Mister Scroope returned to the room bearing four silver cups with a
“These are very fine,” said Newton, examining the cups with increasing pleasure. “Very fine indeed.”
“I’ve had them down in my cellars for a number of years, and I think it’s time they were properly appreciated. They are ancient Greek, recovered from a Spanish treasure ship. As well as a goldsmith, I have also been a projector of schemes with your own Mister Neale.”
“Mister Neale who is the Master of the Mint?” asked Newton.
“The same. Several years ago we did recover a wreck, the
Newton continued to examine the cups with much interest.
“The cups purport to tell the story of Nectanebus, the last native King of Egypt, who was also a great magician. You may read of him in the history of Callisthenes.”
“I shall do so at my earliest opportunity,” said Newton, and then bowed gravely. “On behalf of Trinity College, you have my thanks.”
Scroope nodded back, allowing himself a smile of some satisfaction, and then poured us some burnt wine from an equally fine silver jug that a servant fetched into the room where, the civilities completed, at last we sat down. The wine greatly warmed me for, despite the huge log that was burning on two brass firedogs that were as big as wolfhounds, I was still cold to the marrow from my river journey.
“And now, sir, pray tell me, what it is that brings you here?”
“It is my information that you had the acquaintance of Mister George Macey.”
“Yes, of course. George. Has he returned?”
“Regrettably he is still not accounted for,” said Newton, who neatly sidestepped the lie by this equivocating answer. “But, if I may ask, how was it that you and he were acquainted at all?”
“The wreck of which I spoke, that Mister Neale and I invested in, was brought to Deptford, where I and Mister Neale went to see the treasure brought ashore, and to take our shares. But this was not before Mister Neale, in his capacity as the Mint’s Masterworker, had first removed the King’s Share.Mister Macey accompanied Mister Neale and assisted him in these official duties. This was several years ago, you understand.
“Not long afterward, a second expedition was promoted to search for the rest of the treasure that the first had been obliged to leave behind. Mister Neale invested, I did not, preferring to use the great sum I had made to establish myself in business as a gold and silver smith. I have no skills in working metals. I am no Benvenuto Cellini. I prefer to have others do that work for me. But there are significant profits to be made. And I have been very successful doing it.”
“That much is evident,” said Newton.
“That being said, the second expedition was not successful, and Mister Neale lost some money, for which he blamed me, in part. However Mister Macey and I remained friends.”
At this point Mister Scroope glanced awkwardly at me, as if there was something else he should like to have said, which Newton’s keen eyes quickly detected.
“You may speak freely in front of Mister Ellis,” he said. “He has my total confidence and, as an officer of the Mint, has taken an oath of secrecy. My word upon it.”
Scroope nodded. “Why then,” he said, “to tell it plainly, upon occasion I was in the habit of passing certain information to Mister Macey. Doubtless you will appreciate how, in my business, one hears things about coiners and clippers and other dishonest fellows who undermine the Great Recoinage and, by extension, the prosperity of the realm.”
“That is my greatest concern also,” declared Newton. “Their Lordships at the Treasury have made it very plain to me that we may lose this war against France if we do not put a stop to this heinous practice of coining. That is why I am so diligent in these matters. It is given out by the general population that I do what I do to further my own preferment. But I tell you plain, Mister Scroope, it is because I would not have this country defeated by France and ruled by a Roman Catholic.”
Scroope nodded. “Well, sir, I should be glad to perform the same service for you, Doctor, as I did for Mister Macey, should you so desire. Indeed I should be honoured, for poor Macey and I became quite close confidants as a result.”
“I am grateful to you, sir,” said Newton. “But pray tell me, did Macey ever bring you a letter, written in a foreign language perhaps, that he asked you to translate for him? It is likely he would have been much exercised about its contents.”
“Yes, I think there was such a letter,” admitted Scroope. “And although this was six months ago, I have come to believe that both the time of this visit—which was to be the last time I saw him—and the content of the letter—which, although it was very short, I do remember but inexactly—were connected with his vanishing.”
Scroope appeared to rack his brains for a moment, which made my master leave off prompting him for a closer account of the letter.
“The letter was not addressed to him. That much he told me. And it was written in French. I think it said something like ‘Come at once or my life is forfeit’ Which seemed to interest him a great deal, for I have not yet told you that the letter was discovered by him in the Mint, and I believe George suspected that there was some great plot a foot there to disrupt the Great Recoinage. More than that he did not say. And I did not ask.”
“But did you not think to come forward with this information?” asked Newton.
“For a long while after he disappeared, it was given out that Macey had stolen some guinea dies,” said Scroope. “Therefore I had no wish to draw attention to myself by saying that George had been my friend. Nor could I say very much without revealing myself to have been an informer. My relationship with George Macey was based on many years of trust. But these two men I knew not at all.”
“But you knew Mister Neale,” said Newton. “Could you not have told the Master Worker himself?”
“Doctor Newton, if I may speak frankly with you, Mister Neale and myself are no longer friends. And in truth,I trust Mister Neale not at all. He has too many projections and schemes for one who occupies such a public office. He may have lost his enthusiasm for wrecks and colonies, but he has other, no less hazardous, schemes which may leave him compromised. It is my own information that he is much concerned with arrangements for another lottery using the duties on malt as collateral.”
“That, sir, is my own information, also.” Newton nodded wearily. “But I thank you for your candour.”
“To be candid with one such as yourself, sir, is an honour. And affords me the expectation that we shall meet again, when, if I can, I shall be delighted to be of service.”
Upon our leaving, Newton said something to Scroope’s servant, in a language I did not understand, and for a moment the two men conversed in what I took to be Hebrew; and after this we took our leave of Mister Scroope, for which I was much relieved, thinking him a very pompous fellow.
“An interesting man, this St. Leger Scroope,” said Newton when we were in the coach once more. “Very obviously a rich and successful man, and yet also a secretive one.”
“Secretive? I don’t know how you deduce that,” I said. “He seemed a very preening sort of fellow to me.”
“When we left, his velvet shoes were quite ruined with mud,” said Newton. “Yet when we arrived they were noticeably clean, with new soles. Since the road in front of his premises is cobbled over, with no mud on it at all, I should suppose that he has a back yard, and that there was something out there that he was most concerned we should not see. Sufficiently concerned to ruin a pair of new velvet shoes.”
“He might easily have got them muddy while fetching these silver tankards,” I said, objecting to Newton’s deduction.
“Really, Ellis, it’s time you paid more attention to your own eyes and ears. He himself said that he fetched the tankards from his cellar. Even the cellars in the Tower are not as muddy as that.”
“But I don’t see what it proves.”
“It proves nothing at all,” said Newton. “Merely what I said: that for all his generosity and apparent outwardness to us, Mister Scroope is a man who carries two swords and has something to hide.”
“Was that the Hebrew language you spoke?” I asked.
“It was Ladino,” said Newton. “The man is a Spanish Marrano. The Marranos were Jews who managed to enter England under the guise of Protestants fleeing from persecution in Spain.”
