Dark Matter

by Philip Kerr

  “What say you, Count?” asked Doctor Love. “Are you ready?”

  “Very much.”

  We accompanied Doctor Love and the Count to a workshop at the back of the house where the furnace was already heated so that the shop felt like an oven. At this point Newton opened a bag he had brought with him that now revealed a crucible.

  “To avoid all imposition,” he explained, “I have brought along a crucible, some charcoal and some quicksilver with which I am certain no gold has been mixed. I was sure you would agree that it is always important to approach all hermetic matters with as much scientific rigour as possible.”

  Count Gaetano smiled broadly. “Very much,” he repeated, and, taking these items from Newton, set about his transmutation.

  “While you work, Count,” said Newton, “perhaps you will favour me with some particulars about your preparation of the Mastery?”

  “I’m afraid that must remain a secret for now, sir,” said the Count.

  “Of course. How long will the work take?”

  “No more than several minutes,” replied Doctor Love. “The process is remarkable.”

  “Indeed it must be,” observed Newton. “For every sage I have ever read testifies that several months are required to effect a transmutation.”

  “Several months to learn the secret of the Magistery,” the Count said firmly. “But once the great secret is known, the work is simplicity itself. Now, sir, if you will stand over there.”

  “I confess I am fascinated,” said Newton, moving away from a metal close-stool that stood in the corner.

  The Count placed about half an ounce of lead into Newton’s crucible and heated it on the furnace; and presently, the lead having liquefied, he cast his tincture upon it and we saw the lead duly enveloped.

  “Gentlemen,” said the Count, “please to stand back a little and cover your eyes, for there will be a great flash of light and perhaps you will be blinded a little.”

  We stood back from the crucible. For several minutes nothing happened, so that finally I was tempted to look through my fingers, at which point there was a blinding flash and a strong smell of cinnamon, and, as the Count had predicted, I was blinded by a green spot in front of my eyes for several minutes. But when my sight was recovered and I inspected the crucible once more, I saw to my astonishment that the whole mass had been converted into what looked to be the finest gold.

  “I should not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes,” said I.

  “That much is certain,” said Newton.

  The Count poured the molten gold into an ingot, and, it having cooled sufficiently, he set the ingot in water and then polished it up for our inspection.

  Newton placed the small ingot in the pan of a balance to determine the weight, and smiled. He handed me the ingot, and while I stared in wonder at the miracle I had seen, he inspected the crucible from which it had been poured.

  “My doubts are removed,” he said firmly. “Sir, you are a rascal. I thought it proper to remove my doubts about your demonstration by marking the lip of the crucible I gave you. That mark having now disappeared—”

  “It was the heat of the fire that consumed it, surely,” protested Doctor Love.

  “The mark was most indelible, being a fine groove I chiselled in the stone of my own crucible this very afternoon. I am certain that this crucible containing the gold was substituted for the one I marked and which contained the lead. As soon as the Count advised us to cover our eyes, I was suspicious. He waited just long enough before curiosity overtook us and we peeped to see what had happened. At that moment he threw some phosphorus into the crucible, which blinded us long enough for him to make the substitution. I smelt the fault, however, for phosphorus is most offensive to the nostrils; but it can be rendered less offensive by first dissolving it in oil of cinnamon.”

  “Sir,” said the Count, gesturing most innocently with his hands. “You are very much mistaken.”

  “Am I?” said Newton and, catching hold of the Count’s wrist, quickly inspected his fingers’ ends, which were most painfully blistered, before the Count snatched away his hand with what looked like a mighty show of guilt. “My late friend Mister Boyle once had occasion to demonstrate phosphorus to me. I seem to recall that his own hands were similarly blistered from handling phosphorus with his bare hands. But I will freely admit I am mistaken if a search of this laboratory finds no evidence of fraud.”

  The Count, who was still all innocence, silently invited Newton’s scrutiny. My master hardly hesitated and, advancing swiftly across the laboratory, lifted up the lid of the close-stool in the corner to reveal the second crucible containing the melted lead and bearing Newton’s mark.

  “How ever did you know that it was there?” I asked, amazed.

  “Before beginning his demonstration, the Count asked me to move away from its proximity, for fear that I should perhaps hear him open it. Moreover, this commodious Ajax is made not of wood, but entirely of metal, which struck me as curious, until now.”

  “But what about these two mountebanks?” I asked. “How are we to proceed against them?”

  “Sadly, no crime has been committed here,” said Newton. “However, you two gentlemen would be well advised not to repeat your fraudulent demonstrations in London. For then I should be under compunction to denounce you to all men of learning.”

  The Count smiled thinly and narrowed his eyes so that I began to perceive how he was less of a bombast and more of a desperado than I had earlier supposed.

  “And you, sir, would do well to stay out of my way,” he said quietly. “For if you called me a liar in front of other gentlemen of quality, I should not have very much hesitation in challenging you, Doctor.”

  Doctor Love was no less threatening than his rascally Italian friend. “In Italy,” he said, “the Count is a most notorious swordsman and has killed three men in affairs of honour.”

