An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

  The letter sent by the sectaries was pathetically easy to unravel, and scarcely interesting; had I known what it contained I would never have bothered as it was not worth di Pietro’s life or the trouble his murder caused me. It spoke in that pompous language so beloved of sectaries of preparations, and referred elliptically to a place I confidently identified as Northampton. But there was little meat, nothing which justified the risk I had taken. If that lay anywhere, it was in the last, mysterious letter; I was determined to read it, and knew I must have the key.

  Matthew came to me as I sat at my desk, the unreadable letter in front of me in all its defiance, and asked whether he had done well.

  ‘Very well,’ I told him. ‘Very well indeed, although largely by chance: your letter is uninteresting; it is this other one which fascinates me.’ I held it up for him to examine, which he did with his habitual neatness and care.

  ‘You know this already? You have unravelled it all?’

  I laughed at his faith in me. ‘A different letter, a different source and, no doubt, a different addressee. But I know nothing and have unravelled less. I cannot read this letter. The code is based on a book, which determines the sequence of the cipher.’

  ‘Which book?’

  ‘That I do not know, and unless I can find out, I will understand nothing. But I am sure it is important. This sort of code is rare; I have come across it only a few times, and then written by men of the highest intelligence. It is too complex for fools.’

  ‘You will succeed,’ he said with a smile. ‘I am sure of that.’

  ‘I love you for your confidence, my boy. But this time you are wrong. Without the key, the door will remain locked.’

  ‘So how do we find this key?’

  ‘Only the person who wrote it, and the person who will read it, know what it is and have a copy.’

  ‘So we must ask them.’

  I thought he was joking and began to reprove him for his levity, but I saw in his face that he was quite serious.

  ‘Let me return to Smithfield. I will tell them that there was an attempt to steal the letter which failed. And I will offer to go myself on the boat, to guard it and ensure it comes to no harm. Then I will discover to whom this one is sent and what is the key.’

  The mind of youth sees in such a simple and direct way that I could hardly conceal my amusement.

  ‘Why do you laugh, Doctor?’ he asked, his brow furrowing. ‘What I say is right. There is no other way of discovering what you need to know, and you have no one else to send.’

  ‘Matthew, your innocence is charming. You would go, you would be discovered and all would be lost, even if you escaped unharmed. Do not bother me with such foolishness.’

  ‘You treat me always like a child,’ he said, saddened by my remark. ‘But I can see no reason for it. How else can you discover what this book is, and who it is sent to? And if you cannot trust me, who else can you send?’

  I took him by the shoulders and looked into his angry eyes. ‘Do not be upset,’ I said, more gently. ‘I spoke as I did not out of contempt, but concern. You are young, and these are dangerous people. I do not wish you to come to harm.’

  ‘I thank you for it. But I desire nothing more than to do something of value for you. I know my debt to you and how little I have repaid it. So please, sir, give your permission. And you must decide fast; the letters must be returned, and the boat leaves tomorrow morning.’

  I paused, and studied his fair face, its perfection spoiled by his resentment, and knew from the sight more than from his words that I would have to loosen the bonds, or lose him for ever. Still, I tried one more time.

  ‘“If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved”’ (Genesis 43:14).

  He looked at me gently, and with such kindness; I remember it still.

  ‘“Provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged”’ (Colossians 3:21).

  I bowed to that, and let him go, embracing him as he left, and watching from my window as he walked down the street outside, until he was lost from sight in the crowds. I saw the spring in his step, and the joy in his walk that came from his freedom, and I grieved over my loss. I spent the afternoon in prayer for his safety.

  I did not hear from him for a whole fortnight, and was tormented by distress and fear every day, lest the boat had sunk, or he had been discovered. But he acquitted himself better than I had expected and showed more skill than many an intelligencer properly waged by the government. When I received his first letter I wept with both relief and pride.

