screamed out his agonies.
Newton did not flinch at the sight and, studying his countenance for a few seconds, I saw that although he took no pleasure in this sad spectacle, nor did he show any signs of lenity either; and I almost thought my master regarded the whole spectacle as he would have observed the dissection of a human cadaver in the Royal Society, which is to say as some kind of experimental procedure.
Finally, the hangman struck off Cooke’s head and, prompted by the Sheriff, held it up for the encouragement of the crowd, declaring it to be the head of Peter Cooke, a villain and a traitor. So ended this terrible morning of blood.
From Tyburn we took a hackney to Newton’s house for dinner where Mrs. Rogers, the housekeeper, had cooked us a chicken. Newton’s appetite was undiminished by the cruelty of the punishment we had witnessed which I was moved to discuss, finding I had little stomach for eating, the sight of another man’s stomach ripped open being still so vivid in my mind.
“I cannot think the law is best served by such severity,” I declared. “Should a man who coins be punished in the same way as one who plans to kill the King?”
“One is just as disruptive to the smooth governing of the realm as the other,” declared Newton. “Indeed it might even be argued that a king might be killed with little disruption to the country at large, as in ancient Rome where the Praetorians killed their emperors like boys kill flies. But if the money is bad, then so the country lacks a true measure of prosperity and by that same sickness shall it quickly perish. But it is not for us to discourse upon the justice of the punishment. It is a matter for the courts. Or the Parliament.”
“I should as soon be murdered in my bed as treated thus.”
“Surely ’tis always better to be executed than murdered, for any condemned man has an opportunity to make his peace with Almighty God.”
“Tell that to Peter Cooke,” said I. “I should think he would have preferred to make a quicker end of it, and trusted God’s proper judgement afterwards.”
The exceedingly stormy weather of November gave way to a fierce frost in early December, in the midst of rumours about French naval preparations for a landing in Ireland. My master and myself had spent all morning in the office, this being close by the Byward Tower and over the entrance to the Mint. Like everywhere else in the Tower it was a damp little place, which a large fire did little to dispel so that I frequently suffered from a most pernicious cough. Frequently our documents were mildewed so that I was often obliged to dry them in front of the fire.
The office itself was furnished with several comfortable chairs, two or three desks, some shelves and a close stool. There were two windows: one that overlooked Mint Street and the other the moat, wherein we would empty our chamber pot. This moat was ten feet deep and some thirty feet in width, and, in ancient times, had once been filled with snakes, crocodiles, and alligators from the Royal Menagerie.
On this particular morning two dredgers operating under the licence of the Lord Lieutenant—it being one of the Tower liberties that anything which fell into the moat was the property of the Tower and, by extension, of the Lord Lieutenant—were dragging the filthy water. We paid little attention to them at the time, being much concerned with rumours of a new forging process having been perfected in relation to the golden guinea coin, this information being laid before my master by Humphrey Hall, who was one of Newton’s extensive web of informers, and a most reliable and diligent fellow. But presently news reached us that one of the dredgers had fetched out of the moat a man’s body, the condition of which was such that it was strongly suspected he had been murdered, for the feet were bound together and very likely he had been weighed down.
“That is interesting,” remarked my master, who, on hearing these facts, left off stroking the office cat, Melchior, to look out of the window.
“Is it?” I remarked. “I am surprised that more people don’t fall in, the moat being surrounded only by a low picket fence that would not deter a goat.”
But Newton’s curiosity was hardly deterred by my remark. “It may have escaped you, Ellis, but people who fall in rarely take the trouble to weight themselves down,” he said scornfully. “No, this interests me. Why would someone dispose of a corpse in the moat when the river Thames is so close at hand? It would surely have been a much simpler matter to have carried the body down to Tower Wharf and then to have let the river’s tides and eddies work their transporting effect.”
“I offer no hypothesis,” said I, railing him with his own philosophy, which he took in good part. And there we might have left it. However, many Mint workers—who were easily provoked to fear—hearing of the discovery of a body, stopped their machines, which obliged my master to put aside his own business with Mister Hall and, accompanied by me, to go and investigate the matter himself.
The body had been taken to an empty cellar in the Tower along Water Lane, which ran parallel to the river and was the only road between the inner and outer rampire that was not occupied by the Mint. Gathered outside the cellar door, the stench of the much putrefied corpse having quite overpowered them, were one of the Constable’s officers, several Tower warders, the carpenter, and the two dredgers who had found the body. The Constable’s man, Mister Osborne, who was a poxy-looking fellow always standing on his office and often drunk, which sometimes prevented him from standing at all, was instructing the carpenter to fashion a cheap coffin; but seeing my master he stopped speaking, and most insolently rolled his eyes and looked mighty vexed.
“Zounds, sir,” he exclaimed, addressing Doctor Newton. “What business have you here? This is a matter for the Ordnance. There’s nothing that need concern the Mint, or you, this man being already dead and quite beyond any hanging.”
Ignoring this insult, Newton bowed gravely. “Mister Osborne, is it not? I own I am quite at a loss. I had thought to offer my assistance with the identification of this unfortunate soul, and how he came by his death, for many of us in the Royal Society have a small acquaintance with anatomical science. But I perceive that you must already know everything there is to know about this poor fellow.”
The others smirked at Osborne upon hearing this, for it was plain that Osborne knew nothing of the kind and would plainly have conducted his inquest in a most indifferent and very likely illegal manner.
“Well, there’s many a man drinks too much and falls in the moat,” he said, with no great certitude. “No great mystery about that, Doctor.”
“Do you say so?” said Newton. “It has been my own observation that wine and beer are enough to trip up a drunken man; so that tying his legs together is usually quite superfluous.”
“You’ve heard about that, then,” he said, sheepishly. Osborne removed his hat and scratched his close- cropped head. “Well, sir, it’s just that he doesn’t half stink, being quite rotten. It’s as much as a man can do to be alongside of the poor wretch, let alone investigate his person.”
“Aye sir,” echoed one of the Tower warders. “He’s quite picquant to the eyes and nose, so he is. We thought to get him boxed up and then to stand him in the chimney to keep the stink out, while the Constable made a few enquiries around the parish.”
“An excellent idea,” said Newton. “Only first let me see what enquiries may be answered from his person. If you will permit it, Mister Osborne?”
Osborne nodded. “My duty suggests that I do permit it,” he grumbled. “And I shall wait upon you.”
“Thank you, Mister Osborne,” Newton said handsomely. “I shall trouble you for some of your rolling tobacco to chaw which will take away the cadaver’s smell from our nostrils. Some candles, for we will need plenty of light to see what we are about; and some camphor, to help take the stink off the room.”
Osborne cut off a chaw for my master and myself and would have put away his knife, but that Newton asked to borrow that, too, and he handed it over willingly enough before going to fetch the candles and the camphor. While he was gone, Newton addressed the two dredgers and, offering each man a new-minted shilling, suffered them to answer a few questions about their occupations.
“How do you dredge?” he asked.
“Why, sir, with a drag net which you use while rowing the peter. That being the boat, sir. There’s an iron frame around the mouth of the net which sinks to the bottom and scrapes along as the peter pulls it forward, collecting into the net everything that comes in its way. Mostly we are river finders, sir. There’s more in the river. But sometimes we try our luck in the moat, as is our licensed prerogative so to do. You always know by the weight when you find a body, sir, but that’s the first time we ever found one in the moat.”
“This would be where in the moat, exactly?”
“On the east side of the Tower, sir. Just below the Devereaux Tower.”
