the centre of the cross, indicate as much being most distinguishing of Orion, the hunter and master of our winter skies. It is quite unmistakable.”
Newton handed the cross back to Mister Pepys.
“Beyond that,” he said, “I can tell you very little. However, it may be that the positions of the holes, taken in conjunction with the numbers and symbols that also appear on it, may indicate a position on a map.”
Mister Pepys nodded with a great show of wonder. “No sir,” he said. “You have told me more than I ever hoped to know.”
“I am glad to have been of some small service to you,” said Newton, and bowed his head slightly to Mister Pepys.
“This discovery has increased my resolve to discover how the cross may be employed to find the Templar treasure,” declared our host.
“Then I wish you good fortune in your endeavours,” said Newton.
We took our leave of Mister Pepys soon after, and made our way back to the Tower.
“I’m damned if that wasn’t the most fascinating story I have ever heard,” said I.
“’Tis certain the Tower has many secrets,” admitted Newton.
“Would not such a secret be worth killing for?”
Newton stayed silent.
“A treasure in the Tower. Yes indeed. A powerful inducement to commit murder.”
“You know my philosophy, Ellis,” said he. “We must make an observation before we may hypothesise. Until then, I will thank you to keep your idle speculations to yourself.”
Arriving back at the Tower, Newton declared an intention to fetch something from my house; and so I accompanied him to unlock the door, it being my habit so to do since the murder of Mister Kennedy. Entering my house, Newton fetched his reflecting telescope from the same wooden box that housed his microscope, and placed it upon the table. The telescope itself was much smaller than I had supposed, being no more than six inches long and mounted on a small globe so that it resembled some kind of miniature cannon such as would have demolished the walls of a child’s toy castle.
“I have a mind to see the view from the north-east turret in the White Tower,” he declared, carrying the telescope out of the door.
We entered the White Tower and climbed up the main stairs to the third floor, where I lit a lantern, and then up a narrow stone stair to the north-east turret. Newton set his telescope down on a table near the window, and having adjusted the telescope on its plinth, he then peered in a small hole at the top so that he seemed to look back down the body of the telescope toward the polished mirror at its base. And while Newton observed—I knew not what precisely—I walked idly around the turret as might have done one who had been imprisoned there.
I confess, my thoughts dwelled not on bloody murder nor on the treasure of the Templars, but on Miss Barton, for it was several days since I had seen her, so that being in the turret of the White Tower served to remind me of how I was separate from her and, being separate, was not happy until I could see her again. Each hour that I did not see Miss Barton made me feel as if I was dying; but, in truth, death was never very far from my thoughts when I was at the Tower, for there was hardly a walk, a wall, a tower, or a turret that did not have a tale to tell of cruel murder or bloody execution, and so I tried to keep the image of Miss Barton before me as some tormented Jesuit priest might have conjured a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary to ease his pain.
“What do you hope to see?” I asked Newton finally.
“Orion,” he said simply.
“Is this something to do with the treasure?”
“It is something to do with what Mister Pepys told me, which is an altogether different affair.”
“And what might that be?”
But he did not answer, so, for a time, I went down onto the second level and the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, where I hoped to divert myself by looking upon the shelves of state records in imitation of Mister Pepys and Mister Barkstead who had once searched there for clues to buried treasure.
It being late, the present Keeper of the Records was not to be found and I wandered among the shelves that were arranged behind the simple stone capitals of the outer aisles. Upon these lay books and records which I was now resolved thoroughly to know whenever I found myself with sufficient time. Underneath the tribune gallery stood a great refectory table upon which lay an open book that I perused idly. And, doing so, was much surprised to discover a bookplate that proclaimed the book to be from the library of Sir Walter Raleigh. This book, which I examined for the love of the binding, it being most fine, disturbed me greatly, for it contained a number of engravings, some of which seemed so lewd that I wondered that the book was ever read in a chapel. In one picture a woman had a toad suck at her bare breast, while in another a naked girl stood behind an armoured knight urging him to do battle with a fire; a third picture depicted a naked man coupling with a woman. I was more repelled than fascinated by the book, for there was something so devilish and corrupt about the pictures it contained that I wondered how a man like Sir Walter could have owned it. And upon returning soon thereafter to the north-east turret, I thought to mention that it seemed indecent to leave such a book lying around so that any might examine it.
At this Newton left off looking through his telescope and straightaway accompanied me back down to the second floor, where, in the chapel, he examined the book for himself.
“Michael Maier of Germany was one of the greatest her-metick philosophers that ever lived,” he remarked as he turned the book’s thick vellum pages. “And this book,
I nodded.
“At which page?”
I turned the pages until I came upon the engraving of a lion.
“In the light of what happened to Mister Kennedy,” he said, “the page being open at the Green Lion may be suspicious.”
“There is a bookplate,” I said, turning back the pages. “And I showed him Raleigh’s bookplate.
Newton nodded slowly. “Sir Walter was imprisoned here for thirteen years. From 1603 until 1616, when he was released in order that he might redeem himself by discovering a gold mine in Guiana. But he did not, and upon his return to England he was imprisoned in the Tower once again, until his execution in 1618. The same year as this book.”
“Poor man,” I exclaimed.
“He merits your pity, right enough, for he was a great scholar and a great philosopher. It is said that he and Harry Percy, the Wizard Earl, being rightly minded, where possible, to avoid any hypothetical explications, carried out some experiments in matters hermetick, medical and scientific in this very Tower. Thus the book may indeed be accounted for, but not why it is being read now. I shall make sure to ask the Keeper of the Records who has been examining this book when next I see him. For it may that it shall give us some apprehension of who might have murdered poor Mister Kennedy.”
Michael Maier,
THIS THEN IS THE MESSAGE WHICH WE HAVE HEARD OF HIM, AND DECLARE UNTO YOU, THAT GOD IS LIGHT, AND IN HIM IS NO DARKNESS AT ALL.(FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN 1:5)
pon leaving the White Tower, where Newton had observed Orion through his telescope, he and I returned to the office, where we fell to discussing the murder of poor Mister Kennedy and the disappearances of Daniel Mercer and Mrs. Berningham for whose arrests Newton now wrote out the warrants.
“Yet I do not think we shall find them,” he said as he handed me the papers. “Mrs. Berningham is very likely on board ship by now. While Daniel Mercer is very likely dead.”
“Dead? Why do you say so?”
