Part 44 (1/2)
Threader 20 JULY VERY EARLY A.M.
Lights have been burning behind the rude Veil of the Window in Question for better than an hour, which would seem to confirm Mr. Threader's fears. I can allay these with a few particulars as to the Chest. As shall be obvious to anyone who gives it more than a few moments' inspection, it has a false bottom. There is a locked compartment beneath. This can only be opened with a key, which we have not offered yet. If the buyer reads all the way to the end of Page 4 he shall reach a Notation to the effect that an Ingredient, essential to the Receipt, is concealed in the bottom of the Chest. Merely to copy out all four pages shall avail him nothing, save writer's cramp. He must have the Chest and Key, and these he shall not get until he pays for them.
I also remind Mr. Threader that the purpose of the exercise is not to get paid, but to ensnare the Buyer.
Peter Hoxton, Esq.
20 JULY MIDDAY.
Nothing.
Orney 20 JULY EVENING.
Mr. Orney would have won his wager had anyone been foolhardy enough to accept it, for Partry reports a second five-guinea piece has been laid on top of the first. I have taken the liberty of sending down Page 3.
Kikin 21 JULY EARLY A.M.
Further Lucubrations obsvd. I suspect the Buyer is copying or translating the Receipt.
Peter Hoxton, Esq.
21 JULY MIDDAY.
The point is conceded, that our Undertaking is a snare snare and not a legitimate commercial Transaction. But as this pile of five-guinea pieces ascends toward the sky I find myself sorely tempted to enter into the business of selling and not a legitimate commercial Transaction. But as this pile of five-guinea pieces ascends toward the sky I find myself sorely tempted to enter into the business of selling philosophical philosophical Arcana. Partry reports that the price offered is now fifteen ( Arcana. Partry reports that the price offered is now fifteen (sic) guineas. I sent him back with the fourth and final Page.
Threader 21 JULY MIDNIGHT.
Curtain was open in early eve. and I glimpsed our dark Philosopher at work once again. He goes hooded-this explains why I have not been able to see his face. Perhaps he is pox-marked, or burned in an Alchemical mishap. A gray goose-quill bobbed in the gloom next to his shoulder as he stain'd page after page of a Waste-book with ink. Later the curtain was dropp'd again, and my view replaced with dim flickerings that lasted until 11:12:30.
Peter Hoxton, Esq.
22 JULY MIDDAY.
Disaster. Partry reports the five-guinea pieces are all gone, replaced by a silver penny.
Orney 22 JULY EVENING.
I beg to differ with Brother Norman. This is not a disaster, but a clear sign from the Buyer that he has correctly decyphered the Receipt and understands that it is not useful to him without the Ingredient that is supposed to be contained in the bottom of the chest. I have sent Partry back to the Tatler-Lock with the key. Henceforth I shall remain here at the Main-Topp until the culmination of the Stake-out.
Dr. Waterhouse 23 JULY MIDDAY.
Mr. Partry has been at the Tatler-Lock since day-break. He has persuaded Mr. Knockmealdown to allow him to sit vigil in a store-room directly beneath the place of the Auction. Such are the floor-boords of that edifice that not even a cat could stalk from the door to the table without producing a fusillade fusillade of cracks and booms. As soon as Mr. Partry hears anything of that nature he is to- of cracks and booms. As soon as Mr. Partry hears anything of that nature he is to- ”Your pint, sirrah.”
”That is very kind of you, Saturn,” said Daniel, setting the quill into its pot, and glancing once more at the distant window where Partry was puffing on his pipe. ”How did you guess I was in the mood for a pint?”
”I am in the mood for one,” Saturn said. am in the mood for one,” Saturn said.
”Then why didn't you bring up two?”
”You forget that I am a Paragon of Sobriety. I shall derive my pleasure from watching you drink yours.”
”I am happy to oblige,” Daniel said, and took a swallow. ”There has been no signal from Mr. Partry,” he said, for Saturn's dark eyes had strayed to the page of the Log, still dewy with unblotted ink. ”I was merely refres.h.i.+ng the account.”
