by Graham Brack
De Maets was a friendly fellow, and apologised at once for not shaking my hand, holding up his own to indicate some stains caused by his experiments with a solution of silver. ‘I’ve seen you at the Academy, I think,’ he said. ‘You were at the funeral of that fellow yesterday, were you not?’
‘I was,’ I agreed, ‘and it is in connection with his death that I have sought you out.’
‘Me?’ said de Maets. ‘I thought he fell down the stairs?’
‘He did. But someone encouraged him to do so.’
‘I take it this encouragement went beyond mere exhortation?’
‘It seems so. It took the form of a thump to the back of the head.’
‘I see,’ said de Maets. ‘And may I ask what your part in this is?’
‘Certainly. I have been asked by the Stadhouder to investigate the death.’
De Maets arched his eyebrows expressively. ‘This Van Lucie chap obviously mixed in the right circles.’
‘Van Looy — but, yes, his family were servants of the Orange household.’
‘I must assume there is some discretion about all this.’
‘There is. And I should therefore be grateful for your help on a confidential basis.’
De Maets indicated that we should sit and poured us each a little ale from an ornate flask with a small hinged lid. ‘Never drink anything from an uncovered vessel in here,’ he chuckled. ‘You never know what may have fallen in it.’
I accepted gratefully and took a sip. It was much better than most of the beers sold in Delft, and I said so.
De Maets laughed again. ‘If a school of chemistry cannot perfect the science of brewing, things have come to a sorry pass,’ he said. ‘It’s all a matter of good water and carefully controlled temperatures, both of which we have here. But you didn’t come here to discuss the brewmaster’s art.’
‘No, that’s true. I must first swear you to secrecy.’
‘Taken as read. I do so swear.’
‘Thank you. Van Looy was not all he seemed. He was here undertaking some work for the Stadhouder in the course of which he had reason to make notes and reports. Of course, we have the completed reports, but we have not found much in the way of notes. Then it struck me that on Van Looy’s desk there were plenty of pens, but nothing in the way of ink.’
De Maets laughed again. ‘You suspect he was using invisible ink? In an invisible bottle?’
‘Well, invisible ink anyway. But we haven’t found any. So what could he use?’
De Maets took a long swallow and stared at the wall for a moment. ‘Were these reports to many people, or just one?’
‘Just one. Plus, I suppose, himself, because he would need to read his own notes.’
‘Then it is reasonable to suppose that the recipient would know how to activate the ink. And I assume that Van Lucie would need to be able to write the notes at short notice, so it cannot be one of those preparations that are slow in the making.’
‘Van Looy,’ I corrected him again. ‘That all seems plausible.’
‘Well, Mercurius, there are broadly two types of invisible ink. Some are natural fluids and some are manmade stains.’
‘If they’re stains, wouldn’t we see them?’
‘They are formed of two parts. The author writes with one, which is invisible; the recipient washes the paper with the other, and the words can then be seen. The chemistry is trivial, but there are a number of possibilities.’
‘And the natural fluids you mentioned?’
‘The great advantage is that we always have them. Blood is readily visible, but there are others that are less so. Lemon juice, onion juice, vinegar, milk, saliva, urine or even a man’s seed can be used.’
I felt a sudden and strong urge to wash my hands. ‘So far as I know,’ I said, ‘Van Looy had not been gathering onions or lemons, so perhaps it is one of the others.’
‘Do you have any paper that might bear such a message?’
I passed him a small sheaf of blank paper I had taken from Van Looy’s chest. I suspected it because I could see no reason why a man would lock blank paper away, especially when a small store sat upon his desk.
De Maets took it to the window and fetched a glass flask. ‘I don’t have a lens here,’ he explained, ‘but this will serve to magnify the surface. You see, the act of writing will disorder the surface of the paper, whatever ink is used. We may not be able to read it, but we might see that something has been written.’ He held the flask in front of each sheet in turn, slowly moving the paper so that the light fell on every part. I watched in silence as he sorted the sheets into two piles. ‘I think they may all have been disturbed,’ he finally declared, ‘but perhaps some have just been under a sheet that has been pressed on. However, with these three I think I can see some evidence that a liquid has penetrated the surface fibres. Incidentally, I must compliment Van Lucie on his choice of paper. It is very good quality.’
I had given up correcting him by this point. I just wanted him to tell me what was on the paper. ‘And is it possible to make the writing visible?’
‘Oh, certainly! Well, almost certainly. Probably.’
‘Then let us get on with it.’
‘We just need some heat. Organic liquids mostly turn brown on the application of heat before the paper begins to char. If you will kindly open the small door of the stove in the corner, I will find some tongs to hold the paper.’
There was a small iron stove with a flat tiled surface. I opened the door while de Maets busied himself in moving some small pots from the nearer table to one on the far side of the chamber.
‘I do not expect sparks,’ he explained, ‘but some of the items here do not take kindly to flame.’
‘Is that the cause of the explosions we hear from time to time?’ I asked innocently.
