Dark Matter

by Philip Kerr

  “Must we?”

  “Yes indeed,” he insisted. “The first mark which identifies the strangulation shows even on the back of the neck where the skin is thick and the tissues are tough, and could only have been made by extreme violence and, as its corollary, a most desperate resistance. Moreover this mark is horizontal as would denote someone attacking the Major from behind.

  “Now contrast the second mark, which is much more vertical and shows almost no resistant damage. This suggests that the man was dead when it was made.”

  All of which made me think that Newton knew as much about how a man might hang as Jack Ketch himself, so that his arguments seemed to be quite without answer, except to say that I could utter no objection to his findings. And, as ever, I was astonished how much he seemed to know about nearly everything. But perhaps it was only fitting that the man who explained gravity should be so well informed—even, it must be said, animated—on the subject of hanging; and since then I have often considered the possibility that he was morbidly fascinated by the gallows. For my own part I find hanging a very unpleasant sight, and said as much to Newton.

  “All the doctors I have talked with,” said he, “inform me that there is no pain at all in hanging, for it stops the blood’s circulation to the brain and so ends all sense in an instant.”

  “I have yet to see the man turned off a ladder who bears his experience with a smile on his face.”

  “What?” exclaimed Newton, and leaving off his examination of the Major’s neck, he set about an inspection of his hands, as if, like some ancient chiromancer, he might divine the origins of the poor man’s fate. “You think that we should let rogues walk free who also deserve to hang?”

  “I think that there is much difference between a flash ballad and a capital crime.”

  “Oh, you would have made a fine barrister,” teased Newton. And then, holding up one of Mornay’s hands, he asked me to note the fingers. “Look at his fingernails,” he said. “Torn and bloody. As if he struggled against the rope. A real suicide would meet the means of his own end with greater equanimity. It may be that the Major’s murderer bears the scars of his crime. Perhaps some scratches on his hands and face.”

  Newton prised open the dead man’s jaws and, pushing aside his tongue, searched his mouth. But finding nothing, he began to search the dead man’s pockets.

  “I regret that I did not foresee this circumstance,” admitted Newton. “This is my fault. I confess I did not think they would kill their own confederate. My own consolation is that by proving this is murder and not suicide, I shall save him from a dishonourable burial. But am I mistaken or did he not try and kill you last night? Why should you be sorry for him?”

  “I am sorry for anyone who meets such a fate as this,” said I.

  Newton paused. “Ah, but what have we here?” His long lean hands produced a letter which he unfolded.

  “Now we have something,” he said, mighty pleased at this new discovery. “For this is written in the same code as those other messages before.”

  He showed me the letter, which appeared thus:

  vahtvjrqcyubxqtmtyqtowbbmhwdjpmgulmplyaklyualrek kmjbatapffehyztmweenlolkymnolcoevkbbdmhffjamiocc cqsaayuwddogscaostanxmcadppbokwqdsknuvkhlpjrzrg waxcifdtjgxtbohbjxkpeuqwfmchvwmvhqycrwmkrrwgapr xjjovzhhryvqpbzlnklplzaysagsgckbvtxzbhfptmhldqchyy czgwraebbbntvzmbsrzbmsxnqtbaxqcipkbacmtizrrmiqyi qdsjuojbsh

  “Excellent,” he said, pocketing the letter upon my returning it to him. “Our material is accumulating. Now, at last, we may make some progress in this case.”

  “With three people murdered, let us hope so.”

  “Four,” said Newton. “You have a habit of forgetting George Macey.”

  “I had not forgotten,” I said. “How could I when the manner of his death was so memorable? But at your own instruction I had put it out of my mind. Or at least one part of my mind. And yet for all its singularity, I sometimes think his death can hardly be associated with these others.”

  Newton only grunted, and seeming much preoccupied with the poor Major’s death, he walked slowly back to the Mint office—not along Water Lane, which would have been more direct, but up Mint Street; for although he did not say, I knew that he wished to avoid a further confrontation with Lord Lucas—with me following at a distance respectful to his deep thoughts.

