Sludge, a squat, muscular man with a muddy complexion and prominent green eyes, looked at his visitor with keen appraisal. “I suppose you haven’t really come to give us a story to the effect that Spa water is as good for the bowels as an Epsom Salts physic, and no goddamn good whatsoever for consumption, rheumatism liver complaint, kidney-trouble, and all the rest of it, eh?”
Eszterhazy did not ask him how he had put two and two together. They looked at each other with an understanding. “You may perhaps be interested in a forthcoming article in the Journal of the Iberian Academy of Medicine.’’
The editor, who had eagerly picked up a pencil, flung his head to one side, and put the pencil down again. “Oh, why, certainly, I’ll have Our Special Correspondent in Madrid His voice trailed away, the pencil was taken back, a note made. “I would ask what you would advise about it, eh, Doctor?” What the doctor would advise about it was that the Report wait until an abstract had appeared in the French medical journal, which would be excerpted in the British Lancat. After that, an article in a Swiss scientific publication of immense standing was inevitable- And the subject would by then be provided with all sorts of guarantees and precedents, and ready to be sprung upon the population of Bella without risk of Sludge spending perhaps 30 days in jail for, say, Libel of the National Patrimony (to wit, its medicinal Spas).
“Yeah. Yeah.” Sludge scribbled away. “But not me, never, no. Not even thirty days. Not even thirty minutes.”
He arose without a word of warning, and, at the top of his lungs, screamed something absolutely incomprehensible — waited. From somewhere far-off, above the clatter of the typewriting machines, the pounding of the steam-presses, a voice called up words equally obscure. Sludge smiled, sat down. He looked at his caller again. Waiting.
Who was not yet quite ready.
“Why not?” asked Eszterhazy. “You are the Responsible Editor of the Report. What?” Sludge rapidly shook his head. The star reporter smiled. “But .... it says so, on the masthead. ‘L. Methodios Hoz- zenko, Responsible Editor.’ “
Sludge smiled. The star reporter laughed out loud.
“That’s my Uncle Louie,” Sludge said. “The world’s worst loafer, bar none. I am down on the payroll as L. M. Hozzenko, Nephew, Municipal Editor, see? — Trouble comes up, who goes down to the Court House? Uncle Louie. Who goes to jail? Uncle Louie. We bring him cheap cigars and beer in a bucket and sandwiches and hot sausage-and-crout, and he plays cards with the cops .... He don’t care! — And what really brings you here, Doctor E.?”
Eszterhazy said that the Romance of Old Jewels brought him there. The star reporter choked on a snort. Sludge threw his head back and his arms out.
Eszterhazy said, “Details. Details. Details.”
“This won’t get out? All right, excuse me, Doctor, of course you won’t — Not until our morning first edition gets out. After that — ‘Details?’ Well, what is it you don’t know? Obviously you do know that the Crown Jewels of Jerusalem have been stolen, and that —”
A multitude of thoughts rushed headlong through Eszterhazy’s mind. “The Cyprus Regalia!” he exclaimed.
Sludge shrugged, indulgently. “That’s for you educated folks,” he said, without malice. “Us Glagolitski, we never even heard of the Cyprus Regalia. Never even heard of Cyprus! But — the Crown Jewels of Jerusalem? Oh, boy, did we ever hear of them! Say: one day, down at the old little farmstead, Grandpa rushes up, waving his stick, ‘Who let the dogs knock over the barrow of pit-shit, was it you?' ‘Oh, no, Bobbo! It wasn’t me! I swear it, I swear it, by the Crown Jewels of Jerusalem, 1 swear it!’ —See?”
And the star reporter said it was just the same among the Avars. “Suppose two old peasants have agreed on a deal for the rent of the orchards for the next plum-harvest. They join hands and repeat the terms, and then each one says in turn, T swear to keep this word and I swear it by the Holy Cross and the Avenging Angel and the Crown Jewels of Jerusalem ...’ You talk to any of them about Cyprus Regalia, and he’s likely to think he’s being insulted, and to
hit you with his pig-stick.”
Eszterhazy slowly, slowly nodded, looked around the disorderly office. Observed with only a sense of the familiar the photograph of the Presence. Observed with mild surprise the photograph of the American President, A. Lincoln. “Yes ... I could sit here and, without having to send out for research materials, write an entire book to be titled ... say ... The Cyprus Regalia or Crown Jewels of Jerusalem in Law, Legend, and History in the Triune Monarchy... ' ”
Said Sludge: “And also, With Added Details As To Its Theft from the Crypt of Saint Sophie ... Yeah....”
From the article, THE ROMANCE OF OLD JEWELRY, published in the Evening Gazette newspaper, Bella, April 7th, 190-
Among the other items of jewelry pertaining to our beloved Monarchy are those sometimes called The Cyprus Regalia, or the Crown Jewels of Jerusalem. These consist of a crown with pendants, an orb with cross, and a sceptre, which, in turn, bears a miniature orb and cross. Tlje most popular history of these items derives, ultimately,
from the Glagolitic Chronicle, composed for the most part, by the Monk Mazimilianos. According to this document of the later Anti-Turkish Resistance Period, these items form the Crown Jewels of the Christian Kings of Jerusalem during the Crusades. Most modern historians tend not to accept this account. Some, such as Prince Proszt-and-Proszt, concede that the Regalia did form part of the Crown Jewelry of the Lusignan Kings who reigned over Cyprus prior to the rule of Venice — though only a part — and who were indeed crowned in two ceremonies: one, as Kings of Cyprus, and, two, as Kings of Jerusalem. The learned Prince, denies, however, that these same Regalia were ever actually used during the earlier, or Jerusalem period at all. Other modern historical scholars, of whom it may suffice to mention only Dr. Barghardt and Professor Sz. Szneider, do not agree even to this account. The learned Dr. Barghardt goes so far as
to state: “The Turks could not have found them in the vaults of Famagusta when they captured Cyprus, for the very good reason that they (that is, the Jewels) never were in Cyprus at all.” And Prof. Sz. Szneider suggests that the Regalia were probably made for the use of one of the many late medieval Christian princes of the Balkania whose brave defiance of the Turks, alas .…
Eszterhazy sighed, ran his finger further down the column, grunted, stopped the finger in its tracks.
But popular opinion prefers to accept the traditional account that these were indeed the very Crown Jewels of Jerusalem, that they were in very truth captured from Prince Murad in single combat by the great and noble Grand Duke Gustave Hohentschtupfen, direct ancestor of our beloved Monarch. Popular opinion makes a very definite connection between the possession of these Regalia by the Royal and Imperial House, and the
August Titles of our beloved Ruling Family: which, as every school commence with “Holy Roman Emperor of Scythia, Apostolic King of Pannonia, and Truly Christian King of Jerusalem, Joppa, Tripoli and Edessa”, and ....
Popular opinion, to be sure, was taking the whole thing very, very seriously indeed. Already reports were coming in from the wilder regions of Transbalkania that some of the peasantry were claiming that, with the loss of the Holy Crown Jewels of Holy Jerusalem, the Imperial and Royal power had passed, in effect, into abeyance, that Satan was now let loose to wage war upon the Saints, and that it was accordingly no longer necessary to pay the salt tax and the excise on distilled spirits.