Читать книгу The Mystery Lady - Robert William Chambers - Страница 10
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That morning the Curator of the Division of Inscriptions arrived at the Museum at about ten o’clock, as usual.
In the anteroom his secretary rose from her typewriter, and handed him a visiting card. And at the same time be became aware of a slender girl in mourning seated on a sofa in the corner.
He read the visiting card: Miss Maddaleen Dirck; turned toward the motionless figure in black:
“Miss Dirck?” he inquired.
The girl stood up: “Yes; could I speak to you for a moment in private?”
He opened the door to his private office: “Come in,” he said.
Except for a cast of the Rosetta Stone, a model of some Argive ruins, and one or two photographs on glass, showing Egyptian excavations, and hung against the window-panes, the private office of the Curator of Inscriptions resembled that of any ordinary business man.
Dr. Walton laid off his hat and coat, adjusted his spectacles, regarded his visitor absently, and suggested that she be seated. But the girl remained standing, her dark blue eyes fixed on him with intensity almost disturbing.
“Well,” inquired the Curator of Inscriptions, “what can I do for you?”
After a moment’s silence: “Dr. Walton, please help me,” she said.
The Curator looked surprised: “My dear young lady, what is it you wish?”
“Please give me permission to come here every day and sit in your office. I beg you will not refuse.”
“Come every day and sit in my office?” he repeated in mild astonishment. “Why?”
“Please let me,” she pleaded. “I promise to remain very silent and still. I shall not disturb you—”
“But, my dear child—”
“I know shorthand and typewriting—”
“But I already have what assistance I require—”
“It isn’t for money; I don’t care to be paid for helping you.... I know how to clean your desk, sweep and dust, wash the woodwork and floors—I’ll do anything, anything, for you if only you will let me come here every day.”
He was frowning a trifle; his large, mild eyes seemed larger, rounder, and more owlish through his spectacles.
“Miss Dirck,” he said, “your request is most extraordinary.”
“I know it is—”
“Why do you desire to come here?”
The girl stood silent, twisting a black-edged handkerchief between black-gloved fingers, her distressed gaze fixed on the Curator.
“Come,” he said kindly, “there must be some reason for your rather unusual request. Are you interested in ancient inscriptions?”
“Yes.” Her gaze fell to the carpet.
“Do you know anything about the subject?”
She shook her head.
“Did you suppose that merely by coming here you might pick up information?”
She lifted her dark eyes from the handkerchief which she had been twisting. The transparent honesty in them, and the tragedy, too, were plain enough.
“Please do not refuse,” she said. “I promise I won’t disturb you. I will work for you without pay. Just let me come here—for a while....”
“For how long, Miss Dirck?”
“I don’t know.... A day—a month—”
“You seem to be in trouble,” he said solemnly.
“No.... Yes, I am in—in some distress of mind.”
“Could I aid you?”
“Only by letting me come here.”
“Why do you select this place? Can you not tell me that much?”
“Because I am informed that ancient inscriptions are studied and deciphered here.”
The Curator, thoroughly perplexed, gazed at her through his glasses, owlishly but not unkindly.
“Is there any particular kind of ancient inscription that interests you?” he asked. “You’ll have to tell me something, you know.”
She hesitated, moistened her lips: “Inscriptions which—which come from Central and South America interest me.”
“Maya or Aztec?”
“Both, I think.”
“But, my dear young lady, how are you ever going to learn anything about Aztec and Maya hieroglyphics,—ideographs, phonetics,—by coming into my private office every day and remaining in a corner still as a mouse?”
He smiled owlishly in his kindly way; but on the girl’s pale features there was no smile in response.
“Do not people come here sometimes to have inscriptions deciphered?” she asked tremulously.
“Sometimes. Have you any ancient inscriptions which you desire us to solve for you?”
“We—I had one—”
“Your family had one?”
“My brother.... He is dead.... I have nobody, now.”
Dr. Walton looked at her intently for a moment; then he walked up to her, took both her black-gloved hands between his own.
“Sometime,” he said, “you may care to tell me a little more about yourself.... I don’t mean that I’m vulgarly inquisitive.”
“You are good and kind,” she murmured.
He smiled and patted her hands:
“Now what do you wish me to do for you, Miss Dirck?”
“Let me sit quietly in your office while you are here.... And if people—come in—and talk about Central American inscriptions—I’d like to listen, if I may.”
He smiled: “You may; unless others object. I shan’t. But, my child, there is no deciphering work of that description done in my private office.”
“Oh,” she said, blankly, “where is it done?”
“Let me arrange matters for you,” he said, still smiling. He went to his desk and asked through the telephone for the division of Maya and Aztec Inscriptions.
“Mr. Whelan, please.... Is this you, Scott? Would you mind coming over to my office for a moment? Thanks.”