  Upon reaching the Mint office I fetched us both a cup of cider—of which he was most fond—and I observed that Newton thought some more. He sat down in his favourite chair by the fire, and removing his wig, which was always a sign that he wished his brain to be most comfortable inside his head, he held his lace stock with both hands and twisted it like a garrotte, as if he meant to squeeze something useful out of his head.

  For a while I believed he did recriminate himself some more, or that his thoughts were directed toward the cipher, for although he did not examine the letter he had taken from the Major, I knew his mind was capable of holding what was written there almost at a glance. But when, after more than an hour with the cat upon his lap, he spoke again, it was to utter one word.

  “Remarkable,” he said.

  “What is, sir?”

  “Why, the murder of Major Mornay, of course.”

  “With respect, Doctor, I have been sitting here considering how unremarkable it is. Compared with the others that went before.”

  “What was it you said about George Macey?” he asked.

  “Why, sir, nothing. I have been silent this past hour.”

  “Back in the Comptroller’s garden, sir. What were you talking about?”

  “Only that it seemed hard to believe that Macey’s murder had any connection with these three subsequent murders, sir.”

  “Why do you say so?”

  “Its very lack of any distinguishing features, sir.”

  “But do you find many such features attending the murder of Major Mornay?” he asked.

  “Well, sir, there is the coded letter. We first encountered the code with Kennedy, and then with Mercer.”

  “Apart from that, what else?”

  I thought for a moment. “I cannot think of anything,” I admitted.

  “That is what is so remarkable about this latest murder,” said Newton. “Its singular lack of features. No dead ravens. No stones in the dead man’s mouth. No peacock feathers. No flute. Nothing except the body itself and this enciphered letter. It is as if the Tower’s murderer had become mute.”

  “Indeed, sir. But perhaps our murderer has nothing to say to us. And but for the presence of another message in code, one might almost think Major Mornay was murdered by someone different from the man who killed Mercer and Kennedy. Or for that matter from the person who killed George Macey.”

  Newton lapsed into another of his long silences, which were best answered with silence. And it was at times like these that I put aside the murders that were done in the Tower and, picking up a sampler in my mind, returned with silk thread and tent stitches to further embroider my love for Miss Catherine Barton. Which by now was quite a piece of work. And with my own thoughts thus diverted, I dreamed of being in her company again, for it was that night that I was due to sup with her uncle and his niece; so that I almost thought Newton had looked into my mind and seen what was done there when he said that it was time we went to Jermyn Street, to sup. My heart missed a beat and my ears burned so that I was glad I was wearing my wig and Newton could not see their colour and mock my embarrassment.

  The coach journey to Jermyn Street was also conducted in silence, which made me think that for all his avowed hostility to the monastic order, Newton should have made a splendid monk, albeit one like his hero, Giordano Bruno. Bruno was executed as a heretic in 1600 because of his theories of the infinite universe, the multiplicity of worlds, and his adherence to Copernicanism. Newton greatly admired Bruno, who was strongly suspected of Arianism, and certainly the two had much in common, although I do not think they could ever have liked each other. Like Cain, genius cannot abide its own brother.

 
; Nor is genius always as honest as it could be. I already knew how Newton had pretended a show of adherence to Trinitarianism at Cambridge in order to remain the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. I was about to apprehend just how much Newton could also counterfeit a show of religious orthodoxy toward his niece, Miss Barton.

  In truth she seemed more than pleased to see me accompanying her uncle, for I swear she blushed upon finding me standing in her parlour, and stammered out a greeting most tremulously, which made me feel very good inside, as if I had already quaffed a mug of the hot wine she swiftly prepared for us. She wore a lace commode upon her head, as was most fashionable, an amber necklace, and a silver lace Mantua gown which was open at the front to reveal an embroidered corset, and was most becoming to her.

  After supper, Miss Barton sang to her own accompaniment on the spinette, which was as beautiful a sound as I had ever hoped to hear outside of heaven. She had a fine voice, not strong but very pure, although I think that Newton cared nothing for music, whatever its origin. At last he stood up, pulled the periwig from his head, which Miss Barton replaced with an elegant scarlet nightcap of her own embroidery, and bowed slightly in my direction.

