“Perhaps not so remarkable,” said Isaac. “He does not actually live here. We have lately seen that Bolingbroke was weaker, and more desperate, than we had supposed when he was at the zenith of his power and we in terror of him. He may have been beholden to Jack in ways we can only guess at. So for Jack to make use of some out-buildings on a piece of surplus property owned by Bolingbroke, and probably paid for by the King of France…” Newton shrugged to indicate it was not all that surprising, but then he wished he hadn’t, as the movement seemed to ignite racking pains in his ribs.
“I see another carriage headed this way,” said Daniel, “probably that of Monsieurs Kikin, Orney, and Threader.” He waved to it and the driver waved back. “Let us sit down and await it.”
“I prefer to stand,” said Isaac, “so that I shall not have to get up again.”
“Whither shall we ask the driver to convey us?” asked Daniel, hoping Isaac would say, the nearest physician.
“To yonder cottage,” Isaac said. “Let us discover what Jack has got going in there. Though I think I know already.”
“IT IS AS I THOUGHT,” he was saying twenty minutes later. He was seated at a work table in the cottage. Daniel, Leibniz, Orney, Threader, and Kikin were gathered about, standing on shards of glass that had been blown out of the frames during the recent entertainments. The carriage in which Daniel, Newton, and Leibniz had come out from London had been hunted down and driven back here, and a certain box of instruments fetched from it. From this Newton had selected an excellent convex lens mounted in a loupe, which he was using to inspect some pieces of evidence they had found lying out in plain sight on this table.
On the upper storey of this cottage, in a bedchamber, under a bed, the “Mohawks” had found three men who spoke no English. One was middle-aged and the other two might have been apprentices, sons, or both. They had been herded down stairs, and Leibniz had figured out that they were Saxons. They were relieved he could speak German but terrified that he was a Baron. He had been conversing with them, and Kikin (who knew German) had listened in, while Newton had inspected the exhibits on the work table. Left with nothing to do, Orney and Threader stood by, and Daniel was struck by the difference in their faces: Orney as ebullient as he was ever likely to get, Threader curiously distracted and rigid.
“Before I relate my findings,” said Newton, “have you learned anything from these men, Baron von Leibniz?”
“This will hardly surprise anyone, given the nature of these tools and workpieces,” said Leibniz, “but these men are engravers. They came from Dresden.”
“And the elder is quite obviously a master,” said Newton. “Please tell him who I am, and give him my highest compliments.”
Leibniz did so. The mention of Newton’s name nearly struck the Saxons dead with terror, but the compliment that followed close on its heels caused the oldest of the three to go all pink. He bowed very low-then, perhaps fearing that this was not obsequious enough, he got down on both knees. The younger men followed suit. Daniel had rarely seen humans so abject. “Isaac,” he said, “they are probably wondering whether you intend to kill them.”
“What they have been doing here would be High Treason, were they Englishmen,” Isaac allowed. “Whether Saxons can be accused of treason against the United Kingdom is a question for scholars of the law.”
“They have told me,” said Leibniz, “that they were induced to come here on false pretenses. Having arrived, they were made prisoners in this cottage, and told that they would neither be paid nor allowed to depart until they had accomplished a certain work, which is now nearly finished.”
“That it is!” said Newton. From the table before him he picked up a dun-colored wafer that earlier had come in for prolonged inspection under his glass. “This is a wax impression of a die for a one-guinea piece. I invite you all to inspect it.” He handed it to Daniel. It was quite familiar, and at the same time very strange.
“This bears an image of George Louis of Hanover!” he exclaimed.
“A fortnight ago, I directed the engravers at the Tower Mint to begin work on a die for the new King George guineas,” Newton said. “Since then-as many can testify-I have not once set foot in the Liberty of the Tower. I have never seen the dies from which that wax impression was struck. And yet here in this cottage in Surrey-the property of my lord Bolingbroke-we find the impression, and-” he picked up a cylinder of metal, bearing on one end an engraved mirror-image of the relief on the wax “-an essentially perfect copy of the die, which may be put to use in coining counterfeit guineas! This evidence, and the testimony of the Saxons, have delivered our enemies into our hands. Those charged with guarding the Mint-under the command of Charles White-have quite obviously colluded in making the wax impression, and delivering it here, where we have found coining-equipment, and caught the two sons of Jack Shaftoe red-handed. And since I have taken care not to enter the Mint, Bolingbroke cannot accuse me of having had a hand in any of this. I’ll see them all at Tyburn-and as for these Saxons, they shall be free to go home after they have assisted us with our inquiries.”
Norman Orney-a heavy-built man, but strong and even spry from working in his ship-yard-was able to catch the smaller and frailer Mr. Threader before he struck the floor.
Assisted by one of the younger Saxons, he carried Threader upstairs and heaved him on to a bed. Hankies were waved, hands rubbed, feet propped up, amp;c., and presently blood seeped back in to the old money-scrivener’s face and he woke up. But, plainly enough, he wished he hadn’t.
“Oh, Sir Isaac,” he said, and began flailing for a handhold. “Help me to rise,” he said to no one.
“I think you should stay down,” said Daniel.
“That moment has arrived I prayed would never come,” said Threader. “I must get down on my knees and pray to Sir Isaac Newton for my life-or, barring that, an honorable death-or if that is not feasible, an expeditious.”
“Then you admit collusion with coiners?” said Isaac, quite as bored as the others were astonished.
“You figured it out ages ago, didn’t you, Sir Isaac? Yes. Collusion with coiners. With the coiner. Now, mind you, in the beginning-”
“It seemed like nothing,” said Isaac, and waved his hand as if shooing off a wasp. “Forgive me, but I detect the onset of a long and well-rehearsed narration, for which I have no sufferance. The longer you make the story, the more gradual, insensible, and innocent seems your descent into…High Treason.”
Threader jumped, if such a thing was possible for a man lying flat on his back.
“But no matter how you stretch it, the beginning and the end are the same, are they not?” Isaac continued. “At the beginning you fall into the seemingly harmless practice of weighing guineas, and culling out those that are infinitesimally heavier. At the end you have been thoroughly compromised by Jack the Coiner. He has placed his agents in your company-he owns you so completely that he can even place an Infernal Device in your luggage-wagon, in the hope of assassinating the Master of the Mint at the Royal Society.”
“Oh, Sir Isaac, I did not know about that!”
“That much I believe. Jack would have had no reason to warn you-on the contrary. Yet even if the matter of the Infernal Device is left out of the accompt, you too are guilty of High Treason!”
“Oh, but what if I testify? Put me before a magistrate, Sir Isaac! No counter-tenor at the Italian Opera ever sang as I shall!”
“I do not need to hear you sing,” said Isaac. “Your offer has come too late. With no assistance from you, I have obtained all I wished for.”
“What if I could give you Jack the Coiner?” said Mr. Threader. Which struck Daniel and the others as frightfully dramatic; but Newton smiled thinly, like a chess-master who always knew that his foe would bring his Queen out eventually.
“Then there is an opportunity for negotiation,” said Newton. “Give me what you have.”