De Maets frowned darkly. ‘No, Master, idiotic students are the cause of the explosions.’
‘I thought students weren’t allowed in here?’
‘They aren’t. That’s why they come when I’m not around to put a stop to their high jinks.’
‘Isn’t there a lock?’
‘There is, but it wouldn’t delay an intelligent five year old with a bent nail. Ah, here we are!’ De Maets lifted the paper away from the heat and held it at eye level. There was clear writing on it.
It said MTXVI18. And that was all.
We tried several other pages. One contained a list of dates, or so we thought. The other showed a cross such as Our Lord hung on, above a smaller cross with equal arms, and around them four six-pointed stars arranged in a square.
‘It means nothing to me,’ de Maets said.
‘Nor me. But a man does not doodle with invisible ink, so we may assume that it meant something to him. And there is a precision about the size and arrangement of the stars. Is it a map, perhaps? Four landmarks between which something is hidden?’
‘Something to do with four Jews and two Christians?’
‘Then why would the two crosses be of different sizes?’
‘Maybe one of the Christians is unusually tall? Master, you are a philosophy teacher. Conjecture is your art, not mine. But at least we know that Van Looy wrote these notes and kept them safe, so they must have been important to him.’
Indeed they must, I thought, but I had no idea why.
Returning to the Academy, I had the extreme pleasure of seeing a fuming Van Kamerik coming down the stairs, from which I divined that his efforts had not been crowned with success, a fact that he confirmed upon questioning.
‘You have removed nothing from his room?’ he said.
‘Nothing that you do not know about.’
‘The Rector tells me you found a message.’
‘Yes — “you do not need to grind the nest” — written in English.’
‘Which means?’
‘We don’t know. It sounds like nonsense to us. Why would you grind up a bird’s nest?’
‘But it must have meant something, or why would Van Looy have g
one to the trouble of writing it down?’
‘And why write it and hide it? If it’s such nonsense, why not just leave it on his desk?’
Van Kamerik slapped his gloves into his open palm. Though it made a loud noise, he did not flinch. ‘It would not matter if nobody else here would know what it meant,’ he said.
‘Well, clearly,’ I agreed, thinking that was a statement of the utterly obvious.
‘No, I mean we must work backwards. He concealed it because it needed concealing, therefore there must be somebody here to whom the message would have meant something.’
Van Kamerik’s reasoning made sense. While the message was opaque to us, it must be transparent to someone, and whoever that was could conceivably have had access to Van Looy’s office. That must be why he needed to hide it.
Then I had an alternative thought. ‘But wouldn’t that be equally true if he had no idea who the traitors were and therefore suspected everyone?’
Van Kamerik looked crestfallen. ‘You mean I’m saying he hid it because the plotters would have recognised themselves and you’re saying that doesn’t mean that Van Looy would have recognised them?’
‘Exactly. He didn’t know whom to trust with the information.’
‘He said he hadn’t found them all yet.’
I hesitated about revealing anything to Van Kamerik who, after all, might have been one of the traitorous plotters, but if that was the case, why had he not stabbed the Stadhouder in his palace, where he had ample opportunity? True, he would have died himself immediately afterwards, but it was unlikely that he had never experienced a moment alone with the Stadhouder when he could have done violence to him. And we must not forget that Van Zuylestein, a man who enjoyed William’s complete trust, had employed Van Kamerik in the first place.
‘We found a sketch,’ I began.
‘A sketch?’
‘Yes. It showed what looked like a pedigree. There was a grandfather, a father and three sons, but no names, just that shape.’
‘Well, that could be anything,’ Van Kamerik protested. ‘It could be just a garden rake or a trident.’
I suppose it could have been; but I had a strange sense that it was describing some sort of relationship. I had no evidence for that; but then I do not have hard evidence for a lot of things that I believe. I just have faith, but that is no small matter.
When I told Beniamino that I was going to Utrecht on the day after tomorrow, I had forgotten that would mean having to travel on The Lord’s Day. This would have earned me the censure of many of my colleagues, though not the Rector himself, and news of it would have thrown my dear grandmother into an apoplexy as a result of her complete conviction that those who profane the Sabbath are certain to be smitten with a heavenly thunderbolt. She can produce no conclusive evidence for this belief but says that it does not require evidence because it is something that “everybody knows”.
I attended the Morning Service in the Pieterskerk, then hid myself in my room to say Mass. There are Catholic churches in Leiden, though they must be discreet and therefore operate in the back streets behind plain doors, but the people coming and going are watched and I could not afford to be identified as a Catholic because my post at the university was dependent on my being a member of the Reformed Church.
To explain, I had not been deceitful, at least not when I took the job. I was converted to Catholicism and ordained a priest after I had agreed to take the position. This was possible because the Bishop who ordained me wanted to have a shadow church in place in case the visible church was persecuted, so I was under orders to keep my Catholicism secret and my training was truncated to fit it in over a summer.
