“An old ailment,” whispered Newton, struggling painfully to his feet. “The rheumatism, I think. If I could have a chair.”
“As you can see,” said Scroope, “all our chairs are piled up for our conflagration.”
“A stick, then. There is one.” Newton pointed to a walking stick that lay against the wall. “Besides, if I am to be shot, I should like to meet death on my feet.”
“Why, Doctor, you sound quite the bravo,” said Scroope, and, backing up to the wall, took hold of the stick and handed it to Newton, handle first.
“Thank you, sir,” said Newton, taking hold of the stick. “You are most kind.”
But no sooner did he grasp the handle than he was flourishing a blade, and it was only now that I remembered, even as Newton did prick Scroope’s ribs with it, that the ingenious walking stick concealed a sword. In truth, my master pricked him but lightly, although Scroope did let out such a shriek that you would have thought he had been killed. And the surprise of it made him let off his pistol, which passed harmlessly into the ceiling.
At this, Robles drew his own sword, and I drew mine, for there was not time to find and cock my pistol; and he and I set to it for a minute or so, while Scroope flung his own empty pistol at my master’s head, which knocked him out, I think, and fled into the back of the house. By now the furniture was alight, and part of the house with it, so that Robles and I were obliged to conduct our swordfight against the flames, which were more of a distraction to my opponent, being at his back rather than mine. Newton lay still upon the floor, which was sufficient distraction unto myself; but finally I lunged at Robles, and pushed my blade straight through his side, so that he did let go of his blade and cry quarter. Forcing Robles through the door, I grabbed hold of my master’s coat collar and dragged him into the street, for the house was now well ablaze.
Outside, I sheathed my sword and drew my pistols, in expectation that Scroope might yet make his escape. But it was not Scroope who soon came coughing out of the house, but the woman who had poisoned her husband and who had escaped us before. It was Mrs. Berningham, who would have run away, only I took hold of her, and held her until someone summoned a bailiff.
A fire-engine was fetched. And yet with an armed man still apparently on the premises, there were none of the fire-fighters who dared go inside; but by then the fire was out of control so that it began to threaten some of the other buildings; and it was only when I assured the fire-fighters that Scroope, who owned his building, was a felon and therefore hardly likely to hold the firemen liable for the demolition, that they fetched hooks and ropes to pull down the blazing edifice. By which time Newton was recovered from his blow on the head.
For a while I was uncertain whether the fire killed St. Leger Scroope, or if he had escaped; but Newton was in no doubt about the matter. For as we investigated the back of the house, he spied some blood upon the cobbles, which seemed to put the matter beyond all dispute.
After seeing a physician, Scroope’s servant, Robles, was conveyed to the infirmary at Newgate with Mrs. Berningham, where, thinking himself close to death from the wound I had given him, although I had seen men recover from worse wounds than his, he confessed his own part in the murders of Mister Kennedy and Mister Mercer, and which had been done, as Newton supposed, in the manner being most provocative to the Warden’s intellect:
“It is well known at the Whit, the pressure you’re liable to put a man under, to peach. Mister Scroope feared you very much, Doctor Newton, especially after you got on the trail of Daniel Mercer, and John Berningham, for they could have told you everything about our operation that you would have wished to know. In short, that we were forging golden guineas and exporting silver bullion to advantage the cause of King Lewis of France in particular, and Roman Catholicism in general. It was certain that Mercer and Berningham had to be silenced, which meant that your own spy had to die as well, for he was watching Mercer. I just hit him over the head, trussed him up, and then introduced him to the lions, so to speak.
“That part was all Mister Scroope’s idea. For he wished to divert you with a matter most intriguing to your fancy, sir. He said you were most interested in alchemy and that we would make it look as though it had been certain philosophers that had done the killing. But also that we should use a most secret cipher he knew with which to tickle you even more.”
“But how did you come and go in the Tower with such facility?” asked Newton.
“That was easy. The first time we entered the Tower as two night-soil collectors. The sentry gave us a wide berth, for no one likes to get too close to the shite men. And while Mister Scroope distracted him with an enquiry, I lifted the key to the Lion Tower with a filch. We knew where it was because I drank with the keeper, and he told me. Your spy was already trussed up and waiting most patiently in Mister Scroope’s carriage out on Tower Hill.
“The second time, we was delivering a cartload of hay. I killed Mercer in our own workshop and then put him in the cart while Mister Scroope went to Mercer’s lodgings to leave some other diversions there for you. Then we drove to the Tower, put down the body, ordered the scene as you found it, left the hay, and then drove away.”
“What about the book in the Tower library?” asked Newton. “Did Mister Scroope leave that there for me too?”
“Yes sir, that he did.”
“I should like to know more about Mrs. Berningham,” I asked Robles.
“She and Scroope were lovers, sir,” said Robles. “She was a ruthless one, though. Poisoned her husband at Scroope’s prompting her to do it, without a second thought.”
Robles paused for a moment as he coughed a great deal; and still thinking himself dying, he said, “And there’s a clean breast of it, sir. I ain’t sorry to have it off my conscience.”
For myself, I was sorry the poor wretch did not die then and there, as three months later Robles was dragged to Tyburn on a hurdle, where he met his death on his way to becoming one of London’s grisly overseers, for his head was displayed in a place where he could see all of London.
Robles’s death was cruel enough; but it did not compare to the fate that awaited Mrs. Berningham the following day.
She was conducted from the door of Newgate and, after a cup of brandy from the bellman at St. Sepulchre’s, was led through an enormous crowd that had gathered, to a stake in the middle of the street. There she was made to stand upon a stool while a noose was placed about her neck and attached to an iron ring at the top of the stake. The stool was then kicked away, and while she was still alive, two cartloads of faggots were heaped around her and set alight. And after the fire had consumed her body, the mob amused itself with kicking through her ashes. Both Newton and I attended her execution, although I think there is something inhuman in burning to death a woman who, by being the weaker body, is more liable to error and therefore more entitled to leniency. A woman is still a woman however she may have debased herself.
Michael Maier,
JESUS SAID TO THEM: “WHOEVER HAS EARS, LET HIM HEAR. THERE IS LIGHT WITHIN A MAN OF LIGHT, AND HE LIGHTS UP THE WHOLE WORLD. IF HE DOES NOT SHINE, HE IS DARKNESS.”(THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 24)
ewton had solved the mystery of only two of the murders that were committed in the Tower by St. Leger Scroope and his accomplice and servant Robles; the unravelling of the mystery of the two other murders, and the great secret which they were intended to protect, still lay ahead of us. Now it must be explained what happened after Scroope’s house burned down, and how Newton faced the greatest hazard to his person and detriment to his reputation since ever he had been born, for this university of London called Life provides its students with a more termagant variety of education than anything that is to be found at the Cambridge schools.
The day after Mrs. Berningham’s execution, I arrived at the office to discover Newton sitting in his chair by the hearth with the air of a man most discountenanced. That he ignored my greeting to him was hardly remarkable, and in truth I was used to his ponderous silences which were sometimes very weighty indeed; but that he should have ignored Melchior’s importunate suit for his attentions was strange indeed, so that gradually I saw how his black demeanour imitated Atlas with the vault of the sky upon his broad shoulders. Having questioned Newton
