“What do you mean?”
“By the time I saw them, you had engaged with them.”
I took off my hat and scratched my head sheepishly. “It may be that it was only their weapons and rough voices did persuade me that they meant her some harm. In truth I cannot recall that any of them laid a hand upon her.”
“I thought as much,” said Newton.
We returned to the Tower, where we were straightaway summoned to the Lord Lieutenant’s house, which overlooked Tower Green in the shadow of the Bell Tower. And in the Council Chamber where, it was said, Guy Fawkes was put on the rack, Lord Lucas met us with Captain Mornay of the Ordnance and told us that we were to address any questions regarding the death of Mister Kennedy to the Captain who, in accordance with the law, had been ordered to impanelajury of eighteen men from the Tower that it might be determined whether his death be an accident or not.
“As sure as iron is most apt to rust,” said Newton, “I tell you this was no accident.”
“And I tell you that the jury will decide the matter,” said Lord Lucas.
But Newton’s obvious irritation quickly gave way to anger when he learned that all eighteen of the men who were impanelled for the jury had already been drawn from the Ordnance and that there was to be no representation of the Mint.
“What?” he exclaimed, being most agitated. “Do you intend to have this all your own way, Lord Lucas?”
“This is a matter for our jurisdiction, not yours,” said the Captain.
“And do you seriously think that his death could be accidental?”
“The evidence for murder is very circumstantial,” said Captain Mornay, who was a most cadaverous-looking officer, for his face was most white, so that I formed the apprehension not that he powdered it, but that he might be ill. His eyes were the largest I had ever seen upon a man and very evasive, while his hands seemed very small for one of his height. In short, the whole proportion and air of his being was so peculiar and inexactly formed that, but for his uniform, I should have taken him for a poet or a musician.
“Circumstantial, is it?” snorted Newton. “And I suppose he tied his hands himself?”
“Pray, sir, correct me if I am wrong, but since one of Mister Kennedy’s arms was no longer attached to his body, there is nothing to prove that his hands were ever tied at all.”
“And the gag? And the stone in his mouth?” insisted Newton. “Explain those if you will.”
“A man may chew a stick, sir, to help him bear the pain if he knows he is to be cut by a surgeon. I have myself seen men suck musket balls to make spit in lieu of drinking water. I have even seen a man tie his own blindfold before being shot by a firing party.”
“The door to the Lion Tower was locked from the outside,” said Newton.
“So Mister Wadsworth has said,” answered Lord Lucas. “But with respect to you, sir, I know him better than you. He is a most intemperate, addle-pated fellow who is just as likely to forget his head as where he left a key. It’s not the first time that he has been negligent of his duties. And you may be assured that he will find himself reprimanded for it.”
“Are you suggesting that Mister Kennedy might have committed suicide?” Newton asked with no small exasperation. “And in such a dreadful way? Why, milord, it’s preposterous.”
“Not suicide, sir,” said Lord Lucas. “But it is plain to anyone who has ever visited Bedlam that folk who are troubled by virulent lunacies may often pluck out their own eyes and gouge themselves. Perhaps they may even feed themselves to a lion.”
“Mister Kennedy was no more mad than you or me,” said Newton. “Why then I at least, for you, milord Lucas, begin to show some signs of delusion in this matter. You too, Captain, if you persist with this impression.”
Lord Lucas sneered his contempt, but Captain Mornay, who was Irish, I thought, seemed rather taken aback at this imputation.
“I’m sure there is nothing in what I have said to put me upon a level with a person of that stamp,” he said.
“And now, gentlemen,” said Lord Lucas, “if you will all excuse me, I have work to do.”
But Newton had already bowed and was walking out of the Council Chamber. Captain Mornay and I followed suit, with the Captain almost apologetic to me.
“I am sure I should be very sorry to affront that gentleman,” he said, nodding at the figure of my master ahead of us. “For I believe he is a very clever man.”
“He knows things which I never expected any man should have known,” I replied.
“But you understand, I have my orders and must carry out my duty. I am not free to think for myself, Mister Ellis. I am sure you can receive my meaning.” At which he turned on the heel of his boot and walked off in the direction of the Chapel.
Catching my master, I reported this brief exchange of conversation.
“Lord Lucas would have me thwarted in all things,” he said. “I think he would side with the French if I were their opponent.”
“But why does he dislike you so much?”
“He would hate whoever was charged with conducting the affairs of His Majesty’s Mint. As I told you before. This Great Recoinage has turned the garrison out of the Mint, although it was not of my doing. But I did issue all Minters with a document that protects them from the press-gang and from any exercise of the Tower liberties upon their persons, which Lucas much resents. But we shall make a fool of him yet, Mister Ellis.Depend upon it, sir. We shall find a way to make him look a proper idiot.”
Before dinner I went to The King’s Bench to make enquiries of Mister Defoe, that had taken the Master Worker’s house in the Tower. For since he was to live amongst us in the Mint, my master wished to know what kind of a fellow he was. And I discovered that Mister Neale’s friend was an occasional pamphleteer who also went by the name of Daniel de Foe, and Daniel De Fooe, and that he had once been made bankrupt in the enormous sum of seventeen thousand pounds, for which, prior to my seeing him in court, he had been imprisoned in the Fleet. Before his bankruptcy he had been a liveryman of the Butcher’s Company, a member of the Cornhill Grand Jury, and a projector in several enterprises, none of which had prospered. Currently he was acting as a trustee for the national lottery that Neale managed; but as well as this, he owned a brickmaker’s yard in Tilbury, and acted as the accountant to the commission on glass duty, collecting the tax on glasses and bottles, although not the window tax. But he still owed a lot of money, for the principal debt remained undischarged, so that I wondered how he was ever permitted to remain outside of the debtor’s prison, let alone work for Neale.
All of this I told to Newton when we met for dinner outside York Buildings off the Strand, which was where his friend, Mister Samuel Pepys, of the Royal Society, lived.
“You have done well,” said Newton. “I myself have discovered he is spying on me, for I am certain he followed me here today.”
“A spy?” Instinctively I looked around, but could see no sign of Mister Neale’s strange friend. “Are you certain, sir?”
“Quite certain,” replied Newton. “I saw him first when I got down from my carriage to leave some depositions with Mister Taylor at the Temple. He was speaking to some of the whores who go there. From there I went to the Grecian, and leaving there just now to come and meet you here, I saw him again. Which goes beyond all coincidence.”
“Why would Mister Neale wish to spy on you, Master?”
Newton shook his head impatiently. “Neale is nothing,” he said. “But there are some powerful men behind Neale who might wish to discredit me. Lord Godolphin and other Tories who hate all Whigs, like Lord Montagu, and their creatures, like you or I. Perhaps it would explain why our Mister Defoe is permitted to remain out of the debtors’ prison.”
Newton looked up at York Buildings, which were several modern houses that occupied the site of a great house that was once owned by the Archbishops of York.
“It would be well if Mister Defoe did not see us go in here,” he said. “For my friend Mister Pepys has his own fair share of Tory enemies.”
And so we went into the New Exchange nearby and meandered in a most haphazard fashion about its walks and galleries for several minutes, until Newton was convinced that we would be lost to anyone trying to follow
