Dark Matter

by Philip Kerr

  “Yes, indeed it is,” I said, although I immediately wondered what my master would have said of those early Christians of whom the Romans made such a spectacle in their arenas. Were they also mistaken in Newton’s eyes?

  Leaving Sergeant Rohan still contemplating Christian courage, I ran to Tower Street, where I thought to hire a horse from The Dolphin or The King’s Head in order that I might ride to Jermyn Street, for I had no expectation that I might find a hackney coach at that hour. And yet I did find one setting down a passenger at a house opposite the Custom House, and although the driver was reluctant to take me, it being so late and him intent on going home to Stepney, which is in quite the opposite direction, I persuaded him with the promise of his being handsomely rewarded. And within the hour I was back at the Tower in the same hackney with Newton to learn that Lord Lieutenant Lucas was still not come, and it was being reported that he was too drunk, which delighted my master.

  After some words with Sergeant Rohan, Newton walked about the menagerie like an architect who was desirous of knowing every inch of the space that was to be considered in his mind’s eye. Presently he asked one of the wardens for a bowl of water and a towel to be brought and, taking off his coat, which he gave to me, rolled up his shirt sleeves, in spite of the cold. Then he fetched some clean straw and knelt beside the body to examine its condition.

  First he removed the cloth that had gagged poor Kennedy’s mouth and, searching inside a mess of bloody pulp and broken teeth with his fingers’ ends, Newton found a smooth stone. This he wrapped carefully inside his handkerchief which he then handed to me for safekeeping.

  “Why would anyone—?” I said, beginning a question that I saw no need to finish framing when I saw Newton’s querulous expression directed at me.

  “You know the proper method, Mister Ellis, therefore please abstain from idle queries which do little to assist my examination.”

  So saying, Newton turned Kennedy over onto what remained of his belly to examine a cord that was tied around his one surviving wrist.

  “Where is the other arm?” he said coldly, as if I myself might have taken it.

  “I believe one of the lions still has it, sir.”

  Newton nodded silently and then examined Kennedy’s pockets, from which he withdrew several items which he entrusted to me. At last he seemed to have finished, and rinsed his hands in the bowl of water that had been fetched. Finally he stood up and, drying his hands, looked about the menagerie. “Which lion?” he asked.

  I pointed across the yard and Newton followed the line of my finger to one of the cages where, under the eyes of the animal keeper and several Tower warders, the lion was still making a quiet feast of Mister Kennedy’s leg. Putting his coat back on, Newton walked over to the cage and, removing a storm lantern from the wall, shone the light into the arched vault behind the bars that was the lion’s abode.

  “I can see the leg well enough,” he remarked, “but not the arm.”

  The keeper pointed at the back of the vault. “There it is, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid we’ve had no luck recovering either of the unfortunate gentleman’s limbs, sir.”

  “‘The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way,’” murmured Newton.

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “Proverbs, chapter twenty-six, verse thirteen.”

  “Exactly so, sir,” said the keeper. “Rex, that’s the name of the lion. He refuses to give them up. Mostly it’s horse meat they eats, the lions. But he’s found a taste for human flesh and no mistake.”

  “My eyes are not as keen as they were,” said Newton. “But is that a piece of cord tied around the wrist?”

  “It is,” said I.

  “Then it was murder all right. Someone brought Mister Kennedy down here, tied his hands, and then released the lion from its cage. How is the door fastened?”

  “With those two bolts, sir.”

  “No lock and key?”

  “These are animals, sir. Not prisoners.” But even as the keeper spoke, the lion looked up from its human feast and roared fiercely at us, as if it might have disputed that remark. It was a fearsome-looking beast, a big male with mighty fangs, and its fur and great mane now much stained with blood.

  “Mark well the colour of that lion,” Newton said to me. “It is quite red, is it not?”

  At the time I thought this interested him because red was his favourite colour, and it was only later on that he explained how he perceived the significance of the red lion.

  “Who found the body?” he asked.

