by Philip Kerr
“I can see that you need a little mortifying, gentlemen,” he growled, “to help you to remember to mind your business.”
I drew the two German double-barrelled Wender pistols I kept about my person whenever I went to the Whit, cocked my piece, and then fired above his head, thinking that this would put him off. But when he continued to advance it was plain to me that the fellow had been fired upon before, and so I was obliged to shoot again, only this time with more aim and, upon his cry and dropping off his cudgel, I was sure that my ball had struck him in the shoulder. Cocking my other piece, I fired twice at one of the others who came on after their comrade, but missed him altogether, for he was moving quickly, and seeing this villain, similarly undeterred, seem as if he meant to have at my master with a plug bayonet, I had at him with my rapier and pinked him on the thigh, which caused him to yelp like a dog and leave off soon enough. Whereupon the three withdrew in various stages of disorder and I even thought to give chase until I saw that my master was lying on the ground.
“Doctor Newton,” I cried, kneeling down beside him with great anxiety, and thinking him to have been run through with that bayonet after all. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, thanks to you,” said Newton. “I slipped on the cobbles when that debauched rogue tried to stab me. Look to the lady, I am quite well.”
I found Mrs. Berningham not much agitated and very pretty besides, her vizard having fallen off during the quarter; but seeing me with my sword still drawn, she seemed to realise what danger she must have been in and suddenly looked fit to swoon so that I was obliged to gather her up in my arms and, with my master leading the way, carry her back up Old Bailey, and place her in the little chariot that was waiting upon us at a short remove from the Whit.
“Pray, madam, tell us where you live so that we may convey you home with safety,” said Newton.
Mrs. Berningham dabbed at her lightly powdered cheeks and nose with a mouchoir and said, “I am much indebted to you two gentlemen, for I honestly believe those ruffians meant to do more than merely rob me. I live on Milk Street, off Cheapside, close by the Guildhall.”
She was a handsome, red-haired woman, with green eyes and good teeth and a dress that showed the tops of her bubbies most fetchingly, which made me feel most amorous toward her. But for Newton’s presence in the coach I think she might have let me kiss her, for she smiled at me and held my hand to her bubbies several times.
Newton instructed his coachman to drive to the address, which took us east along Newgate Street, this being a more direct route to Milk Street than the way she had earlier taken on foot.
“But why did you not come this way before, madam?” Newton asked suspiciously. “Instead of going down Old Bailey and onto Ludgate Hill. You were most conspicuous to us, from the minute you left the Whit.”
“You saw me leave the Whit?” Mrs. Berningham glanced out of the window as a cloud cleared from the sky, and in the suddenly moonshine light, I did think she coloured a little.
“Ay, Mrs. Berningham,” said Newton.
Hearing her name, for she had not mentioned it herself, Mrs. Berningham dropped my hand, and stiffened visibly.
“Who are you?”
“Never mind that for now,” said Newton. “When you left the Whit, where were you going?”
“If you know my name, then you’ll know why I was at the Whit,” she said, “and why I should want to pray for my husband. I went down Old Bailey intending to go to St. Martin’s Church.”
“And did you also pray for your husband before visiting him?”
“Why, yes. How did you know? Did you follow me there, too?”
“No, madam. But I’ll warrant your attackers did. For it was clear they were waiting for you. Did you recognise them?”
“No sir.”
“But I fancy one of them said something to you, did he not?”
“No sir, I think you are mistaken. Or else I do not remember.”
“Madam,” Newton said coldly, “I never misrepresent matter of fact. And there is nothing I dislike more than contention. I am right sorry for your trouble, but let me speak plainly with you. Your husband stands accused of the gravest crimes, for which he might easily forfeit his life.”
“But how can this be? I am reliably informed that the landlord whom John stabbed will soon recover. Surely, sir, you exaggerate the gravity of this matter.”
“What? Do you persist in fencing with us, Mrs. Berningham? The stabbing is a mere bagatelle, of no interest to me or my friend here. We are officials of His Majesty’s Mint, and of graver import is the matter of a counterfeit guinea coin which your husband knowingly passed off as genuine, and for which he will surely hang unless I am disposed to intervene on his behalf. Therefore I beseech you, for his sake, and for yours, to tell us everything you know of this false guinea. And, that being done to my satisfaction, to prevail upon your husband to have like to do the same.”
Mrs. Berningham sighed most profoundly and handled her fur tippet as if, like a Catholic rosary, it might afford her some spiritual guidance in forming her resolution. “What must I do?” she whispered, quite distracted. “What? What?”
“All that is possible to do for your husband, Doctor Newton’s influence may effect,” I told her, and gently took her hand in mine. “It would be vain to suppose there are any other ways of helping him now. You must unburden yourself of all you know of this matter, madam.”
“It’s not much that I know, except that John has been a fool.”
“Unquestionably. But tell us about your assailants,” said Newton. “What words were spoken?”
“He said that if John should peach, then I should get worse than the beating was coming to me now. That the next time they would kill me.”
“And that was all he said?”
“Yes sir.”
“But you knew what it was to which he referred?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then it’s plain you did recognise them after all.”
