http://nplh.co.uk - Short film adaption of a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle adventure story. After a workplace affair leaves the career of archaeologist Dr. Kennedy hanging by a thread, he will need the biggest find of his life to redeem himself. Maybe his old friend Julius can help? The story was first published in The Sunlight Year-Book in 1898 under the title Burger's Secret, but later became known as The New Catacomb. John Rittey, Louis MacKenzie, Heather Russell-Kay, and Philip Bubb star.
John Rittey
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoBDxXF6vj4el05NEiguuGA
Louis McKenzie
https://www.starnow.co.uk/louismackenzie
Heather Russell-Kay
https://www.heatherrussellkay.co.uk/
Philip Bubb
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8728162/
George Lawton
https://www.starnow.co.uk/georgelawson3
Amar Pal
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10936383/?ref_=tt_cl_t8
Ross K. Foad
https://www.starnow.co.uk/rkfoad
Michael Langan
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7338728/?ref_=tt_cl_t10
Kate Leroy
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8785540/?ref_=tt_cl_t1
Russell Romano
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10885911/?ref_=tt_cl_t4
JD Kelly
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5120063/?ref_=tt_cl_t3
Martin Whiskin
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10166625/?ref_=tt_cl_t13
Look here, Burger," said Kennedy, "I do wish that you would confide in me."
The two famous students of Roman remains sat together in Kennedy's comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth.
Outside under the bright winter stars lay the modern Rome, the long, double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted cafes, the rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. But inside, in the sumptuous chamber of the rich young English archaeologist, there was only old Rome to be seen. Cracked and time-worn friezes hung upon the walls, grey old busts of senators and soldiers with their fighting heads and their hard, cruel faces peered out from the corners. On the centre table, amidst a litter of inscriptions, fragments, and ornaments, there stood the famous reconstruction by Kennedy of the Baths of Caracalla, which excited such interest and admiration when it was exhibited in Berlin.
Amphorae hung from the ceiling, and a litter of curiosities strewed the rich red Turkey carpet. And of them all there was not one which was not of the most unimpeachable authenticity, and of the utmost rarity and value; for Kennedy, though little more than thirty, had a European reputation in this particular branch of research, and was, moreover, provided with that long purse which either proves to be a fatal handicap to the student's energies, or, if his mind is still true to its purpose, gives him an enormous advantage in the race for fame. Kennedy had often been seduced by whim and pleasure from his studies, but his mind was an incisive one, capable of long and concentrated efforts which ended in sharp reactions of sensuous languor. His handsome face, with its high, white forehead, its aggressive nose, and its somewhat loose and sensuous mouth, was a fair index of the compromise between strength and weakness in his nature.
Of a very different type was his companion, Julius Burger. He came of a curious blend, a German father and an Italian mother, with the robust qualities of the North mingling strangely with the softer graces of the South. Blue Teutonic eyes lightened his sun-browned face, and above them rose a square, massive forehead, with a fringe of close yellow curls lying round it. His strong, firm jaw was clean-shaven, and his companion had frequently remarked how much it suggested those old Roman busts which peered out from the shadows in the corners of his chamber. Under its bluff German strength there lay always a suggestion of Italian subtlety, but the smile was so honest, and the eyes so frank, that one understood that this was only an indication of his ancestry, with no actual bearing upon his character.
In age and in reputation he was on the same level as his English companion, but his life and his work had both been far more arduous. Twelve years before he had come as a poor student to Rome, and had lived ever since upon some small endowment for research which had been awarded to him by the University of Bonn.
Painfully, slowly, and doggedly, with extraordinary tenacity and single mindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of fame, until now he was a member of the Berlin Academy, and there was every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the Chair of the greatest of German Universities. READ THE FULL STORY HERE https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Catacomb
