Alchemy: an historical psychological suspense thriller of perfect murder
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‘Madame Flamel was obviously an admirer of Fibonacci,’ Jacob began. Pointing at the beaker, ‘In there,’ he said proudly, ‘is what everyone’s been searching for, for over five hundred sodding years.’
The professor leaned towards the beaker, shook his head. ‘I. . . I don’t see it. . . Sorry.’
‘Reflected. Inverted. That’s why it meant nothing. She made it nigh on impossible to solve. Three-quarters of it is mumbo-jumbo, the other quarter mostly mucked about – reversed or inverted. She hoped nobody would solve it; didn’t want her recipe used again. First, I wrote down the code – numbering every character. One hundred and thirty-one in all.’ He showed him that version. ‘Now, take out all those characters that are not prime numbers. What do we have left?’ Jacob showed the page of his workings. ‘Still looks like rubbish.’
He pushed the glass above the remaining single line of text. ‘Now look in the glass at the first characters – inverted: V anima!’
‘V anima!’ the professor yelled, seizing the text.
‘Now I was onto her! I soon figured out the rest. Latin, most of it rotated, or inverted, or reversed; but it’s all here. V anima. Puella, vidua, saga – uxor & canicula.’
‘V, the Roman five. Anima. The soul. Five last breaths, I’ll wager,’ the professor rejoiced. ‘The soul was believed to leave the body with the last breath.’
‘And she’s named them all for us,’ Jacob said, ‘Precisely whose souls they should be.’
‘My God!’ the professor yelled, ‘You have it! You damn well have it!’ He grabbed Jacob’s shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks then danced around the lab with him. ‘V anima, V anima, V anima!’ he sang out loud.
Betsy Pollock stood in the doorway aghast, before breaking into laughter. The professor grabbed Betsy as they passed and led them all into a jolly dance until, exhausted, Betsy fell onto a chair.
‘Enough, gentlemen, please,’ the very much overweight Betsy pleaded, struggling to get her breath as sweat poured off her. ‘I’ll go and prepare dinner.’
Stopping only a few minutes to eat, the two alchemists bade Betsy goodnight and talked on through the night. At last, they had a solution. A year’s work – although precisely how they would use it was not clear.
At least to Jacob, the way forward was not clear.
The Trial: Day 5
‘. . .and swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.’
‘Please state your full name and profession, sir, and address your answers to the jury,’ Percy Ponsonby began.
‘Dr Joseph Jensen, Director of The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, sir.’
‘And where is the society’s central office, Dr Jensen?’
‘Apothecaries Hall, in Black Friars Lane, in the city, sir.’
‘Close to S Silver and Sons, Apothecaries on the Victoria Embankment?’
‘Very. About half a mile.’
‘Could you describe, briefly please, the society’s role?’
‘The society was granted a Royal Charter in 1617 by James I and recognised as a City of London livery company after apothecaries broke away from the Grocers’ Company. Its first notable role was to challenge the College of Physicians’ monopoly over practising medicine. In 1815 the society was granted the power to license physicians and pharmacists alike, with apprenticeships and hospital internships becoming compulsory.’
‘And I understand you boast of an historical library?’
‘The society has a vast archive of medical publications dating back centuries, second only to the British Museum.’
‘Do you know the accused: Jacob Silver?’
‘Yes. My first introduction in person was about a year ago when he came to me with a riddle to solve. Before that, I was the person responsible for his father’s licensing and inspections, and marked Jacob Silver’s first society examination myself, sir, in December 1885.’
‘How did he score in his apothecary examination?’
‘One hundred per cent; the first ever to achieve this.’
‘He was clever, then?’
‘Obviously, sir.’
‘Had you met him before that examination?’
‘Yes. Although I wasn’t introduced. He called once a week to study in preparation for the examination. ’
‘For how many weeks?’
‘The syllabus is twenty-two weeks.’
‘When he approached you more recently with a riddle, you say, were you able to find the solution?’
