Roy Norton

“ Actually, the floor was so covered with papers, books, chunks of stone, and pieces of marble, that one followed a trail to get to a chair from which the doctor unceremoniously dumped a pile of manuscript and invited me to be seated. His worktable was littered with dishes and the remnants of a home-cooked meal. This débris he made into a pile and deposited on the floor, after which he unlocked his desk and produced therefrom, carefully swathed, several stone tablets.
“Behold,” he cried, “the Glyphs! The key to the break in the history of the world.” ”

“ Carving that were made on stone by the lost races of the Central American isthmus—hieroglyphics of the Maya race there, of the Quicha race in Peru, and all those peoples who were civilized and old when Egypt was young. In vain for centuries have men tried to read them. In vain have they endeavored to lift the veil from that long-dead past—to read the history written in imperishable stone. And it is I—I—Morgano, who have accomplished where others failed! ”

“ The big doors were still open and the concierge merely glared at us through the window, identified the doctor with a sniff that suggested that his rent was overdue, and we began to climb flight after flight of stone stairs, all in darkness save when lighted now and then by a wax match which my conductor scratched to assist me over treacherous portions of the ascent. The place smelled of garlic, of herbs, of fish, and of paints. From the fact that the doctor’s quarters were exactly under the tiles I surmised that he had not been in funds for some time. ”

“ A man who had a little money, was not averse to taking legitimate chances for more, and was unafraid. No hero at all, you see, but just an ordinary individual such as may be found in similar places in any big city on earth from Liverpool to Lacadiva, Singapore to Seattle, or Peking to Paris.
Doctor Morgano was known in Rome, London, New York, Leipsic, Cairo, and Paris as an archæologist always out of a job. ”

“ If the chap that lost them is liberal he should pay you well. I found a bunch of keys one time in Naples that——”
“By the love of our lady! Hear him jest! Hear him!” he muttered in an awed voice that carried the singular effect of a scream of outrage, and I knew by the fact that he spoke in his native tongue that he was actually shocked and talking of me as a third person. “I find the key to the symbols of a lost race—a race which has hitherto been in the darkness of past and unknown ages—the story of the old, old world, and he, this man, jests! ”

“ Then there is the question of labor—packers and such—a safari, as we call it in Africa. All those details mean money. How are we to get it?”
“Oh, that,” said Doctor Morgano with an air of boredom, “is nothing. That is for you to accomplish. Maybe you have it. Maybe it could be borrowed from somebody. Maybe you could get it from some bank. I have noticed that banks most always have a lot of money around in trays behind glass cases. It’s no good there. ”

“ His manner appeared to somewhat overawe the officer, which takes a bit of doing in Paris, as I have sometimes learned to my cost. But so frank, so cool was this old rascal that he could have befooled a much smarter policeman than that fat sergeant.
“Some curios have been stolen from the house of Monsieur Beauvaix in the Bois.”
“Oh,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “Monsieur Beauvaix the—let me think—— Ah! the man who made a fortune out of soap fat and who is the biggest fool of a collector in all Paris! I remember now. ”

“ His specialty was deciphering hieroglyphics that other renowned professors and doctors couldn’t read, collecting money for the knowledge, writing learned treatises upon such subjects, and riotously spending the revenues thus gained. ”