Part 58 (2/2)
”That is because he has not occupied it yet,” said Isaac, ”only subjected it to an endless series of remodeling-projects.” Then he paused to sift his own words. ”Remodeling means that diverse tradesmen are forever pa.s.sing in and out of the place with wagon-loads of stuff. The local people grow accustomed to such traffic...”
”You are saying that a criminal enterprise, headquartered on some of the out-buildings of the manor, could conceal its presence and its activities by blending in with such traffic,” said Daniel. He did not want to oblige Isaac to speak any more than was necessary, as it was quite obviously painful. ”It is remarkable. We have suspected some link between Bolingbroke and Jack. But who would have imagined that the Secretary of State would suffer such goings-on in his own property?”
”Perhaps not so so remarkable,” said Isaac. ”He does not actually remarkable,” said Isaac. ”He does not actually live live here. We have lately seen that Bolingbroke was weaker, and more desperate, than we had supposed when he was at the zenith of his power and we in terror of him. He may have been beholden to Jack in ways we can only guess at. So for Jack to make use of some out-buildings on a piece of surplus property owned by Bolingbroke, and probably paid for by the King of France...” Newton shrugged to indicate it was not all that surprising, but then he wished he hadn't, as the movement seemed to ignite racking pains in his ribs. here. We have lately seen that Bolingbroke was weaker, and more desperate, than we had supposed when he was at the zenith of his power and we in terror of him. He may have been beholden to Jack in ways we can only guess at. So for Jack to make use of some out-buildings on a piece of surplus property owned by Bolingbroke, and probably paid for by the King of France...” Newton shrugged to indicate it was not all that surprising, but then he wished he hadn't, as the movement seemed to ignite racking pains in his ribs.
”I see another carriage headed this way,” said Daniel, ”probably that of Monsieurs Kikin, Orney, and Threader.” He waved to it and the driver waved back. ”Let us sit down and await it.”
”I prefer to stand,” said Isaac, ”so that I shall not have to get up again.”
”Whither shall we ask the driver to convey us?” asked Daniel, hoping Isaac would say, the nearest physician the nearest physician.
”To yonder cottage,” Isaac said. ”Let us discover what Jack has got going in there there. Though I think I know already.”
”IT IS AS I I THOUGHT,” THOUGHT,” he was saying twenty minutes later. He was seated at a work table in the cottage. Daniel, Leibniz, Orney, Threader, and Kikin were gathered about, standing on shards of gla.s.s that had been blown out of the frames during the recent entertainments. The carriage in which Daniel, Newton, and Leibniz had come out from London had been hunted down and driven back here, and a certain box of instruments fetched from it. From this Newton had selected an excellent convex lens mounted in a loupe, which he was using to inspect some pieces of evidence they had found lying out in plain sight on this table. he was saying twenty minutes later. He was seated at a work table in the cottage. Daniel, Leibniz, Orney, Threader, and Kikin were gathered about, standing on shards of gla.s.s that had been blown out of the frames during the recent entertainments. The carriage in which Daniel, Newton, and Leibniz had come out from London had been hunted down and driven back here, and a certain box of instruments fetched from it. From this Newton had selected an excellent convex lens mounted in a loupe, which he was using to inspect some pieces of evidence they had found lying out in plain sight on this table.
On the upper storey of this cottage, in a bedchamber, under a bed, the ”Mohawks” had found three men who spoke no English. One was middle-aged and the other two might have been apprentices, sons, or both. They had been herded down stairs, and Leibniz had figured out that they were Saxons. They were relieved he could speak German but terrified that he was a Baron. He had been conversing with them, and Kikin (who knew German) had listened in, while Newton had inspected the exhibits on the work table. Left with nothing to do, Orney and Threader stood by, and Daniel was struck by the difference in their faces: Orney as ebullient as he was ever likely to get, Threader curiously distracted and rigid.
”Before I relate my findings,” said Newton, ”have you learned anything from these men, Baron von Leibniz?”
”This will hardly surprise anyone, given the nature of these tools and workpieces,” said Leibniz, ”but these men are engravers. They came from Dresden.”
”And the elder is quite obviously a master,” said Newton. ”Please tell him who I am, and give him my highest compliments.”
Leibniz did so. The mention of Newton's name nearly struck the Saxons dead with terror, but the compliment that followed close on its heels caused the oldest of the three to go all pink. He bowed very low-then, perhaps fearing that this was not obsequious enough, he got down on both knees. The younger men followed suit. Daniel had rarely seen humans so abject. ”Isaac,” he said, ”they are probably wondering whether you intend to kill them.”