”I must ask, why you do not write it in the Real Character,” Saturn teased him, ”if it is as excellent as all that.”
”It is is excellent. A much better way of setting down knowledge than Latin or English. Which is why I have devoted some years to making it more excellent yet, by transliterating it into numbers.” excellent. A much better way of setting down knowledge than Latin or English. Which is why I have devoted some years to making it more excellent yet, by transliterating it into numbers.”
”Ah,” said Saturn, ”are you saying, then, that the cypher in which the women of Bridewell punch the cards, is a descendant of the Real Character?” By now he had changed places with Daniel, and taken up that position on the balcony of which they had all grown so weary in the last eleven days.
Daniel moved the Log over to its customary station on a crate-top, and busied himself blotting the latest entry with sand. ”Not so much a descendant descendant as a as a sibling, sibling,” he said. ”The father of both is the Philosophic Language, which is a system of cla.s.sification of ideas. Once an idea has been enrolled or registered in the tables of the Philosophic Language, it may be addressed with a number, or a set of numbers-”
”Cartesian coordinates,” Saturn mused, ”for plotting the wand'rings of our thoughts, like.”
”The similarity only holds to a point,” Daniel cautioned him. ”To avoid ambiguity, the Philosophic Language-Leibniz's version of it, anyway-employs only prime numbers. In this, it is quite different from the number-lines of Descartes. In any case, the Language, as it consists of ideas and numbers, may be writ down using any scheme one may care to choose. The binary cypher of our Logic Mill is one such. But when I was a young man, John Wilkins devised another-the Real Character-which for a time was all the rage in the Royal Society. Hooke and Wren used it fluently.”
”Who uses it now?”
”No one.”
”Then how is the Dark Philosopher able to read it?”
”The same question has been bedeviling me.”
”This Wilkins cove must have published a dictionary or key-”
”Yes. I helped write it, during the Plague. The page-proofs were burnt up in the Fire. But it was was published, and can be found in any number of libraries. But in order for our mysterious Buyer to go to such a library, and consult the book, he must first published, and can be found in any number of libraries. But in order for our mysterious Buyer to go to such a library, and consult the book, he must first recognize recognize the outlandish glyphs on the page as belonging to something called the Real Character. Think-if I shewed you, Peter, a page writ in the script of Malabar, would you know to consult a Malabar-Dictionary?” the outlandish glyphs on the page as belonging to something called the Real Character. Think-if I shewed you, Peter, a page writ in the script of Malabar, would you know to consult a Malabar-Dictionary?”
”No-for these eyes, though they've seen much, have never seen Malabar-letters, and would not know 'em from j.a.panese or AEthiopian.”
”Just so. Yet our buyer seems to have known the Real Character on sight.”
”But is that really so extraordinary, when one considers that the same buyer knew that Hooke-stuff was to be found hidden in the walls of Bedlam? From which it's evident he knows much of your Society.”
”I believe that the knowledge of where to look for the stuff came to the buyer through Henry Arlanc: the Royal Society's porter.”
”I know who he is.”
”Oh really? How do you know him?”
”He worked for a Huguenot watch-maker, with whom I had professional contacts before I turned to drink, and fell on black days. Several Fellows of the Royal Society patronized this horologist-that is how they got to know Henry Arlanc, and that is how Arlanc got the position at Crane Court.”
”Until recently,” Daniel said, ”I had supposed that Arlanc was pa.s.sing intelligence to Jack the Coiner, or someone in his organization, who was, at bottom, ignorant of Natural Philosophy.”
”There's a hole in that hypothesis, Doc. Why'd such a cull want to rake through the mouse-eaten leavings of a dead Vertuoso?”
”Ignorant men have fanciful notions of what may be found in such residue. Alchemists frequently work with gold. Perhaps-”
”Still, the hypothesis does not hold up well under close examination.”
”I agree!” said Daniel, exasperated. ”I no longer believe in it.”