  “I did, sir,” said the keeper, whose posture was that of a man whose head was permanently bowed in prayer, so that Newton addressed all his questions to the man’s shiny pate. “I sleep with the Ordnance, sir. In the Tower barracks. I put the key there as usual, at about eight o’clock, sir. I went out of the Tower to a local tavern, sir, as is my wont, for I don’t much like The Stone Kitchen. Then to bed. I awoke to hear the animals roaring when they should have been asleep. And thinking that something was amiss with them, I came to take a look and found the bloody mess you see now, sir.”

  “The door to the Lion Tower, Mister Wadsworth. Is it locked at night?”

  “Aye, sir. Always. The key hangs in the guardroom at the Byward Tower. Except tonight. When I went to fetch it, the key was gone. I thought someone else had gone ahead of me to investigate the commotion. But I was the first to get here, and I found the key in the door, and the door locked.”

  “Who was the guard on duty there tonight?” asked Newton.

  “I believe it was Thomas Grain, sir,” answered the keeper.

  “Then we shall want to speak to him.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort, sir,” said a loud and imperious voice. “Not without my permission.”

  Lord Lucas, the Lieutenant of the Tower, had arrived, a most odious, haughty and quarrelsome fellow, whose jealousy of the Tower liberties made him a mighty unpopular man in the Mint and in the surrounding boroughs.

  “As your Lordship pleases,” said Newton and bowed with mock courtesy, for he hated Lucas with as much venom as he hated all stupid people who got in his way—especially those that were supposed to be his betters—although I think his lordship was too crapulent with drink to have noticed Newton’s insolent manner.

  “Egad, sir. What the devil do you think you’re doing, anyway? Any fool can see what happened here. A fellow don’t exactly need to be a member of the Royal Society to see that a man has been killed by a lion.” He looked at Sergeant Rohan. “Eh, Sergeant?”

  “That’s correct, milord. Any man as has eyes in his head can see that, sir.”

  “Accidents will happen when men and wild animals are in close proximity to one another.”

  “I do not think it is an accident, Lord Lucas,” said Newton.

  “A plague on you, Doctor Newton, if this isn’t any of your damned business.”

  “The dead man is from the Mint, my lord,” said Newton. “Therefore I am obliged to make this my business.”

  “The deuce you say. I don’t care if he’s the King of France. I’m the law in this Tower. You can do what you please in the Mint, sir. But you’re in my part of the Tower now. And I’ll grind this damned music box whatever way I like.”

  Newton bowed again. “Come, Mister Ellis,” he said to me. “Let us leave his Lordship to probe this matter in his own fashion.”

  We were making our way back to the door when Newton stopped and bent down to look at a black shape he noticed on the ground.

  “What is it, Doctor?” I asked.

  “The sad-presaging raven,” answered Newton, collecting a dead but still lustrously plumed black bird off the ground, “that tolls the sick man’s passport in her hollow beak.”

  “Is that the Bible, sir?”

  “No, my dear fellow, it’s Christopher Marlowe.”

  “There are plenty of ravens about the Tower,” I said, as if there were nothing remarkable about a dead raven; and indeed, the Tower’s population o
f ravens was severely controlled since the time of King Charles II when the Royal Astronomer, John Flamsteed—who was also much disliked by my master, for Newton believed that the theory of the moon was in his grasp but could not be completed because Mister Flamsteed had sent him observed positions of the moon that were wrong, so that he did apprehend some intended practice in the matter—had complained to the King that the ravens were interfering with his observations in the White Tower.

  “But this bird’s neck was wrung,” he said, and replaced the dead raven on the ground.

  At the Byward Tower he questioned Thomas Grain, the guard, in defiance of the Lieutenant’s orders. Grain had no instructions not to speak to us, and therefore he answered the Doctor’s questions freely enough.

  “In the normal course of events, the keeper hung the key in the guardroom at about eight of the clock.”

  “How did you know it was eight of the clock?” asked Newton.

  “By the toll of the curfew bell, sir,” answered Grain, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder to the rear of the Byward. “In the Bell Tower. Curfew’s been eight of the clock since the time of William the Conqueror.”