  “I have a mind to study our cipher,” he explained. “So I will say good night to you, Mister Ellis.”

  “Then I must be leaving, too.”

  “Shall you go?” asked Miss Barton.

  “Pray, stay a while longer, Mister Ellis,” insisted Newton. “And keep Miss Barton company. I insist.”

  “Then, sir, I shall.”

  Newton retired to his library and, that being done, Miss Barton smiled sweetly at me and for several minutes we sat in silence, savouring our privacy, for this was the first time we had ever found ourselves alone, Mrs. Rogers having long before retired. Gradually, Miss Barton began to talk: about the war in the Netherlands and Mister Dryden’s newest book that was a translation of the works of Virgil, and Mister Southern’s latest play, being titled The Maid’s Last Prayer, which she had seen and very much enjoyed. It seemed that she was nervous and sought to find herself at ease in conversation.

  “I did not see that one,” I confessed, although I might have added that her own uncle kept me too busy ever to go to see plays performed. “But I saw the one before, which was The Wives’ Excuse.”

  “Which I have not seen. But I have read it. Tell me, Mister Ellis. Do you agree that cuckolds make themselves?”

  “Not being married, it is a little difficult for me to speak about that condition,” I said. “But I should think that a wife would only ever be provoked to cuckold a husband because of his own failings.”

  “That is my opinion also,” she said. “Although I do not think that because a man is married he must be a cuckold. For that would be scandal upon all women.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  In similar vein we spoke awhile, although I found it difficult to rid myself of the very vivid memory I still carried of the whore at Mrs. Marsh’s house, whose name was Deborah and who resembled Miss Barton as two peas in a pod—which made me sometimes tongue-tied, for I had the apprehension that at any moment Miss Barton might shrug off her Mantua and her silk embroidered corset and mount the dinner table and strike an indecent posture for my amusement.

  And, truth to tell, her conversation seemed mighty sophisticated for a girl of her age and somewhat at odds with her youthful beauty and apparent simplicity. She even asked me about the murders in the Tower, which Newton had told her about, and it was quickly clear to me that she was not the modest white violet Newton had led me to believe she was. Indeed her discourse was so lively that I soon formed the impression that her intelligence was almost equal to his own. Certainly she had as much desire to experiment with life as he—perhaps more so, as I was about to discover. But while the garden of her mind was laid out with the same symmetry and logic as her uncle’s, much that was planted there had yet to grow to maturity.

  “Mister Ellis,” she said finally, “I should like you to sit beside me.”

  I drew my chair close to her, as she asked.

  “You may hold my hand if you choose,” she added now; and so I did.

  “Miss Barton,” I said, encouraged by our proximity, “you are the loveliest creature that any man ever beheld.” And I kissed her hand.

  “Dear Tom,” she said. “You kiss my hand. But will you not kiss me properly?”

  “With pleasure, Miss Barton,” I said, and, leaning forward, kissed her most chastely on the cheek.

  “You kiss me like my uncle, sir,” she admonished. “Will you not kiss me upon the lips of my mouth?”

  “If you will permit it,” I said, and kissed her rosebud lips most tenderly. After which I held her little hand and told her how much I loved her.

  She made no reply to this declaration of love, almost as if she already knew how much I loved her and took it as no more than her due. Instead she spoke of the kiss, with such forensic choice of language as one might have used to plead in an English court of law.

  “That was most enlightening,” she said, curling her fingers in mine. “Brief, but stimulating. You may do it again whenever you wish. Only this time, longer please.”

  When I had kissed her again, she exhaled most satisfiedly, licked her lips as if enjoying the taste I had left there, and smiled brightly. And I smiled back, for I was in heaven. In England it was not at all unusual for young women to take the lead in sexual matters, often with the connivance of their parents. Once or twice I had bundled with a girl in the presence of her mother and sisters. Yet I had not expected one so angelic to be quite so forward.