  “Come, Ellis,” said Newton. “I think we must be leaving now. We have seen all that we needed to see.” And with that we left, for which I was very glad, since the atmosphere in that laboratory had grown doubly hazardous.

  “What a pair of charlatans,” muttered Newton, when we were outside again. “That they should have thought they could trick me.”

  I told my master that I did not think the Count looked like a man lightly to be thwarted. “You must be more cautious, Doctor,” I said. “I think we were lucky to get out of there without a fight.”

  “This world is full of rogues,” said Newton. “Forget him. He’ll not trouble us again.”

  Taking pity on my still empty stomach, Newton invited me to his house, in Jermyn Street, which was but a walk away from Soho. And I have mentioned this matter only because it was on this night that I met Miss Barton, which was as near to a genuine transmutation as I ever beheld, for after I met her, my feelings were become gold and it seemed to me that, by comparison, all fondnesses I had felt for other girls were as dullas lead.

  “My niece, Miss Barton, who has come to live with me, will welcome the company,” he explained while we walked down from Soho toward Piccadilly. “She is the daughter of my half sister, Hannah, who was married to a Northamptonshire cleric, the Reverend Robert Barton. But he died, some three years ago, and left little money for his three children; I have taken upon myself the cost of their upbringing. I have told her I am a dull stick, but she wishes to see London; and besides, Northampton, the nearest town to where she lives, is a dull place, much destroyed by the fire of 1675, and the society there not fit for a girl of Catherine’s intelligence. Or loveliness. I am told by Lord Montagu, who has met her, that she is a great beauty. But I will also value your opinion, Ellis, for I believe you to know more about women than almost anything else.”

  “Why, sir, have you never met her yourself?”

  “Of course I have. But I confess I understand little of that quality in a body and its mechanical action upon another human mind and its senses.”

  “A man might
think you were describing not a girl but a problem of geometry, sir,” I said, laughing. “I don’t think beauty is to be apprehended as a matter of mathematics.”

  “That,” said Newton, reaching his front door, “is only your opinion.”

  The young woman to whom I was now introduced was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and it was hard to perceive in her any great similarity to her uncle, which was perhaps not so surprising given that her mother was only Newton’s half sister. She was pretty, of that there could be no dissent; but in truth, during the first few minutes of our acquaintance, I considered her not altogether so great a beauty as milord Montagu had opined. And it to ok me several marvellous minutes to understand how it was that beauty rests on more than just a pretty face; there was also the matter of her very obvious intelligence to be take into account. For her excellent mind—most other ladies I had met were much more obviously shy and retiring than Newton’s precocious niece—caused Miss Barton’s lovely features to be much animated with thought, and being added to her prettiness, the effect of each was doubled, so that her great beauty was my inevitable impression. So great a beauty that by and by I found I was very pleased with her and soon found myself too much minding her. By her conversation she was clever and witty beyond her bigness and age and exceedingly well bred as to her deportment, having been a scholar at the local school in Brigstock these nine or ten year.

  After we had eaten supper, she said, “My uncle tells me that, prior to entering his service, you were training to become a lawyer, Mister Ellis.”

  “Yes, that was my expectation, Miss Barton.”

  “But that you fought a duel which obliged you to leave off your studies.”

  “Yes, that is true, I did, although I am near ashamed to mention it to you, Miss Barton.”

  “Nonsense,” she railed. “I never met anyone who fought a duel. You are my first duellist, Mister Ellis. But I confess I have met dozens of lawyers. Northamptonshire is quite riddled with them. Is that the sword with which you fought?”

  I looked down at the hilt of my sword. “Yes, it is.”

  “I should like to see it. If I asked you nicely, would you show it to me?”

  I looked at her uncle.

  “I have no objection,” he said.

  No sooner had he spoken thus, than I had drawn my sword and, kneeling before her, presented it to Miss Barton upon the sleeve of my coat. “Have a care, miss, it’s very sharp.”

  “I did not think you looked like the kind of man to carry a blunt sword, Mister Ellis.” She took hold of the hilt, raised my sword, and fenced the air for a moment or two. “And did you kill him?”

  “If I had, I would not be standing here now,” I said. “I merely pricked him, in the pap.”

  Miss Barton inspected the point of my blade in the firelight. “To think that this has drawn a man’s blood,” she breathed; and then: “I should like to learn to fence.”

  “With your uncle’s permission, Miss Barton, I should be happy to instruct you.”

  “No,” he said flatly. “It is out of the question. Child, what would your mother say?”

  She shrugged, as if what her mother said was of no import, and then handed me back my sword. “No matter,” she said. “I didn’t come to London to have gentlemen prick me with their rapiers.”

  “Not for the world,” said I.

  “Indeed, no,” echoed Newton.

  “Pray tell, what was your quarrel about, Mister Ellis?” she enquired.

  “With whom?”

  “Why, the gentleman you fought a duel with, of course.”

  “A matter of such little import that I would blush to tell you, Miss Barton.”

  “If I defeated you in a duel, would you tell me then?”

  “I should have little choice but to do so. Even so, I should only whisper it, for fear of earning your uncle’s scorn.”

