“It is all White’s fault,” Isaac went on. “I do think that he meant to die-to put himself beyond the grasp of Justice. But the manner of his death he could not have foreseen-and it has wrought in my favor.”
“By throwing the new government into a sort of panic, you mean.”
By way of an answer, Isaac spread his hands, and looked about at all of the perfervid diggers. “When they have grown as bored as I am with the ransacking of this place, they’ll move on to Bridewell, and if nothing is found there, they’ll follow the trail to the Bank of England.”
Daniel knew that there was an appendix to this sentence, which need hardly be spoken aloud: unless you help me by giving me some of what I need. And for a moment Daniel was ready to nip down to the Bank and fetch out a bit of Solomonic Gold for good old Isaac. Why not? Solomon Kohan would notice that it had gone missing, and Peter the Great would wax wroth, but there would probably be a way to patch it up.
Then Isaac spoke: “They say that to hide the escape of the Shaftoes from the strong-room of the Fleet, an old gager got the Mobb drunk, and told them tall tales of buried gold.”
This curdled the whole thing. Daniel remembered, now, why he had good reason to hold on to every grain of the gold: because people wanted it, and so having it gave Daniel power he might need. And, too, he was reminded of the farcical nature of the whole Alchemical world-view. So he said nothing more of substance, but excused himself, and went up above ground, and a minute later had joined the Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm in that vacant apartment above what had been the Court of Technologickal Arts.
“YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT me alone here,” she said to him.
Somehow Daniel did not get the idea that she was complaining of a social faux pas. “Your grace?”
She was standing at a window that looked out over the Court, and talking over her shoulder at him. He approached, and drew up next to her, but well off to the side, so that the scurrying big-wigs below would not see them together in the window.
“Something has been troubling me about this investment ever since I agreed to it,” she continued.
These words, had they been spoken in anger, might have made Daniel spin on his heel and run all the way to Massachusetts. But she was bemused and a little distracted, with the makings of a smile on her lips.
She explained, “It came clear to me when I looked out this window. The last time I saw your Court of Technologickal Arts, it was a bazaar of the mind-all those clever men, each in his own wee shop, pursuing his peculiar interests, but exchanging ideas with the others when he went to fetch a cup of coffee or to use the House of Office. That seemed to work very well, didn’t it? And because I am curious about the same things, I was cozened by it-I admit that I was! And yet as enchanted as I was, a little voice kept whispering to me that it was not, au fond, a sound investment. Today I came here and found it all gone. All the clever fellows have packed up their tools and absconded. Only the land and the building remain. For those, your investors have overpaid. This place is destined to be just another suburban shop-block, of no greater value than the ones to the left and to the right.”
“As to the value of the property, I agree,” Daniel said. “Does that mean it was not a sound investment for you and for Roger Comstock?”
“Yes,” she said, again with a smile, “that is what it means!”
“In an accompt-book, maybe that is true-”
“Oh, believe me. It is.”
“But Roger never set much store by strict accompts, did he? He pursued more than strictly financial gain.”
“That is perfectly all right,” Eliza said. “You misunderstand me. I too have many goals that cannot be assessed or rendered in an accompt-book. But it has been my practice to keep those separate, in my head, from the sorts of projects that would make sense to any investor. In the case of the Court of Technologickal Arts, I made the error of confusing one with the other. That is all. I do not think one can ever own the quicksilver spirit that circulates among the minds of philosophers and ingenieurs. It is like trying to catch in a bucket the electrickal fluid of Mr. Hauksbee.”
“So it is hopeless, then?”
“Is what hopeless, Dr. Waterhouse?”
“Trying to support, to invest in such projects?”
“Oh, no. Not hopeless. I think it could be done. I got it wrong the first time. That’s all.”
“Is there to be a second time?”
Silence. Daniel tried again. “What is to be the final accounting, then? Even if I did not have any interest in the thing, I should need to know, for I am involved in the settling of Roger’s estate.”
“Oh. You need to know what this is all worth,” Eliza said.
“Yes. Your grace. Thank you.”
“It is worth whatever the building next to it is worth. You could, then, pursue claims on the value of the discoveries that were made here. Conceivably. For example, if six months from now a horologist who was once a tenant here builds a clock that wins the Longitude Prize, then Roger’s estate could lay claim to some part of the money. But it would be a fool’s errand. It would only enrich lawyers.”
“Very well. We shall write it off. But what of the Logic Mill-?”
“I heard that the card-punching organs had been torn out of Bridewell, and cast into the river.”
“Oh, yes. I made sure of that. Everything is gone from Bridewell.”
“The cards themselves-?”
“Are to be shipped to Hanover, and thence to the Tsar’s Academy in St. Petersburg.”
“So they neither add to nor subtract from the balance-sheet. What is it, then, that you are asking me about?”
Daniel was appalled, in some sense, by the pitiless brutality of this financial discourse. But he was also fascinated. It was a bit like vivisection: savage, but just interesting enough to keep him from slinking out of the room and going straight to the nearest boozing-ken. “I suppose I am asking you about the whole structure of ideas that gives the cards of the Logic Mill their value,” he said.
“Value?”
“Power, then. Power to effect computations.”
“You are asking, what are those ideas worth?”
“Yes.”
“That depends on how soon a true Logic Mill can be made. You have not made one, have you?”
“No,” Daniel admitted. “We learned much from making the card-punching organs-”
“We meaning-” and Eliza cocked her head out the window, reminding him of the vacant stalls being pillaged by soldiers and Messengers.
“All right,” Daniel admitted, “the we no longer exists. We have been scattered. It shall be most difficult to re-assemble the we.”
“And the organs are on the bottom of the river.”
“Yes.”
“You have drawings? Plans?”
“Mostly in our heads.”
“Here’s what I would say, then,” Eliza began, “if I were rendering this accompt. The ideas are very good ones. The quality of the work, excellent. However, they are Leibniz’s ideas, and they stand or fall with the Doctor and his reputation. His repute is very low with his House, the House of Hanover, which is now the sovereign power in this Realm. Caroline loves the Doctor, and has tried to effect a reconciliation between him and Sir Isaac, but this came to naught. Even when she is Queen she will have little power to change this-so irreconcilable are Leibniz’s ideas with Newton’s. It would be different if Leibniz’s ideas were useful, but they are not-not yet, not compared to Newton’s. It might be a long time before a Logic Mill can be constructed-a hundred years or more. And so the answer is that it is all devoid of monetary value at this time.”
“Hmm. My life’s work, devoid of value. That’s hard to hear.”
“I am only saying that you’ll never find anyone who’ll give you money for it. But you have a great Prince in the East who is happy to support the work. Ship it all to him. The golden cards, your notes and drawings, all that Enoch Root shipped over from Boston-send it all into the East, where someone values it.”
“Very well. I have been arranging to do just that.”