by Philip Kerr
Chapter Three
Michael Maier, Atalanta fugiens, 1618
THIS THEN IS THE MESSAGE WHICH WE HAVE HEARD OF HIM, AND DECLARE UNTO YOU, THAT GOD IS LIGHT, AND IN HIM IS NO DARKNESS AT ALL.
(FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN 1:5)
pon leaving the White Tower, where Newton had observed Orion through his telescope, he and I returned to the office, where we fell to discussing the murder of poor Mister Kennedy and the disappearances of Daniel Mercer and Mrs. Berningham for whose arrests Newton now wrote out the warrants.
“Yet I do not think we shall find them,” he said as he handed me the papers. “Mrs. Berningham is very likely on board ship by now. While Daniel Mercer is very likely dead.”
“Dead? Why do you say so?”
“Because of the message that was left at his lodgings. Those hermetick clues that we found upon the table almost told me as much. And because none of his own possessions were taken away. The new beaver hat that lay upon the chair would have cost almost five pounds. A man does not leave such a hat behind when he leaves somewhere of his own accord. No more would he have left a good warm cloak in such cold weather as this.”
As usual the logic of Newton’s arguments was inescapable.
I was about to suggest to my master that I should like to go to bed, for it was quite late, when there was a loud knock at the door and old John Roettier entered the Mint office.
John Roettier was one of an old family of Flanders engravers who had worked in the Mint since the restoration of King Charles. His was an odd situation: he was a Roman Catholic whose brothers Joseph and Phillip had gone to work in the mints of Paris and Brussels and who had been replaced by Old John’s two sons, James and Norbert. These two were recently fled to France, with James accused of having joined in a treasonous conspiracy to kill King William. All of which left the old man alone in the Mint, cutting seals and suspected by the Ordnance of being a traitor on account of his religion and his treacherous family. But Newton liked and trusted him well enough and accorded him the degree of respect that was due to anyone who has given public service for many years. He was a slow, steady sort of man, but straightaway we perceived that he was greatly perturbed by something.
“Oh sir,” he exclaimed. “Doctor Newton. Mister Ellis. Such a horrible thing has happened. A murder, sir. A most dreadful horrible murder. In the Mint, sir. I never saw the like. A body, Doctor.” Roettier sat down heavily on a chair and swept an ancient-looking wig off his head. “Dead, quite dead. And most awful mutilated, too, but it is Daniel Mercer, of that I am certain. Such a sight, sir, as I never saw until this night. Who would do such a thing? Who, sir? It is beyond all humanity.”
“Calm yourself, Mister Roettier,” said Doctor Newton. “Take a deep breath in order that you might give some air to your blood, sir.”
Old Roettier nodded and did as he was bid; and having drawn a deep breath, he replaced the wig upon his head so that it looked like a saddle on a sow’s back and, gathering his wits, explained that Daniel Mercer’s body was to be found in the Mint, at the foot of the Sally Port stairs.
Newton calmly fetched his hat and cloak and lit the candle in a storm lantern. “Who else have you told about this, Mister Roettier?”
“No one, sir. I came straight here from my evening walk about the Tower, sir. I don’t sleep so good these days. And I find a little night air helps to settle me some.”
“Then snug is the word, Mister Roettier. Tell no one what you have seen. At least not yet. I fear this news will greatly disrupt the recoinage. And we shall try to keep this from the Ordnance as long as possible, lest they think to interfere. Come on, Ellis. Stir yourself. We have work to do.”
We came out of the office and walked north up the Mint, as if we had been going to my house, bracing ourselves against a cold wind that stung our faces like a close razor. Between my own garden and an outhouse where Newton kept some of his laboratory equipment, the Sally Port stairs led up from the Mint to the walls of the Inner Ward and the Brick Tower, where the Master of the Ordnance now lived.
