The Voynich Cypher by Russell Blake Page B

portfolio of stocks and bonds, as well as his summer home in Aspen, and give Frank back his money so there could never be contentions that Frank had any claim on the Scroll.”
    Steven let out an exasperated sigh. “Let’s say I completely buy all this and agree that this Frank is a monster. The obvious question is, how can I help you? What do I have to do with any of this, other than having written a letter even I forgot about? And how do I even know that the Scroll, which I’ve never heard of until you mentioned it, has anything to do with the Voynich?”
    Natalie silently extracted a battered container from her bag, easing off the lid as she regarded Cross from across the desk.
    “My father did describe how the Scroll was connected to the Voynich,” Natalie said at last.
    Steven nodded indulgently. “Okay, I’ll bite. We’ve come this far. What did he say was the link?”
    Natalie carefully took out a sheaf of parchments from the canister that were clearly hundreds of years old. He’d seen enough medieval documents in his time to recognize the signs of antiquity, as well as the distinctive scent of centuries past.
    “My father told me that the Holy Scroll was one of the missing chapters of the Voynich Manuscript, Dr. Cross,” Natalie said slowly. “Quire 18, to be precise.”
    The room seemed to spin for a few moments as Steven took in the details of the dog-eared parchments in Natalie’s hands. His eyes roamed over the ancient canister, then returned to the quire. This was impossible. It was akin to someone walking in off the street and unfurling a lost Rembrandt. The missing section of the Voynich had disappeared early in its life, along with another chapter, quire 16, and even though there were vague rumors of forbidden knowledge that periodically surfaced when one studied the history of the document, nobody had ever seen the lost pages. Through the ages, speculation as to their contents was sparse and often contradictory. They were phantoms, nothing more.
    “Quire 18…are you…are you sure this is what your father told you?”
    “Yes,” Natalie said. “He put its date at around 1450.”
    Steven couldn’t believe his ears.
    In front of him was the lynchpin – the key – to solving one of the greatest mysteries the world had ever known.
     

CHAPTER 10
     
     
    “May I see it, Natalie?” Steven asked, his voice catching on her name.
    Natalie handed him the pages across the desk. His hands were steady, thankfully not betraying the surge of adrenaline, as he took them from her.
    Steven carefully unfurled the document and spread the sheets on his desktop, which was empty except for a telephone, his computer and a coffee cup full of pencils and pens.
    The vellum was in remarkable condition, showing inevitable minor degradation after weathering the ages, but beyond that, in extraordinary shape. He glanced again at the canister. It had done its job admirably, protecting the treasured Scroll from the elements so that, even now, the document was pristine.
    The distinctive pseudo-alphabet used in the Voynich was unmistakable – the glyphs were unique. The first pages were filled with the unusual, and yet to Steven, familiar, illustrations that were in keeping with the medicinal character of quire 19. Steven knew most of the quires from memory, having devoted hundreds of hours to study them. The Scroll was definitely consistent with what he would have expected quire 18 to look like, although there was something odd about the drawings; something niggling, but off. He studied them closely, but couldn’t put his finger on what he was sensing. The harder he scrutinized them, the further away the elusive sensation got.
    “What do you think?” Natalie walked around the desk and stood by Steven’s side as he pored over each page. He was jarred back into the present by her proximity, and he could detect a subtle aroma of cinnamon emanating from her skin, along with a hint of fragrance, a light floral perfume.