Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

“The telescope,” I exclaimed. “Of course. You saw them from the north-east turret of the White Tower.”

“Just so,” admitted Newton. “I saw them as I said, arguing most violently, so that I was surprised to see them again, much reconciled. If one thing is clear to me in this dark matter it is that Sergeant Rohan knows something that holds Major Mornay in thrall to him, or else he should have been arrested and flogged for striking an officer. I must question them both again, and separately.”

“There was a moment when I swear I thought the Sergeant would strike you. I thought I should have to speak to him by way of my sword.”

“I’m right glad to have the both of you around,” offered Newton. “Especially in as cold and dark a place as this. Why, a man might think himself come down to hell. We must find out more about Sergeant Rohan and Major Mornay. It shall be your earliest concern.”

We walked back to the Mint, where we discovered that the night shift of Mint workers had already gathered in the Street outside the Warden’s Office, and now loudly declared themselves of the opinion that the Mint was not a safe place in which to work, and that, French War or not, the King’s Great Recoinage could be hanged.

“We’ll all of us be murdered if we stay here much longer,” said one. “What with Lord Lucas and his general provocations of us Minters, and now these horrible killings, this is no longer a fit place for God-fearing men to work.”

“We must nip this in the bud,” murmured Newton, “or else the war will be lost for lack of coin to pay the King’s troops.”

Newton listened patiently to their remonstrance; and at last he raised his hands to quell the general clamour, and spoke to the disgruntled Minters.

“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “You have more to fear from the French than from this murderer, for he will soon be caught, you have my word upon it.”

“How?” shouted a man.

“I will catch him,” Newton insisted. “Even so, it is only proper that you should be properly compensated for your continuing devotion to the Great Recoinage, in the face of these heinous crimes. I will speak to their lordships and demand that you should receive a boon for your important work here. Any man who stays to work will receive an extra five guineas when this great work shall be completed. Even if I have to pay that boon out of my own pocket.”

“Does that include the day shift?” asked another.

“Including the day shift,” said Newton.

The Minters looked at one another, nodded their assent, and then gradually drifted back to their machines, at which point Newton let out a sigh of relief.

“And all the time, the Master of the Mint plays cards,” said I. “I do not think the King can know what a loyal servant he has in you, Doctor.”

“We must hope their lordships agree with you,” smiled Newton. “Otherwise I shall be considerably out of pocket. You have the copy of what was written on the wall of the Sally Port stairs?”

I handed Newton the paper, which he put away in his sleeve.

“It will be my evening’s endeavour,” he said, “to solve this conundrum, for I don’t like to be dunned and teased about things which are at base mathematical. For in any cipher I think that the frequency of vowels and consonants depend upon the rules of number, with the former being more frequent than the latter.”

It was plain to see that he relished the task that now lay before him, much as the prophet Daniel might have enjoyed revealing the will of God to Belshazzar when the fingers of a man’s hand did write upon the plaster of the wall in the great king’s palace. For my own part, however, I was very tired and, despite the close proximity to my house of a headless corpse, and the clamorous noise of the Mint being now resumed, I was looking forward to my bed.

I awoke, if awakening is how it can be described, for I hardly slept at all, at the mercy of a slight fever. But I attempted to play the Stoic and reported to the office as usual, where Newton told me that we were going to visit Bedlam.

“To see your friend Mister Twistleton. Enquiring about him this morning I discovered that he was taken there last night at Lord Lucas’s order. After Mercer’s body was discovered. Is it not strange?”

“But do you hope to question the man?”

“Why not?”

“He is mad, sir.”

“Nature seldom bestows an enduring and constant sanity even on her most advantaged sons. And if Mister Twistleton’s madness be of the kind that makes him speak whatever comes into his head, then we may find that we are able to order his thoughts for ourselves.”

We went by coach to Moorfields and the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, which was a most magnificent building designed by the same Robert Hooke whom Newton regarded as his great scientific rival, and therefore, I was not at all surprised to hear my master speak most dismissively of the shape and pattern of the hospital.

“Only a madman would make a madhouse look like a palace,” he complained. “Only Hooke could perpetrate such a fraud.”

But there was nothing palatial about Bedlam’s hellish interior.

We passed through the entrance, flanking either side of which stood statues of Melancholy and Madness, as if some horrible Gorgon had stared into the eyes of two mindless brothers, which was a better fate, to my mind, than that which lay inside, where all was screams and echoing laughter and such a dreadful picture of human misery and distasteful imbecility as would have given only Beelzebub comfort. And yet raw minds went there to make sport and diversion of Bedlam’s miserable inhabitants, many of whom were chained and placed in cells, like the animals in the Lion Tower. To my untutored eye — for I knew nothing about caring for mad folk — the atmosphere was that of an enduring Tyburn holiday, for there was cruelty and callousness, drunkenness and despair, not to mention a great many whores who plied their trade in the hospital among the visiting public. In short, the picture was a facsimile of the world at large, disjointed, supped full of horror and pleasure both, and such as would have caused any man to doubt the existence of God in his Heaven.

We found Mister Twistleton rattling his chains and wheedling charity behind an iron barricade. His naked shoulders already bore the unmistakable weals of a nurse-warder’s whip, and what wits he still possessed were much agitated by the noise and clamour of his new surroundings. And yet he recognised me immediately, and kissed my hand in a way that caused me to apprehend he believed we had come to fetch him back to the relative safety of the Tower.

“How are your eyes, Mister Ellis?” he asked me straightaway.

“Much recovered, Mister Twistleton, thank you.”

“I am sorry I gouged them. Only I don’t much like being looked at. I feel people’s eyes on me, as some men feel the heat of the sun. When I attacked you, I mistook you for this other gentleman, who I think is Doctor Newton.”

“I am he, Mister Twistleton,” Newton said kindly, and held the poor man’s hand. “But pray, why did you wish to gouge my eyes?”

“My own eyes are not so good. But your eyes, Doctor, are the hottest eyes I have ever felt. It was like God himself staring into my soul. An’t please your honour, I’m sorry for thinking it, as now I perceive that your eyes are not as unforgiving as once I had thought.”

“Is it forgiveness that you seek? If so, I give it to you freely.”

“I’m beyond all forgiveness, sir. I did a terrible thing. But I am justly punished, for as you can see, I am quite out of my wits. Even my legs will not obey my mind, for I find I can walk very little.”

“What was this terrible thing you did?” I enquired.