‘It concerned ancient medicine. I took him down into our archives.’
‘And yours was the most comprehensive archive for all medical precedents, was it not?’
‘It was – until particular volumes were stolen.’
‘Particular volumes?’
‘Those relating to the very period that Mr Silver was investigating.’
‘How many books were stolen?’
‘Twenty-two lesser volumes, all from the same shelf, and one particular treasure – kept separately in a locked case.’
‘Over what period did these volumes disappear, doctor?’
‘Over a period of five or six months between June and December, 1885.’
‘Twenty-two to twenty-six weeks of the precise period during which Jacob Silver was on the premises studying for his examination?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Never to be seen again?’
‘Well, the missing twenty-two turned up recently, surprisingly. A carter brought them.’
‘When did they turn up?’
‘About a month after Mr Silver last visited us.’
‘Delivered from where?’
‘A label said Greenwold College, in Northamptonshire.’
‘Well there’s a coincidence.’ Ponsonby exclaimed, looking directly at Jacob. ‘Was Mr Silver made aware the books had been stolen?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What were the subjects covered by the twenty-two books?’
‘They mostly contained historical pharmacopeia, remedies for ailments together with their recipes, from the fifteenth century with modern translations added, identifying the ingredients. Others covered mostly alchemy, some experimental chemistry, human anatomy, biology and pathology.’
‘Pathology?’
‘Dissections of bodies, that kind of thing.’
‘Decapitation?’
‘Yes. For the purpose of analytics.’
Gasps from the public gallery. Jurors looked at one another in dismay.
‘Was the subject of the human soul mentioned in any of these books?’
‘Indeed it was. The soul was thought to remain in the body until exhaled in the very last breath, in those days.’
‘Those days?’
‘The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.’
‘Was a method described of how to capture said soul?’
‘Numerous methods. But the favoured one involved what became known as purging and splurging. Purge, or force the soul out with a particularly rancid concoction into a balloon of sorts; then let the soul loose in the same, but boiling concoction, in a sealed vessel; until the soul became acclimatised. All gibberish, of course. There is no such thing as a soul, is there?’ Groans rose all about me. Dr Jensen looked about the court, becoming more nervous as none of those souls present volunteered any sign of agreement. ‘In a tangible sense, that is. It’s spiritual, of course.’ Smiles of acknowledgement renewed the witness’s confidence.
Mr Ponsonby picked up the old book, bound in flaking leather: Alchemy. ‘Do you recognise this?’ he said, passing it to Dr Jensen.
‘Oh yes. That’s Alchemy, the treasured item I spoke of, stolen from the glass case, sir.’
‘On what date did it disappear?’
‘I reported it to the police on the seventeenth of June, 1885.’
‘You have with you Mr Silver’s examination application?’
‘I do, sir,’ said the doctor, unfolding it.
‘What does he show as his date of birth?’
‘So, coincidentally, it would have been his fifteenth birthday, the day this treasured book was stolen?’ Percy Ponsonby asked.
‘Yes, sir, indeed it would,’ replied Dr Jensen.
Mr Ponsonby chose that moment to pause, for calculated effect, I guessed, feigning the need for a sip of water. So, now he had painted Jacob as a thief.
‘How sure are you that this is the same book?’
‘There’s only one of its kind in the world. Here. . .’ he opened the book and turned to a page. ‘This is the code Mr Silver was trying to solve. He wasn’t the first. Students had been trying to unravel it for five hundred years. Many famous former members of the society had been recorded borrowing the book to do just that. But none succeeded.’
‘What is the code for? What would it enable, if unravelled, as you say?’
‘The legend is that whosoever unravels this code will have the key to. . .’ Dr Jensen looked around the court, ‘it’s only a legend, you understand. . .’
‘Key to. . .?’ Mr Ponsonby urged.
‘Immortality, and. . .’ he hesitated, ‘the ability to raise the dead. It lists the last ingredients required in a potion, the catalysts.’
The silence was palpable, broken by murmuring from the public gallery; people praying and crossing themselves.