”What they have been doing here would be High Treason, were they Englishmen,” Isaac allowed. ”Whether Saxons can be accused of treason against the United Kingdom is a question for scholars of the law.”
”They have told me,” said Leibniz, ”that they were induced to come here on false pretenses. Having arrived, they were made prisoners in this cottage, and told that they would neither be paid nor allowed to depart until they had accomplished a certain work, which is now nearly finished.”
”That it is!” said Newton. From the table before him he picked up a dun-colored wafer that earlier had come in for prolonged inspection under his gla.s.s. ”This is a wax impression of a die for a one-guinea piece. I invite you all to inspect it.” He handed it to Daniel. It was quite familiar, and at the same time very strange.
”This bears an image of George Louis of Hanover!” he exclaimed.
”A fortnight ago, I directed the engravers at the Tower Mint to begin work on a die for the new King George guineas,” Newton said. ”Since then-as many can testify-I have not once set foot in the Liberty of the Tower. I have never seen the dies from which that wax impression was struck. And yet here in this cottage in Surrey-the property of my lord Bolingbroke-we find the impression, and-” he picked up a cylinder of metal, bearing on one end an engraved mirror-image of the relief on the wax ”-an essentially perfect copy of the die, which may be put to use in coining counterfeit guineas! This evidence, and the testimony of the Saxons, have delivered our enemies into our hands. Those charged with guarding the Mint-under the command of Charles White-have quite obviously colluded in making the wax impression, and delivering it here, where we have found coining-equipment, and caught the two sons of Jack Shaftoe red-handed. And since I have taken care not to enter the Mint, Bolingbroke cannot accuse me of having had a hand in any of this. I'll see them all at Tyburn-and as for these Saxons, they shall be free to go home after they have a.s.sisted us with our inquiries.”
Norman Orney-a heavy-built man, but strong and even spry from working in his s.h.i.+p-yard-was able to catch the smaller and frailer Mr. Threader before he struck the floor.
a.s.sisted by one of the younger Saxons, he carried Threader upstairs and heaved him on to a bed. Hankies were waved, hands rubbed, feet propped up, &c., and presently blood seeped back in to the old money-scrivener's face and he woke up. But, plainly enough, he wished he hadn't.
”Oh, Sir Isaac,” he said, and began flailing for a handhold. ”Help me to rise,” he said to no one.
”I think you should stay down,” said Daniel.
”That moment has arrived I prayed would never come,” said Threader. ”I must get down on my knees and pray to Sir Isaac Newton for my life-or, barring that, an honorable death-or if that is not feasible, an expeditious.”
”Then you admit collusion with coiners?” said Isaac, quite as bored as the others were astonished.
”You figured it out ages ago, didn't you, Sir Isaac? Yes. Collusion with coiners. With the the coiner. Now, mind you, in the beginning-” coiner. Now, mind you, in the beginning-”
”It seemed like nothing,” said Isaac, and waved his hand as if shooing off a wasp. ”Forgive me, but I detect the onset of a long and well-rehea.r.s.ed narration, for which I have no sufferance. The longer you make the story, the more gradual, insensible, and innocent seems your descent into...High Treason.”
Threader jumped, if such a thing was possible for a man lying flat on his back.
”But no matter how you stretch it, the beginning beginning and the and the end end are the same, are they not?” Isaac continued. ”At the are the same, are they not?” Isaac continued. ”At the beginning beginning you fall into the seemingly harmless practice of weighing guineas, and culling out those that are infinitesimally heavier. At the you fall into the seemingly harmless practice of weighing guineas, and culling out those that are infinitesimally heavier. At the end end you have been thoroughly compromised by Jack the Coiner. He has placed his agents in your company-he you have been thoroughly compromised by Jack the Coiner. He has placed his agents in your company-he owns owns you so completely that he can even place an Infernal Device in your luggage-wagon, in the hope of a.s.sa.s.sinating the Master of the Mint at the Royal Society.” you so completely that he can even place an Infernal Device in your luggage-wagon, in the hope of a.s.sa.s.sinating the Master of the Mint at the Royal Society.”
”Oh, Sir Isaac, I did not know about that!”
”That much I believe. Jack would have had no reason to warn you-on the contrary. Yet even if the matter of the Infernal Device is left out of the accompt, you too are guilty of High Treason!” much I believe. Jack would have had no reason to warn you-on the contrary. Yet even if the matter of the Infernal Device is left out of the accompt, you too are guilty of High Treason!”
”Oh, but what if I testify? Put me before a magistrate, Sir Isaac! No counter-tenor at the Italian Opera ever sang as I shall!”
”I do not need to hear you sing,” said Isaac. ”Your offer has come too late. With no a.s.sistance from you, I have obtained all I wished for.”