He hung up the instrument and nodded to the girl in black:
“Scott Whelan, one of our assistant curators, will be here presently. The Aztec and Maya division is his—”
The door opened and a lively young man entered.
“Miss Dirck,” said Dr. Walton, “this is Mr. Whelan.” And, to the latter: “Scott, Miss Dirck desires to have the privileges of your division. She wishes to see how it’s all done. In return she offers her services gratis. Anything of a clerical and useful nature that you may desire of her she volunteers to do,—copying, stenography, typing, cleaning, scrubbing—”
Under Mr. Whelan’s astonished gaze Miss Dirck reddened brightly. Dr. Walton laughed; and then Whelan laughed too; and, for the first time, a pale trace of a smile touched the girl’s lips.
When they all had laughed a little over the situation, Dr. Walton pleasantly explained it. Whelan, still perplexed but courteous, conducted Miss Dirck to his own private office.
Through an open door the girl saw another office where, at long tables, two or three men and as many women were seated poring over plaster models of inscriptions engraved on stone, studying, comparing, taking notes, making sketches, using magnifying glasses and even microscopes.
All around the room were ranged great plaster casts of massive, vermiculated blocks of stone covered with elaborate carvings and with hieroglyphics. Charts set thickly with symbols hung on the wall above rows of shelves filled with books.
“In there,” said Whelan, “my assistants are helping me to decipher the hieroglyphic inscriptions of a very ancient and wonderful civilisation,—the Maya.
“A thousand years before Christ a civilised people lived in Central America, Miss Dirck. They had priests, they had astronomers, mathematicians, politicians, architects, sculptors, painters,—they had a system of writing such as was developed in China and in Egypt—”
He checked himself with a smile: “Doubtless you already know all this, Miss Dirck?”
She shook her head.
“You are interested?” he asked.
“Yes. May I stay here in your office?”
“Certainly.”
She removed her hat; he took it and her fur coat and hung them beside his own.
When the girl had seated herself, Whelan sat down at his desk. She slowly stripped off her gloves.
“If,” he said, “it is Maya hieroglyphs that interest you, I must warn you that as yet we know very little about them. But about Aztec hieroglyphic writing we know pretty nearly all there is to know.”
“What is the difference between the two?” asked the girl, plainly interested.
“The Maya writing is a combination of the ideographic and phonetic,—symbols representing ideas, and symbols representing sounds. The Aztec is largely phonetic. It is simpler than the Maya, which is the older. Generally, the ancient Maya gentleman made a picture of what he wanted to say in writing; the Aztec drew a symbol representing a sound—as we do in our own alphabet. Their writing was homophonetic. Their basic symbols number about two hundred. We know most of them.
“But in the Maya hieroglyphics there are many more,—we don’t know yet how many. Almost all are ideographs,—that is, picture of ideas—”
He hesitated, realising that the girl was not able to follow him, although she listened with an intensity almost painful.
“Is there any beginner’s book, any primer, I might study?” she asked anxiously as a perplexed child.
He said: “There are a number of pamphlets, monographs, and reports published by our Museum. There are only three original Maya manuscripts known in the world. We have copies. All other Maya inscriptions are engraved on stone. We have many originals of these, and many casts.
“On the bookshelves over there you’ll find all the writings on Maya and Aztec civilisations that ever have been published. They are at your disposal, Miss Dirck.”
“Mr. Whelan, do people come to you with Maya and Aztec inscriptions which they wish to have you decipher for them?”
“Sometimes. Very few people are interested. Fewer still possess any such inscriptions. Now and then an amateur explorer or a hunter or a naturalist comes to us with a fragment of stone which he has picked up in some Mexican or Guatemalan jungle.”
“And you decipher for him what is written?”
“If we can—” He spoke absently but politely as he glanced over the morning mail laid upon his deck for his inspection.
Now, as the girl fell silent, he pleasantly asked her indulgence, and occupied himself with the pile of letters.
For half an hour he remained so occupied. Then laying aside his mail, he caught her dark eyes watching him.
“By chance,” he said with a smile, “I have a letter this morning from a man who says he has a parchment covered with Central American hieroglyphics, and who desires us to decipher it. If this is literally true it is important. Probably it is not true.”
“Is he coming here?” asked the girl quickly.
Whelan glanced at the clock. “Yes, and he is due now.”
“May I remain?”
“Certainly.”
“May I listen?”
“Yes, unless he objects.”
She drew a swift, nervous breath, sat up rigidly on her chair with a tense expression on her white face and her ungloved hands tightly clasped in her lap.
Minutes passed; the office clock ticked loudly. Whelan re-read his letters, made marginal notes on some of them, called his secretary from the anteroom, and dictated one or two replies; talked to several people on the telephone, conferred with two or three assistants who came to him for aid.
As the last of these retired, a museum guard opened the door and announced, “Mr. Barney Welper, sir. He says you expect him.”
“Show him in, Mike.”
