"The Coptic Secret" - читать интересную книгу автора (Loomis Gregg)

Chapter Two

I.

Excerpt from the London Times:

Kidnapping Victim Stoned

LONDON-Scotland Yard announced today a grisly discovery next to St. Paul's Cathedral: the body of Sir Eon Weatherston-Wilby, who had been kidnapped the previous evening from the British Museum during a robbery at an affair sponsored by Weatherston-Wilby celebrating his donation of several ancient manuscripts from Egypt.

Police sources who declined to be identified stated the badly bruised body had apparently been thrown from an upper-story window and then subjected to trauma from blunt objects, quite possibly stones found nearby. Police are investigating the significance of a scallop shell placed on the victim's body, possibly by the killers.

An autopsy is under way. Whether the victim survived the fall and was alive at the time of the possible stoning has yet to be determined as has any motive for the kidnapping and murder.

Inspector Dylan Fitzwilliam said, "I doubt the motive was entirely robbery. Since the manuscripts are related to a murder, they would be difficult to sell on the open market"

The inspector did not exclude the possibility the theft was a "contract" job, that is, that the robbers were commissioned by a collector who wished the manuscripts for himself.

The British Museum declined to place a value on the stolen objects.

The abduction of Weatherston-Wilby took place…