  Newton frowned for a moment and then said, “Tell me, Mister Grain. Does the key to the Lion Tower form part of the ceremony of the keys, when the main gate is locked?”

  “No sir. It stays here until morning, when Mister Wads-worth, the keeper, collects it.”

  “Is it possible that anyone could have come in here and removed the key to the Lion Tower without your noticing?”

  “No sir. I’m never very far away from these keys, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mister Grain. You’ve been most helpful.”

  From the Byward, Newton and I returned to the Mint, and straightaway Newton ordered the two sentinels, who were nominally under his command, to search for Daniel Mercer and to bring him to the Mint Office. As soon as they were gone I told my master that the previous evening I had seen Mister Grain standing on the bridge over the moat, about halfway between the Byward and the Middle Tower, which was about thirty feet away from the keys.

  “We spoke for almost ten minutes,” I said. “During that time anyone could have taken a key. Therefore if it was possible last night, then it must have been equally be possible tonight.”

  “Your logic is irresistible, sir,” he said quietly and, collecting the cat, Melchior, off the floor, set to stroking him thoughtfully as another man might have smoked a pipe.

  Then, by candlelight, we examined those items we had found about Mister Kennedy’s person. As well as the stone Newton had removed from the dead man’s mouth were several crowns, a pair of dice, a rosary, a lottery ticket, a pocket watch, some rolling tobacco, and a letter which appeared to have been written by a lunatic but which greatly interested my master. While he examined this, I threw the dice and observed out loud that Mister Kennedy had been a serious gambler.

  “What leads you to that conclusion?” asked Newton. “The lottery ticket? The dice? Or both together?”

  I smiled, for here I was on familiar ground. “No sir. These dice alone would have told me as much. They are cut perfectly square by a mould and have their spots made with ink, instead of being holes filled with wax, such as would prevent any deceit. No novice would take such precautions.”

  “Excellent,” said my master. “Your powers of observation do you credit. We shall make a scientist of you yet.”

  He tossed the letter he had been perusing onto the table in front of me. “See what your new powers of observation can make of that, Mister Ellis.”

  tqbtqeqhhnuquczrpsvxwkxfklevqkkoiwvihgklgkbyaothhx zjbdxrnynsvmfzxmxnweghpohpaaphnxednxoschombafq jfqwnsfradgkgejfmulqmqxyidrgyidsuysmvrastkilhihrzltp nbxveukudvojuyjxvvewafyrmxyfjxrlkmluzfiidsbbvelwcq dhmvszoqnzbntwdpasqkhpbcrdhoywqralextjtoigppffhdt qwtstsaldjbmtakqhumhbclbhtqruwbzkaauochgqokomqv cwyhmfkydzvsiendssrrrswgcrykvjabuvshqhgqbnqnbedm opfbzx

  I looked with puzzlement at the jumble of letters and shook my head. “It is meaningless,” I said. “A fanciful arrangement of letters that has some whimsical purpose, perhaps. I might say that it was some child or illiterate person’s perverse conce it, except that the letters are well formed.”

  “Mister Kennedy could read and write well enough. Why would he have such a thing upon his person?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “And you are still convinced it is some crotchet-monger’s whimsy?”

  “Most certainly,” I replied firmly, too tired to perceive that he was making a straw man of me; and, what was more, one he was about to shy with wooden balls.

  “It matters not,” he said patiently. “I do believe mathematicians are born, not made. Such things are plain to me. In truth, I see things in numbers that most men could not ever see, even if they could live to be a hundred.”

  “But these are letters,” I objected. “Not numbers.”

  “And yet one may discern that there must be some numerical order in the frequency of the appearance of these letters. Which makes this more than mere whimsy, Ellis. This is most likely a cipher. And all ciphers, if they are properly formed and systematic, are subject to mathematics; and what mathematics has made obscure, mathematics will also render visible.”

  “A cipher?” I heard myself exclaim.

  “Why do you sound so surprised?” asked Newton. “All of nature is a cipher, and all of science a secret writing that must be unravelled by men who would understand the mystery of things. This cryptic message, together with the clues we found at the scene of Mister Kennedy’s murder, indicate that this will be a most interesting and unusual investigation.”