  Most reverend sir, the letter began,

  Following your instructions, I shipped aboard the barque Colombo and made my way to The Hague. The crossing was terribly bad, and at one stage I was sure the mission would fail because it seemed certain the ship would sink with all hands. Fortunately the master was an experienced man and brought us through safely, if very ill.

  By the time we docked, I had thoroughly ingratiated myself with this man and learned that he did not wish to spend much time in port. He was distressed about the death of di Pietro, concerned for his job and wanted to head back for London as swiftly as possible. So I offered to deliver the letters to their destination on his behalf, saying I would be glad of the chance to spend some time in this part of the world. As he had no notion there was anything special about any of them, he agreed readily and says he will bring me back to London when he comes over with his next load of goods.

  We went through the list as properly as any post officer, and checked the addresses of each envelope against the list he had in his hand.

  ‘This one has no address,’ I told him, picking up the letter which interests you so much.

  ‘Nor it has. But no matter, it is here on my list.’

  And he pointed out for me to see that he had instructions, in di Pietro’s own handwriting, that this particular letter was to be delivered to a man called Cola, in Guldenstraat.

  Sir, I must tell you that the house concerned is that of the Ambassador of Spain, and that this Cola is well known there. I have not yet delivered it, for I was told he would not be there until tomorrow, so I refused to hand it over, saying I was under strict instructions to give it into his hands alone. In the meantime, I have prevailed on the English in this place to give me lodging, which they agreed to with great friendliness, for they feel cut off and anxious for any news of home.

  When I return I will of course call upon you to offer such further news as I have found. Please be assured, dearest and kindest sir, etc. etc . . .’

  Even though the affection of my dear boy’s salutation warmed me, I fear I might have forgotten myself sufficiently as to box his ears with frustration had he been present. I realised that he had done a fine job; but none the less he had not succeeded as completely as I needed. I still did not have the name of the book that formed the key, and without that I was not greatly advanced. But, however much he had failed in this, I realised he more than made up for it elsewhere. For I knew that the Ambassador of Spain, Esteban de Gamarra, was an implacable, dangerous foe of England. That one piece of information alone justified everything I had done so far. For this Cola, I had been told months earlier, was associating with radicals, and now here he was with an address at the Spanish embassy. It was a fascinating puzzle.

  The information placed me in a quandary, because if I had disobeyed by pursuing di Pietro, interfering in this matter was even more grave. Mr Bennet was still my sole protector and I could not afford to lose his good will if I could not replace him with someone better. However, any form of link between the Spanish and the radicals was of the utmost seriousness. The prospect of an alliance between the upholder of Catholicism and the most fervent fanatics of Protestantism was hardly to be countenanced, but none the less I held in my hand the first faint glimmerings of such a connection, and I could not allow what seemed unlikely in abstract to overawe the most direct and compelling evidence.

  This has ever been my lodestone, in philosophy as in governance; the mind
of man is weak, and often cannot grasp patterns that appear to be against all reason. The codes I have spent so much of my life in deciphering are a simple example of this, for who could understand (if they did not know) how a jumble of meaningless letters could inform the reader of the thoughts of the greatest in the land, or the most dangerous in the field. It is against common sense, and yet it is so. Reason beyond ordinary human understanding is often to be met with in God’s creation, so much so that I have had occasion to laugh at Mr Locke, who makes so much of common sense in his philosophy. ‘Great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend’ (Job 37:5). In all things, we forget this at our cost.

  Reason said Spaniards would not pay to put Republican sectaries in power, nor would these self-same sectaries willingly subordinate their desires to Spanish policy. Yet the evidence was beginning to hint at precisely some such understanding between them. I could, at that stage, make nothing of it and so declined to elaborate fantastic theories; but at the same time I refused to reject evidence simply because it did not immediately coincide with reason.