His Grace was good enough to say that being an ordained minister of the Reformed Church had to count for something, and therefore he would take my biblical knowledge, my ancient language skills and my general understanding of theology for granted and only cause me to study the distinctively Catholic subject matter that was needed to complete my training.
I had therefore passed the last few years as both a Reformed minister and a Catholic priest who, aside from my personal spiritual life, did nothing of value for the Catholic church. When I was away from Leiden I might attend a Mass, having changed out of clerical clothing, but otherwise I kept my secret close.
I packed all my paraphernalia away and returned it to its usual hiding place in my room. The reader will forgive me if I keep its location to myself. One cannot be too careful.
I was in the process of packing for my trip to Utrecht when there came a knock at my door. I opened it to find myself faced by the unexpected sight of Molenaar.
‘Forgive me, Master. Mijnheer Van der Horst told me you were looking for me and I am anxious to be of service.’
‘I’m grateful to him for taking the trouble, but he has already satisfied my curiosity. I hope I haven’t disordered your Sabbath.’
‘Not at all. I had hoped I might see you at church, but our paths did not cross.’
‘I attended the Pieterskerk this morning.’
‘Ah, that explains it. I was at the Hooglandse Kerk as usual. No matter. I understand that there are unexplained circumstances surrounding mijnheer Van Looy’s death?’
‘Yes, there are. Were you in Leiden at the time of the death?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘So you know when he died?’
‘No, but since I have been nowhere else for some weeks, I can be sure that I was in Leiden when he passed away.’
I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being teased or played with. ‘But unlike your friend, you did not attend the funeral.’
‘I did not know the gentleman. I should have felt myself to be an intruder.’
‘That didn’t seem to worry Van der Horst.’
‘We do not agree on all matters at all times, Master. I respect his desire to join in the collective prayers of the university, but it is not something I would presume to do.’
I nodded. I was finding it hard to decide whether I was in the presence of a saint or a serpent. He sounded sincere, but I thought I might detect a censure in his description of his friend’s actions. Young men do not usually speak in such a fashion. ‘Forgive me if I appear inhospitable,’ I said. ‘I’m just packing to go to Utrecht for a little while.’
‘Please don’t concern yourself. I just wanted to offer myself for any questions that you might have. If there is nothing further to discuss, I’ll leave you in peace.’ He bowed politely. ‘Enjoy your trip, Master.’
I must admit to the unworthy thought that I would enjoy Utrecht all the more for knowing that mijnheer Molenaar would not be there.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Monday was a gloriously sunny morning, and it was with a light step that I walked to the quay to find a barge to Utrecht. My quest was immediately successful — as it should have been, because a regular barge to Utrecht was advertised there — and I found a place in the bow where I could enjoy the calm weather and the warm sunshine.
I had a large piece of bread and some ham for my breakfast and was just giving thanks over it when I heard a familiar voice addressing me.
‘Master Mercurius! This is fun. We can travel together to Utrecht.’
I turned to see the appalling Beniamino standing over me. Even worse, he was carrying a lute.
‘I hope you’re not going to play that thing all the way to Utrecht,’ I said. I am willing to concede that my tone may have been a little sour.
‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ he replied.
I hoped that this indicated that he had suffered a broken arm or some similar happy accident, but I was soon disabused of this idea.
‘It’s the water that sprays up. It gets into the strings and plays hell with the tuning. Oops — I probably shouldn’t say “hell” to a minister. Still, I’ve said it now. No need to move along, there’s plenty of space for me on this bench too.’
‘I ought to say my morning prayers,’ I said.
‘Of course. I ought to pr
actise my scales too. But you’re probably much more diligent on your prayers than I am on my music.’
‘If practice helps you play better, don’t let me stop you.’
He strummed a few chords. ‘Never had a lesson in my life,’ he announced.
I can believe that, I thought.
It was a long journey. Beniamino described his travels in Italy — again — then began flirting with a young woman carrying a basket of apples who fortunately had the good sense not to respond to his blandishments. When we stopped briefly to find some lunch, Beniamino bought himself the stinkiest herring I had ever smelt and in a misplaced gesture of friendliness offered some to me.
‘Thanks, but I’ll stick to my bread roll,’ I said.
Beniamino nudged me with his elbow. ‘If you had five of those and I had two of these, you could get your mate to feed a few thousand.’ He laughed uproariously until his eyes streamed with tears.
I opened my prayer book at the Ten Commandments just to check there was no footnote exempting lutenists from the prohibition on murder, but I was disappointed.
We finally arrived at Utrecht.
‘Are you putting up at an inn, Master?’ Beniamino asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ I replied. ‘I have to report to the University, and someone there may have a room for me.’
‘Does the University have a lutenist?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It should. Add a bit of tone to the place. Show an interest in the arts, you know. I may make enquiries.’
‘If I find they have a vacancy, I’ll be sure to let you know,’ I said.
And I meant it; nothing could please me more than to know that Beniamino had a job in Utrecht — given that I lived in Leiden.