”What if I could give you Jack the Coiner?” said Mr. Threader. Which struck Daniel and the others as frightfully dramatic; but Newton smiled thinly, like a chess-master who always knew that his foe would bring his Queen out eventually.
”Then there is an opportunity for negotiation,” said Newton. ”Give me what you have.”
”Every Sunday evening, it is my lord Bolingbroke's habit to go to a certain Clubb frequented by Tories. There is a back room, a private salon with a servants' door leading back into the kitchens. At a certain signal Bolingbroke withdraws to that room on some pretext or other. Meanwhile Jack has entered the same Clubb through the back, in the guise of a knife-grinder who has come to whet the cooks' cutlery. He comes into that salon through the servants' door and doffs his disguise, and there the two villains hatch their plots and coordinate their schemes. It should happen again, just as I've said, in only a few hours, this being Sunday.”
”Perhaps Jack will have heard about what has happened this morning, and will know better than to attend the meeting,” said Isaac.
”Who shall bring him intelligence of it? The estate has been sealed off.”
”Everyone in the county saw the top of the hill explode.”
”Perhaps news of it shall reach Jack, perhaps not,” said Mr. Threader. ”He must still meet with Bolingbroke from time to time. If this fails, why, I know other things about Jack, and can suggest other stratagems.”
”Then let us go to London so that the snare may be laid,” said Newton; and with that, the Clubb's most eventful meeting (to date anyway) was adjourned, and its Treasurer manacled.
Library of Leicester House MORNING OF 18 AUGUST 1714.
For the sovereign is the public soul, giving life and motion to the commonwealth; which expiring, the members are governed by it no more, than the car-case of a man, by his departed, though immortal, soul.-HOBBES, Leviathan Leviathan THE PLACE HAD NOT been fixed up in more than a hundred years, and was irredeemably Tudor: one could easily imagine Gloriana calling Sir Walter Raleigh on the carpet in here. No books by living authors were in evidence. The coastlines on the globe were hopelessly out of fas.h.i.+on. been fixed up in more than a hundred years, and was irredeemably Tudor: one could easily imagine Gloriana calling Sir Walter Raleigh on the carpet in here. No books by living authors were in evidence. The coastlines on the globe were hopelessly out of fas.h.i.+on.
Sir Isaac Newton did not have leisure to peruse this convex Artifact, however. He had been escorted to the library by young Johann von Hacklheber-a Leipziger baron. And so he was not extremely surprised to recognize a second North German baron-Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz-rising from a chair to bid him welcome. Newton's face showed that he was annoyed to have been ensnared into yet another extraordinary and irregular meeting with his Nemesis, but that he would stiffen his upper lip and get through it. He glanced for only a moment at the young woman seated in an armchair near the globe. His eyes then snapped back to Leibniz. ”I was led to believe I should be paying a call on the d.u.c.h.ess of Arcachon-Qwghlm,” he began. But his protest trailed off as his eyes wandered back to behold the young woman. It was not just that she was good looking, though she more or less was. It was rather that she was turned out in clothing and jewels-especially, jewels-the likes of which Newton had not feasted his protruberant eyes on since the last time he had been summoned into the presence of Royalty. The woman was, in fact, wearing an actual tiara, and something in her bearing told Newton that it was no affectation, and that the sparkly bits were no rhinestones.
Johann von Hacklheber had already ducked out. Leibniz had the floor. ”Your royal highness,” he said to the young woman, ”this is Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac, it is my honor to present Her Royal Highness Caroline, Princess of Wales, Electoral Princess of Hanover, et cetera, et cetera et cetera, et cetera.”
”Stay! Do not move, Sir Isaac,” said Caroline, causing the savant to freeze in the opening of what promised to be a deep and lengthy formal bow. ”We have heard already the story of how you were injured in our service-an inadvertent consequence of Baron von Leibniz's heroics. You are in no condition for courtly bowing. Pray sit down.”
”You need not narrow your eyes thus at Freiherr von Leibniz,” said another voice, from the corner. Newton looked over to see Daniel Waterhouse, who had been delving into a brown and crusty Tome. ”It is I, I, not the Baron, who related the story to her royal highness, and I who ought to be blamed for any misapprehensions I may have planted in her mind. True, it's not every day that a German Baron has a go at Sir Isaac Newton with a great stick. not the Baron, who related the story to her royal highness, and I who ought to be blamed for any misapprehensions I may have planted in her mind. True, it's not every day that a German Baron has a go at Sir Isaac Newton with a great stick. Some Some might be tempted to make something out of it; but I suffered the same, and have forgiven him, and thanked him.” might be tempted to make something out of it; but I suffered the same, and have forgiven him, and thanked him.”
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