Old Roettier had not exaggerated. In the sinuous light of our lanterns my master and I beheld such a sight as only Lucifer himself might have enjoyed. At the foot of the stairs, so that he almost looked as if he might have missed his footing in the dark and fallen down, lay the body of Daniel Mercer. Except that his head had been neatly severed and now lay on its neck upon one of the steps; and from this the two eyes had been removed, which lay upon a peacock’s feather of all things, which itself lay beside a flute. While on the wall were chalked the letters
updrtbugpiahbvhjyjfnhzjt
Newton’s face shone in the lantern light as if it had been made of gold and his eyes were lit up like two jewels, so that I could easily see how, far from disgusted by the dreadful scene that lay in front of us, he seemed much excited by it. And almost as soon as he contemplated Mercer’s body, Newton muttered the word “Mercury” so that I had the apprehension that the meaning of the feather and the flute were already apparent to him.
“Go to your house,” he told me, “and bring pen and paper. And fetch another lantern also.”
Trembling—for the murder had been done close by where I lived, which made me fearful—I did as I was bid. And when I returned Newton asked me carefully to copy down what had been chalked upon the stairwell, which I did as if it had been an important deposition and not the meaningless jumble of letters that I thought it to be. Meanwhile Newton went up to the top of the stairs and walked back and forth between the Brick Tower and the Jewel Tower; and upon finishing my copying, I joined him on the wall. Seeing his two lanterns held low down for his eyes to search the ground, I asked him what he was looking for.
“A great effusion of blood,” he said. “For it is impossible to behead a man without it. And yet there is none on the stairs. Not even a trail.” He straightened. “Nor here also. We must go back down the stairs to Mint Street and search there.”
In the street there was no trail of blood either. But Newton paid close attention to some wheel-tracks upon the ground.
“Within the last half hour some kind of cart has delivered a heavy load and gone away again,” he remarked. “It passed right by this place.”
I looked at the wheel-tracks but could distinguish almost nothing of what my master seemed to see so clearly. “Why do you say so?”
“Half an hour ago there was a great shower of rain that would have effaced these tracks. Observe the inward-bound tracks being very much deeper than the outward-bound ones, so that we may deduce there was a very considerable weight on the inward-bound cart. Therefore it is plain he was not murdered here but somewhere else. Likely he was brought here in the cart and then placed upon these stairs, with all the trimmings we see before us now.” And so saying he laid both his lanterns close to Mercer’s headless body and scrutinised it and the head most carefully.
My own eyes were drawn irresistibly to those of poor Mercer, and to the peacock feathers on which they lay like some sacrificial offering.
“This is much like the story of Argus,” I observed, with no small timidity, fearing Newton’s scornful laughter. Instead he looked up and smiled at me.
“Do, pray, go on,” he urged.
“Argus who was slain by Mercury,” I explained. “At the instigation of Jupiter. For it was the many-eyed Argus who did guard Io, who was the object of Jupiter’s lust, but who had been turned into a cow by Juno.” Seeing Newton nod his encouragement, I continued with my classical interpretation of this scene of murder. “Mercury played his flute so that Argus did fall asleep, and while he was sleeping Mercury killed him and stole Io. That might explain the flute, master.”
“Good,” said Newton. “And the feather?”
“I cannot account for it.”
“No matter. It is hermetick and not easily interpreted by one who is not adept. Knowledge of the secret art is akin to skill in music. The death of the giant Argus is the dark matter or blackness, for argos is Greek for shining or white. Hi
s hundred eyes are set on the tail of Juno’s bird. Which explains the peacock feather. The peacock feather is also the emblem of the evil eye and is considered unlucky.”
“It certainly was for poor Mister Mercer,” I said, although I thought myself not much enlightened by Newton’s hermetick explanation. In truth I was most unnerved by a coincidence I could see: for the sight of Mercer’s gouged-out eyes prompted me to recall the attack that Mister Twistleton had made upon my own eyes not long after my living at the Warden’s house; and thinking how the matter now seemed more pertinent than of late, I mentioned the circumstances of the attack to Newton, who sighed, most exasperated.
“I wonder that you did not think to speak to me of this before now,” he remarked. “Did not the murder of Mister Kennedy give you some cause for concern that the perpetrator might have been some lunatic person?”
