Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

“Mr. Wood, I beg you,” I said, my patience very near to expiring. “I do not wish to know every single detail. I merely need the name of the owner so I might write to him.”

“Ah, you see, he is dead.”

I sighed heavily.

“But do not despair, sir, for by the greatest good fortune, his son is a student here, and would no doubt know whether the book remains in the family. His name is Prestcott. His father was Sir James Prestcott.”

Thus my story and Cola’s tales (as fictional as boccaccio and as unlikely as the rhymes of Tasso, though less finely hewn) begin to intersect through the medium of poor deluded Prestcott, and I must lay out the details as best I can, although I fully admit that I am not entirely clear about some of the circumstances.

The lad had come to my attention several months previously, when I heard of his visit to Lord Mordaunt. Mordaunt had properly communicated with Mr. Bennet, and news of the event was passed on to me as a matter of course; students, and sons of traitors, seeing fit to interrogate members of the court was no usual occurrence, and Mr. Bennet thought that an eye should be kept on the young man.

I knew few of the details but had heard enough to be certain that Prestcott’s belief in the innocence of his father was as ludicrous as it was touching. I was uncertain what the precise nature of his betrayal was, for I had left the government’s employ by then, but the noise he created signified something of great importance. I knew something of it because, as my skills were indispensable, in early 1660 I was requested to work on a letter with the greatest urgency. I have mentioned it before, for it was my one failure and the moment I saw it, I knew that there was little chance of success. As much to preserve my reputation as my position (the fall of the Commonwealth was becoming increasingly certain, and I had no wish to prolong my association with it) I declined the task.

The suasion placed upon me was great, however. Even Thurloe himself wrote to me, using a mixture of flattery and threat to win compliance, but still I refused. All communications were brought by Samuel Morland himself, a man whose weaselly words and concern for self-advancement I detested, and his presence alone made me obdurate.

“You cannot do it, can you, doctor?” he said in his sneering way, on the surface so amiable, but still barely hiding his cocky contempt for all others. “That is why you refuse.”

“I refuse because I am doubtful why I am asked. I know you too well, Samuel; everything you touch is corrupt and deceitful.”

He laughed merrily at this, and nodded in agreement. “Perhaps so. But this time I have noble company.”

I looked at the letter once more. “Very well,” I said. “I will try. Where is the key?”

“What do you mean?”

“Samuel, do not treat me like a fool. You know very well what I mean. Who wrote this?”

“A Royalist soldier, called Prestcott.”

“Ask him for the key, then. It must be a book, or a pamphlet. I must know what the code is based on.”

“We don’t have him,” Samuel replied. “He fled. The letter was found on one of our soldiers.”

“Why so?”

“A very good question indeed,” Samuel said. “That is why we want this letter deciphered.”

“Ask this soldier, then, if you cannot lay your hands on Sir James Prestcott.”

Samuel looked apologetic. “He died a few days ago.”

“And there was nothing else on him either? No other paper, no book, no piece of writing with it?”

Morland looked discountenanced for once, a fact which gave me some pleasure, for he usually adopted such a self-satisfied air that it was satisfying indeed to see him uncertain and nervous. “This was all we found. We had been expecting more.”

I tossed the letter onto my desk. “No key, no solution,” I said. “Nothing I can do, and nothing I will try to do. I do not intend to work myself to death because of your foolish incompetence. Find Sir James Prestcott, find the key, and I will assist you. Not until then.”

Rumors that had swept through government and army in the previous few weeks gave some clue of course; I had heard of fighting down in Kent, also of a frenzied investigation, conducted with the greatest secrecy and ferocity. Later I heard of the flight of Sir James Prestcott abroad, and of his being accused of betraying the 1659 rising against the Commonwealth. That, in itself, struck me as highly unlikely—I knew something of the man and considered him about as supple as a large piece of oak planking, with an absolute conviction in his own beliefs. Men had sinned, men must be punished and revenge taken—that was the alpha and omega of his politics, and this limited vision was strengthened by his own privations in the war. It made him useless as a conspirator but, in my opinion, also made him unlikely to conceive of anything so subtle as betrayal—he was too upright, too honorable, and far too stupid.

On the other hand he clearly had done something which made both Royalists and Thurloe earnestly desire his death and his silence, and I did not know what that was. I assumed the answer lay in the letter which made little Samuel sweat so, and when he had gone I naturally tried my hand to make it out. I made no progress at all, for the skill of its author was great, far beyond anything I would have expected from a military dolt like Prestcott.

I mention this because the words which Wood spoke to me so innocently brought me to a realization I should have had some time before. Mentioning it now, when it actually occurred to me, risks making me seem foolish; all I can say is that I will not accept judgment from those with inferior skills to mine. Recognizing a form of code is like recognizing a style in composition or poetry; it is impossible to say what triggers the realization, and I doubt there is another man alive who would have seen that the letter I had found in di Pietro’s mailbag, sent to this Marco da Cola, was written in the same code, had the same form, the same feel as that letter of Sir James Prestcott’s, brought to me some three years earlier by Samuel Morland. Once I had grasped the form, I could examine the structure—two days’ hard work on both of them led me to the inevitable and clear conclusion that both were constructed with the same book. A copy of Livy, I knew, had been used to encode the letter to Cola, and so now I knew that the same Livy had been used for the Prestcott letter.

Had I been more sure of my ground, I would have summoned young Prestcott, told him the position and asked for the Livy. However, I clearly could not do this without telling him of its significance and as I knew of his obsessions, I did not want to be responsible for reopening a matter so obviously sensitive—many people had worked hard to keep those events hidden, whatever they were, and I would receive no thanks for drawing attention to them once again. So, I had to approach him in a more subtle fashion and therefore decided to make use of Thomas Ken.

This Ken was a desperately ambitious young man who had the utmost clarity about his desires. For Ken, God’s interests and his own were indistinguishably mingled, so much so that one might have thought the whole of salvation itself depended on his getting £80 a year. He once had the presumption to ask me for my favor in securing a living in the gift of Lord Maynard and disposable by New College. Not being a member of that society, I naturally had little say in the matter and it was obvious that Dr. Robert Grove—more learned and balanced, and certainly more deserving—would carry the day whatever I said. But it was an inexpensive way of securing his devotion, and I gave him the expression of my support, for what that was worth.

In return, I insisted that he help me when I required his services and, in due course, recommended that he persuade Mr. Prestcott to seek my assistance. Prestcott duly came, and I questioned him closely about his father’s possessions. Alas, he knew nothing of any book by Livy, nor indeed of any documents at all, although later on he did confirm what Mor-land had said—it appeared his mother had been expecting a package from his father which never arrived. It was exceptionally frustrating—I needed only a little good fortune and I could not only unravel the secret correspondence of this Marco da Cola, I could also take to myself one of the closest secrets of the realm.