Dark Matter

“But of course,” said Newton, and showed me the letter that Wallis had given to him. I looked at it for a while, but it was no more clear to me now than it had ever been.tqbtqeqhhflzkrfugzeqsawnxrxdgxjpoxznpeeqjtgmqlnliug dxvcnfgdmysnroywpdonjbjmpardemgmqdnlnkfpztzkzjm kgjhtnxqwxearowsualquwojfuidgrhjsyzzvccteuqzggfzqce tydcjgessicisemvttajmwgciurgopmdcuydtgafyudnrdivux gvhqtvgeoudkwvahhvxkjusukpwnvwcvedtqnljvhinmszpz blkiabzvrbqtepovxlsrzeenongsppyoujyhwexpnakqlotvsm curzybcstqqxfsxdihhbdlxfbtjymfvtubspvbxgftesuu

I shook my head. Merely to look at the jumble of letters dispirited me, and I could not see how anyone could enjoy cudgelling his brains with its solution.

“Perhaps you can read one of these books that Doctor Wallis has lent to you,” I offered, which partly placated him, for he liked nothing better than a longish journey with a good book.

We were two or three hours on the road to London when Newton put aside the book for a moment and remarked most casually that it was now plain to him how Mister St. Leger Scroope had proved himself to be a liar.

“Do you mean the gentleman that presented your school with those very fine silver cups?” I enquired.

“I never liked the man,” admitted Newton. “I trust him not. He is like a dog without a tail. Most unpredictable.”

“But why do you say that he is a liar?”

“Sometimes,” sighed Newton, “you are a most obstinately obtuse fellow. Do you not remember how he told us that Macey brought him a letter written in French, for translation? Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face that the letter must have been a cipher, just like the one he showed Doctor Wallis. Perhaps it was even the same letter. There never was any letter in French.”

“But why should Scroope lie about such a thing?”

“Why indeed, Mister Ellis? That is what we shall find out.”

“But how?”

Newton pondered the matter for a moment.

“I have an idea how we might do it,” he said at last. “Macey had no Latin. And yet by the account of Mister Lowndes, the bookseller, he bought a Latin book about secret writing that was a gift for someone. It cannot have been Doctor Wallis, who already possessed two such books. And Mister Lowndes’s shop is but a short distance from the premises of Mister Scroope. Therefore I think that we shall visit Scroope again. And while I hold him in conversation, you shall find occasion to slip away and examine his bookcase.”

“In search of the book by Trithemius?”

“Exactly so.”

“An old book,” I said. “It’s not much evidence of a crime.”

“No,” agreed Newton. “That will come later. First we must prove things to our own satisfaction.”

When the coach reached London, before night, we climbed down and found ourselves lousy, which only irritated my master a little, for he was in a mighty good humour at the prospect of solving the cipher. And straightaway he accompanied me to the Tower so that he might collect all his coded material and begin work all the sooner. Finding all well at the Tower and in the Mint, we went to the office, which had been newly painted and the windows cleaned in our absence, which helped to explain how it was that Mister Defoe had facilitated his entry and that we discovered him with the guilt of his intrusion still upon him.

“Why, Mister Defoe,” said Newton. “Do you attend us?”

Mister Defoe laid down some Mint papers he had been examining and, stepping side to side like a dancing master, stuttered and stammered his crippled explanation. “Yes,” he said, blushing like a virgin. “I only thought to await your return. To bring you information.”

“Information? About what, pray?” Newton collected the papers Mister Defoe had been reading and perused their contents while our interloper tried to untie his tongue.

“About certain coiners,” declared Mister Defoe. “I know not their names, but they operate out of a tavern in Fleet Street.”

“Do you refer to The Goat?”

“Yes, The Goat,” replied Mister Defoe.

Newton winced, as if he felt the pain of Mister Defoe’s words. “Oh, you disappoint me. The Goat is in Charing Cross, between the Chequer Inn at the southwest corner of St. Martin’s Lane, and the Royal Mews, farther west. Now if you had said The George—”

“I did mean The George.”

“You would also be mistaken, for The George is in Holborn, north of Snow Hill. What bad luck for you. There are so many taverns in Fleet Street you might have chosen to mention: The Globe, Hercules’ Pillars, The Horn, The Mitre, and Penell’s. We know them all, don’t we, Mister Ellis?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Perhaps you meant The Greyhound? On the south side, close to Salisbury Court? Now that’s a tavern that was always said to be full of coiners.”

“It must have been that one.”