“I believe it offers potentially confirming evidence of the Manifest, as well as an important clue to the cargo’s disposition.”
The Manifest. So that’s what it was all about, Bannister thought. The old goat was staring down the Grim Reaper and was making a desperate play for divine evidence before his time ran out.
Bannister chuckled to himself. He had pocketed a lot of money from both Gutzman and the Church of England trying to hunt down the legend of the Manifest. Perhaps there was still more to be gained.
“Oscar, you know I’ve searched extensively both here and in England and have come up empty.”
“There must be another path.”
“We both came to the conclusion that it probably no longer exists, if it ever did in the first place.”
“That was before this,” Gutzman said, tapping the glass plate. “I’ve been at this game a long time. I can smell the link here. It is real and I know it. I’ve decided to devote myself and my resources to this and nothing else.”
“It is a compelling clue,” Bannister admitted.
“This will be,” the Fat Man said in a tired voice, “the culmination of my life’s quest. I hope you can help me reach it, Ridley.”
“You can count on me.”
Marta appeared again, this time reminding Gutzman of a pending doctor appointment. Bannister said good-bye and let himself out of the apartment. Leaving the hote
l, he contemplated the papyrus scroll and whether Gutzman’s assumptions could possibly be correct. The old collector did know his stuff, he had to admit. Of more concern to Bannister was formulating a means to profit from the Fat Man’s new pursuit. Deep in thought, Bannister didn’t notice a young man in a blue jumpsuit waiting beside his car.
“Mr. Bannister?” the youth inquired.
“Yes.”
“Courier delivery, sir,” he replied, handing Bannister a large, thin envelope.
Bannister slid into his car and locked the doors before opening the letter. Shaking out the contents, he just sat and shook his head when a first-class airline ticket to London plopped into his lap.
23
SUMMER, OVER HERE!”
Stepping off the train from Great Yarmouth with a travel bag over her shoulder, Summer had to scan the crowded platform a moment before spotting Julie standing to one side, waving her hand in the air.
“Thanks for meeting me,” she said, greeting the researcher with a hug. “I’m not sure I’d find my way out of here alone,” she added, marveling at the massive covered rail yard of the Liverpool Street Station in northeast London.
“It’s actually pretty simple,” Julie replied with a grin. “You just follow all the other rats out of the maze.”
She led Summer past several station platforms and through the bustling terminal concourse to a nearby parking lot. There they climbed into a green Ford compact that resembled an overgrown insect.
“How was the voyage down to Yarmouth?” Julie asked as she navigated the car into the London traffic.
“Miserable. We caught a northerly storm front after leaving Scapa Flow and faced gale force winds during our entire run down the North Sea. I’m still feeling a little wobbly.”
“I guess I should be thankful I was able to fly back from Scotland.”
“So what’s the latest on the mystery of the Hampshire’s sinking?” Summer asked. “Have you established any connection with Lord Kitchener?”
“Just a very few loose threads, quite tenuous at best, I’m afraid. I checked the Admiralty’s official inquiry into the sinking of the Hampshire, but it was a banal White Paper that simply blamed destruction on a German mine. I also examined the claim that the IRA may have planted a bomb on the ship, but it seems to be without merit.”
“Any chance that the Germans could have planted a bomb?”
“There’s absolutely no indication from known German records, so that seems unlikely as well. It was their belief that a mine from U-75 caused the sinking. Unfortunately, the U-boat’s captain, Kurt Beitzen, didn’t survive the war, so we have no official German account of the event.”
“So that’s two brick walls. Where are those loose threads that you were talking about?” Summer asked.