  I was certain to be ridiculed if I presented my information to Mr Bennet, who prided himself on his understanding of the Spanish and was convinced of their friendship. Nor could I take any action against the sectaries, for as yet they had done no wrong. So I could do nothing: once I had deciphered the letter, discovered who had written it, and amassed more evidence, then perhaps I could present a stronger case, but until then I had to keep my suspicions to myself. I very much hoped that Matthew would remember my instructions that getting the key to the letter was vital, as it was extremely difficult to communicate with him in any way. In the meantime I wrote a report to Mr Bennet informing him (in general terms) that something was stirring among the radicals, and assuring him of my best service.

  A week later, Matthew repaid my trust in him, and I received another letter which contained something of the information I required. He offered four possibilities, apologising for being able to do no better. He had delivered the letter once more, and this time had been shown into a small room, which appeared to be an office. He found it disgusting, for it was lined with crucifixes and stank with the odour of idolatry, but while waiting for Cola himself to appear, he saw four volumes on the desk and swiftly noted down their titles. I was pleased by this, as it vindicated my faith in him: to act so was intelligent and courageous, and he would have been in great danger if anyone had come through the door while he was writing. Unfortunately, the finer points of the cryptographer’s art were lost on him: he did not realise (perhaps this was my fault for not having instructed him properly) that each edition of a book differs and that the wrong edition made my message as unintelligible as the wrong book. All I had to go on was the following, which he had copied out, letter by letter, in total ignorance of their import:

  Titi liuii ex rec heins lugd II polyd hist nouo corol

  duaci thom Vtop rob alsop eucl oct

  Almost as importantly, and very much more dangerously, he encountered Cola himself, and gave me an early indication of the man’s powers of deception. I have the letter still. Of course, I keep every remembrance of Matthew – every letter, every little exercise book he once filled is in a silver box, lined in silk and bound with the lock of hair I stole one night while he lay asleep. My eyesight is fading now and soon I will be able to read his words no longer; I will burn them for I could not bear to have anyone else read them to me, or snigger at my weakness. My last contact with him will be lost when the light flickers out. Even now I do not open that box up very often, as I find the sadness difficult to bear.

  Cola at once began to exercise his charm, trapping the lad – too young and naïve to realise the difference between kindness and its simulacrum – into acquaintanceship, then the appearance of friendship.

  He is a chubby man with bright eyes, and when he appeared and I gave him the letter, he chuckled with thanks, clapped me on the back and gave me a silver guilder. Then he questioned me closely about all things, showing great interest in my replies, and even begged me to return that he might question me further.

  I must say, sir, that he gave no sign of any concern with matters political, nor did he ever mention anything the least improper. Rather, he showed himself the perfect gentleman, courteous in manner, and easy to approach and talk to in all things.

  So easy it is to delude the trusting! This Cola began to steal his way into Matthew’s affections, no doubt conversing with the facility of the passing acquaintance, never even approaching the care that I had devoted to the lad over so many years. It is easy to entertain and fascinate, harder to educate and love; Matthew, alas, was not yet old or discriminating enough to tell the difference, and was easy prey to the ruthlessness of the Italian, who beguiled with his words until he needed to strike.

  The letter disturbed me, for my main concern was that Matthew’s natural amiability might permit some ill-chosen words to slip out and alert Cola to my awareness of him, so I swiftly wrote commanding him to stay away from the Italian. Then I forced my mind to concentrate on problems more easy to resolve, and took up once more the question of the coded letter and its key.

  Only one of the books Matthew mentioned could be the one I needed, the problem was to determine which. The easiest solution was denied me: for I knew that Euclid had only been printed in octavo but once, in Paris in 1621, and I had that edition in my own library. It was simple enough, therefore, to discover it was not the one I wanted. That left the remaining three. Accordingly, the moment I arrived back in Oxford I summoned a strange young man of my acquaintance, Mr Anthony Wood, whom I knew to be an expert squirreller in such matters. I had rendered him many favours in those days, earning his gratitude for allowing him access to manuscripts in my care, and he was pathetically eager to repay my kindnesses to him, although as a price I had to listen to interminable discussions about this press and that press, one edition after another and so on. I suppose he thought I was interested in the minutiae of ancient learning and attempted to curry favour by drawing me into scholarly conversation.

