seymoure

A Sliver of Mystery

“History is a science. No more, no less”
-J.B. Bury

I was in the middle of the Doc Savage (love that last name) book, “Curse of the Werewolf” and wanted to finish the chapter before I did any work this morning.

We had just returned to Kansas City from Crete. I had been brought in to find a group who were pirating artifacts from the Palace of Knossos. The history of the Minoan Empire was one of the most fascinating I had ever studied, and I had luxuriated in the task. Hugo had connected with some of his Greek and some of his Italian family members, and we found that the thieving was being done by a bunch of German tourists who were recruited to pick up pieces of pottery they found during tours. The total amount of pottery picked up was about 20 pounds a week! None of the Germans knew about each other, nor about the size of the project. We informed the customs people and were given a sizable reward from the Greek government, plus an invitation to one of the most lavish Embassy parties I have seen. I am not a party-goer in most instances, but this one was a feast in more ways than one.

Rayleen brought the mail in and put it on my desk. Then she stood, waiting.

After trying to ignore her for a good two minutes, I put my book down and looked up at her.

“Yes?” I asked, perturbed.

“You have a package with no return address,” she informed me, pushing the box in my direction.

“Is it ticking?” I joked.

“No. But the postmark is in a language I don’t recognize,” she said, smirking because she knew that would get my attention.

I slowly (didn’t want to show too much interest since that would let her be in charge of my excitement) put my feet down and reached out for the bundle.

It was about the size of gallon milk carton, but coved in regular brown paper.

I looked at the lettering and knew that I had encountered it recently. I didn’t however, identify it immediately.

Pushing the button on the intercom (how cool is it to have your own intercom?) I said, “Hugo, could you come in here for just a moment?”

I toyed with the string that was wrapped around the box while he was walking over from next door.

I pointed at the package and he picked it up. Hugo, perhaps because of his family ties, had a great gift for languages. I had heard him speak Italian, Greek, German, Japanese & Russian.

“It’s Turkish!” he exclaimed, “You saw some signs in this (language) when we made that stop over in Cyprus.”

“Yes,” I said, pretending to suddenly know the letters, “That’s it.”

I saw in their faces that neither of them bought it.

“Well,” Rayleen prodded, “Are you going to open it?”

I humphed at her and then took out my letter opener and snipped the string. Pulling back the paper I found a glossy black box inside. Stuck on that was a small strip of white paper with the following words hand-printed on it:

“Mr. Savage,

This shard of wood is the stuff of the Gods.
Once you have gone to your scientists to get an idea about its age,
I will be in touch.
-M. Gaspion”

Inside the box, wrapped in tissue, was an aged black sliver of wood. It was about two and a half inches long and less than an inch wide.

“Let’s take this to the lab,” I said.

That short trip would lead to a trip that would change all our lives.