Count Sigismund Bathony:
Placing the sceptres back on the table the Count takes a quick visual scan of the other items before picking up the scroll. He gave it a thorough going over as he would with any book. He gave the group a detailed analysis of the papers printing origin, manufacture date and it's sources geographical location.
His analysis was professional and accurate. The scroll was made from authentic papyrus, not the imitation material that passed for it these days after English society went mad over anything Egyptian since the discovery of King Tut's tomb a few years ago. It was perhaps a century old, as was the writing, which seemed to have been scribed by a traditional papyrus reed brush.
Remarkably, he described how the scroll was made from authentic
Cyperus papyrus reeds, commonly known as papyrus. The reed still grew along the Nile and was used for various purposes like fuel, weaving into mats, baskets and sandals. However, it hadn't been produced for some thousand years, ever since Arab traders had introduced methods of making paper from pulped wood. This was significant but the meaning is clear.
All his other personal business was conducted without a hitch. Again, everyone was reminded of the book "Africa's Dark Sects", a book that seemed rather difficult to locate and, in, fact, something of which they knew almost nothing about.
Keeper's Notes: My apologies, Lampton would have recognised before that Papyrus was an unusual material and hadn't been produced in over a thousand years. Not really a retcon but I could have made that clearer. Also, interestingly enough, London and many other UK cities had automatic exchanges at this time. Unlike the USA, telephones were a more modern 1-piece handset instead of the old-fashioned 2-piece separate earpiece and microphone attached to the base.