“Yes sir. My husband was sometimes in their company, but he told me not their names.”
“Where was this?”
“At a mum house in Leadenhall Street,” she said. “The Fleece. Or sometimes they were at The Sun.”
“I know both of those places,” said I.
“But in truth,” she continued, “they were ruffians and he paid them little heed. There were others with whom he seemed better acquainted. Gentlemen from the Exchange, or so I thought them.”
“The Royal Exchange?”
“That was my own apprehension, but now I am not so sure. John was to use false guineas to pay some merchants, which I was much against, thinking he would be caught. But when he showed me the guineas I could not conceive of anyone thinking them to be anything other than genuine, which, I am ashamed to confess, made me quite leave off my objections. Indeed, sir, I am still at a loss to know how the ridge was culled, since it was my husband’s practice to mix good and bad coin.”
“He is not much of a dissembler, this husband of yours. In his gin cups Mister Berningham boasted that the ridge with which his garnish had been paid was false.”
Mrs. Berningham sighed and shook her head. “He never did have a head for strong waters.”
“These other men you thought were from the Exchange. What were their names?”
Mrs. Berningham was silent for a moment as she tried to remember. “John told me, only … ” She shook her head. “Perhaps I will remember tomorrow.”
“Mrs. Berningham,” Newton said crossly, “you say much, but you tell us very little of consequence.”
“It has been,” she sighed, “a most vexatious evening.”
“’Tis true,” I said in her defence. “Look here, the lady is encrusted with distress.”
“In time, Mister Ellis, you will learn that the licence of invention some people take is most egregious indeed. For all we do know, this woman is as culpable as her husband.”
Whereupon Mrs. Berningham appeared mightily grie
ved and began to cry, which only served to make Newton more impatient, for he did tut and look up at the ceiling of the coach and moan as one with the stomach-ache and then yell out to the coachman to make haste or else he would go mad. And all the while I held Mrs. Berningham’s hand and tried to comfort her so that finally she once again composed herself sufficient to comprehend what Newton next had to say to her.
“The man we are looking for, madam,” he said carefully. “The man who did forge the guinea which your husband was foolish enough to pass off. He is very likely French. He is perhaps a man with teeth à la Chinoise, which is to say that they are black and quite rotten and, had he ever spoken with you, his breath would have seemed most foul. Perhaps you would also have noticed his hands, which might have trembled like a milk pudding, and to which you may even have attributed his great thirst for ale or beer, but never wine, for the man I am looking for drinks not for enjoyment but from necessity, wanting moisture as much as doth the parched ground in summer.”
To my surprise, for I had never heard this description before Newton gave it utterance, Mrs. Berningham started to nod, even before my master had finished speaking.
“But, Doctor Newton,” she exclaimed. “Surely you have met my husband.”
“I have not yet had that pleasure,” said Newton.
Mrs. Berningham looked at me. “Then you must have described him to the Doctor.”
“No, madam,” said I.
“Then how do you seem to describe him so well? For ’tis true, he has not been well of late.”
“It is no matter for now,” said Newton.
Newton’s coach drew up at Mrs. Berningham’s address in Milk Street and we set her down, whereupon my master cautioned her to return to the Whit only in daylight when her safety might be better assured.
“But how did you know Berningham’s appearance?” I asked, when she had gone up to the door of her house. “A man you have never seen nor heard of before. And yet Mrs. Berningham recognised him from your description.”
And upon my asking, Newton smiled a quiet little smile so that I thought how he seemed rather pleased with himself. “‘He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth with him.’ The Book of Daniel, chapter two, verses twenty-one to twenty-two.”
I confess that I was a little piqued at Newton’s enigmatic resort to the scriptures, for it seemed to confirm in my mind that he enjoyed confounding me, which made me feel and no doubt look mighty ill-humoured, so that my master patted my knee, like a spaniel methought, although his speech was full of much warmth and good intent toward me.
“Oh come, sir, this will not do. I would know if I am to improve myself.”
“Rest assured, my dear young friend, that you who have saved my life shall know my complete confidence. The description was furnished easily enough. Whoever forged that guinea has had a prolonged acquaintance with mercury, which produces in a man all the ill effects that were described: the blackened teeth, the tremulous hands, the great thirst. I might also have mentioned the unsoundness of mind. These effects are not generally known. I only discovered them myself as a result of a great distemper with which I was afflicted during the year of 1693, when I almost lost my mind through much experimentation in my laboratory.
“All of which leads me to suppose that the lady tells us much less than she knows.”
“How is that?”
“She told us that her husband was merely passing off the bad coin as good, when the substance of the matter is that he did forge them himself. Berningham is almost certainly the man who has perfected the d’orure moulu process for making fake gold. But it may be that she still hopes to save him from the gallows, although I have always thought that hanging and marriage go very much together as a fate.”
Newton instructed his coachman to drive to the Tower and from thence back to Jermyn Street.
“I have a favour to ask of you: that Miss Barton shall be told nothing of tonight’s adventure. She is a sensitive child, prey to all sorts of imaginings, and it would greatly inconvenience me if every time I went abroad, she were to detain me with questions regarding the safety of my person. My duties on behalf of the Mint are the only matters on which I am happy for my niece to remain in complete ignorance.”
