Dark Matter

“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 still 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.