Crescent Dawn

“I do hate to miss teatime,” she said apologetically, then quickly scurried from the room.

She ran into Aldrich in the hall as he rushed toward the commotion and redirected him to help Julie. Together, they dashed down the stairs and unlocked the pantry door. A relieved Julie smiled at the sight of Summer.

“I heard a terrible crash. Is everything all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Summer gri

“Poppycock!” the old man grunted. “Now, tell me again who locked you in here.”

Julie described Ba

“Sounds like that fellow Baker,” Aldrich said. “Checked out this morning.”

“What do you know of him?” Summer asked.

“Not much, I’m afraid. Said he was a writer living in London who was down for a golf holiday. But I vaguely remember him visiting before, must be four or five years ago. I recall letting him into the archives. He’s quite knowledgeable about the Earl. In fact, he was the one who also inquired about Emily.”

Julie and Summer looked at each other knowingly, then Summer stepped back into the pantry.

“Would you like me to call the police?” Aldrich asked.

Julie thought for a moment. “No, I don’t suppose that will be necessary. He has what he came looking for, so I don’t think he’ll be bothering us again. Besides, I’m sure he gave you a phony name and address in London.”

“He’s going to get more than a piece of my mind if he shows up here again,” Aldrich huffed. “You poor dears. Please, come upstairs and have some tea.”

“Thank you, Aldrich. We’ll be right along.”

As Aldrich strutted off, Julie sat down on a Queen A

“You all right?” Summer asked.

“Yes. Didn’t want to admit it, but I am a bit claustrophobic. I don’t care to experience that feeling again anytime soon.”

Summer turned and closed the heavy door behind her.

“No need for either of us to set foot in there again,” she said. “Where’s Aldrich?”

“He went upstairs to make us some tea.”

“I hope he can find some cups.”

Julie shook her head with a disappointed grimace.

“I can’t believe it. We had the clue to Kitchener’s death right in our hands and it was plucked away by that thief before we had the chance to figure out what it all meant.”

“Don’t look so depressed. All is not lost,” Summer replied consolingly.

“But we have so little left to go on. We’ll probably never find out the true meaning of the Manifest.”

“To quote Aldrich, poppycock,” Summer replied. “We’ve still got Sally,” she added, holding up the doll.

“What good is that?”

“Well, our friend may have stolen the left leg, but we’ve still got the right.”

She held the flayed doll toward Julie, yanking away a small piece of cotton stuffing. Peering inside, the historian could make out the tip of yet another scroll of paper, this one in the right leg.

She said nothing, her eyes ablaze, as Summer gently worked the object free from the doll’s interior. As Summer laid it on the bench and carefully unrolled it, they could both see that it was not a sheet of parchment or papyrus like the other scroll. Instead, it was simply a typewritten letter, with the heading “University of Cambridge Archaeology Department” emblazoned across the top.

32

“Divers are still down,” Gu

Standing on the bridge of the Aegean Explorer , he peered through a pair of binoculars at an empty Zodiac tied to a drop line that ran down to the Ottoman shipwreck. Every few seconds, he spotted a dual set of air bubbles breaking the surface a few feet from the buoyed line. Gu

“Our nosy friend is still perusing the neighborhood,” he said.

“The Sultana ?” Pitt said, having earlier deciphered the Italian yacht’s name.

“Yes. Looks like she’s crept a little closer to the wreck site.”

Pitt looked up from the chart table, where he was examining some documents.

“He must be rather hard up for entertainment.”

“I can’t figure out what he’s up to,” Gu

“Why don’t you call him on the radio and ask him?”

“The captain tried a number of friendly calls last night. Couldn’t even get a response.”

Gu

“Any luck dating these?” Gu

“They’re very similar to some pottery found on a merchant ship that sank near Yassi Ada in the fourth century,” Pitt said, showing Gu

“So Al’s Roman crown isn’t a phony?”

“No, it would appear legitimate. We’ve got an Ottoman-era wreck that for some reason is carrying Roman artifacts.”

“A nice find any way you slice it,” Gu

“Dr. Zeibig is assessing some grain samples that were embedded in one of the potsherds, which may indicate the vessel’s point of origin. Of course, if you’d have let us uncover the rest of your monolith, we might already have an answer.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Gu

“Then I better go rouse Al,” Pitt said, rising from the table. “We’re scheduled for the next dive.”

“I think I saw him napping next to his new toy,” Gu

“Yes, he’s been anxious to test-dive the Bullet .”

As Pitt made his way across the bridge, Gu

“Now, remember. You two keep your hands off my monolith,” he cried, waving a finger at Pitt as he departed.

Pitt retrieved a dive bag from his cabin, then stepped to the rear deck of the ship. In the shadow of a white, aerodynamically shaped submersible, he found Giordino napping on a rolled-up wet suit. Pitt’s approaching presence was enough to wake Giordino, and he cocked open a lazy eyelid.

“Time for another trip to my soggy royal yacht?” he asked.

“Yes, King Al. We’ve been assigned to examine grid C-2, which appears to be a ballast mound.”

“Ballast? How am I to add to my jewelry collection from the ballast mound?” Sitting up, he began slipping into his wet suit while Pitt unzipped his dive bag and followed suit. A few minutes later, Gu

“Dirk, the divers were due up ten minutes ago, but they’ve yet to surface.”

“They might be taking a cautious decompression stop,” Giordino suggested.

Pitt gazed toward the empty Zodiac moored a short distance away. Iverson and Tang, the two men in the water, were both environmental scientists who Pitt knew to be experienced divers.

“We’ll take the chase boat and have a look,” Pitt said. “Give us a hand, Rudi.”

Gu