Dark Matter

“I confess that it did not,” I said. “In truth, since that time, Mister Twistleton has seemed a little less troubled in his mind, or else I should have mentioned it sooner.”

“Is there anything else you have perhaps omitted to inform me of?” Newton asked. “A man carrying a bloodied axe, perhaps? Or a peacock missing its tailfeathers that you have seen?”

“Now that I come to think of it, there is something,” I said. “Something else about Mister Twistleton.”

“This is the misery of a keen mind,” groaned Newton. “To be blunted on the wits of others.”

“Your pardon, sir, but I recall how, when I struck Mister Ambrose in the Stone Kitchen, he fell upon Mister Twistleton, and knocked a paper on the floor. And just now I have recollected how, at the time, Mister Twistleton occupied himself with the perusal of a sort of confounded alphabet of letters. Much like the one upon this wall. And in the letter we found on Mister Kennedy’s body.”

“It’s very well that you remember this, sir, and so I do heartily forgive your earlier omission. But we’ll think on this again.” Stroking the peacock feather, Newton was silent for a moment. “I have seen a rendering of this story before,” said Newton. “In a book by a Flemish gentleman named Barent Coenbers van Helpen. It was titled L’Escalier des Sages, which means ‘The Stairway of the Wise,’ and is a very fine work of the philosophy.”

“Is that why the body was placed on these stairs? Is this supposed to be a stairway to the wise?”

“It may be so,” said Newton. “And yet I suspect that the close proximity of the Warden’s house now occupied by you, my dear fellow, also touches upon this matter. For why else would Mercer have been killed in some other place and then brought here, if not to teach us something?” Almost absently Newton picked a piece of straw off the dead man’s waistcoat, and then another off his breeches. “But it is a mystery exactly what that might be.”

“Are we in any danger?”

“Where there are mysteries there are always dangers,” said Newton. “Even God hides his mysteries from the wise and prudent of this world, and it is not every man who can fit his understanding to the revelation of truth.

“Come,” he said, and leaving the stairs we fetched a sentinel from the Mint Barracks, to take charge of Mercer’s body. Then we walked back to the Moneyer’s stables. Inside the stables Newton looked at bales of straw most carefully, even the loose straw, as if, like some hard Egyptian taskmaster, he wondered if it were possible to make bricks without it. Finally he seemed to find what he had been looking for, which was a small quantity of bloodstained straw, although, he said, it was not enough to identify the stable as the place of murder.

“But very likely it may help to confirm to us how the body was transported about,” he said.

For good measure he also inspected the straw in the Comptroller’s stables, but, finding no trace of blood there, we went to the smith’s shop, where the Ordnance kept some of its horses.

Mister Silvester, who was the smith, was a most knavish fellow. He had black swinish eyes, a furious slit of a mouth, and a braggart’s voice and manner that hardly stopped short of belligerence. He looked like a pig grown ill-tempered and heavy from being fattened at the mast of a ship. Following Newton about the stable, Silvester, who was still ignorant of Daniel Mercer’s murder, asked him what he thought he was doing.

“Pray what does it look like, Mister Silvester?” replied Newton. “I am examining the quality of your straw, of course.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my straw, Doctor Newton. It ain’t damp. It ain’t mildewed.”

“But where does it come from?” Newton enquired.

“From the Ordnance’s own barn in Cock and Pye fields, every morning. I wouldn’t let my horses eat anything that wasn’t good. And I’d like to meet the man who says different.”

“I’ve seen all I need to see,” said Newton. “Thank you, Mister Silvester, you have been most helpful.

“That’s a right squirt-tailed fellow,” he said of Silvester, as we returned to the Moneyer’s stable, where we had found the small quantity of bloodied straw. “Always ready to shit on someone.”

There were twelve horses in the Mint. Six horses wereassigned to each of two rolling mills, with four horses yoked to a capstan that drove simple gears which turned two horizontal iron cylinders situated on an upper floor. Here fillets of gold and silver were passed between the rolls until they were thin enough to permit the cutting of blanks. It was hard work for the horses, but they were well cared for by two horsekeepers, one of whom, Mister Adam, Newton questioned closely about his straw.

“What time is your straw delivered from the barn at Cock and Pye fields?”

Mister Adam, who was altogether more respectful of Newton, straightaway removed his cap as soon as he was spoken to, revealing a pate that was much scarred with the pox so that it looked like a chequer board.