  “I am the stupidest person in the world,” I said. “For I confess I saw no clues.”

  “Perhaps that is too strong a word for the things we observed in the Lion Tower,” Newton said patiently. “Most specifically the stone in the dead man’s mouth, the red lion, and the raven. All of these are possessed of a significance that only one who was versed in the golden game might understand.”

  “Do you mean that alchemy is somehow involved?”

  “It is a strong possibility.”

  “Then tell me what these things mean.”

  “That would take too long.” Newton picked the stone off the table and turned it over in his hand. “These things are a message, just as surely as the cipher in this paper, and both must be understood if we are to solve this matter. The meaning of these alchemical signs may be merely allegorical; but I’m certain this cipher contains the key to everything. These are no ordinary coiners with whom we are dealing, but men of learning and resource.”

  “And yet they were careless to leave that written message on Mister Kennedy’s body,” said I. “Even if it is a cipher. For ciphers can be broken, can they not?”

  Newton frowned, and for a moment I almost believed I had said something else that disagreed with him.

  “As always, your thinking troubles me,” he said, quietly, and folding the cat’s ears. “You are right. They might be very careless. But I rather think that they are confident that the cipher will not yield its secret easily. For the message is so short, otherwise I might begin to divine the method in it. And yet by thinking upon this matter continually, I may yet play Oedipus to this particular riddle.”

  A heavy step was heard upon the stairs, at which Newton pronounced that the sentinel was returned and that he would be very surprised if Daniel Mercer was accompanying him. An instant later the sentinel came into the Mint office and confirmed what my master had suspected, that Daniel Mercer was not to be found in the whole Tower of London.

  “Mister Ellis,” said Newton, “what should be our next course of action?”

  “Why, sir, to search for him at his place of lodging. Which I have already made a note of from the employment records in the Mint, after Scotch Robin and John Hunter named him as a likely culprit. Mercer lives across the river, in Southwark.”

  We left the Tower at around five of the clock and walked across London Bridge though it was no fair weather and s
till very cold. Despite the early hour, we found the bridge already congested with people and their animals journeying to the market at Smithfield, and we were obliged to push our way through the arches underneath the tall and elaborate houses that sometimes make the bridge seem more like a series of Venetian palazzos than the city’s only thoroughfare across the Thames.

  At the southern end of the bridge, on the Surrey Shore, we came past the footbridge by the Bear Garden, walked around St. Mary Overies and, near The Axe Tavern, between a tanner’s shop and a currier—for Southwark was home to all sorts of leather workers—we found the house where Daniel Mercer had his lodgings.

  Mercer’s landlady, who was a most lovely-looking woman, suffered us to come indoors where she told us that she had not seen Mister Mercer since the day before and was now much concerned at his continuing absence. Hearing this, my master counterfeited much anxiety on Mercer’s behalf and, explaining that we were come especially from His Majesty’s Mint, begged to see his rooms that we might find some clue to his whereabouts and perhaps thereby assure ourselves that the injury to his person we suspected had not been received. At which Mrs. Allen, for that was the woman’s name, straightaway admitted us to Mister Mercer’s lodgings, and with tears in her eyes so that I thought she and Mercer were pretty close.

  A table covered with green felt occupied the centre of the room, beside a chair on which lay a fine beaver hat, and in the corner stood an uncomfortable-looking truckle bed which was the twin of the one on which I had slept at Gray’s Inn. Such is the life of a bachelor. On top of the table lay an egg, a sword, and several books much torn up, as if the reader had been piqued by the writer, which is a thing I have sometimes been tempted to do myself with a bad book.

  “Have you admitted anyone else in here since you last saw Mister Mercer?” Newton enquired of Mrs. Allen.

  “It’s strange you should ask that, sir,” said Mrs. Allen. “Last night, I awoke and thought I heard someone in here, but when I came to look to see if it was Mercer, there was no one. And the room looked as you see it now. Which was not at all as Mercer would have left it, for he is a most careful man in his habits, sir, and is very fond of his books, so he is. It is all most alarming and strange to me, sir.”