Free The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) by Gregg Loomis Page A

likely by careful cultivation, Wildstein bore no small resemblance to Albert Einstein. Same unruly halo of white hair, same drooping mustache. The sweater with the blown out elbows was missing, however, as were the wrinkle-furrowed forehead and sleepy looking eyes. He wore an Oxford cloth button-down, tie at half-mast, khakis that might remember a crease and some sort of moccasin-type shoes with no socks. A rumpled linen jacket was folded (or tossed) over a lectern.     
                  Lang had met him during the aftermath of the murder of a Tech professor in connection with what Lang referred to as the Sinai Matter. Lang had hired the professor to do some electrical experiments and he had been killed by the people seeking the same answers Lang had been trying to find. Lang was unsure of Wildstein’s place in the academic hierarchy, but the professor had made a nuisance of himself as far as the police had been concerned by inserting himself into their investigation.
                  Whether or not he would be more useful now was a moot point. He was the only person Lang knew in Tech’s physics department.
                  The professor looked up as Lang shut the door. “Ah!” he exclaimed as though making a great discovery. “Mr. Reilly!”
                  Lang walked down the rows of seats, each a step. “Professor.”
                  “Good to see you again, Mr. Reilly. Even more so without the, er, unfortunate circumstances of last time.”
                  Even better since the professor no doubt knew of the Foundation’s several donations to research at Tech. There is nothing more obsequious than an academic in the presence of large sums of money.
                  He stuck out a hand for Lang to shake. “And what do you need with a professor of astronomy?”
                  Lang had had no idea what the man’s specialty was. He shook hands and then produced the object from his coat pocket. “I’d like to know what this is.”
                  Wildstein turned it over in his hand, found the catch and opened it. “Tell me about it.”
                  “Not much to tell. It supposedly belonged to the Elizabethan John Dee. Not sure if you’re familiar with him.”
                  Wildstein smiled. “There are few serious scientists who aren’t. He dabbled in just about every field known to the science of those days.”
                  “For all I can figure out, it could have been his pocket watch.”
                  The professor frowned, still turning the object around. “Don’t think so. Watches, as opposed to clocks, were just appearing in the mid-sixteenth century, but they were heavy, bulky, drum-shaped. People wore them on chains around their necks or pinned to a garment.”   
                  Lang suppressed a grimace. Academics, like lawyers, were good at giving answers to question other than the one asked.
                  “Your guess as to what purpose it served?”
                  Wildstein hunched his shoulders, more a flinch than a shrug. He extended a hand holding the opened object. “I’m speculating there was something attached to the brass pin in the middle of the face.”
                  “Like a compass needle?”
                  A nod of the head. Or was it a shake? “Elizabethan compasses weren’t like this. They consisted of a magnetized needle fastened to the underside of a card on which the thirty-two points of the then compass were marked eleven point two five degrees apart.”
                  “Looks like there may have been markings on the face there.” Lang pointed. “They’re pretty faded.” 
                  The professor squinted. “Looks like one is water. Another is fire.”
                  “The four