Grasped between the pincers was a corner of parchment.