“Depend upon it, sir. I shall be the very model of discretion where that young lady is concerned.”
Newton bowed his head to me.
“But,” I said, “since I now dare to enjoy your complete confidence, sir, I would take advantage of that to remind you of a matter in which my own continuing ignorance is an affront to me. I would ask if you have had any further thoughts regarding the death of George Macey, of whose murder you bade me to remain silent. And, if you have, I would be grateful if you would share them with me, for I do confess that my own predecessor’s death still much occupies my thoughts.”
“You do well to remind me of it,” said Newton. “But I have not lacked for diligence in obtaining more information.
“Macey was, by several accounts, a most diligent man, but not an educated one, although he does seem to have made an attempt at improving himself. None of this amounted to very much, however, and it seems that Macey often had recourse to consult the mind of a man I suspect was one of Macey’s informers, a goldsmith by the name of St. Leger Scroope. Oddly it is a name that I seem to be familiar with, although I have been unable to fathom why. And since Mister Scroope was to have been out of the country until about this time, I confess I have not pursued the matter any further, and therefore your reminder is most opportune. We shall try and visit Mister Scroope tomorrow, at his place of business in the Strand. It may be that he can shed some further light on a letter written in a foreign language that was rumoured to have come into Macey’s possession, about which, according to Mister Alingham, the Tower carpenter who was a friend of his, Macey was much exercised to comprehend.”
Out of the coach window I saw the familiar castellated outline of the Tower appear in the moonshine like King Priam’s city bathed in the glow of Zeus’s silvery eye. The coach pulled up at the Middle Tower, close by the Barbican wherein the lions restlessly groaned, and set me down upon the esplanade. Before closing the door behind me, Newton leaned out into the cold and feral-smelling night, for the wild beasts below did much pollute the air with their excrements, to speak to me one last word before I took my leave of him.
“Meet me outside the water tower at York Buildings tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, when we shall call upon Mister Scroope. And after that we may visit this Berningham fellow at the Whit.”
Then Newton rapped on the roof of the coach with his stick and the little red chariot was rattling away to the west, along Thames Street.
I turned and approached the guard near the Byward Tower, who was well away from his post, and for a moment I stopped to talk with him, for it was always my habit to try to improve relations between the Mint and the Ordnance. We spoke of how to keep warm on duty, and which Tower was the most haunted, since I never walked about the Tower at night without being afeared to see some spirit or apparition. For shame I could not help it; and yet to speak in my own defence, so many dreadful things had happened there that if anywhere be haunted it might be the Tower. The guard believed that the Jewel Tower, also known as the Martin Tower, was a place of many ghostly legends. But we were soon joined in this conversation by Sergeant Rohan, who knew the Tower as well as any man.
“Every quarter has its own ghostly legends,” opined Sergeant Rohan, who was a great burly figure of a man, almost as wide as he was tall. “But no part is so scrupulously avoided as the Salt Tower, which, it is said, is much disturbed by spirits. As you know yourself, Mister Twistleton, the Armourer, saw a ghost there, which is what lost him his wits. I myself have heard and felt things there I know not how to explain, except to say that their origin be malign and supernatural. Many Jesuit priests were tortured there, in th
e lower dungeon. You may see the Latin inscriptions carved upon the wall by the hand of one.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was taken to York in 1595,” said Rohan, “where he was burned alive.”
“Poor fellow,” said I.
Rohan laughed. “Think you so? He was a very fanatical sort of Roman Catholic. Doubtless he would have done the same to many a poor Protestant.”
“Perhaps so,” I admitted. “But it is a very poor sort of philosophical argument that we should do unto others before they do unto us.”
“I doubt there are many philosophers who could know what a needful capacity for cruelty most Roman Catholics have,” insisted the Sergeant. “Dreadful things were done to the Protestants in France during the dragonnades of 1681 and 1685, when King Lewis’s soldiers were quartered in the homes of Huguenots and allowed full licence to behave as cruelly as they wished in order that many might make converts to Rome. Believe me, lad, there were no conceivable cruelties which these brutal missionaries did not use to force people to mass and to swear never to abandon the Roman religion. Old men imprisoned, women raped and whipped, young men sentenced to the galleys, and old mothers burned alive.”
“You speak as if you witnessed these cruelties yourself, Sergeant,” I observed.
“Twenty years I’ve been at war with the French,” said the Sergeant. “I know what they are capable of.”
After a few minutes spent debating this issue with Rohan, who was most obstinate in his hatred of Jesuits, I wished Sergeant Rohan and Mister Grain good night and left the Byward with a borrowed lantern, which did little to allay the apprehension of seeing a ghost that our talk had increased in me.
Walking quickly home to the warden’s house, I thought much about those Jesuits who had been tortured, perhaps with the same Skeffington’s Gyves that had been used on George Macey. It was easy to imagine some tormented priest haunting the Tower. But reaching home and being warm in bed, with a good candle in the grate, I began to think again that ghosts were idle fancies and that it was probably better to be afeared of those living men who had murdered my predecessor and who were still at liberty to kill again.
