Page 68 - Three Adventures

The Nazarene Foreskin

was in a shop on the telephone and did not have the amphora in his
possession. He immediately ducked out a back door and disappeared.
I am certain he was talking to you, Mr. Reedle, and that you know
where we can find what we want.”
Scoop drained his glass and put it down on an end table. “You
offered me facts, Sir Aldershot, and facts are part of any good story.
Now I’ll give you one: I was bluffing. True, Manur called me, but he
did not tell me where he put that old jug.”
“No? What did he tell you, precisely?”
Reedle again threshed the chaff in his memory. Yes, there was
something. But now he had a price.
“You know, Sir Aldershot, he just might have given me a clue. I
will gladly relate it to you on one condition.”
Three faces devoured him as if he were a tender cut of lamb.
“And what is that, sir?”
“I want the whole story. Now. And I want to publish it. You will
be out of the country by the time it hits the street, and the publicity
can do you no harm. Notoriety becomes you, Sir Aldershot.”
“Sir, we have a deal. Let us shake hands on it. Good. Now listen
carefully, because I will be brief. Mauve, call down for the car and get
dressed for travel. Salim, you stay here and pack—and get the
insulated crate ready. And call the airport: I want that jet ready to fly
this afternoon.”
The henchpersons moved with admirable dispatch. Scoop ignored
them and focused on Silk’s aquiline nose.
“The other foreskins, when any at all were found, had no value to
me. Whatever they were, they had turned to dust. The European idea
of proper veneration is to place an object on velvet and lock it in a
casket worked with jewels and precious metals. But in this part of the
world, it is well known that organic material can be preserved in a
tightly sealed container of olive oil. Such amphorae from shipwrecks
surviving more than 2500 years, when opened, reveal the oil to be
perfectly unoxidized. The Greeks gave the olive tree to the Romans,
who took it everywhere else it would flourish. Those trees, and the oil
they produced, were revered in the ancient world as a gift of the
gods. The religious connotation of ‘extra virgin’ is no coincidence.
Our research led us to the conclusion that the foreskin hidden
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