Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

It was only as we started back along Water Lane toward the Stone Kitchen, which was the name of the tavern in the Tower, that the implications of Newton’s lying began to impinge upon my Christian conscience.

“Sir, you are quite sure it was George Macey?” said I, as we started back along Water Lane. “I could barely determine that it was a human male, let alone have identified the poor fellow.”

“There can be no doubt about it. I met him but once or twice; however, it did not elude my notice that Mister Macey lacked several teeth on his upper jaw. But, more importantly, the upper joints of his second and third fingers were missing from his left hand. It is an injury most peculiar to this Tower, and more precisely this Mint.”

“It is?”

“Perhaps, when you have become better acquainted with the practice of coining, you will recognise that the moneyer who feeds the coining press with blanks must be mighty nimble-fingered. There can be hardly one of them who has not lost one or more finger joints. Prior to his clerkship, Macey was himself a moneyer. These observations, added to the dredger’s expert opinion as to how long the body had been in the water, and the finding of two new-minted shillings on the victim’s person, such as the ones I myself gave the two dredgers, must equal the conclusion I have described. Even though the coins had been a long time in the water, the milled edges were quite unmistakable.”

“Why, then, sir, if it is George Macey—.”

“You may rest assured of it.”

“Then what of his eternal rest in Christ? Does he not deserve a good Christian burial? What of his family? Perhaps they would wish a stone to remember him by? To say nothing of this matter would surely be wrong.”

“I can’t see that it matters very much to him, can you?” He smiled, as if vaguely amused by my outburst. “I believe there was a whore in Lambeth Marsh he liked to visit. But I shouldn’t think she would want to pay for a funeral. And as for his rest in Christ, well, that would all depend on whether or not Macey was a Christian, would it not?”

“Surely there can be no doubt of that,” said I. “Did he not, as I did, lay his hand upon the Bible and swear the oath of secrecy?”

“Oh, he may have done. Not that that proves anything, mind. After all, most of the Bible was written by men who had no knowledge of Jesus Christ. No, the plain fact of the matter is that Macey was no more a Christian than was the prophet Noah. I told you that I only met Macey once or twice. But on each occasion I discoursed with him long enough to learn the true nature of his religious views. He was of the Arian persuasion, which is to say that he believed that Jesus Christ and our Lord God are not of one substance, and that there was no human soul in our Saviour. Therefore he would hardly have wanted a Christian burial, with all its attendant idiosyncrasies.”

“But that is heresy,” said I. “Isn’t it?”

“Indeed, many would say so,” murmured Newton. “But you should concern yourself more with why Macey was killed and where, than with the fate of his immortal soul. For it is plain that he was murdered in the Tower, and by people from the Ordnance who were in a great hurry to be rid of his body.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“For the present I would merely ask you to recall the knot that was tied around poor Macey’s feet. Common enough, you thought. But in reality, much more singular. It is made by twisting two parts of rope in opposite directions, forming two side-by-side eyes through which the base of a hook may be passed so that a sling or weight may be hung from the hook. The knot, called a cat’s paw, is used to attach a rope to a hook and is quite versatile, but I have seldom seen it used outside of this Tower. I have other reasons, also, for believing the Ordnance was involved, which we will investigate as soon as we have wet our whistles.”

The Stone Kitchen was a miniature Babylon of vice and iniquity which did not lack its own scarlet woman, for the wife of the landlord was a whore that could persuade the Minters and warders that went there to do more than just drink away their pay. She, or one of her female friends, was not infrequently to be seen taking some fellow into a dark corner of the inmost ward for a threepenny upright; and once I even saw this bawd plying her wares behind the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. Indeed I am certain of it, for I confess that I myself did, once or twice, go with her; and others. In truth there were many places in the Tower where a jade from The Stone Kitchen might fetch a man off for a few coppers; and it was just one of several reasons why my master seldom ventured through the tavern’s door, for he also abhorred drunkenness and the fights that excessive drinking sometimes occasioned between Minters and the Ordnance. I, on the other hand, often frequented the place when my master was back in Jermyn Street, for it was certain that The Stone Kitchen was the cosiest place in the Tower, with a great hearth and an enormous skillet that usually contained an excellent stew, because for all her lewd ways and probable distempers — during the summer her cunny parts smelt as frowzy as a Scotsman’s dog — the landlady was an excellent cook.

As we came through the door Newton surveyed the occupants of the tavern with Jeremiah’s disapproving eye, which earned us the greeting of a low murmuring groan and a lesser consort of cat-calls; and perhaps it need be stated again that Newton lacked a facility with ordinary people, so that there were times when he resembled old Mister Prig.

We sat down near the fire, for it was cold outside, and warmed our hands and feet; and having ordered two mugs of hot buttered ale, we looked about the tavern at the Minters who had finished their shifts, and the warders who had come off duty. For myself I nodded at some of the faces I recognised: a surveyor of the meltings; an engraver; a moneyer; and the Tower barber. I even nodded at Mister Twistleton who, wild-haired and white-faced, sat meekly pressed between Yeoman Warder Bull and Sergeant Rohan, and looked like nothing so much as the pages of a book bound with a robust leather cover; he smiled back at me and then continued to study a paper with which he seemed to be much diverted.

And of course I smiled at the landlady who brought our buttered ales, and caressed me with a most venereal eye, although she was kind enough not to speak to me with any great familiarity in the presence of my master, which would have caused me some embarrassment.

Newton regarded all of these with the suspicion of a Witchfinder-General, and sitting amidst those brawny boozers of the Mint and the Ordnance, whose conduct was a scandal to sobriety and whose faces contained much roguery, I swear he fancied each tankard a coiner’s cool accomplice.

We drank our ale and kept our own counsel until Jonathan Ambrose, a goldsmith contracted to the Mint as a melter and refiner, and already much distrusted by Newton on account of how his cousin had been hanged as a highwayman, approached us with a show of contempt and proceeded to subject my master to a most insulting speech.

“Doctor Newton, sir,” he said, almost sick with intemperance. “I declare, you are not much loved in this place. Indeed, I believe you are the most unpopular man in this Tower.”

“Sit down, Mister Ambrose,” yelled Sergeant Rohan. “And mind your tongue.”

Newton remained seated and ignored Ambrose, seemingly unperturbed; but, sensing some trouble, I got up from our bench to interpose my body between the goldsmith and my master.

“God’s whores, it’s true, I say,” insisted Ambrose. He was a tall fellow with a manner of speech that made me think he spoke side-saddle, for his mouth was all to one side of his nose when he was talking.