“I confess that it did not,” I said. “In truth, since that time, Mister Twistleton has seemed a little less troubled in his mind, or else I should have mentioned it sooner.”
“Is there anything else you have perhaps omitted to inform me of?” Newton asked. “A man carrying a bloodied axe, perhaps? Or a peacock missing its tailfeathers that you have seen?”
“Now that I come to think of it, there is something,” I said. “Something else about Mister Twistleton.”
“This is the misery of a keen mind,” groaned Newton. “To be blunted on the wits of others.”
“Your pardon, sir, but I recall how, when I struck Mister Ambrose in the Stone Kitchen, he fell upon Mister Twistleton, and knocked a paper on the floor. And just now I have recollected how, at the time, Mister Twistleton occupied himself with the perusal of a sort of confounded alphabet of letters. Much like the one upon this wall. And in the letter we found on Mister Kennedy’s body.”
“It’s very well that you remember this, sir, and so I do heartily forgive your earlier omission. But we’ll think on this again.” Stroking the peacock feather, Newton was silent for a moment. “I have seen a rendering of this story before,” said Newton. “In a book by a Flemish gentleman named Barent Coenbers van Helpen. It was titled L’Escalier des Sages, which means ‘The Stairway of the Wise,’ and is a very fine work of the philosophy.”
“Is that why the body was placed on these stairs? Is this supposed to be a stairway to the wise?”
“It may be so,” said Newton. “And yet I suspect that the close proximity of the Warden’s house now occupied by you, my dear fellow, also touches upon this matter. For why else would Mercer have been killed in some other place and then brought here, if not to teach us something?” Almost absently Newton picked a piece of straw off the dead man’s waistcoat, and then another off his breeches. “But it is a mystery exactly what that might be.”
“Are we in any danger?”
“Where there are mysteries there are always dangers,” said Newton. “Even God hides his mysteries from the wise and prudent of this world, and it is not every man who can fit his understanding to the revelation of truth.
“Come,” he said, and leaving the stairs we fetched a sentinel from the Mint Barracks, to take charge of Mercer’s body. Then we walked back to the Moneyer’s stables. Inside the stables Newton looked at bales of straw most carefully, even the loose straw, as if, like some hard Egyptian taskmaster, he wondered if it were possible to make bricks without it. Finally he seemed to find what he had been looking for, which was a small quantity of bloodstained straw, although, he said, it was not enough to identify the stable as the place of murder.
“But very likely it may help to confirm to us how the body was transported about,” he said.
For good measure he also inspected the straw in the Comptroller’s stables, but, finding no trace of blood there, we went to the smith’s shop, where the Ordnance kept some of its horses.
Mister Silvester, who was the smith, was a most knavish fellow. He had black swinish eyes, a furious slit of a mouth, and a braggart’s voice and manner that hardly stopped short of belligerence. He looked like a pig grown ill-tempered and heavy from being fattened at the mast of a ship. Following Newton about the stable, Silvester, who was still ignorant of Daniel Mercer’s murder, asked him what he thought he was doing.
“Pray what does it look like, Mister Silvester?” replied Newton. “I am examining the quality of your straw, of course.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my straw, Doctor Newton. It ain’t damp. It ain’t mildewed.”
“But where does it come from?” Newton enquired.
“From the Ordnance’s own barn in Cock and Pye fields, every morning. I wouldn’t let my horses eat anything that wasn’t good. And I’d like to meet the man who says different.”
“I’ve seen all I need to see,” said Newton. “Thank you, Mister Silvester, you have been most helpful.
“That’s a right squirt-tailed fellow,” he said of Silvester, as we returned to the Moneyer’s stable, where we had found the small quantity of bloodied straw. “Always ready to shit on someone.”
