Our walk took us along Thames Street and across the stinking Fleet Bridge with its many fishwives—where I bought threepence worth of oysters for my stand-up breakfast—onto Fleet Street and the Strand. I tried to raise the subject of Miss Barton, but when I mentioned her, Newton swiftly changed the subject and I was left with the feeling that I had done her greater injury than any that was ever done unto my master. That was what I thought. Later on, I formed a different impression of why he was reluctant to discuss his niece with me.
Near enough an hour’s walking brought us unto Mister Scroope’s place of business, close by the Maypole at the junction of Drury Lane. Scroope seemed most discomfited by our arrival on his doorstep, which Newton I think enjoyed, being now most convinced that a man who did not graduate from his university was likely a bad lot; and that this vindicated his own neglect of Mister Scroope when he had been his tutor.
Having heard Newton’s most plausible explanation for our returning to see him again, Scroope ushered us into his office while all the while he grumbled that there was so much regulation for a man of business to take account of these days that he could wish all men who made laws might be ducked in Bedlam’s night soil.
“Everything is regulation and tax. If it’s not windows the Government wants money for, it’s burial or marriage. It’s bad enough that the closing date for the receipt of the old coin at full value is swift to be upon us. But so little new coin is produced.”
“There’s enough being produced,” said Newton. “It’s expected this month will see more than three hundred and thirty thousand pounds’ worth of silver coin newly minted. No sir, the problem is that men hoard the new coin in expectation that its value will rise.”
“That’s an accusation I know well,” lamented Mister Scroope. “I think I understand what it is to be a Jew, for the gold- and silversmiths of this city are most often thought guilty of hoarding. But I ask you, Doctor, how is a man expected to run this kind of business without keeping a certain quantity of gold and silver to smith that which a customer would desire? A man must have findings in this trade, or he has no trade at all.”
Findings were what these goldsmiths called their stock of precious metals.
“Well, sir,” said Newton, “shall we see what findings you do have? And then I promise to leave you in peace, for I like this task no better than you. When I left Cambridge for the Mint, I little thought I should become the money police.”
“This is most inconvenient and aggravating.”
“I came myself, sir,” Newton said stiffly, “because I wished to spare you the trial of being examined by one of these other rascals. But it might be better if you spent a day or two with one of the inspection bailiffs, after all. I daresay you would prefer their careful scrutiny to the blind eye of an old friend and fellow Trinity man.” And so saying, Newton made as if to leave.
“Please, sir, wait a moment,” said Scroope, unctuous again. “You are right. I am most ungrateful for the service you do me. Forgive me, sir. It is merely that I was most occupied with something, and I am without a servant for an hour. But now I think that it can wait a while. And I should count it an honour to have my books inspected by you, Doctor Newton.”
Scroope ushered Newton through to an even smaller office where, there being very little room, it was not possible for me to follow, so that I was obliged to remain behind; and as soon as I heard Scroope begin to explain his book-keeping to Newton, I excused myself and went to look about the house.
It was plain to me that St. Leger Scroope was a man of very evident wealth. On the walls were many fine tapestries and pictures while the furniture reflected the taste of a man who had travelled a great deal abroad. There was a library of sorts, with several handsome bookcases and dominated by the largest and dustiest binding press I had seen outside of a bookshop; but there was no time to wonder at it, for I was quickly in front of the cases and examining the spines of Mister Scroope’s books; and finding these ordered according to the letters of the alphabet, I quickly found a copy of the
It was now that I made a most fortuitous discovery. Upon leaving the library, I took a wrong turn so that I found myself standing on the threshold of a courtyard that was enclosed on three sides by single-storey wooden workshops, each of which was topped by a tall chimney not visible from the street.
I crossed the open courtyard and stepped inside one of these workshops, which was arranged very like the melting-house at the Tower, with an open furnace and various forging tools. Not that there was anything very strange about any of this Mister Scroope was a goldsmith, after all. Rather it was what Mister Scroope chose to smith that interested me, for all about the place were pewter plates, jugs and tankards, as well as the moulds from which these had been newly cast, since some were still warm. Others were already in packing cases that bore the official licence of the Navy Office.
First it struck me as strange that Scroope should be supplying tableware for the Navy Office, until I remembered that many smiths loyally manufactured all kinds of things for our army in Flanders, and that doubtless they had as much need of plates and tankards with which to carry their victuals as they had need of cannon and shot.
I was starting to leave the workshop when my eye caught sight of some empty Mint money bags lying on the cobbled ground. When full of silver coin, these bags were sold at the Mint and their dissemination among the people at large left to chance, for there was no public expenditure available for the money’s distribution—which was, as every Englishman knew, a great fault of the recoinage. Rather it was the contiguity of these various items at the forge—the empty money bags and the pewter—that caused me to suspect that there was some bad businesshere; and examining one of the pewter plates more closely, I scratched the surface with the point of my sword, which prompted the discovery that the pewter was only a patina. For this tableware was not pewter at all, but solid silver, made of the melted coin that all those in the Mint laboured so hard to produce. What Scroope was evidently doing did not only undermine that recoinage, to the great disadvantage of the realm—to say nothing of King William’s campaign in Flanders, for if there was no good coin, his troops could not be paid—but he was also making a profit by melting the coin and smuggling it across the Channel to France, where silver fetched a higher price than in England. What was more, the face value of thenew coins was less than the value of the silver they contained. So that the mathematics of Scroope’s scheme were obvious: Scroope bought a pound’s weight of silve for sixty shillings to sell it in France for seventy-five.
It was a profit of twenty-five per cent. Not a great sum, perhaps, but if the main purpose of the scheme were not the profit but the advantage of the King of France, then it was clear to me how this treasonous act of economic impedition could easily pay for itself.
I returned to the clerk’s office and found Newton still questioning Scroope most attentively, so that my brief absence had not, it seemed, been noticed; and after a while I was able to indicate to my master with a nod of my head that my task was accomplished. Upon which Newton pronounced himself easily satisfied with Scroope’s books and, with a great effusion of continuing gratitude for Scroope’s gift of silver for their old school, he bade him farewell; and eventually we took our leave.
As soon as we were gone, we went to The Grecian in nearby Devereux Court, where, over a dish of coffee, Newton made some enquiry as to what I had discovered; and I told him everything I had seen, which left him mighty pleased.
“Well done, Ellis,” he declared handsomely. “You have excelled yourself. But did you see no signs of coining? No press? No guinea dies?”
“No,” I said. “Although the book-binding press in the library was the largest I have seen outside a bookshop.”
“A binding press, eh?” remarked Newton. “Can you describe it?”
“It was mounted on some small wheels so that it might be moved easily without lifting. Only I do not think it was used very much. I saw no loose quires of pages about. Nor any books that were new-bound. And the press itself was covered in dust.”
Newton considered what I had said, and then asked me if the books in Scroope’s library had been dusty, too.
“Not at all,” I said.
“And this dust? What colour was it?”
“Now that I come to think of it,” said I, “the dust was a strange colour, being dark green.”