The judge looked over his spectacles at the witness, sniffed crudely and spat into a handkerchief before he returned to making notes.
‘And did the accused crack the code?’
‘I can’t be precise. . . But he implied that he had, yes. He was. . . how should I say? Ecstatic. Hysterical. Wanted to kiss everybody. So, yes. I feel sure he had cracked it. Or thought he had, anyway.’
‘No more questions, m’lud,’ said Mr Ponsonby, sitting down sharply.
‘Your witness,’ the judge nudged Eustace Ecclestone after a long pause, the defence lawyer slowly rising to his feet while still scribbling notes.
‘Dr Jensen. Apart from the examination you spoke of, was this most recent meeting your first with Jacob Silver?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you have any reason to suspect that Jacob Silver stole anything from your secure library?’
Dr Jensen hesitated. ‘I suppose not.’
‘Yes or no, Dr Jensen? If there was suspicion tell us why?’ A pause. ‘There was no suspicion, then?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘Not really. However, it is more likely, is it not, that following your pointing out to Jacob Silver the loss of these volumes, he was responsible, directly or indirectly, for their safe return?’
‘I suspected that.’
‘That he was a good person?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Indebted – doing a good deed in return?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dr Jensen, did you, or any of your staff, ever report at any time during Jacob Silver’s frequent visits to Apothecaries Hall before he took his examinations, seeing him in the cellars, prior to your escorting him down there, more recently?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You are a learned man, Dr Jensen?’
Dr Jensen looked surprised. ‘I have had an education, yes.’
‘Would you describe your education and experience to the court, please.’
‘University, post graduate doctorate in medical studies and pharmacology, seven years in practice as a physician, twenty-two as a pharmacologist.’
‘And did your studies include Latin?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dr Jensen, would you mind stepping down and translating something for us?’ turning to the judge, ‘With your permission, my lord?’
His lordship turned to Mr Ponsonby. ‘Unless you have an objection to Dr Jensen being an acceptable expert, Mr Ponsonby?’
‘No objection, m’lud,’ Mr Ponsonby said, bobbing an inch off his rear. The judge acquiesced, waving his hand.
Mr Eustace Ecclestone whipped a white sheet off the foul exhibits in jars on the table in front of the jury and led the now very nervous Dr Jensen along the line of severed heads.
‘On the front of each jar, doctor, is a word written in Latin, I believe?’
‘Yes,’ the doctor said, raising some spectacles to his nose and peering closely at the first, ‘that’s Latin, yes.’
‘Would you be so kind as to read out a translation of the Latin after I read out that victim’s name?’ Defence counsel proceeded to read the name off the first jar: ‘Polly.’
‘A wench.’
‘There is no doubt, Polly was a wench. She was a woman of the night. The next, Letty.’
‘A widow.’
‘Indeed, Letty was widowed. The next, Nora.’
‘It says: A witch.’
‘Nora was a fortuneteller, she read tea leaves for an ha’penny.’
Whisperings in the gallery became louder as Mr Ecclestone avoided the next jar and pointed to the maggot-ridden skull. ‘Emily.’
‘A wife.’
‘Emily and the accused were betrothed, she was to become his common-law wife. And finally,’ Ecclestone returned to the jar he missed, ‘Rebecca.’
Dr Jensen smiled a half-smile. ‘A bitch.’
‘Thank you, doctor. If you wouldn’t mind returning to the witness stand.’ Mr Ecclestone turned to the jury, tapping along the line of heads in the jars.
‘A wench, a widow and a witch; a wife and a bitch.’ He turned again to Dr Jensen in the witness stand. ‘Would you just confirm for us, doctor,’ he began, placing his hand on Alchemy, ‘that there are those you consider more educated than yourself who have made it known that they believe what is contained within the pages of this book, to quote them: is possible, is true, is profound, and, according to a certain scientist, Leonardo da Vinci: too dark for mere mortals.’
‘I. . . Well. . .’ His eyes searched the court, before he quietly replied, ‘Yes.’
