Crowther spoke. ‘Drowned. Drowned without sign of restraint or resistance.’
Kupfel bent over the fire and gently shifted one of the logs so it would burn more evenly, then, still stooped, he looked at Crowther. His glasses reflected the flames.
‘Where did you learn your German?’
‘Wittenberg University, largely.’
‘A man of the nobility then. A man of money, to study there. No wonder you talk my language as if you had that stick up your arse.’
Crowther did not react, and remained looking into the flames reflected on the smeared glasses. The Alchemist put his head on one side, then the other. Once Crowther had seen a Persian tempt a snake from the basket with his pipe at a London fair. As he had watched the animal and the man, he had wondered who was influencing whom. The movement of Kupfel’s head made him think of that snake again. There was a tang of sulphur in the air.
‘I had heard in the chop-shop that an Englishman and a widow had come here to declare the hot-head innocent. You’re no widow, so that makes you the anatomist then, I suppose. A man of science.’
‘I am. My name is Gabriel Crowther.’
The reflection of the flames in the Alchemist’s eyeglasses hid his pupils, making him seem slightly inhuman. He bared his black teeth. It seemed he had no interest in Crowther’s name. ‘Pah. Science. Progress! Man can be perfected, but by mystery. By the transformation of the stars he can live through time, raise the dead, become a god, know God.’ He leaned forward, and as he did so, the wheeze in his voice began to sound more like a hiss. His voice was not loud, but so insidious and intense it felt like a finger pressing on Crowther’s eyeballs. He wondered, trying not to listen, what fumes hung around this place. The air was thick, the fire hot. ‘That is wisdom and it comes with sacrifice. Knowledge! Big word for little minds. In your cutting about of the flesh, have you ever found a soul? Found a thought, a dream? Found love?’ He turned away again. ‘Of course not. You’re merely picking through what you can see. You’re like a man dabbling in a pool of ditchwater thinking he examines the moon he saw reflected there. Look up, Mr Crowther, look up!’
‘I do look, Mr Kupfel,’ Crowther said. ‘I look and observe, and I endeavour to understand. But I work with observable fact, not the babble of fantasy and imagination.’
Kupfel waved a hand at him dismissively. ‘How can you understand anything without imagination? Your mind is too small for the Great Work. Too timid and wheedling. You seek little truths. An understanding. Which shows how little you comprehend.’
He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his coat-sleeve. ‘Why have you brought this man here, Benedict?’
‘Mr Clode — the man we all thought guilty: it seems some preparation was smeared on his mask. Confused his mind, made him see things. There is a suggestion it might contain datura.’
‘Have you brought it?’
‘Yes.’
Kupfel snapped his fingers and Krall produced the mask, carefully wrapped, from his bag and handed it to him. Kupfel sniffed it, and his face changed, stiffened. He looked between his visitors like a rabbit looking between dogs and deciding which way to run.
‘You recognise it,’ Crowther said.
‘Yes, Science Man. Did you say she went quietly …?’
‘She did, but this mask-’ Krall said.
‘Shush, Benedict. It’s all one. No signs of drink? Laudanum? No bruising on the wrists?’
‘No indication in the reports of anything of the sort. But you recognise the smell in the mask, do you not, Herr Kupfel?’
‘I do. And I know the book where the instructions for making it are writ down. It is datura and some other odds and ends, not sure what works and what’s there for the fun. Complicated. Very. Never managed to pick it apart entirely. One stitch wrong and the whole thing unravels. In the same book there’s another receipt, one for a drug that can render people passive. Like dead, but not dead. It lasts some hours, perhaps a day then they wake up again, wander about, think it all a bad dream maybe. Unless you kill them for real. It’s clever. Breathing is suppressed, heart hardly to be felt, the limbs stiffen. They look dead enough to bury. But they live. Poor bastards.’
‘What book, Adam?’ Krall said, leaning forward. ‘In what book are these things writ down?’
Kupfel looked up. ‘Mine. In my book.’
Pegel was on the last page of code, and thought he might actually make it. He had started to sweat and he had to concentrate hard to make sure he made no mistakes in the transcription of the code, but he was close. There was a very soft crunch of footstep on coal on the stair. He thought for a moment of risking it and finishing, but with a wrench he placed the letters back into the Bible and slid it back into its dark corner. The steps on the stairs were getting closer. Fools — they must realise they were making a noise, why not charge at the door? He reached for the hatch to the roof and hauled himself up, then dropped it behind him and looked about the narrow loft. He had been hoping for something bulky to hold the hatch shut. Quickly now. There, a trunk. Lighter than he would have liked, but needs must. He dragged it over just as the door went below. There was a shout of rage. He saw the trap door onto the roof and stepped from beam to beam to reach it, used the crow bar to snap the lock, pushed it open and clambered out.
‘He’s on the roof!’
Damn. They had someone on the street below. He looked back into the attic and almost at once the trunk jumped and bucked as the people in the room below tried to force their way up. He clambered up and swung himself over the apex of the roof so he would be hidden from the street. His feet slipped and scrabbled for purchase. Downwards was no escape. He headed to his left, flattened against the roof and holding onto the overlapping slates with his fingertips. He had waited too long, but his foolishness might also be his rescue, for it was getting dark now.
‘Thief! Thief! On the roof!’ More than one voice now on the street below. He had to move a lot faster. Be bold, Pegel, he told himself. Just let go with your right hand. Speed, momentum. You know about these things, they might help you fight gravity long enough. With a roar he pulled his hand free and began to run like a man crossing a scree slope, throwing each foot forward and on as it started to slip. The gap between this roof and that of the neighbouring house was small, hardly a stride. He hoped mathematics was as solid as he believed and leaped, then kept on running. His pursuers were on the street.
‘There, there! He’s jumped to the next.’
As long as he kept on the back side there was still a chance. Another leap, another life lost on his score. He glanced right. A veranda leading backwards along a larger courtyard. Could he make the jump down? Only one way to find out. He landed awkwardly. Physics was one thing. Biology another. His ankle twisted and he gasped, and slipped; the flesh on his palm tore, but he found a hold, drew himself into a crouch and keeping low, stumbled north. The voices of his pursuers were fading, but they’d work it out soon enough. The veranda ended and he clambered up the guttering and round the edge of the next roof. Thank God town-dwellers never look up. He couldn’t put any weight on that right ankle without wanting to scream. Well, you wanted excitement, he thought, and paused. The gutter-pipe looked sturdy, and between these two houses was a narrow passage. It was too dark to see what lay below him, but he guessed he’d find out soon enough. He lowered himself down and with his left foot managed to find a foothold on the sill of an upstairs window. Now the right only had to hold him for a second while he moved his hands. Letting go with his right hand was the hardest thing he had ever done; the gutter wanted to hold him away from the wall and tip him downward. For a second it seemed all was lost, but his poor torn fingers managed it and he found himself clinging to the wall and gasping in air like a fish on a slab. He slithered a little further down but instinct made him scramble for a hold with his right foot, and it buckled. Gravity grew bored with the game, and flung him into the darkness below.