“Who uses it now?”

“No one.”

“Then how is the Dark Philosopher able to read it?”

“The same question has been bedeviling me.”

“This Wilkins cove must have published a dictionary or key-”

“Yes. I helped write it, during the Plague. The page-proofs were burnt up in the Fire. But it was published, and can be found in any number of libraries. But in order for our mysterious Buyer to go to such a library, and consult the book, he must first recognize the outlandish glyphs on the page as belonging to something called the Real Character. Think-if I shewed you, Peter, a page writ in the script of Malabar, would you know to consult a Malabar-Dictionary?”

“No-for these eyes, though they’ve seen much, have never seen Malabar-letters, and would not know ’em from Japanese or ?thiopian.”

“Just so. Yet our buyer seems to have known the Real Character on sight.”

“But is that really so extraordinary, when one considers that the same buyer knew that Hooke-stuff was to be found hidden in the walls of Bedlam? From which it’s evident he knows much of your Society.”

“I believe that the knowledge of where to look for the stuff came to the buyer through Henry Arlanc: the Royal Society’s porter.”

“I know who he is.”

“Oh really? How do you know him?”

“He worked for a Huguenot watch-maker, with whom I had professional contacts before I turned to drink, and fell on black days. Several Fellows of the Royal Society patronized this horologist-that is how they got to know Henry Arlanc, and that is how Arlanc got the position at Crane Court.”

“Until recently,” Daniel said, “I had supposed that Arlanc was passing intelligence to Jack the Coiner, or someone in his organization, who was, at bottom, ignorant of Natural Philosophy.”

“There’s a hole in that hypothesis, Doc. Why’d such a cull want to rake through the mouse-eaten leavings of a dead Vertuoso?”

“Ignorant men have fanciful notions of what may be found in such residue. Alchemists frequently work with gold. Perhaps-”

“Still, the hypothesis does not hold up well under close examination.”

“I agree!” said Daniel, exasperated. “I no longer believe in it.”

“Well, now is a fine time to say so,” said Saturn. “What’s the new hypothesis?”

“That the buyer is a Fellow of the Royal Society, or else has made a close study of the Society’s early years. He knows a great deal about Hooke and about the Real Character, and…” Daniel paused.

“And?”

“And about poison,” Daniel said. “An attempt was recently made on the life of Princess Caroline. The weapon was a poniard smeared with nicotine, excellently prepared.”

“Bloody peculiar,” reflected Peter Hoxton, “when this benighted world doth so abound in simpler means of killing.”

“During the ’sixties-Hooke’s heyday, and the ?ra of the Real Character-several Fellows of the Royal Society took an interest in nicotine.”

“It’s obvious then, isn’t it?” Saturn said.

“What is obvious?”

“The villain must be Sir Christopher Wren!” Saturn clearly meant this as a preposterous jest, and so he was appalled to see Daniel considering it seriously. “Because he is one of the very few still living from that ?ra, you mean,” Daniel finally said. “It is a good thought. But no. This is not being done by Wren, or Halley, or Roger Comstock, or any of the others who were in the Royal Society in those days. Supposing I wanted to kill someone-would I brew up nicotine? No. No, Peter, this is being done by someone of a more recent generation. He has conceived a diseased Fascination with the Royal Society of the 1660s. He has poured an unhealthy amount of time into studying what we did, and reading our annals.”

“Why?”

“Why? When a young man falls under the spell of a particular young woman, and will not leave her alone, though her father and brothers menace him with daggers drawn, ask you why?”

“But this is different.”

“Perhaps.”

“Trust me, ’tis different. The buyer desires something. I believe you know what the something is. Will you please let me in on the secret?”

“I have held it back, not because I wish to keep secrets from you,” Daniel sighed, “but because I find the entire subject painfully embarrassing. The buyer seeks the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Saturn slapped his forehead theatrically. “Why’d I even take the trouble to ask?”

“He has heard at least part of the story about the man who died in Bedlam when Hooke cut him for the stone, and who was (some would say) resurrected by the elixir of Enoch Root.”

“Ah, that is the name of-?”

“Of the Alchemist in that story, yes. If you are the sort of chap who believes in Alchemy, then it is implicit, in that story, that the elixir must have been made using something akin to the Philosopher’s Stone. Now, according to the lore of the Alchemists, that Stone is made by combining the Philosophic Mercury with the Philosophic Sulphur. Where, might you ask, does a bloke get his hands on such ingredients? The answers are many and various, depending on which Alchemist you talk to. But many believe that King Solomon was an Alchemist, who knew how to get, or to make, the Philosophic Mercury, and who used it to turn lead into gold.”

“Ah, that would explain why he was so rich!”

“Just so. Now, the story goes that if you could find some of King Solomon’s gold and put it in a crucible, you could extract from it minute traces of the Philosophic Mercury. I believe that our buyer somehow got wind of this yarn about the Alchemical Resurrection in Bedlam twenty-five years ago, and reckoned that the shortest and quickest way for him to get his hands on a sample of the Philosophic Mercury was-”

“To ransack London for Hooke’s old notes and knick-knacks.”

“Yes. Now, consider that, when I got back to London at the end of January, the first thing I did was to begin searching for Hooke’s old notes and equipment. Arlanc was the first man I questioned. He must have mentioned this to his contact in Jack’s organization. Shortly, word must have got round to our buyer.”

“Who was already disposed to believe that this thing of infinite value had been hidden away, somewhere, by Hooke.”

“Yes. Imagine the effect the news must have had upon him!”

“He must have been frantic,” Saturn said, “believing that you were in quest of the same goods, and would get to them first.”

“Indeed. As we now know, this led to the series of burglaries. I had only a dim and fragmentary understanding of these matters until a fortnight ago, when we found that document in the wall at Bedlam. Then all became clear. But, too, it was clear that the buyer’s search was doomed to failure, for Hooke’s receipt mentions a certain ingredient without offering any explanation of how to obtain it. For that reason, the document was useless as bait for the Stake-out.”

“Which is why you and Sir Isaac had to produce the fake.”

“The fake, and the box that it came in,” Daniel said. “The buyer believes that a small amount of the Solomonic Gold is locked in the compartment in the bottom of that chest.”

“Not for long,” Saturn remarked. He was gazing fixedly out the window.

“Why do you say so?”

“Because Sean Partry is waving his arms at me from below the Window in Question.”

Daniel’s arm jerked and spilt his ink-bottle. It slicked the page of the log-book with a black parabola that streamed over the edge and spattered to the floor.

Saturn was on his feet. He waved back, but did not take his eye off the Tatler-Lock.

“Which direction is Partry indicating?” Daniel asked backing carefully away from the mess. The ink had already found a crevice between floor-planks. Sounds of havoc and dismay were coming up from the tap-room.

“He points toward the Bridge,” said Saturn, and finally glanced away from Partry so that he could give his watch a study.

“Then the buyer ought to be coming our way-”