Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

So saying, Newton went into the cellar and I followed him to find Osborne lighting the candles to illuminate the scene.

“Thank you, Mister Osborne, that will be all for the present.”

But for the stench, the corpse seemed hardly human at all, more like some ancient Greek or Roman marble statue, in a poor condition of repair, that now lay on its side upon an oak table. The face was quite unidentifiable, except for the expression of pain that still clung to what remained of the features. That it was a man was clear enough, but in all else I could have said nothing about him.

“What can you observe about that knot?” asked Newton, looking at the rope which bound the corpse’s feet together.

“Very little,” said I. “It looks common enough.”

Newton grunted and took off his coat, which he handed to me; then he rolled up his sleeves, so that I saw how his forearms were much scarred; but also how he was fascinated by this cadaver, and what it seemed to represent, for while he cut away what remained of the dead man’s clothing with Mister Osborne’s knife, he told me what he was doing.

“Make sure you observe nature’s obvious laws and processes,” he said. “Nothing, Mister Ellis, can be changed from what it is without putrefaction. Observe how nature’s operations exist between things of different dispositions. Her first action is to blend and confound elements into a putrefied chaos. Then are they fitted for new generation or nourishment. All things are generable. Any body can be transformed into another, of whatever kind, and all the intermediate degrees of quality can be induced in it. These principles are fundamental to alchemy.”

It was as well he told me what it was to which he referred, as I had possessed not the remotest idea. “You are an alchemist, sir?” I said, holding the candle closer to the body.

“I am,” he said, removing the last shred of clothing from the corpse. “The scars on my arms that you noticed when I rolled up my sleeves are burns from more than twenty years of using a furnace and a crucible for my chemical experiments.”

This surprised me, for the law against multipliers — as were called those alchemists who tried to make gold and silver — had not been revoked until 1689, but seven years before, until when, multiplying had been a felony and therefore, a capital offence. I was somewhat troubled that such a man as he should have admitted his former felony with so much ease; but even more so that he appeared to believe such arrant quackery.

Newton began to examine the cadaver’s teeth, like a man who intended to buy a horse. “You seem a little disconcerted, Ellis,” said he. “If you intend to vomit, then please do it outside. The room smells quite bad enough as it is.”

“No sir, I am quite well,” I said, although my chaw was beginning to lighten my head a little. “But are not many alchemists in league with the devil?”

Newton spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the cellar floor as if he hoped my opinion might be lying there.

“It is true,” he said, “that there have been many who have tried to corrupt the noble wisdom of the magi. But that is not to say that there be no true magicians.” He paused and, averting his face from close proximity to the corpse for a moment, drew a deep breath before coming close to the open mouth of the skull; then stepping back he breathed out again, and said, “This man lacks the molars in his upper left jaw.”

“What is a molar?” I enquired.

“Why, the back grinding teeth, of course. From the Latin molaris , meaning a millstone. I have also observed that the second and third fingers of his left hand are missing.”

“There’s a great deal that is missing from this poor fellow,” I offered. “Ears, nose, eyes...”

“Your powers of observation commend you, Mister Ellis, however, both amputations have occurred in precisely the same location, that being the tip of each finger. It is very singular to this individual. As is the modus mortis. For the condition of the chest is most extraordinary. The ribcage has been quite crushed, as if he was broken by some great compression. And do you see the strange position of the legs? The lower legs pressed onto the thighs, and the thighs up toward the belly?”

“Indeed it is curious,” I admitted. “Almost as if he had been rolled up into a ball.”

“Just so,” Newton murmured grimly.

“Do you think it is possible — No, it will only vex you, Doctor.”

“Speak, man,” he exhorted me.

“It was merely an hypothesis,” said I.

“You will allow me to be the judge of that. It may be that you will have confused it with an observation. Either way, I should like to hear what you have to say.”

“I wondered if this be not another poor victim of the Mighty Giant. Indeed, I heard one of the warders utter the same thought.”

This Mighty Giant was a most notorious and as yet undiscovered murderer who was much feared, having killed several men by crushing their bodies horribly.

“That remains to be demonstrated,” said Newton. “But from what I have read of his previous victims, the Mighty Giant — if there be such a man, which I doubt — has never thought before to dispose of a body, nor indeed to bind the feet with rope.”

“Why do you doubt he exists?” I asked.

“For the simple reason that giants are so few and far between,” said Newton, continuing to inspect the body. “By their very definition they stand out from the crowd. A man who has killed as often as the Mighty Giant must then be rather more anonymous. Mark my words, Mister Ellis, when that particular murderer is apprehended, he will be no more a giant than you or I.

“But what is here undeniable is that this man was killed with great cruelty. It is as plain as the truth of alchemy here demonstrated.”

“I do not understand,” I admitted. “How is that truth of alchemy to be demonstrated from a corpse, master?”

“To be explicit, the living body is a microcosmos. Having lived out its span of life, permeated by heat and air, it comes back through water to final dissolution in earth, in the never-ending cycle of life and death.”

“There’s a merry thought,” I said. “I wonder who he was.”

“Oh, there’s no wonder about it,” said Newton, and grinning at me now, he did add, “This is your predecessor. This is George Macey.”

Before leaving the cellar, Newton bade me say nothing of this to anyone for fear that the information should further delay the recoinage in the Mint.

“There is enough silly superstition among the moneyers already,” he declared. “This would only confound them further and put them in greater fear, for they are the most damnably credulous men I ever saw. If the identity of this poor fellow were generally known, all reason would cease at once. And this place should grind to a halt.”

I agreed to say nothing of what he had told me; nevertheless I was somewhat disturbed by the alacrity with which my master lied to Mister Osborne and the other Tower warders, when we were outside the cellar again.

“I owe you an apology, Mister Osborne. Alas, the fellow is much too decomposed to say anything about him, except that it was not the Mighty Giant who killed him.”

“But how can you tell, Doctor?”

“I have paid some attention to the reported details of these particular murders. In all cases, the victim’s arms were broken. But it was not so with our anonymous friend from the moat. This man’s injuries were exclusively to the torso. If he had been held in the embrace of this Mighty Giant, as is already rumoured, I should have expected broken arms as well as ribs. You may box him now, if you wish.”

“Thank you Doctor.”

“I think, Ellis,” said Newton, spitting the remains of his chaw on the ground, “that you and I need a drink, to take away the taste of this damned tobacco and, perhaps, to settle our stomachs.”