“Let’s see the photograph,” Grim suggested.

“It has been impounded with other so-called ‘enemy property’ by your friends the British.  I suppose they thought the German General Staff might get hold of it and conquer the Suez Canal!  But what good would the sight of it do?  You couldn’t understand a word of it.  It convinced me, after months of study, that when the Ten Tribes were carried away into captivity by the Assyrians they sent their records secretly to Jerusalem.  Ever since the secession the Israelites and Jews had been jealous enemies.  But they were relatives after all, boasting a common ancestor, proud of the same history, more or less observing the same religion.  And Schechem was only about thirty miles from Jerusalem, which was considered an impregnable fortress until the Babylonians took it later on.  So they sent their records to Jerusalem, and the Jews hid them.  Where?  Where do you suppose?”

“The likeliest place would be Solomon’s Temple.”

“You think so?  Then you think superficially, my young friend.  Let us return to that Tomb of the Kings again for a moment.  That place that you visited is such an obvious fake that even the guide-books make light of it.  The one all-important thing in Palestine that never yet has been discovered is the real Tomb of the Kings.  Yet Jerusalem, where it certainly must be, has been searched and looted a hundred times from end to end.  Therefore—­ you follow me?—­the Jews must have concealed it very cunningly.  Answer me, then:  would the Jews, who were always a practical people and not corpse-worshippers like the Egyptians, have taken all that trouble to hide the tomb of their kings unless there were important treasure in it?  Answer me!”

“So you expect to find treasure in addition to the lost Book of Chronicles?”

“Certainly I do!  The treasure will make the whole proceeding safe.  Let the British have it!  The fools will be so blinded by the glamour of gold, that I shall easily extract the things of real value—­the invaluable manuscripts!  Then let the men who call themselves historians take a back seat!”

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“Were you looking for the Tomb of the Kings, then, before the War?” Grim asked him.

“Not exactly.  Under the Turks it was difficult.  The Turks were beautifully corrupt.  By paying for it I could get permission to excavate on any property owned by Christians.  But the minute I touched Moslem places the Turks became fanatical.  The Arabs, now, are different—­fanatics, too, but with a new sort of fanaticism—­new to them, I mean—­the kind that made the French revolutionists destroy everything their ancestors had set value on.  There are plenty of Arabs so full of this disease of Bolshevism that they would make it easy for me to desecrate what others believe is holy ground.  But these idiots of English are worse than the Turks!  They have stopped all excavation.  They are so afraid of Bolshevism that, if they could, they would imitate Joshua and make the sun stand still!”