Uproar in the court had reporters dashing from the public gallery. A cleric alongside me in the gallery pulled out a large cross and shouted down to those below, ‘God protect us from this evil. Repent I say. Repent all ye!’ before being clouted about the head and dragged away by ushers.
The judge pounded his gavel. ‘Another outburst like that and I’ll close the gallery! You hear me, up there?’ After they quietened, he turned to defence counsel. ‘Continue, Mr Ecclestone.’
‘Finally, Dr Jensen, you are still under oath and I want you to be candid with me. Do you, Dr Jensen, a scholar in medical science and anatomy, believe the formulae contained in this tome to be viable?’
The good doctor paused, a little too long for Mr Ponsonby it seems, as he attempted a rescue, jumping to his feet. ‘My lord! Dr Jensen’s own beliefs are not on trial here.’
The judge sniffed, became a little flustered, then, ‘I think I’ll allow it. Dr Jensen, try to be as candid as you can. Be assured this court has no axe to grind, and,’ grinning, while pointing up to the gallery, ‘I don’t think you need fear being struck by lightning.’
But I was sure that the silence in the hushed court had many there believing and fearing that lightning could indeed be preparing to strike.
Mr Ecclestone reminded everyone of the question, ‘Do you believe the formulae viable, doctor?’
The doctor’s lips moved, but nothing came out.
‘Again, please, doctor,’ Mr Ecclestone urged, cupping his ear.
‘Y-y-y-yes.’
‘No more questions, my lord,’ defence counsel said, as a crash boomed across the court; not a thunderbolt but Dr Jensen’s head hitting the side of the witness box hard. The poor man had fainted.
I watched, bemused, as forty pairs of arms covered heads below, including the judge’s, as a hundred pairs of boots thundered on the public gallery floor above them amid howls from those trampled underfoot.
Chapter 12
‘A wench, a widow and a witch; a wife and a bitch. So, five souls. But, how do we catch one, and what do we do wi
th them, Professor?’ Jacob pressed him after calming down from their celebrations. ‘And how will we know if we’ve got one?’
‘I’ve no doubt we’ll recognise one, Master Jacob. Once they appear.’ The professor tugged at his beard, considered before continuing, then, ‘Capture, then infuse them into the elixir.’ He went over to the urn of Elixir 32 that Jacob had claimed did not work, poured a full wine glass and held it up to the light. Once again, an aura of coloured light danced across his face, sparkling in his eyes, making him look quite grotesque. ‘It was in one of the Italian volumes at Greenwold, if I recall correctly. Purge & Splurge. The resultant fluid to be administered to the subject – providing eternal life, something like that,’ he quoted, unable to contain his excitement. He held his hands up in praise – to some god or another. ‘We have it! My word, we have it! After five hundred years!’
‘Woah, now!’ Jacob cried, trying to calm the professor down. ‘Deciphering all those ingredients, fair enough. What was it. . . a hundred and twenty-seven to be precise. But capturing souls? Just how dark is this going to get? And whose poor souls do we capture?’
The professor appeared unaffected, patted the book. ‘This will guide us. And I don’t give a gnats knees whose souls. We’re on the verge of man’s greatest discovery. Bringing a five-hundred-year-old recipe back to life.’
‘And highly probable it never worked. Ask yourself: how many wrinkly five-hundred-year-olds d’you see walking around?’
‘I’m sure they’re lurking somewhere, Master Jacob. It’ll work, trust me.’
‘With so little evidence, Professor, I wish I had your confidence.’
‘Just need to find a wench, a widow, and a witch; a wife and a bitch. How hard can it be?’ the old man suggested. Jacob laughed uneasily. The professor slapped him on the back. ‘Have faith, young man. It’ll work, I assure you.’
‘Da Vinci said Perenelle was dying. I’m thinking hers was the wife’s soul she refers to. Would make sense if she was making her husband immortal. A means of her joining him in a way, spiritually, on his journey.’