Read Napoleon's Pyramids for Free Online

to make an upside-down V. “And what do you make of this?”
    He didn’t need to explain. It looked like the Masonic symbol for a compass, the construction tool used to inscribe a circle. The order’s secret symbolism often paired the compass with a carpenter’s square, one overlying the other. Spread the medallion arms apart to the limit of their hinge and they would draw the circumference of a circle about three times the size of the disc above. Was this some kind of mathematical tool?
    “I don’t make anything of it,” I said.
    “But Silano, of the heretical Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry, was interested. Which means that perhaps this has something to do with our order’s mysteries.”
    Masonic imagery was said to be inspired by that of the ancients. Some were commonplace tools such as the mallet, trowel, and trestle-board, but others were more exotic such as the human skull, pillars, pyramids, swords, and stars. All were symbolic, and meant to suggest an order to existence I’ve found hard to detect in everyday life. In each degree of Masonic advancement, more such symbols were explained. Was this medallion some ancestor of our fraternity? We hesitated to speak of it in the ice-cream café because lodge members are sworn to secrecy, which of course makes our symbolism all the more intriguing to the uninitiated. We’ve been accused of every kind of witchcraft and conspiracy, while mostly what we do is parade around in white aprons. As one wit declared, “Even if that is their secret—that they have no secret—still, it is an achievement to keep that a secret.”
    “It suggests the distant past,” I said as I put it back around my neck. “The captain I won it from claimed it had come with Cleopatra and Caesar to Italy and was owned by Cagliostro, but the soldier thought so little of it that he gambled it away in chemin de fer. ”
    “Cagliostro? And he said it was Egyptian? And Silano took interest?”
    “It seemed casual at the time. I thought he was simply bidding me up. But now…”
    Talma pondered. “All this is coincidence, perhaps. A card game, two crimes.”
    “Perhaps.”
    His fingers tapped. “Yet it could also be connected. The lantern bearer led the police to you because he calculated that your reaction to the ransacking of your apartment would be to unwittingly plunge yourself into the scene of a horrific murder, making you available for interrogation. Examine the sequence. They hope to simply steal the medallion. Yet it is not in your apartment. It has not been given to Minette. You are a foreigner of some standing, not assaulted lightly. But if charged with murder and searched…”
    Minette had been killed merely to implicate me? My head was whirling. “Why would anyone want this so badly?”
    He was excited. “Because great events are in motion. Because the Masonic mysteries you irreverently mock may at last have an effect on the world.”
    “What events?”
    “I have informants, my friend.” He loved to be coy, pretending to know great secrets that somehow never made their way into print.
    “So you agree I’m being framed?”
    “But naturally.” Talma regarded me gravely. “You have come to the right man. As a journalist, I seek truth and justice. As a friend, I presume your innocence. As a scribe who writes about the great, I have important contacts.”
    “But how can I prove it?”
    “You need witnesses. Would your landlady attest to your character?”
    “I don’t think so. I owe her rent.”
    “And this lantern bearer, how can we find him?”
    “Find him! I want to stay away from him!”
    “Indeed.” He thought, sipping lemonade. “You need shelter, and time to make sense of this thing. Our lodge masters may be able to help.”
    “You want me to hide in a lodge?”
    “I want you safe while I determine if this medallion could give both of us an unusual opportunity.”
    “For what?”
    He smiled. “I’ve heard rumors, and rumors of rumors. Your medallion may be