  It took him some considerable time before he returned to my room one evening (building works at my house having forced me, meanwhile, to rent space at New College – a regrettable fact which I will discuss later on) and reported that in all probability he had worked out which books were meant, although personally he believed that, in the case of the Thomas More and the Polydore Vergil, better editions existed at a more modest cost.

  I detested having to play such silly games, but I patiently explained, none the less, that I had set my heart on these particular versions. I wished, I said, to experiment with making comparisons between the various editions, so as to prepare a complete version, without faults, for the world. He admired greatly my devotion, and said he understood perfectly. The Utopia of Thomas More, he said, was a quarto, and undoubtedly the translation by Robinson which Alsop had published in 1624: he could tell that because Alsop only produced one edition before changing times meant that publishing the works of Catholic saints became a risky occupation. A copy, he said, was in the Bodleian library. The History of Polydore Vergil was also simple: there were not many new editions of this fine author published in Douai, after all. It had to be the idiosyncratic edition of George Lily, an octavo printed in 1603. Copies were not hard to come by and, indeed, he had seen a version only the other day at Mr Heath’s the bookseller, at a price of one shilling and sixpence. He was sure he could bargain the man down – as if I cared about two pence.

  ‘And the fourth?’

  ‘That is a problem,’ he said. ‘I think I know which edition you refer to here. It is the “Heins” which gives it away, of course. This refers to the handsome edition of Livy’s histories by Daniel Heinsius, issued in Leiden in 1634. A triumph of skill and learning which, alas, never received the approbation it deserved. I assume this refers to volume two of the edition, which was a duodecimo, in three volumes. Few were printed and I have never seen one. I know it only by reputation – others hav
e shamelessly used his insights without ever crediting their true author. Which is a burden true scholars must constantly bear.’

  ‘Make enquiries for me,’ I told him with heavy patience. ‘I will pay a good price for it, if it is to be had. You must know booksellers and antiquarians and collectors of libraries and the like. If there is one, someone like you will be able to find it, of that I feel sure.’

  The silly man looked modestly down his nose at the compliment. ‘I will do my best for you,’ he said. ‘And I can assure you, that if I cannot find a copy, no one else will be able to.’

  ‘That is all I ask,’ I replied, and ushered him out as quickly as was possible.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  I HAVE READ of late a scurrilous pamphlet which (without naming me directly) said that the crisis with which I was dealing at this stage was a fabrication, whipped up by a government to foment fear of sectaries and that it did not, in fact, exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hope I have already made my good intentions and my honesty clear. What I did, I admit: I freely own that I over-emphasised the danger of Venner’s rising, and claim for myself the mistake which led to the regrettable death of Signor di Pietro. I hope there is no doubt about the sincerity of my remorse, but the fact remains that the man was carrying subversive and conspiratorial material, and it was necessary for the security of the kingdom to have it.

  I feel as though I ought to set out some of my thinking, lest it be thought that my punctiliousness over letters and obscure books makes me seem fussy and obsessive. For it had struck me as obvious that these books which Matthew had told me about were most unusual. Everybody knows about the sectaries and their pathetic claims to learning. Self-taught scrabblers in the dust, most of them, seduced by second-rate reading into the delusion that they are educated. Educated? A Bible whose sublime subtlety and symbolic beauty they cannot even begin to understand, and a few screeching pamphlets by that handful of dissenters whose arrogance exceeds their shame, is all they have by way of education. No Latin, no Greek, and certainly no Hebrew, unable to read any language but their own, and assaulted by the ravings of false prophets and self-appointed Messiahs even in English. Of course they are not educated; knowledge is the province of the gentleman. I do not say that artisans cannot know, but it is obvious that they cannot assess, as they possess neither the leisure nor the training to consider free from prejudice. Plato said so, and I know of no serious person who has denied him.