  “Then we shall duel, you and I. Will you challenge me?”

  “Willingly, if it will amuse you; yes, I challenge you. Which gives you choice of weapons.”

  “Then I choose drafts.”

  “Be careful, Mister Ellis,” advised Newton. “She does not lack for skill.”

  To play drafts with Miss Barton was to understand how much she took after her uncle—whom I had often played at the Tower—for if I gave either of them first move, they were sure to beat me wholly, which, at the hand of Miss Barton, I did not much mind, her being so childishly pleased by winning. After our first game, she demanded her forfeit.

  “Come now, pay up. The explanation why you duelled, Mister Ellis.”

  I was pleased to have lost, for it gave me the opportunity to whisper in her exquisite ear, which was as close to her sweet-smelling neck as I could have wished to be, short of kissing it.

  Hearing it she laughed out loud, and then insisted we play again; and I confess I had never in my life been quite so happy to lose five games of drafts in a row.

  My master took to inviting me for supper, once a week, saying that he pitied any man such as I who was obliged to cook for himself, but I think that he saw that Miss Barton and I enjoyed each other’s company, which left him time to read, or to work upon a mathematical problem; I even went to communion with them on Christmas Day. And, by the Twelfth Day of Christmas, this pretty young woman occupied my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night, and I regarded her most fondly. However, I said nothing to this effect, at least not yet, thinking that my loving this beautiful girl should be to the discontent of her uncle, my master. And indeed I endeavoured mightily to put her out of my mind and not to love her at all except that she offered several provocations to my doing so, such as giving me a book of her favourite poems she had copied out in her own hand, and nicknaming me Tom because she said I reminded her of a cat of that name she had once owned, which was most pleasingly familiar; and once, presenting me with a lock of her hair which I kept in a little box by my bed. So that very soon thereafter she was in my head a thousand times each day.

  And for the first time in a long time I was happy. For love is mostly optimism.

  I never knew as wise a man as Newton. And yet he was as ignorant of the female sex as Achilles. Perhaps, had he had more knowledge of the world and girls, he might have governed her behaviour in a way that would not have left me encouraged as much as I was. And things might have turned out very differently between Miss Barton and myself.

  Sometimes it is not so easy to distinguish where love ends and lunacy begins; and I fancy there are a great many Bedlamites who are love’s loyal yeomanry.

  Chapter Two

  Michael Maier, Viatorium, 1618

  THEN JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, YET A LITTLE WHILE IS THE LIGHT WITH YOU. WALK WHILE YOU HAVE THE LIGHT, LEST DARKNESS COME UPON YOU: FOR HE THAT WALKETH IN DARKNESS KNOWETH NOT WHERE HE GOETH.

  (JOHN 12:35)

  anuary 1697 was an exceedingly cold month, as cold as I could ever recall and, my master assured me, the coldest he could remember since 1683, when he had stayed indoors and written his Universal Arithmetick—his most elementary work. I tried to read it, but did not succeed. Perhaps the cold slowed my intellectual parts, just as it slowed the production of new coin. For the money was still scarce, despite the very best endeavours of the moneyers, and although everyone talked of a peace with France, nothing came of it. And all the time more Jacobites were arrested, so that the country did seem mighty unstable. Meanwhile, James Hoare, the Comptroller of the Mint who had died, was replaced by Thomas Molyneux and Charles Mason, who my master said were both corrupt, and in truth they did soon feud with each other and prove to be ineffectual.

  I have mentioned how Newton’s spy, Humphrey Hall, brought us information that some coiners were rumoured to have perfected a new process in application to the gold guinea coin; and it was this business that caused us to be involved in the next part of my story which Newton swiftly came to call his dark matter. Mister Hall’s discourse had greatly disturbed my master, a guinea being a much more serious thing to forge
than a silver crown, or a shilling, and yet we lacked the evidence of a counterfeit coin. But on the night of Saturday the thirteenth of February, this shortcoming remedied itself.

  I was early to bed and asleep when I woke to find Mister Hall in my bedchamber with a candle in his hand.

  “What is it, Mister Hall?” I asked, rather alarmed to find him there because, for all the fact that he was most reliable, Mister Hall was also rather stern of countenance and old and quiet, so that he stood at the foot of my bed like Charon waiting to ferry my spirit over the marsh of Acheron. Charon’s price was one obol, but it was a guinea that Mister Hall wanted to talk about.

  “I believe we have found what we are looking for, Mister Ellis,” he said in his stagnant, muddy voice. “The head keeper at Newgate has heard that a prisoner, whose name is John Berningham, has been boasting of having paid for his garnish with a false guinea.”

  Garnish was what the keepers called the bribes they extracted from prisoners awaiting trial, for their better treatment; and this they paid for with rhino, or quidds, both of which meant ready money, or cash: since joining Newton’s service I had been obliged to learn a whole dictionary of criminal cant, or else I should never have understood the very depositions I wrote down; and there were times when Newton and I found ourselves speaking to each other like a couple of convicts.

  “I thought we ought to go and investigate it now,” added Mister Hall, “for fear that the man will be released, or that we shall lose the guinea.”