The Secret of the Stones by Ernest Dempsey (reading fiction .TXT) 📕

I gave him the stone and all the other stuff that I had been working on. He was going to return it to me when he finished. I’m not sure he even started working on it.” The desperate sincerity was convincing. Of course, the man holding him prisoner had no way of knowing it was true. He might just as easily believe him to be lying.

“Don’t toy with me,” Ulrich stepped closer, holding up the blade, running the gun barrel down the side of it.

“Listen, why would I tell you I didn’t have anything? If that’s true, then I am useless to you. Unless…”

“Unless what?” He finished Tommy’s sentence for him.

“There is one possibility...” His mind was running frantically. Truly, he had indeed given most of his work to Borringer, including the stone itself. If Sean could somehow get the stone and put together the clues, perhaps Tommy could leave a trail of the proverbial bread crumbs to where they were headed. That was a pretty big if considering Sean didn’t know much about what he’d been working on. And it was doubtful that he would be able to find what Borringer had been working on if Frank had indeed begun his task. All of this ran through Tommy’s mind as the blond man stared down at him, waiting. It was a long shot, but it was his only play.

“Well?” the accent was nearly gone with the question.

“The stone is only the first clue to the trail. It was dumb luck that I found it.” He cleared his throat as Ulrich gave him a warning look to quit stalling. “However, I did make a copy of the stone. If we can get the copy, I may be able to decipher some of it. Even then, I don’t know if I will be able to interpret enough to get us to the next clue. That’s why I took it to Borringer in the first place.”

“Next clue?” He leaned back a little, relaxing his menacing gaze into a questioning look.

“Yes. The legend claims that there is a path that must be traveled. Only those who are worthy can interpret the code and find the path to the four chambers.”

“How do you know about this?”

“Because of a riddle I came across a few years ago. It was written on an animal skin. An old man found it in a cave on his property. Said it was tucked away in a high place, sealed off with rocks and mortar to keep it dry. It was dated from the early 1800s. I’m pretty sure the stone confirmed the riddle and the location of the next clue, but I had to take it to Borringer for him to figure out the rest. Only God knows if he did or not.”

Ulrich turned his gaze out the window in thought. He placed the blade down on the desk as he moved slowly toward one of the chairs facing his bound captive. Rain pattered on the glass as the storm reached the mansion. Thunder again pierced the moment of thoughtful silence.

Tommy could see the gears turning in the man’s mind. His thoughts were interrupted by, “Why could you not decipher the entire code?”

He knew the question was coming. Fortunately, he had not had to lie so far, and he wouldn’t have to start now. That would come later. “The text on the back of the stone is a mixture of languages. A great deal of it is hieratic, which I can figure about 50 percent of. The other parts are an ancient Hebrew and some kind of cuneiform, neither of which I can interpret. That left me with only about a third to maybe 40 percent of the riddle.”

Crossing his leg over his knee, Ulrich asked, “Where is this copy of the stone?”

“It’s at my house.”

Ulrich was no fool. He looked skeptically at Tommy. “I’m sure that you would like for me to go to your house so the police can arrest me on sight, at the very least as a suspicious person.”

“The thought crossed my mind.” At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “But it’s the truth. I left a copy there in my office. If there wasn’t one, and you went there and couldn’t find it, you would kill me as soon as you realized it was a lie or a setup.”

“True,” Ulrich agreed too easily.

“Look, I don’t know who you work for or with, and truly, I don’t care.” Tommy was maintaining a surprisingly calm, matter-of-fact tone considering the circumstances. “All I care about at this point is the Wyatts not dying, hopefully myself as well, and never seeing you again. So if helping you find the Golden Chambers helps get us to that point, count me in.”

Ulrich sat quietly for a minute, considering his options. His gaze pierced Tommy’s eyes. He turned his head left, redirecting his stare to a stack of leather-bound books a few feet away near the desk. Some of them were typical of a wealthy person’s study. A few first editions with rough bindings dotted the shelves in between some newer ones that seemed hardly ever touched. In fact, Tommy doubted many of them had been read. He wondered if this place even belonged to Ulrich. It certainly seemed like someone much older probably lived here. From his experience, décor like this came from years of trying contemporary things or chasing the mainstream but inevitably settling on something a little more classic. Ulrich had picked up the knife from the desk and had begun stroking it unconsciously with the palm of his hand.

“You certainly make a lot of sense for a man tied to