There were twelve horses in the Mint. Six horses wereassigned to each of two rolling mills, with four horses yoked to a capstan that drove simple gears which turned two horizontal iron cylinders situated on an upper floor. Here fillets of gold and silver were passed between the rolls until they were thin enough to permit the cutting of blanks. It was hard work for the horses, but they were well cared for by two horsekeepers, one of whom, Mister Adam, Newton questioned closely about his straw.
“What time is your straw delivered from the barn at Cock and Pye fields?”
Mister Adam, who was altogether more respectful of Newton, straightaway removed his cap as soon as he was spoken to, revealing a pate that was much scarred with the pox so that it looked like a chequer board.
“Well, sir, it’s the Ordnance that’s supplied from there, not the Mint. Our straw comes mostly from Moor Fields. Everything we have is separate from the Ordnance so as you would think they were France and we were England, which ain’t so very far from the truth being as how there are so many of them Huguenots in this here London Tower.”
“I see,” said Newton. “And what time is straw and animal feed delivered?”
“All times, sir. On account of how horses is the most important creatures in this place, for without them fed well and properly watered, the Mint would grind to a halt, sir. Or would not grind at all, if you see what I mean.”
“Very well,” Newton said patiently. “Then pray tell me, Mister Adam, when was your last cartload delivered? And by whom?”
“That would have been about six of the clock, sir. I heard the bell from the chapel. But as to the fellow what delivered it, sir, I really couldn’t say who he was, inasmuch as I’m sure I never saw him before. Not that that’s so very out of the ordinary. We get all sorts coming and going, and at all hours of the night.”
We came away from the stables not much enlightened; and seeing a candle in the window of the Master’s house, Newton thought to enquire of Mister Defoe if he had seen or heard anything untoward. But upon his knock, the Master’s door was opened not by Mister Defoe, wbut by Mister Neale himself; and what was more, we were afforded a clear view of the four men who sat around the dinner table, all of them smoking pipes, so that the room stank like a Dutch barge. These were Mister Defoe, Mister Hooke, who was the Doctor’s scientific nemesis, and Count Gaetano and Doctor Love, the tworogues who had sought to trick my master with their fraudulent transmutation of gold.
Several more sentinels trotted past on their way to the Sally Port stairs, which looked like shutting the stable door after the steed was stolen; and seeing them, Mister Neale advanced into the street.
“What means this commotion, Doctor?” he asked. “Is there a fire?”
“No sir, another murder,” replied Newton. “One of the engravers. Mister Mercer has been found dead, on the Sally Port stairs.”
“Is the culprit known?”
“Not yet,” said Newton. “I knocked at this door in the hope that Mi
ster Defoe might have seen or heard something.”
Mister Defoe, coming to the door, shook his head. “We have heard nothing.”
The Master looked at Mister Defoe and then at the other men who stood stiffly around the table, and gave off an air of private and sinister intrigue like a dog gives off a smell of meat.
“To think that while we played cards, a murder occurred within a few yards of this door,” said Mister Neale. “It’s unconscionable.”
“Indeed it is, Mister Neale,” said Newton. “But I believe I have the matter in hand. An investigation is already under way.”
Neale shook his head. “This will do little to facilitate the recoinage,” he said. “’Tis certain to disrupt the business of the Mint.”
“That is also my first concern,” said Newton. “Which is why I have taken charge of the matter myself. I am confident that we shall apprehend this villain before long.”
“Well, then, I resign the matter to you, Doctor; and most cheerfully, for my stomach is so squeamish and watery that I cannot abide the sight of a corpse. Goodnight to you, Warden.”
“Goodnight to you, Master.”
When Mister Neale had closed the door, Newton looked at me and raised his eyebrows most meaningfully. “That,” he said quietly, “is a pretty parcel of rogues, and no mistake.”
“But why did you not warn Mister Neale about Doctor Love and Count Gaetano?” I asked.
“Now is hardly the time for that,” said Newton.“We have data urgently requiring our collection; and only out of that will arise knowledge of what has here transpired. Besides, from the reeking mist of tobacco smoke in that room, it was clear to me that the Master’s door had not been opened in a good while. Ergo, none of them could have deposited Mercer’s body here.”