  “You may feel my breasts if you wish,” she offered. “Come, let me sit on your lap, so that you may touch them more easily.”

  So saying, she stood up, untied the ribbons that laced her corset, and, baring her breasts, which were larger than I had supposed, sat down upon my lap. Hardly needing a second invitation, I gently weighed these bubbies in my hand, and kneaded her nipples, which seemed to afford her no small delight. After a while she stood up, and fearing that I might have gone too far, I asked what was the matter.

  “The matter, sir,” she said, smiling, most lasciviously, “is that.” And she pointed to the unmistakable evidence that I too had enjoyed the experience; and kneeling before me, she touched my privy parts through my breeches and asked that she might look upon them.

  “I have seen my brothers,” she said. “But only when they were boys. And I have never seen the privy parts of a man who was ready for love, so to speak. All that I know, which is very little, is from a book,” she added. “Aretine’s Postures. Which raises as many questions as it supplies answers. And I should like very much to gaze upon Priapus, now.”

  “What if Doctor Newton should come into the room?” I said.

  Miss Barton shook her head and, through my breeches, squeezed my cock most affectionately. “Oh, we won’t see him again tonight. Not now he has started to think upon that cipher. He will often cogitate upon such problems all night long. Once Mister Bernoulli and Mister Leibniz suggested a problem to him that kept him occupied until dawn. During that time I spoke to him, entreated him to go to bed, offered him some cider, and yet he paid me no heed at all. It was as if I had not been there.”

  “But if Mrs. Rogers should disturb us,” I protested.

  “She has gone to bed,” she said. And then: “You studied for the Law, did you not, Mister Ellis?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then you will know what a quid pro quo is, sir.”

  “Indeed I do, Miss Barton.”

  “Then what about a quim pro quo?”

  I grinned and shook my head that she did know such a word. But amusement turned to surprise and ecstasy as she lifted her skirts and suffered me to fondle her belly, thighs, and cunny parts. And pressing my mouth to these, I licked her from stem to stern, which drew such gasps from her lips as I thought would wake the house; but each time I tried to draw my head away, she gripped my hair most tightly, and held my mouth
there until she was done.

  So that when finally I unbuttoned my own breeches to show her my prick and suffered her to look upon me, I was as mighty a figure as ever I have been in my life. So that Miss Barton marvelled that such a thing as human lovemaking were possible.

  “To think,” she breathed, squeezing my cock in her fist, “that so large a part of a man can go inside a woman’s quim.”

  “One might as well wonder that woman do give birth to infants,” said I.

  “Yet how vulnerable it is,” she continued, marvelling. “How tender wounded looks its head. As if it has been struck hard about the face. And yet how frightening also. For it seems almost to have a life of its own.”

  “You say more than you know, Miss Barton,” I said.

  “The seed emanates from the small fissure, does it not?” she asked.

  “It does and will if you are not careful,” I said.

  “Oh, but I want to see the ejaculate,” she insisted. “I want to understand everything.”

  “The ejaculate is most phrenetic,” I said, “and I cannot answer for where I would fetch off.” Feebly, I added, “On your gown … ”

  “Perhaps if I gathered it in my mouth,” she said; and before I could forbid it, she had taken my whole member into her mouth, after which I was quite incapable of resisting her further anatomical enquiry of me, for so it did feel, until I had fetched off in her mouth. Which to my horror, she swallowed.

  “Catherine,” I said, withdrawing my privy parts from her cool hands, and doing up my breeches again, “I cannot think it safe that you swallowed that.”

  “Why, Tom, dear, it is quite safe, I can assure you. There is no danger of being brought to bed with a child. A woman’s womb may be of her belly, but it is not connected to her stomach.” She laughed and then wiped her lips with a kerchief.

  I drank a draught of cider to try to calm myself.

  “That was most instructive,” she remarked. “And most enjoyable. I am most grateful to you. And in truth, now that I have seen and tasted a man’s cock in all its glory, there is much that doth seem clear to me.”